Remy(32)

God, I’m so wild about her, I can’t even think of anything else anymore. Dragging my thumb along the lower lip I just licked, I look into those golden eyes that seem both pleading and demanding of me and tell her, “We won’t be having an affair.”

She doesn’t react for a moment.

I’m so hungry for more of our kissing sessions that I crush her against me and trace my nose with the shell of her ear.

“When I take you, you’ll be mine,” I promise her, trailing my thumb along her jaw as I gently kiss her earlobe. “You need to be certain.” Her gaze latches onto mine as I warn her, “I want you to know me first, and then, I want you to let me know if you still want me to take you.”

“But I already know I want you,” she protests.

I watch her mouth as it moves, telling me she wants me, and the thought of her not knowing what she’s talking about feels like a wrench in my chest. Slowly, I stroke my hand down her bare arm, my voice thick and tormented. “Brooke, I need you to know who I am. What I am.”

“You’ve had tons of women without this requisite,” she says pleadingly.

I engulf her ass in my hands and drag her deeper into my lap, memorizing the way she looks right now as I look into her eyes and will her to understand me.

“This is my requisite with you.”

Her eyes darken with pain, and she leans close to me and whispers, “We still can’t keep this up, Remy. Not when your championship is on the line. So you either come get me tonight to make love to me, or you leave me alone so we can both rest.”

For a moment I’m not sure I heard right.

She’s telling me I can’t kiss my mouth . . . my woman . . .

She’s telling me I either fuck her and take her all, or I take nothing.

If she were any other woman in the world, I’d have fucked her the night I met her. Maybe I’d have fucked her another time. Then I’d have forgotten her. But she is Brooke Dumas and I am not messing it up with her if it kills me.

“All right,” I say, smiling like I don’t feel as if I’d just swallowed down my own cock.

Suddenly, I can’t have her on my lap. Her bottom lush and juicy and mine—but unavailable. Fuck me. Setting her aside, I reach for my iPod and look for something. Metallica. Marilyn Manson. Something crazy that will shut the fuck up all the protests sputtering in my head and the sensation in my chest of having lost some unknown battle before I even fought it.





PAST


LOS ANGELES


I booked a suite for Brooke and Diane, and one of the ladies doesn’t like it.

My lady, to be exact.

I was caked with sweat and still panting from my workout when she massaged the back of my neck, leaning close enough to whisper in my ear, “Mind telling me why Diane and I are together in a suite, Remy?”

She turned my neck to one side, then the other, her fingers light on my jaw, but I still refused to answer.

“You can’t do this, Remington.”

Biting back a laugh, I turned and touched two fingers to her lips, holding her gaze for a long heartbeat. “Stop me. I dare you,” I told her, then I grabbed my towel and walked away to my suite to drown all my frustrations in a cold shower.

Now I’m in the LA Underground locker rooms, sitting on a bench at the end while Coach wraps my hands, some song in my ears, when I see Pete in my peripherals wave someone over.

I see Brooke heading over to me, at Pete’s insistence, and I immediately hook my finger on my headphone cord and pull them down.

Brooke holds my gaze as she quietly leans over and pauses my iPod, then she walks behind me to seize my shoulders and starts working on my knots.

The instant I feel her fingers on my bare flesh, I groan and feel my body both tense with arousal and relax from the knowledge she’s with me.

I haven’t kissed her in what feels like a year.

I miss her in my bed.

I miss the way she moans and the way her soft, silky mouth swells under mine.

I miss her touch; I want it badly.

“Deeper,” I command her, and she goes in deeper with her fingers, using her thumb to roll over one of the larger knots. Relaxing my neck, I let my head hang and drag in a deep breath as she presses down until the knot disintegrates, and I groan from the pleasure of feeling the heat spread into my tissue.

“Good luck,” she whispers into my ear before she draws back, and my skin feels taut as a drum cover.

I stand and look at her, and I don’t know why she’s so determined to make me fuck her that she keeps her kisses away from me until I do, but I’m going to make her cave in to me before I cave in to her.

I’m not fucking her yet, no matter how ready I am to kill for it.

I’m not touching that sweet pussy until it’s ready to be taken home—permanently.