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“Yes.” My heart pounds in my ears as I push up on tiptoes, drawing his head down, when someone bumps into me from behind. I stumble forward. Remington catches me with one arm and pins me protectively to his side.
“If it isn’t Riptide and his new pu**y.”
My head swings around and I realize whoever shoved me, it was not by accident. Four men flock around us, and they’re all enormous. One of them has an icky black scorpion tattooed to his right cheekbone, and he’s even larger than the others.
Remington glances at them like they’re as significant as a bunch of flies, then he puts an arm around me and takes me out of the dance floor.
“What’s your girlfriend’s name? Whose name does she call out when you f**k her, huh?”
Remy is wordless as he leads me toward the bar, but his fingers have clenched into an angry fist at the back of my top as he pushes me forward. The men march behind us, but Remington continues to ignore them. He turns me away and blocks my view of them with the wall of his chest. “Go back with Riley and ask him to take you to the hotel,” he whispers.
Alarm bells clang inside my head as I realize this is mere provocation on the others’ behalf to get Remington in trouble. I’ve been with the team enough to know that a fight out of the ring can land Remy in jail and out of competition. “You can’t get in a fight, Remy,” I warn when suddenly the beefier of the four men speak, raising his voice enough to be heard perfectly above the music.
“We’re talking to you, douche-nozzle.”
“I heard you, ass**le, I just don’t give a f**k what you have to say,” Remy shoots back.
His friend tries to land a punch but Remington quickly ducks and shoves him back so hard, he stumbles and falls. Suddenly I realize the tactic. The friends of the scorpion-guy are going to beat Remy so that he has no choice but respond, kick the shit out of them, and get kicked off the league and possibly tossed in jail, while the guy with the scorpion tattoo did “nothing.”
And if this guy is the one Remy needs to beat at the final, then he’s likely thrilled he can get him taken care of before the match. What a loser scumbag!
Remy is getting full-blown angry at my side, grabbing one by the shirt and hissing, “Take a hike or I’ll cut your f**king balls and then feed them to your mother!” He shoves him back, then grabs the other two and shoves them at the same time, one with each arm. He looks so pissed that I’m getting really concerned. Veins pop up his hands, arms, neck, and when the third man approaches him from behind, Remington’s elbow flies out behind him and perfectly slams into the poor man’s face. “Sorry, dude, my bad,” he apologizes, and the man curses under his breath and covers his bloodied nose.
Meanwhile, I see the guy with the scorpion tattoo is happily watching with a grin.
Oh, no you don’t, dipshit!
The flight-or-fight response is full force in my body now. My brain buzzes as the blood shoots hot and urgent through my system. I already feel it feeding my muscles, my heart pumping wildly. I run to the bar, reach over, grab two bottles, and come back to swing them above each of two of the ass**le’s heads. They crash down evenly as glass shoots everywhere.
I go grab another bottle and come running back, heading for the third guy, when I see how Remy stares at me with a look of horror and a face that is progressively getting scarlet. He grabs the bottle from my hand, slams it back on the bar, then tosses me up on his back like a potato sack and stalks across the crowd to Pete.
“Remington,” I complain, slamming his back with my fists as I squirm. My hormones skyrocket when I realize one of his hands is on my ass. I hear him whisper something to Pete, and finally the blood goes back in the correct direction when he shoves me back inside the car. Adrenaline pumps through me. I’ve never been in a fight. It feels amazing. Amazing.
Our hotel chauffeur slides behind the wheel and tears into the city traffic, and I notice Remington is breathing hard and fast on the back seat.
Like I am.
Our gazes meet in the shadows across the car, and his eyes are eerily dark, his face etched with red-hot fury. “What in the hell did you think you were doing?” he explodes.
His hands are fists over his thighs, and for a moment I think he’s going to slam them into the back of the bench. The look in his eyes is fiercely raw and strange. Almost animal. Kind of … possessive. And it causes a strange little thrill to rocket up inside me.
I’d been ready to kiss him. My hands are clenched in my lap as I try to keep them still.
But god, I’m so wound up, I’m thoughtless with need as I look at him. Thoughtless and broken inside from the painful longing of wanting to be with him. His fingers are restless and I just want to grab his hand and make it curl around my br**sts and beg him to touch me.
