Real(3)

“Did you enjoy the fight?” He watches me with a little cocky smile, his eyes glimmering, like he knows I loved it.

It’s a love and hate thing for me, to watch him box. But I just can’t compliment him after hearing five hundred people scream how good he is, so I just shrug. “You make it interesting.”

“Is that all?” “Yes.”



He seems irritated as he abruptly jerks his shoulders to halt the massage therapists. He stands and rolls those square shoulders, then cracks his neck to one side, then the other. “Leave me.” The two women offer me a smile and head out, and the instant I’m alone with him, my breath goes.

The enormity of being here, in his hotel room, isn’t lost on me, and suddenly I’m anxious. His tanned, long-fingered hands rest idle by his sides, and a rush of wanting runs through me as I imagine them running over my skin.

My body pulses, and with an effort I tear my eyes up to his face and notice he’s staring at me in silence. He cracks his knuckles with one hand over them, then does the same with the other. He looks agitated, as though he hasn’t expended enough energy pounding half a dozen men to the ground. Like he could easily go a couple more rounds.



“The man you’re with,” he says, flexing his fingers open at his sides as though to get some blood flow, his eyes watching me. “Is he your boyfriend?” Honestly I don’t know what I expected coming here, but it may have gone something along the lines of being led straight to his bed. I’m so confused and more than a little anxious. What does he want from me? What do I want from him?

“No, he’s just a friend,” I reply.



His eyes flick to my ring finger and back up. “No husband?” A strange little buzz courses in my veins, straight to my head, and I think I’m lightheaded from the scent of the massage oil they rubbed on him. “No husband, not at all.”

He studies me for a long moment, but he doesn’t look overcome with lust like I’m personally, shamefully, feeling. He’s merely assessing me with a half-smile in place, and he appears genuinely intent in what I’m saying. “You interned at a private school rehabbing their young athletes?”



“You looked me up?” “Actually, we did,” the two familiar voices of the men who brought me over say, and as they reenter the room, Pete carries a manila folder and passes it to Riley.

“Miss Dumas.” Once again, Pete, with the curly hair and soft brown eyes, speaks to me. “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here, so we’ll just cut to it. We’re leaving town in two days, and I’m afraid there’s no time to do things differently. Mr. Tate wants to hire you.”



I stare for a moment, dumbfounded, and frankly, confused as hell.

“What is it, exactly, that you think I do?” A frown settles on my face. “I’m not an escort.”

Both Pete and Riley burst out laughing, but Remington is alarmingly silent, slowly settling back down on the bench seat.

“You’re onto us, Miss Dumas. Yes, I admit when we’re traveling, we find it convenient to keep one or several special friends of Mr. Tate’s to, shall we say, accommodate his needs either before or after a fight,” Pete laughingly explains.

My left eyebrow shoots up. Really, I’m perfectly aware of how these things work with athletes. I used to compete and know that, either after sports or before them, sex is a natural and even healthy way of relieving stress and aiding performance. I lost my virginity at the same Olympic tryouts where my knee was shot to hell, and I lost it to a male sprinter who was almost as nervous about competing as I was. But the way these guys speak about Mr. Tate’s “needs,” so casually, feels suddenly so personal, my cheeks burn from the embarrassment.



“A man like Remington has very particular requirements as you might guess, Miss Dumas,” Riley, the blond-haired man who looks like a surfer, continues. “But, he’s been very specific in the fact that he’s no longer interested in the friends we have secured for him during our trip. He wants to focus on what’s important, and instead, he wants you to work for him.”

My insides clench as I glance at Riley, then Pete, and then Remington, whose jaw seems even squarer than I remember, like it’s made of the most gorgeous, most priceless piece of granite the world has ever found. There’s no way for me to know what he’s thinking, but although he’s not smiling anymore, his eyes remain alight with mischief.



His face is swelling slightly on the left side, and my nurturing instincts really want to take the gel pack and put it on his jaw again. Hell, in my mind, I’ve already put salve on the red scar in the middle of his lower lip. I’m so overcome with these thoughts that I realize I can’t trust myself with someone as powerfully attractive as him. I am still, still, wired just knowing I’m in the same room as him.