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But at least I’m not jobless anymore.
Breathing slow and deep, I spend extra time as I rub his deltoids, the roundest, squarest part of the shoulder. I stretch and roll them, and then I follow to the supraspinatus, a small muscle of the rotator cuff, and also the most injured of the four muscles surrounding that cuff.
He’s still panting when I’m done, except now, so am I.
Coach whistles. “All right, hit the showers. See you at six a.m. tomorrow and ready to fight. Now go eat. A whole goddamned cow.”
Remington pulls me up from where we’d worked on his back on the floor, his blue eyes sparkling as he clenches my fingers a second longer than I expected. “No standing on me yet?”
It takes me a moment to remember our conversation from the plane, and I smirk. “Not yet. But don’t worry. If you keep working out like this, we’ll get there before you know it.”
He laughs, and drapes a towel around his neck as he heads to the showers, and hours later I’ve figured that he must have fallen dead asleep after the exertion he put himself through. I, on the other hand, lay awake, sleepless. I’ve already squeezed my triceps three times since our arrival and have determined I’m not fat, and even then, I still wonder what hmm means.
I think about the plane and his hands on my triceps and his blue eyes on my face and the way his gaze rakes me when I walk over to stretch him. I think of the way he’s teased me and amused himself with me these past three days, and I just don’t understand why all that makes me squirm inside and feel hot little chills all around me.
My adrenals are going to be shot if this keeps up.
I try to think of something else, but my legs are restless under the sheets, and the need to go out and run eats at me. I wish I could sprint my heart out, feel those endorphins instead of these odd little pings in my nerves that gnaw me raw, this strange need that blooms up inside me when I see Remington Tate. Even when I denied it to Melanie, I was so sure he’d wanted me that first night in Seattle, I just don’t know what happened that I got hired instead.
But it’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? A job.
Except that the price to pay for my new job is a little bit of sexual torture. Big deal. I’ll just block him out better tomorrow. With that new resolution, I grab my iPod from the nightstand and turn on my music and force myself to listen to any songs except the ones he’s played to me.
Running
“Remy! Call out Remy already! REMINGTOOOOON!”
The group of women on the seats behind me are screaming their throats off.
So you can understand how it is really, really hard to block out the man when everyone around me is clamoring for him, especially when my body is alive with adrenaline for the fight that’s about to start.
It’s a deliciously familiar feeling, actually, the one that simmers in me as I sit among the spectators at the Atlanta Underground, waiting for Remington to come out to the ring. I feel like I’m the one competing, and my body is perfectly ready. My blood rushes hot and liquid inside me, my adrenals pump me full of the right hormones, and my mind seems as clear as newly scrubbed crystal. My legs are motionless under my seat, and so are my hands, but this is merely a ruse. The stillness of preparation. Where outward, all is calm, and inward, there’s a fire roaring. This is the one minute where everything goes quiet and gathers inward, so that when it’s time to explode outward, it will be with concentrated precision that your energy unleashes in a perfectly planned burst.
Even now, I remember my perfect crouching position at the starting blocks, the way all my senses seemed to hone in on the one sound of the starting shot, where everything—and I mean everything—zaps awake on that sound, and you go from standstill to running your heart out in a fraction of a second.
Now it seems that all I’m waiting to listen to is his name being announced, and when I finally hear “REMINGTON TATE, RIIIIIPTIDE!” there’s a new rush sweeping through me, and yet there’s nowhere for me to run, there’s no relief to what’s coursing in my body, only this incredibly powerful ache being fed by the very same hormones my body keeps outputting, which I have no way of stopping.
I rise from my seat like the entire roomful of people do, but that’s all I can do as I watch him take on the stage in the way only he knows how to do. The crowd gets instantly high on him, and I’m lightheaded too. There he is, a woman’s living, breathing fantasy, doing his slow, cocky turn, spiky black hair, darkly tanned chest, dimpled smile—killer smile—all in the package of Remington Tate. He’s perfection itself, and a new surge of hormones sweeps through me as I do what the rest of the crowd does and take in his visual, so blatantly on display in those low riding boxing shorts and so strikingly sexy, he becomes the center of my attention.