“I just saved your ass and it felt amazing,” I say, and a new rush of adrenaline courses through me at the reminder.
Remy seems to be hanging on by a thread as he rubs his face and sets his elbows on his knees, kneeling forward, rubbing the back of his head with hands that I now notice are fiercely trembling. He’s not breathing right either. “For the love of f**king god, don’t ever, ever, do that again. EVER. If one of them sets a hand on you, I’ll f**king kill them, and I won’t give a rat’s f**k who watches me!”
A shudder of excitement shoots through me as he leans back and looks at me with a lust that is mind-blowing. He catches my wrist and squeezes so tight, I gasp, and he glances down and releases me. “I mean it. Don’t f**king ever do that again.”
“Of course I will do it again. I won’t let you get into trouble.”
“Jesus, are you for real?” As fiercely agitated as I’ve ever seen him, he rubs his face and then stares bleakly out the window, his body trembling angrily. “You’re a stick of dy***ite, do you know that?”
I shrug, and then nod a little, feeling as jacked up as he is.
When we go up the elevator, we’re riding alone, but he’s standing on the opposite side of me.
He’s wired. Hyper. His eyes looking at everything except me. He cracks his knuckles, then his neck.
“It’s okay,” I say, touching his shoulder gently, and he stiffens as if I’d zapped him, glancing at my hand on his shoulder. I step back to my corner, and we stare into each other’s eyes. The air between us almost rumbles, like thunder. He seems to want to jump me and get away from me, all at once. He flexes his hands at his sides and softens his voice as we head down the hall to our rooms, but it still sounds gruff with emotion. “I’m sorry you had to see those ass**les,” he murmurs. He’s visibly trying to calm himself as he rakes a hand through his spiky hair. “I’m going to f**king break all Scorpion’s bones and pull his goddamned eyes out when I get a chance.”
I nod to appease him, because I think he’s really thirsting to do violence to them. But I’m so wound up, I just don’t know what I’ll do alone in my room. I don’t know where to put my hands, my thoughts, all this rush inside me going round and round and heading nowhere. “Can I come to your room until the guys get back?” I ask.
He hesitates, then nods and I follow him to his door. We settle down on the living room couch, and he turns on the TV to the first channel that appears. “Do you want something to drink?”
“No,” I say. “I never drink the day before flying or I’ll get doubly dehydrated.”
He nods and brings two water bottles from the bar.
He plops down next to me.
His thigh ends up so close, I can feel his quad muscle. My heart still pounds like crazy. I remember the way we danced, and my skin flushes hot again. “Why did you get in trouble when you were pro?” I ask him.
“A fight like the one you just prevented.”
He stares at the screen, his jaw working, and I stare helplessly at the play of light and shadows across his face, mesmerized.
He stretches his right arm on the couch behind me with deceptive calm, but I can feel the tension emanating from his body, and suddenly I feel my heart speed up in exhilarating anticipation. Strange noises from the TV filter into my mind, and then I realize the couple on TV is kissing. My stomach clenches. I’ve never seen this movie before, but as the background music flares up, I know a scorching sex scene looms ahead.
A flash of torment passes through his gaze as he grabs the remote and shuts it off, then he tosses the control aside and lowers his hand to my nape. He curves his fingers gently around the back of my neck, warm and incredibly strong, four fingers going to one side of me, his thumb to the other, and then he circles his thumb gently over my skin as he turns to me.
That his touch can arouse me to the extent it does makes me feel drunk and high and impossibly trembly.
“Why’d you do that for me?” His voice is unbearably intimate as he gazes at me in the shadows.
“Because.”
We’re both staring as intently as we’ve ever stared, and I’m hyperaware of every point of contact of our bodies. His thigh against mine. His hand on my nape, gently squeezing. “Why? Somebody tell you I can’t take care of myself?”
“No.”
He eyes my lips, then my eyes, then he slowly closes his eyes and sets his forehead on mine, and all I can do is breathe him in like a junkie, my insides intoxicated with just a whiff. Nothing in my life has ever smelled so good to me as him. Him recently showered. Him sweaty. Just him.
