Real(86)

I’m engrossed sifting my fingers through his hair when I feel Remington nod against my chest, not even bothering to lift his heavy head.I’ve never seen him so quiet when he’s manic.

Or sit so utterly still.

Pete and Riley’s stunned expressions completely confirm that they haven’t either.

When we hit the rooms, we receive our suitcases in our suite, and then I do what I always do. I unzip mine and set my small cosmetics bag hidden under the sink, to begin with.

Remy watches me from the door with such fierce longing, I stop brushing my teeth, my mouth full of foam when I notice his stare. He looks hungry. Feral. Almost desperate. I quickly rinse as he approaches and towel off my hands. He’s not smiling. His black eyes swallow me in their depths. He lifts me easily in his arms and carries me back to the room.

I can’t help the way my insides flutter as I cuddle into his neck and breathe him in while he lowers us to the bed. I think I know what he wants, but I’m not sure. So I wait and watch him for a moment.



He pulls off my shoes and tosses them aside, then I hear the big thunk of his own crashing to the floor. “I want your hands on my head.”

I nod and edge back to make room for him. “Does it calm your racing thoughts?”He shakes his head, then takes my hand and spreads it open over his wide chest, his voice textured as he traps my gaze with his. “It calms me here.”

A tangle of emotion hits me as I feel his heart beating, slow and powerful like only great athletes’ hearts can beat, under my palm. I stare into his eyes, seeing that same fierce longing in them I just saw, and I love him to such a degree I swear that my heart just picked up the rhythm of his.

He slides next to me, both of us dressed as we settle on the bed comforter. He drops his head to my chest and snuggles every bit of his huge muscles into me, inhaling my neck. I lower my face and kiss the top of his head as I start running my fingertips through his scalp.

He hasn’t slept in long, endless, restless, crazy days.

Days where I’ve felt him stroking my hair and my back at night. Where I’ve heard the low muted noise of him listening to his music. I’ve heard him eating in the kitchen at midnight, taking cold showers, and when those showers don’t seem like enough, I’ve woken up to find him well on his way to making love to me.

But I haven’t heard him sleep for so long…

So when his breathing evens out, and I realize that he’s fallen asleep in my arms, in the middle of the day, in the middle of a manic episode, I don’t know how I can contain the emotions swelling in my chest.

Quietly, I wipe a tear from my cheek, and then another. I never imagined this kind of man existed. Or that I could ever have something like this for myself. These moments. This…connection. I never thought that the desperate, almost painful longing I feel for him could ever be reciprocated from him, to me.

Crying in happiness for the first time in my life, I stroke his hair, his jaw, his neck, down his arms, looking down at his perfect, full lips, his hard, strong jaw and forehead, his perfect nose, quietly loving every inch of him.

Sunlight steals through the room and illuminates him completely, allowing me to drink his perfection in like a junkie. Our shoes are discarded on the floor, our suitcases still bursting full near the door. We’re in yet another beautiful suite of another luxurious hotel, and I swear in my life, I’ve never felt so complete as I do this moment, with this man sleeping in my arms, with his thick arms around me, his nose into my cleavage, his breath warm on my skin. In a strange place, in a new room, far away from everything I’ve known…

I touch my lips to his ear. “It’s because of you,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “I’m deliriously happy. Completely at home anywhere you are.”

I’m so determined to guard his sleep, I skip dinner even when my stomach rumbles. Soon it calms down, and all the time, I keep giving his big, beautiful body little touches that quietly say—I love you, Remington.

He stirs in the middle of the night, and by this time, I’m exhausted but as determined as ever, my arms heavy as I caress him and pet him.

Coming awake with a soft groan, he easily grabs me and tucks my body into his so that now I’m the one cuddled into his deep chest as he languorously kisses the hollow of my ear. “Brooke,” he says.

Just one word.



Thick with sleep, and so low and intimate, it could have been a proposal, any proposal, to which my reply would be and always will be, yes.“Yes, Remy,” I whisper, my voice just as groggy as his as I nuzzle his collarbone.



He growls and slowly inhales me. “My Brooke.” Voice still thick and raspy, he fingers the top button of my skinny jeans and lovingly kisses my neck as he pats my butt with one big hand. “Why are you still wearing these?”Before I can remind him why, I hear him flick open the button and slide the zipper purposely downward.