I drop my face so they can’t see my blush and resist the urge to draw my hands back. “Deeper.” Remington’s rough command reaches me, and my womb clenches helplessly as I go deeper. A large knot bites into my thumb, so I bring my other thumb to press with both. Remy lets his head hang forward and draws in a deep breath, and when the knot disintegrates under the pressure, his groan vibrates deep inside my core.
“Good luck,” I whisper into his ear, drawing back, my fingers tingling from the contact we’d just made.
He looks at me when he stands, unsmiling as his stare holds mine in a grip so intense, my mind goes blank from everything but the blue in his eyes and the black in his pupils and the length of his dark lashes.He extends out his arms as Riley slips on his black boxing gloves, a requisite for today, and then he taps them together. An alert from the door tells them “Riptide” is up soon, and he nods.
He rams his arms into his red satin coat and then trots out toward the wide hall that leads to the ring, and an entire farm full of animals awaken in my stomach, not just the butterflies. Dragging in a deep breath, I wait a moment to recover before I slowly wind outside to take my seat with the spectators.
The noise is deafening. Pete told me this morning that his fans are freaking out because Remy’s not leading the championship, and there seems to have been some serious demand for tickets tonight. As the last sixteen contenders unite, this is the first night Remington will fight Scorpion, up to the final. Scorpion is in first place now, and my nerves are killing me.
“Hey,” Pete says, nudging me gently forward as he walks up behind me. “Get the hell up there. The man will be looking for you.”Somehow I manage the impossible and both laugh and scowl. “He will not!”
His eyebrows shoot upward in apparent disbelief. “He fights his best when you watch him, and even Coach agrees. His testosterone jacks up like crazy in his lab work when he’s in contact with you. Come on.”Hating the thrill that shoots like lightning through my veins, I quickly scuffle toward the ring and for my seat as I hear Scorpion introduced.
“Benny the Black Scoooooorpion!”
That’s the odious man that goaded Remington at the club, and I loathe him with such force, I instantly glare at everyone who cheers for him. I’m a couple of steps from reaching my seat, where I’m completely prepared to hold on to my pants—for this night is going to be brutal—when I see, across the ring and through Remy’s powerfully built legs, a face among the crowd.The face is oval shaped, and creamy skinned, and it carries a pair of hazel eyes. Eyes similar, in color, to mine. Eyes that, last I knew, belonged to Nora.
My twenty-one-year-old sister.
Nora.
Nora who only recently sent a postcard from Australia. Nora whose hair has been painted blood red, instead of its normal soft brown. Nora who has a big, black, ugly tattoo of a scorpion on her left cheekbone. Nora who looks lost and sick and the complete opposite of the lively girl I knew. For a moment, I’m standing in the middle of this wide hall, staring at her while telling myself, over and over, that this cannot possibly be Nora.
She looks bad.She looks really, really bad.
Like the life has been sucked out of her, and all that remains are fake red hair, skin and bones.
She spots me, and my stomach sinks to my toes when I know, without the shadow of a doubt, that it’s her. Recognition flares in her eyes, and her hand flies up to her mouth to cover it. “Nora,” I gasp, and without thinking twice, I charge after her, shoving people aside as the bell for the fight chimes.
The multitude in the room erupts in cheers and screams, and my heart trots frantically inside my chest when Nora twists around and shoves through a throng of people in a sudden startling effort to get away from me. She’s blending through the crowd, into the darkness, and I’m frantic as I scream, “Nora? Wait. Nora!”
I can’t believe she’s running away. From me. I can’t believe that all the traces of youth vanished from her once vibrant face.
My sister.
Whom I shared bedrooms with, until I got my own place.
Who used to watch every version of Pride and Prejudice with me.
Suddenly the big, beefy man who’d been standing to her right grabs me and yanks me aside as I try to pass. “Stay the fuck away from her,” he snarls.
Paralyzed in a mix of surprise and fear, I forget all my self-defense moves except the groin one. I shift my weight and land my knee up. “Let go of me.”
He doubles over, but doesn’t release me. Instead his hands clench convulsively on my arms. “You little bitch, you leave Scorpion’s property alone,” he hisses, and I think the wet splatter that just hit my cheek was his spit.