Remy(43)

“Can we even talk about it?” she asks.

I close my eyes as she continues caressing. I haven’t been given caresses that aren’t foreplay before. I don’t allow these when we’re done, I’m done. Like a fight. But she’s touching me and I like it so much, I press her down to my neck so she doesn’t put any distance from me. “You can talk to Pete about it,” I whisper.

“Why don’t you talk to me about it, Remington?”

Ah, fuck. I sit up and twist my feet off the bed, then drag my hands down my face. “Because a lot of episodes I don’t remember what I do.”

I start pacing. I hate talking about it. The topic distresses me. It’s something I can’t remember and usually have no clear control over. What does she want me to say? I do shit, and then I’m not sure I did it? I seem to lose control, and when I come to my senses, I usually find out from someone else what a major dick I seem to have been?

“All right, I’ll talk to Pete about it, but come back to bed,” she blurts out, but she ceded too easily. I’m no moron and I know she wants to know. Hell, she deserves to know.

“I remember you,” I tell her, just to be clear about that. “In my last episode. The tequila shots. The way you looked. The little top you were wearing. The nights you slept in my bed.”

She seems to absorb that for a moment and then whispers, her voice holding the most tenderness I’ve ever heard anyone address me with, “I wanted us to happen so bad.”

My chest tangles with emotion, and I swing around. The depth of her eyes is endless. The way they stare right into me. I feel seen. Without reproach, disgust. I feel hungered for. Wanted in a way I have never, ever, been wanted.

“You think I didn’t?” I whisper in disbelief. “I’ve wanted us to happen since . . .” Heading back to bed, I can’t resist kissing her. “Every second I want us to happen.”

Three fingers touch my jaw, her gaze curious on my face. “Have you ever hurt someone?”

God damn I hate having to tell her this. I want to tell her I’m strong, fast, the strongest and the fastest. I don’t want to tell her I’m a fuckup. Dangerous. Volatile. Yeah, I’m a mess. But I’ve never been a liar. “I hurt everything I touch. I destroy things! That’s the only thing I’m good at. I’ve found whores in my bed I can’t remember bringing back with me and I’ve tossed them naked out of my hotel room, pissed like hell because I don’t remember what I did. I’ve stolen shit, vandalized shit, woken up in places I don’t even remember getting there. . . .” I drag a breath, then sigh. “Look, since Pete and Riley alternate days off, there’s always someone to knock me out for a day or two when I get out of hand. I hit a low, and then I’m back. Nobody gets hurt.”

“But you. Nobody gets hurt but you.” With a worried crease in her forehead, she takes my hand in hers, and I can’t believe how something smaller than you can give you such a great sense of well-being. “Remy, do they have to knock you out like that?” She laces her fingers through mine, and I glance down and stare at her. At that crease on her forehead. Those gold, gold eyes, worried for me in a way that’s so new to me, it’s almost amusing. But it’s not. I want her to know I’ve got this. She’s holding my hand, and I grip her tighter so that I’m the one holding her. I will always hold us both.

“Yes,” I say emphatically. I don’t care what Pete has to do, but I need to be kept in line, now more than ever. “Especially if I want . . . this . . .” Using my hand, I signal to her, then at myself. “I want this. Very badly.” Then I nuzzle her. “I’m trying not to fuck it up, all right?”

“All right.”

I kiss the back of her hand. “All right.”

♥ ♥ ♥

BROOKE WAS MISSING her friend, so I decided to bring her up from Seattle. With some reluctance, I agreed she could go with Pete to pick up Melanie at the airport.

“Remy, you’re so good,” Brooke said, sloppy kisses all over my jaw, making me laugh. Yesterday I caught her and her best friend laughing, and Brooke made love to me all night. I’ve never been so connected to anyone in my life.

When I handed her one of the sedatives Pete and Riley use—because I want her to know how to put me down if she needs to—she wouldn’t so much as look at it.

“No, Remy, don’t ask this of me.”

“It’s just to make sure I don’t hurt you.”

“You’d never hurt me.”

I get hot just thinking about the ways she keeps on trying to protect me. I’m fucking sure she knows I’m her mate. If we were in other times, and I couldn’t hunt for a day, I know damn well she could hunt for both of us.