Turns out Remington booked us a presidential suite like his, and we each had our own room, with a shared living room and dining area. I still didn’t know if I wanted to sigh, or laugh, or cry, that’s how wound up he’s got me.That evening we arrived, I remember his body in my hands, his sweaty bare skin under my fingers, and it was all I could do to keep my pulse under control as I rolled and rubbed the firm, lean nape of his neck. I edged closer to whisper in the back of his ear, “Mind telling me why Diane and I are in a suite, Remy?”
He let me turn his neck one side, then the other, my fingers lightly resting on his scratchy jaw with a sexy day’s of whiskers, and he never answered. “You can’t do this, Remington,” I added.
But he turned his head slowly, and he touched my lips so that every part of my body remembered having his lips on them. “Stop me. I dare you,” he said, then grabbed his towel and walked away.
I just don’t understand him.
I miss Melanie to talk to.
I wish I could talk to Nora too. She was always my little sister in crush, in lust, or in love with a boy, and I’m sure she would know why in the world an insanely sexy man who’s single and healthy and clearly physically responds to you does not seize the opportunity to have sex with you.
If I were a little less confident, I’d be experiencing all kinds of complexes right now.I’m even wondering if my body is no longer attractive with the little fat I’ve gained the past years. Maybe my hair needs a new cut other than the plain length I wear it. I might wear bangs. Or add some highlights?
“Stop staring at yourself, you look amazing in anything you wear,” Diane tells me this morning when she catches me checking out my butt in the full-length mirror at the entry of our room.
I laugh, but it’s not funny.Remy booked Diane and I in a presidential suite again in LA.
I don’t want a suite. But what I want, he won’t give to me.
I’d never let anyone get to me like this.
I used to feel pretty and whether or not a man agreed with me was beside the point. I liked myself and that was enough.
Now I find myself feeling a little sad during the day, when Diane seems to find me staring at a stupid wall, helplessly wondering what Remington thinks of me.This is our third night in LA, and he’s still in second place point-wise, but he’s been fighting like a champion. He’s worked out the best I’ve ever seen him, and all this ever since his eyes became electric blue again in Denver.
He trains like an animal. Hours and hours with Coach, and then he still seems as fresh as sunshine when he comes ask me to run with him the evenings. The energy in his muscles explodes like dynamite with every move he makes, and I can almost see his ATP source—the adenosine triphosphate in charge of transporting chemical energy throughout our cells—recycling so fast in his body, it’s like it doesn’t even take him usual eight seconds for turnover. I have never seen him so focused. So strong. Or so magnificent.
Every part of me notices.Every.
To my despair.
Pete and Riley are stoked. “Brooke!” Pete calls as I enter the Underground in the afternoon. Here in LA, the fighting ring is situated in the basement floor of one of the city’s most frequented nightclubs, and they’re expecting a full house of over a thousand. “Get over here, we need you.” Pete waves me into the locker room.
The whole sexy package of Remington Tate is seated in a bench at the far end while Coach wraps his right hand with tape.
I’ll never get used to the feeling I get when I look at him.
Nor the one I get when he’s about to fight.
I feel wound up like a spring and tighter than a triple knot.
He’s got his Dr. Dre beats on, and I think he does this to get in the fighting mode and zone everything out.
“Come on over, Brooke, loosen up the man.”
Riley and Coach greet me with twin nods, and I notice the instant that Remington spots me, he hooks his thumbs into his earphone chords and yanks them down to drape around his neck. The look we exchange is, in fact, so intent, we don’t smile at each other. The answering smile I’d given to Riley and Coach vanishes from my face as the heavy metal song Remy had been listening to trails into the room.Quietly, I lean over to pause his iPod, then I go behind him and seize his shoulders, methodically working my thumbs into his muscles.
There are a couple of knots I worked off his posterior deltoids and trapezius back muscles yesterday. They’ve been stubborn and keep returning, so once again, I work on both. He groans the instant my bare skin touches his. God. The low, purr-like sound is like foreplay to me. It steals into every feminine part in my body, especially those that have been run ragged with need. My cheeks start burning as Coach, Pete, and Riley watch us.