The center. Of my. World.
Ever since I stopped competing, I’ve gained body fat and am now at a healthy eighteen percent. I’m curvier than I ever used to be, with a little extra lift in my butt, and nice padding to my br**sts. But I have never been more aware of my body and all its inner and outer parts than when I interact with this one man. I just don’t even know if I can ever get used to it. Can ever make him stop doing this to me. Can ever let myself “own” the fact that—yes, this man drives my body out of control.
“And now, the famed and acclaimed Owen Wilkes, the ‘Irish Grasshopper!’”
While his feisty red-haired opponent takes the ring, Remington’s blue gaze sweeps the crowd until he spots me. Our eyes lock, and I’m instantly breathless. His dimples come out to form such a perfect smile, it runs all the way through me, electrifying my nerve endings.
I’m still smiling like a dope when the bell rings, and I don’t mean to hold my breath while I’m watching, but I do. Remington looks almost like a bored Rottweiler as his opponent, the “Grasshopper,” seems to jump all over the ring and around him like a baby kangaroo.
He knocks him out quickly, and because he keeps winning, he fights a line of new opponents, one after the other. From what Pete has told me, only the last eight finalists in each city will compete in the next designated city, and it will all come down to a big fight at the end of the tour, in New York, where only the top two men will engage in a long 16-round fight, rather than a handful of 3-round fights.
Now Remington takes on a man that looks more like a wrestler than a boxer. His abs are flabby and bulky, and he’s about double as wide as Remington. Something fierce and primitive grips my core, and I’m on my feet with a silent “no!” the instant the man they’d called “the Butcher” rams a hit into Remy’s ribcage. Remy’s slammed so hard, I can hear the breath tear out of him.
My insides seize in dread even when he recovers easily, and my heart doesn’t stop pounding in my chest. I bite my lip as I watch him land a set of perfect punches on Butcher’s core. He moves so fluidly, every part of his body flexible and strong, sometimes I forget he’s fighting against someone else merely because of the way he hypnotizes me with his moves.
I love watching those powerful legs, with thick muscles, and how they balance him and move with both strength and agility. I love each flex of his quads, his shoulders, his biceps, the way the vine tattoo that circles his arms only emphasizes how finely formed his shoulders and biceps are between them.
“Boo! Boo-hooo!” the crowd starts shouting, and it’s all after Remy sustained another hit in his upper torso. I wince when Butcher follows with a straight punch to Remy’s lips. His head swings, and I see drops of blood splatter at his feet, and hear myself say “no” again, softly. He straightens once more and regains his position, licking the blood up from a cut part of his lip. But I don’t understand why he’s letting down his guard.
It seems like he’s not covering, and even Coach and Riley are scowling in puzzlement from the corner of the ring as they watch the fight continue, Remington landing his punches always excellently, but strangely allowing Butcher too much access into his upper thoracic region. I’m confused and anxious for it to finish, and all I know is that every punch the awful man is landing on him I can actually feel inside me like a knife cut in the gut.
When Butcher slams his side once more and Remy drops to one knee, I want to die.
“No!” The scream is torn out of me.
And when the woman beside me hears me, she cups the sides of her mouth and shouts, “Get up, Remy! Get UP! Beat the crap out of him!”
A ragged breath of relief leaves me when he jumps back up and wipes blood from his lips, but his eyes flick in my direction, and he takes another punch that swings him back to bounce against the chord.
My nerves are tattered in such a way that I need to duck my head and stop watching for just a minute. There is, literally, a ball of fire in my throat, and I can’t even swallow my saliva. There’s just something about watching him take a pounding that makes me feel as helpless as I did when I cracked my knee, and could no longer do anything about it. This passivity is just not me. I’m being eaten with the sheer need either to go up there and hit that f**king fat man too, or just flee here. Fight-or-flight. But instead I just sit here, and it’s awful.
Suddenly, his usual chorus begins, “REMY … REMY … REMY.”
