Real(32)

He nods and brings two water bottles from the bar.He plops down next to me.

His thigh ends up so close, I can feel his quad muscle. My heart still pounds like crazy. I remember the way we danced, and my skin flushes hot again. “Why did you get in trouble when you were pro?” I ask him.



“A fight like the one you just prevented.”

He stares at the screen, his jaw working, and I stare helplessly at the play of light and shadows across his face, mesmerized.He stretches his right arm on the couch behind me with deceptive calm, but I can feel the tension emanating from his body, and suddenly I feel my heart speed up in exhilarating anticipation. Strange noises from the TV filter into my mind, and then I realize the couple on TV is kissing. My stomach clenches. I’ve never seen this movie before, but as the background music flares up, I know a scorching sex scene looms ahead.

A flash of torment passes through his gaze as he grabs the remote and shuts it off, then he tosses the control aside and lowers his hand to my nape. He curves his fingers gently around the back of my neck, warm and incredibly strong, four fingers going to one side of me, his thumb to the other, and then he circles his thumb gently over my skin as he turns to me.

That his touch can arouse me to the extent it does makes me feel drunk and high and impossibly trembly.



“Why’d you do that for me?” His voice is unbearably intimate as he gazes at me in the shadows.“Because.”



We’re both staring as intently as we’ve ever stared, and I’m hyperaware of every point of contact of our bodies. His thigh against mine. His hand on my nape, gently squeezing. “Why? Somebody tell you I can’t take care of myself?”

“No.”

He eyes my lips, then my eyes, then he slowly closes his eyes and sets his forehead on mine, and all I can do is breathe him in like a junkie, my insides intoxicated with just a whiff. Nothing in my life has ever smelled so good to me as him. Him recently showered. Him sweaty. Just him.His own deep inhalation reaches my ears, and I find myself touching his mouth with a lone fingertip. His lips are so plump and firm, but at the same time, smooth and silky. I feel a quick, damp flick as his tongue flashes out to lick me, and a shudder shoots through my spine. He groans and pulls my whole finger into his mouth and closes his eyes as he sucks it.



“Remington…” I breathe.“Honey, I’m home!”



We spring apart at the sound of a slamming door and Pete’s sarcastic voice.

“Just wanted to make sure you guys got here okay. Scorpion sure seems to have a hard-on to get your ass back in jail.”

The lights flare on, and Remington drops my finger as if it’s a loaded gun and rises and goes to the window, and he’s breathing hard, audibly hard. As hard as I am.I’m instantly on my feet. “I’d better go.”

Pete takes in the scene with an impassive face, and he doesn’t say anything as I rush across the room to leave. “I’ll just wait for you here, Rem,” Pete says calmly.

Remy doesn’t respond but follows me to my room.

I feel his body warmth on my back as I slide my key into the slot. I hear him breathing behind me, still a little unevenly, against my hair. I want him, but I can now see past my open door to the first of the queen beds, and Diane’s feet are in it.



My nipples are two hard points pushing into my bra, my panties soaked from all night of desperately wanting him. I want him, so bad, I feel a knot of need and frustration doubling in size in my throat, because I can’t have him. How will things change if we do anything? It just can’t work. It can’t be. I’m his employee and this is only temporary and a one-night stand with him is no longer an option. Is it? I like him too much. Oh, god. I like him. Too. Much.“Goodnight,” I whisper, forcing myself to look at his handsome face.



The violent tenderness in his eyes seeps into every pore of my body, and he grabs me and plants a kiss on my lips, quick and dry, but it bursts open a wealth of longing inside me, like it did the first night he kissed me in Seattle, and he whispers, “You look beautiful.” He runs his thumb with desperation along my jaw, and tilts my chin up, kissing my lips, dry and quick again. “So damn beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off you all evening.”

Then he’s gone, and I’m once again in my room, hearing him call me beautiful, I’m so beautiful, and I’m shaking as if I’m naked and alone in the middle of a hurricane.

I cover myself with all the blankets in my bed and put my fist against my lips as though that can lock his kiss in them, and an eternity later, I hate that I’m still awake, and that I’m still trembling.And I just don’t know what I’m going to do, but I want to make him mine more than I’ve ever wanted anything.