Coach yells from the corner, “Too slow, Riptide, too damn slow. Hit it!”
I glance at the hard bag and punch. Whack. Whack. Concentrating on hitting. It comes from your core, and as long as you direct it properly, there’s no fucking way there won’t be power in that punch. I work my core more than anything. Everything I do works it, even jump rope.
I spend all day at the gym, and when I get to my sparring partner, I see Brooke and Melanie at the door. My chest swells with happiness and proprietariness. She signals that they’re leaving, and I pull off my headgear and smile.
I get a rush making her happy. I turn back to my partner and focus. My life had never felt so right. So good. I’ve never felt so accepted or so fucking understood.
That night, Pete summons me to discuss my finances. Brooke is having dinner with Melanie. I glance at my phone but get no text from her.
We’re at the hotel bar.
A woman walks up. “You have amazing eyes.”
I ignore her and turn back to Pete, drilling him: “At what time did she say she’d be back? . . . You sure Riley’s getting her? . . . Why the fuck are they taking so long?”
“Riley texted they’re on their way back,” Pete tells me after like the tenth question, and he sends me up to my room.
I’m withdrawing into myself. I’m restless. My gut feels tight and I don’t trust when I feel this. I grab my headphones and sit down, tapping my foot. I listen to Chevelle’s “The Red.”
When she finally comes in, my chest tightens. Her cheeks are pale, but her eyes well with emotion when she sees me. I don’t know why my gut tightens.
She jumps on my lap, pries off my headphones, and slips them over her head. She frowns at the song. Yeah, she hates those rock songs, and I need to kiss away that frown. I kiss her nose, cradle her jaw, and rub her lips with my thumb. She jumps, drops the headphones onto the desk, and runs to the bedroom.
My gut tightens again, and I sit there, turning off my headphones, restless. I can feel the darkness teasing into me. I’m trying to calm myself. She’s here. She’s back. She’s all right.
I watch her return. Something in her eyes that I can’t pinpoint is feeding my monster ten times over.
“Remy, would you hold me for a bit?”
I study her, confused about what I feel. Then I realize she looks anxious and in need. “Come here.” I shove my chair back and extend my arm, and she wiggles against me as I engulf her. I chuckle softly, instantly calmed in a way that only happens when I touch her.
“You missed me?” I cup her smooth cheeks and tip her head to me.
“Yes,” she gasps.
I gather her to me and set my smile to hers. We stop smiling as the heat crashes through me.
My fingers outline her breasts, my mouth on her jaw, then I’m at the back of her ear, inhaling her, growling softly when her scent fills me. Winding me up and relaxing me. “Remy . . .” I hear the need in my name as she pushes my T-shirt up my shoulders.
I grab it in my fist and toss it aside, then strip her down to her skin, then yank her down to me again, my covered erection grinding in between her thighs. She strokes my chest and kisses every part she can.
“I missed you so much,” she says, running her lips over my jaw, grabbing my hair as she presses close to me.
I engulf her in my arms and stroke her back, then seize her face. “I missed you too.” I set a kiss on her sweet lips, and her nose, and her forehead.
She trembles, pressing so close. I want to open up and let her in any way I can. “But I missed your voice. Your hands. Your mouth . . . being with you . . . watching you . . . touching you . . . smelling you . . .” She takes my lips more desperately.
I try to slow down, but her mouth tastes amazing, and I need to remind myself that she is mine, mine, so I unbutton her and strip her bare as quickly as I can.
I draw her back to my lap when she’s naked.
My whole body clenches when I feel her pussy nestling my erection. She seems undone.
She slides between my thighs and I yank my sweatpants partway down my hips until my hardness pops free, and her fingers are all over me, rubbing, squeezing, caressing.
“I want to kiss you here. . . .” Brooke’s voice shakes with desire as she looks into my lust-tightened face, into eyes that I can barely keep open from the want. “I want to drown in you, Remington. I want your taste . . . in me. . . .”
She takes me in her mouth. Ecstasy burns through me as a sound rumbles up my throat. I need this so bad I rock my hips, slowly, up to her mouth, giving her what she wants and taking what I need. Her tongue runs all over me and her eyes are halfway down as she watches me, and I watch her back, amazed, undone . . . losing myself in her, praying she can rescue me from the dark already starting within me, the high of being manic.