He gives it to me, but slowly. He savors me, his hand opening on my nape, his thumb caressing the band of my ponytail . . . killing me softly. . . . I moan and rub his shoulders as he parts my lips wider and delves in to taste, deeper, wetter. We’re moving so slow, it’s like a dream. Then he starts fucking my mouth headily, heavily, savoring every centimeter he gains with his tongue, prolonging the length he withdraws before he once again comes forward to taste me. Heat spills through my body—he’s driving me insane.

He undoes my ponytail and eases back to watch as my hair spills down to my shoulders, and his eyes, so black right now, devour me. He’s manic and he’s hungry, but he seems so happy—almost relieved—to see me, that I can see dozens of brilliant lights shining in his irises.

He slides his hand to the small of my back and pulls me close as he comes back in. His kiss roughens, and my head falls back to the seat from the force. Moaning, I move my mouth feverishly under his and don’t realize I’m clinging until I feel his shirt fisted in my hands.

“I missed you,” I gasp into his moving mouth, and he growls softly and licks down my neck. Every kiss is fire, back up my neck, to my ear.

“Tonight, after the fight,” he tells me, his breath deep and slow, mine fast and labored.

He squeezes me as he stares down at me, surveying the dazed smile on my lips. “Your wish is my command.”

“I command that you’re mine this night again—you’re mine forever.”

He says it so seriously, I laugh, but he doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even smile. He’s looking at me as if waiting for me to say, once again, even if teasingly, that his wish is my command. I stroke his stubbly jaw. “What are you going to do to me tonight?”

He breathes in my ear, nibbling me softly. “Kiss you. Stroke and fondle you. Lick you. Pet you. Fuck and love you. Make you fall asleep with me in you.” He moves his fingers, huge and strong and scarred, on my abdomen. “Don’t you remember who put this in you?”

“Oh, I remember. It makes me hot to remember.”

“And it makes me want to put a thousand of these in you. But why don’t you look pregnant by me? Are you eating well?”

“Yes! Why?” I straighten as he withdraws his hand from under my dress. “You want me to blow up? You want everyone to know I’m pregnant?”

He leans back with his elbows on the back of the seat, the move delineating every muscle underneath his T-shirt as he smiles deliciously and nods.

“So everyone knows I’m taken and yours?” I insist.

He nods with an adorable smile that reaches all the way to his eyes.

“My butt is already huge and the girls are bigger too. It only makes sense that my stomach will follow.”

“I happen to like the way the girls look in that dress. And your ass is fucking juicy.”

“So why don’t you count your blessings? I get big boobs, a big ass, and a flat tummy for a while.”

His lids slip down over his eyes as he looks appreciatively at the girls, then a smile twists his mouth as he pulls me close. “Come here.”

“You have a devil’s glint in your eye.”

His smile deepens into laughter. “Come here. I missed you.”

“What are you planning, mister?”

He pats his lap. “I’ll let you choose.”

“Between?”

“Music.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Kissing.”

“You’re making it tough.”

“Petting.”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

“Or all of the above.”

Without warning, I jump up on him, and he laughs, instantly clutching me tight. “I got you now!”

“You had me when you looked at me,” I quietly, smilingly admit, as if his huge ego really even needs another huge stroke from me. “By the time you winked, I was done for, Mister Remington Tate . . . sexy boyfriend, killer fighter, and father of my unborn child. You’ve definitely got me now.”

FOURTEEN

PHILADELPHIA

He’s very speedy, and he didn’t like it when I talked to Pete and Riley on our way to the hotel. He didn’t like it when I had to leave him to go pee in our room, and he paced in our bedroom waiting like some sort of impatient groom, slamming his lips to mine the second I came out and kissing me for just about half an hour until they came to get us for the fight. He didn’t want to let go of me as he headed to the locker rooms, his hand tightening on my hips the deeper we walked into the Underground.

I told him that I couldn’t wait to see him fight, and that I would be watching. He clamped his jaw and looked—proprietarily and thirsty as hell—at my lips. Then he nodded and patted my butt as he gave Pete strict instructions not to move a foot away from me during the fight.

Now Pete is attached to me like a Siamese twin.

He’s the Man in Black and is now carrying a stun gun, pepper spray. You name it, Pete’s got it. He even wears an intimidating frown today, like everyone should stay away.

“You take yourself way too seriously,” I joke.

“What the man wants, he gets,” he says with a chuckle.

A swarm of bugs awaken in my stomach as we head to our seats, first row to the right side of the ring. And it feels like a lifetime since I watched a fight. Excitement mingles with nervousness, and unfortunately the heartburn that seems to have remained after all my first-trimester nausea promises to come back with a vengeance.

