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“Gotcha.” Melanie flicks her ponytail and walks around to the other side of the ring. Nora hasn’t seen me, I think, but tenses when she spots Melanie. Mel walks by, all flirty and bimbo-like, when she stumbles with one of the men, then bends to apologize to Nora and pats her hands as if saying there, there, no harm done, and then she’s heading back to her seat beside me.
My insides tighten with tension as my eyes stay trained to Nora. She glances down at her lap and reads the note, and hope and excitement twirl inside me when she seems to read it a second time. So she’s interested?
“Done,” Melanie says, and when Nora lifts her head, she sees me, her hazel eyes flaring slightly, and I exhale a long breathe of gratitude that at least she isn’t running away. When our stares hold for several seconds, I smile at her, just so she knows that I want to see her in “friendly” mode. She smiles back, barely, almost shakily, and then tears her eyes free as the presenter begins. My chest swells with even more determination to save my baby sister, and suddenly I can’t wait for it to be tomorrow. I just pray she’ll come.
“And nooow, ladies and gentlemen…”
“He’s coming out.” Melanie squeezes me.
Just knowing he’s going to come out has me on hyper-excitement mode, and when his name rings across the crowd, my heart has already kicked into overdrive and I’m quaking in my skin. “… Remington Tate, your one and only, RIPTIDE!! RIPTIDE!! Say hello to RIPTIDEEEEE!”
He comes out like a sun after months of night, and the world can’t stop shouting in gratitude. He swings up to the ring and whips off his red robe and, at the center of the ring, there he is. Doing his signature turn as the crowd roars his name, his muscular arms outstretched, chorded with veins, and the screams get louder and louder, for the people love the way he turns, his boyish face and manly body, the wicked glint in his eyes that promises them a good show. He stops right where he always does, and his dancing blue eyes tell me that he knows he’s the bomb and that I want him, and his dimples come out to kill me. Kill. Me.
The fact that I know that man is mine at night won’t even let me breathe.
But I thankfully manage a smile. Boy, I’m so bursting with excitement, I can definitely smile back at him from my seat.
The fight begins, and I sit drooling next to Melanie watching those arms with the vine tattoo where his shoulders and biceps meet flex out to strike his opponents. His strength, his footwork, his speed, mesmerize me.
Melanie shouts to him all the things I want to tell him and more, delighting me. “Kill him, Remington! Yes! Yes! Omigod, you’re a god!”
Laughing with pure joy, I hug her. “Oh, Mel,” I sigh, then I whisper in mischief, “Tell him he’s hot.”
“Why don’t you, little chicken?” She narrows her eyes and shoulders me. “You little nugget, tell him!”
“I can’t. I can never seem to shout in a crowd. I was the one usually shouted at,” I admit, shouldering her back. “And I feel like my voice will distract him. Come on! Tell him from me. Tell him he’s so hot.”
Up on her feet, Melanie cups her mouth and yells. “Brooke thinks you’re the hottest thing ever, Remy! Remy, Brooke loves you, Remy! Every inch and centimeter of you!”
“Melanie!” Shocked, I slap a hand over her mouth and shove her back down to her seat, but the crowd is so noisy today, I’m almost sure he didn’t hear. “Have another gum, Mel,” I say, glaring darkly at her. “And I’ll have your word you’re not saying that again, Melanie.”
“Oh all right, I’ll just tell him he’s so hot and all that.”
Laughing when I stiffly nod, she comes back to her feet and nudges my ribs, calling me a little Chick-fil-a sandwich, because I’m so chicken, and then she keeps on shouting all the things I think and don’t have the courage to scream. That he’s so hot, that he’s a god, that he’s a sexy beast and is so f**king sexy nobody can stand it…
I swear if I could even shout, I’d also shout that he’s mine, that I love you, that he’s my sexy beast … but I can’t even cheer his name alone among the crowd. And I realize maybe I do feel a little fear, after all. Because I’ve never given my heart to anyone until Remington. And he has the strength to pound it down as hard as he’s pounding his opponents.
Secret meeting
We’re supposed to meet Nora at a small Japanese restaurant situated only blocks from our hotel, but I feel completely awful about lying to Remington about this evening.
