Remy(19)

“I’ve toppled men much heavier than you!”

“A fucking tree topples sooner than Remy, Brooke,” Riley shouts.

“Well, I can see that,” she grumbles, then cups her mouth and yells, “Thanks for the heads-up, Riley.”

I’m so annoyed she hurt herself with me, I lead her, as she hops on one foot, to the corner, where I drop down on the chair and haul her on top of me so I can prod her ankle. “You fucked your ankle, didn’t you?” And she says I’m reckless? That I hurt my body deliberately? Did she think she was better than my ring opponents, or what—the—hell?

“I just seemed to wrongly send all my weight to my ankle,” she admits.

“Why’d you hit me? Are you pissed at me?” I demand.

She scowls. “Why would I be?”

Fuck me, I know she’s angry—I’m no idiot—and I want to know what the hell I fucking did. If she doesn’t like me right now, then I don’t stand a chance when I get manic. Worse. When I get depressed like some loser asshole. “You tell me.”

She ducks her head as she catches her breath, a sheen of perspiration on her neck.

“Hey, can we get some water over here?” I call.

Riley brings over a Gatorade and a plain bottle of water and sets them by my feet.

“We’re wrapping up,” he informs us, then he peers around to have a good look at her. “You all right, B?”

“Dandy. Call me tomorrow, please. I can’t wait to get back in the ring with this dude.”

As Riley laughs his head off, I test her ankle with my fingers, prodding into the tissue. “That hurt, Brooke?” I ask as gently as possible, and then her fingers join mine around her ankle.

“You weigh a ton,” she tells me. “If you weighed a little less, I’d have toppled you. I even toppled my instructor.”

“What can I say?” I peer, confused, into her face, wishing to know what she’s thinking.

“You’re sorry? For my pride’s sake?”

I shake my head, annoyed that she try such a stunt with me—me. Bending, she grabs the Gatorade and unscrews it as she straightens, and the blood suddenly boils in my veins as she sips. Her neck, the way the sleek, long tendons work as she swallows, fuck me now. My cock thickens painfully under her bottom, and with a voice thickened with arousal, I can’t help but ask, “Can I get some?”

When I set my lips on the rim, it’s wet from hers, and the way she watches me drink makes my balls hurt. I want to toss this shit aside and drink directly from her mouth. Instead, I return the Gatorade and make sure I brush my fingers over hers at the exchange, because I’m a devil and I need the contact. My eyes stay locked on hers as I steal that touch that shoots like a bolt up my arm, and neither of us is laughing.

She tries standing, and I instantly take the bottle and set it down, then I wrap my arm around her waist. “I’ll help you up so you can ice that.”

She leans on me as I lower her from the ring and help her out of the gym, her arm coming around my waist.

“It’s fine,” she keeps on telling me.

“Stop arguing,” I softly command.

She keeps her arm around me as we board the hotel elevator, then I lock her at my side as we ride upstairs. In profile, her nose is exquisitely dainty, and that smooth, pink mouth is perennially curved in a way that tempts me to kiss it. Her scent tickles my nostrils, and as if with a mind of its own, my nose drops as I try to find the source of that delicious smell. Holy god, I want to lick up all that sexy sweat from her neck.

One of her firm, high-perched tits softly presses into my rib cage, and I can’t pull my brain out of there. I’m painfully aware of the way that sweet little tit brushes against my side as we exit the elevator.

“Hey, man, ready for the fight?” a hotel staff member asks from across the hall, and I offer him a thumbs-up as we reach her room.

“Key,” I whisper to her.

She fumbles, then quietly I take it from her hand, slide it into the slot, and help her inside. The first bed has a ton of family pictures facing the nightstand. I set her down on the second one and I grab the leather bucket. “I’ll get you ice.”

“That’s fine, Remy, I’ll do it later,” she protests.

I pull the lock out to stop the door and go into the hallway to fill the bucket up half with ice. When I return to the room, I add some water.

Her face is pink in embarrassment when I kneel at her feet and set the bucket on the carpet, and the black of her catsuit only heightens the peach hue of her skin. I remove her tennis shoe and her sock, then I curl my hand around her calf muscle and guide her foot into the cold.