Remy(20)

“When we get this fixed, I’m going to show you how to knock me down,” I whisper, flicking my eyes up to hers, and, god, I could eat her. Eat. Her. She’s biting down on her lower lip, her eyes wide and almost vulnerable as she lets me guide her foot into what has to equal the freezing waters of Antarctica.

“Cold?” I ask.

She sounds like her lungs are closing. “Yeah.”

Slowly, I sink her foot deeper, and she tenses completely, all the animation gone from her face. I’m torn between the urge to stop torturing her, and fixing her ankle. “More water?”

She shakes her head and then surprises me when she shoves her foot all the way under the water. “Oh, shit,” she gasps. And I know I should hold her foot in no matter what, but my instinct to protect her is so fierce I yank her foot out, flattening her skin against my abs to suck the cold out from it with my body heat. My muscles clench in shock, and her wide, surprised gold eyes lock on my face in startlement. Every one of her tiny, cold toes burns into my flesh, and I’ve been so successful in teaching my body to embrace pain, I want them closer. I curve my hand around her instep and hold her flat against me.

She looks breathless. From the cold. Or from me? She also sounds breathless. “I didn’t know you gave pedicures, Remy.”

“It’s a fetish of mine.”

I smile a lazy smile, then I pull out an ice cube and stroke it gently across her ankle. I make sure that her skin doesn’t burn as I circle around her, and I’m moving slowly enough that I can hear her breathing rhythm quicken. I shift my hold on her foot and rub my thumb along the arch while still caressing her with the ice cube.

Her voice trembles through me, like a feather stroking my insides. “Do you do manicures too?”

I glance up at her, on the bed, looking at me like a woman does when she wants to give herself away, and the hunter in me is so ready I let her know with my tone of voice what I’m thinking, what I truly want, when I say, “Let me do your feet first, then I’ll do the rest of you.”

I keep going with the ice, and when the slide of her foot across my abs feels like a caress, shocks of electricity course through me.

“Feel better?” I ask gruffly, and my head is screaming at me to kiss her. She looks like she wants it. Her pink mouth is parted. Her eyes shine with heat as she looks down on me. Her feet are on my stomach, caressing the squares of my abs—and not by accident. My hands are cupping her foot, and I crave to bend my head and lick her toes, the arch up her foot, up her leg. I want to peel that catsuit off her body, feel her skin with my lips, my fingers, my knuckles, my palms. I’m drawn to her strength and her sweetness, her bravado that makes me want to push and tease her, that draws me out of my own cave, my own walls, if only just to chase her and bring her back to my cave with me.

I don’t know the name of this, or maybe I do.

It’s the one thing in my life I don’t plan on fighting.

For the first time in my life I’m thinking of things other than fucking and fighting. I want to take care of this girl. I’m thinking about how I want to fuck her hard and kiss her softly, hold her tight and suck her gently, when she abruptly tells me, “It feels perfect now. Thank you.”

We engage in a slight tug-of-war for her foot as she tries to pull free, and I’m not too happy to let her, and then the door swings open and Diane appears. “There you are,” she tells me with a big grin. “I must feed you now so you can recharge for tomorrow!”

I stare at Brooke, confused as hell, and the way she stares at me as if I’d imagined the connection puzzles the shit out of me. What the hell? Right now, I could’ve bet my life that she’d wanted me as much as I’d wanted her. I toss the ice into the bucket and lower her foot. “I am sorry, about your ankle,” I tell her. She wanted my apology, and now she has it. “Don’t worry if you can’t make it to the fight.”

“No. It wasn’t your fault. I’ll be fine,” she hurries to say.

I’m still confused as I push to my feet. “I’ll ask Pete to get you some crutches.”

“I’ll be fine. Serves me right for messing with trees,” she calls out as I head for the door.

I stop and look at her, trying to read her, and for a moment she stares back at me, looking just as confused as I feel.

“Good luck, Remy,” she says.

Pummeled by a shitload of frustration, I consider charging across the room and slamming my mouth on hers, giving her a kiss so fucking wet and deep, there will be no doubt in her mind that she is mine. Instead, I shove my fingers through my hair and leave, then charge straight into the suite, where I know I’ll find Pete either on his laptop or on the phone.