“I’ll make up a business monetary meeting with me,” Pete assured me when we met at the gym this morning. “I’ll say you and Melanie are out touring and that Riley will pick you up after dinner so that Remy can go through his monthly finances with me.”
I nod in satisfaction, but I confess that I’m still not thrilled about it. At all. I’m queasy and nervous in the afternoon, but even then, I allow a deep, secret part of me to enjoy the way Remy watches me from the boxing ring as I wave at him from the gym door and signal to Melanie—who stands next to me in all her glory in a mini skirt and spaghetti strap top—while I mouth to Remy, “Going out with Mel.”
He yanks off his sparring headgear to shoot me a smile and a quick nod, his eyes shining like they do when he spots me, and only Mel’s hand on my elbow seems to keep me from leaping up to the ring and kissing each of his devastatingly beautiful dimples.
Upstairs, I dress sensibly and comfortably in a button blouse and formal black slacks.
“I still don’t understand why you don’t want Remy to know about this,” Melanie says as Riley drives us to the restaurant.
“Because Remington’s got some alpha tendencies.”
“Which is sexy, last I checked.”
“Mel, this isn’t a movie. I don’t want him to be unable to concentrate or get in trouble because of me.”
Mel huffs. “You take away all the romance of your relationship, Brooke.”
I groan, and then bang my forehead on the window in total exasperation. “Mel, I feel bad as it is. Please. People who do what he does for a living are considered lethal weapons. They can’t legally fight out of the ring, do you understand?”
“Yes. Although why a man can’t fight with his fists in the street while others run around legally with guns is beyond me. I really should complain to the senator.”
“All right, ladies, if we leave the letter to Congress until later, here we are.”
Melanie glares at Riley as he opens the back door, and he glares back as she passes. I have no idea what is up with them. Melanie is usually sweet to everyone, and Riley is usually easy breezy. But all righty then.
“Thanks, Riley, I’ll be right back,” I tell him.
“The hell you will, I’m coming with you.”
“We don’t need you to,” Melanie says, shooting him a superior look with the tip of her nose high in the air. “Brookey and I have done excellently for twenty-four years without your assistance.”
“I’m doing it for Remington, not for you,” Riley stiffly says.
Thankfully, they stop bickering when we enter the restaurant.
I soak up the quiet atmosphere with one sweep of my gaze, taking in the peeling green painted walls which hold an assortment of framed pictures of raw fish plates, and then my eyes slide along dozens of black wooden tables to notice that all of them are empty except one.
To my astonishment, the only people here, aside from the three of us who stand by the door, are a concerned-looking Japanese man doing nothing but watching us from behind the sushi bar, Nora, who sits stiffly at a small round table at the far corner, three tall, beefy men which I recognize as the same goonies I had the pleasure of bashing their skulls in back in the club, and, of course, the big mean Scorpion who now strides toward us like he’s the goddamned host of the evening.
I don’t know if he plucked some strings among the restaurant managers, or if he vacated the premises by intimidation, or Benjamin Franklins, but then who in their right mind would want to have dinner with dudes like these?
Well. Apparently my sister.
Nora was always the romantic one of us, always wanting to “rescue” some cat, dog, rat, or guy. I never bought the romance stew she seemed so intent in tasting, until I met Remington, of course.
I’ll drink anything that guy feeds me, I won’t deny that.
Now I see Scorpion come forward in his big, bulky muscled body and I feel an instant moment’s regret that Remy doesn’t know I’m here.
A kernel of fear blooms deep inside my center.
Fear not only of these men, but of what Remy would do if he finds out I was ever here with them. This is so new to me, being in a relationship. I just don’t know what he would do for me. But I know that I would do anything for him. Including making sure that he remains oblivious of my meeting with Nora.
I just hope that I won’t regret dragging Pete and Riley into this too.
My breathing hitches nervously when Scorpion halts a foot away from us, and his eyes are green and mean. That, coupled with the fish smell coming from the bar, makes me a little nauseous. The black tattoo is all you see on his sickening face. I don’t see why anyone would want that animal on skin. It’s a 3D tattoo and the scorpion appears to be crawling up into his eye.
