Remy(48)

I want to break that fucking toothbrush and anything that takes her from me.

She rinses and towels her hands as I approach. She looks at me questioningly and I can’t explain what I need, but I am in a tangle and roiling and I need her like my next breath, and if I had to choose, I would choose her over oxygen.

I lift her in my arms and carry her to the bed, and she cuddles into my neck and breathes me as I lower her.

I pull off her small shoes and toss them aside, then take off mine and speak gruffly. “I want your hands on my head.”

She edges back on the bed. “Does it calm your racing thoughts?”

I take her hand and spread it over my chest. “It calms me here.”

Just feeling her fingers spread over me, I can breathe better, I stop thinking. I stare back into her eyes and slide next to her, then I drop my head to her chest and smell her neck. I’m so fucking in love with her I don’t think anybody could ever hurt me like this girl could. Not Scorpion, not my parents. Because I don’t care about them. Now all I care about is her.

I feel her softly kiss the top of my head as she runs her fingertips through my scalp.

This is the way I want to die one day.

With her at my side, our bodies touching. I won’t need to say anything, and she won’t need to hear it, because she gets me. She gets that words are sometimes bullshit and people don’t mean what they say and through it all it’s only actions that matter. And all I care is that she gets me. We are yin and yang or whatever that shit is called; she is my female and I need her. I knew it from the instant I saw her, and she knew it too, and that’s why she ran. She wanted me to chase and I did. I will chase her every time she wants to see if I want her and need her enough.

Quietly, she caresses me. I lie completely still and soak up her caresses, taking what she gives me, because she makes me realize I am so starved for it that I would kill for this, and for her.

And my brain goes quiet and my heart is calm and my life is at a standstill, and the pendulum that I am, all the swinging to and fro, finally stops and I feel like I finally found my center.

♥ ♥ ♥

I THINK I fall asleep. I dream of elevators, pink pants, swings, and Paris. I dream of her laughing in a Hummer limo and cupping my jaw and touching my hair and looking at me like I am the only man alive and like she loves me.

I wake up and she’s holding me in her arms and I don’t know what time it is, but I see she’s still in those pants. She tells me to take them off her, and I do, and I make love to her, and to my disbelief I fall asleep again.

My stomach wakes me. It is empty and grumbling. There’s warmth all around me, and Brooke’s hair. And I absorb it. I’d stay here all day if my stomach weren’t so vicious and my muscles so demanding.

I grumble at her, “Hungry,” and grab some sweatpants and stalk out to the kitchen. I grab some celery and peanut butter and start wolfing down to calm the hunger, a bit, then immediately start thinking about what else I can shove down my throat.

She appears and starts exploring what food is in the hot drawer. When I see her, I’m scooping up peanut butter on a celery stick and munching and almost swallow my tongue.

My eyes widen, and I drop the celery and cross my arms, staring while I feel a whole lot of good things rise up in my chest.

“Look at you,” I growl.

Clad in my RIPTIDE robe, she brings over some plates and I am delighted that her scent will get all over my robe and then on me when I wear it.

“I’ll return it when we get back to bed,” she tells me.

I shake my head and pat my lap. “If it’s mine, it’s yours.”

She sets down the food and I cup her hips and set her down on my lap as I stare down at the plates with a watering mouth.

“I’m so fucking starved.” I grab a red potato and chomp on it.

“You would love my mom’s red potatoes. She adds cayenne pepper and gives them just a little kick,” Brooke tells me as she forks one up and munches.

“Do you miss home?”

I chomp on another potato while Brooke looks at me for a moment. She has an expression and sets down her fork and fully faces me, then strokes the scruff of my jaw with her fingertips. “When I’m not with you, I do miss home. But when I’m with you, I don’t miss anything.”

I smile because I’m relieved. She brushes a dimple with her lips, and I growl and rub my nose against her little one. “I’ll tuck you close so you don’t miss it,” I promise her.

“Please do. In fact I’m sure there’s enough space right here.” She wiggles on me and I nip her little earlobe and squish her easily, saying, “That’s right!”