“Remington bought the full box so you don’t have people bumping close,” Pete explains to me as we reach our seats, and I notice that the two seats to our sides and the two behind are empty.

Pete nods to someone across the ring, and I follow his gaze to see big ol’ Josephine standing there, keeping an eye on us. “Where did Jo come from?” I ask, happily smiling at her and pleased when she smiles primly back at me. She stands, somehow, like an army man, and she manages to act very polite and discreet while at the same time looking incredibly intimidating.

“She had stuff to take care of and flew commercial to catch up with us. She’ll be rooming with Diane and will be on your tail whenever Remington is not by your side.”

I would have probably protested if I didn’t like her so much, and if I hadn’t heard how happy she was to have landed a job that clients usually hired men to do. So I keep smiling at her as Pete and I settle down and start watching the first matches.

“Where’s Remy?”

“Bring out Remy!”

The crowd yells as the ring is vacated for the fourth time, and by the time the chant starts, there’s only one name audible in the entire arena. “Rem-ing-ton, Rem-ing-ton, Rem-ing-ton!”

“The organizers loooove making the public have to ask for him,” Pete says with a chuckle.

And finally, the speakers flare. “That’s right, ladies and gentlemen! Bitches and manwhores! Girls and fucking boys! You want him? You got him! Say hello tonight to yourrrrrrr one, yourrrrrr only, Remington Tate, RRRRIIIIIPTIDE!!”

My Riptide! my mind excitedly screams. My Riptide. My my my. Mine tonight, mine always.

All across the room, the people stand on every side of the ring. Some frame their hands around their mouths and yell, while others are jumping and waving posters with his name on them.

“Remy, I’d die for you, Remy!!” a voice behind me screams.

Joy bubbles in my veins as he comes trotting out.

His perfect strong posture and relaxed shoulders, his RIPTIDE robe covering the hardest muscles in the world, makes my nipples peak and all my body throb with need. As the lights from above focus on him, I greedily take in his dimpled face, but my gaze snags on the red lipstick marks on his jaw. And on his mouth.

I blink in confusion.

He grabs the ropes and swings inside, landing stealthily as a cat who already owns the squared space of that coveted ring, and then the robe comes off and Remington is on complete glorious display. I see him, but I’m still confused as to what I see on his boyish face; those marks, red and blotched all over his beautiful tan, until the truth starts sinking and sinking and sinking inside me, and each one of those kisses feel a little bit like a whiplash.

A thousand and one insecurities I didn’t even know I had rear up inside me.

I imagine manicured hands touching his skin . . . lips on his lips . . . his growls for somebody else . . . his calluses rasping against somebody else’s skin. . . .

A burn starts up in my eyes as Pete quietly tells me, “Brooke, it comes with the life. He doesn’t ask for the groupies—he just wants to fight. It’s no big deal.”

“If I can just get the rest of my body, other than my brain, to understand that,” I say miserably, and it feels that a black cloud of pain has dropped over me like a cloak on all my light.

A couple of seats to my right, a woman pulls on her hair and screams, “Riptiiiiiiiiide! I want to drag you to my room and fuck you till I can’t walk!”

Lord, I want to hit that bitch so bad.

And there he is, beautiful and magnificent Remington Riptide Tate.

He does his turn, and I feel such pressure in my chest, I curl my hands around my baby and stare at the small little swell it now makes. I never regretted being pregnant, but now I feel so pregnant and so stupid.

I breathe, slow and deep, while all my insecurities gnaw on my insides. We’re going to have a family together. I will be a mother . . . but he will still be a fighter, surrounded by young, pretty groupies who will do anything to have him.

Brooke Before Pregnancy would probably feel nobody could ever take him away from her.

But Pregnant Brooke feels a little bit at a disadvantage. Because maybe it hurts a little that he hasn’t asked me to marry him. Maybe he doesn’t even want to?

Why would he even bother, when I’m his already?

“Brooke, he’s looking at you,” Pete murmurs excitedly.

Still feeling more unsteady than I’d like, I drag in a deep breath and continue staring at my lap, at the stupid linen dress I wore when I prettied up for him this morning.

“Brooke, he’s staring blatantly at you,” Pete says, now in alarm.

The crowd quiets.

The silence becomes oppressive, as if Riptide has stopped smiling and now everyone knows something’s going on.

I can feel his eyes boring into the top of my head. And I know that when I look up, all I will see is that red. Lipstick. On his beautiful face. Like the lipstick I smeared him with once, but that belongs to someone else today. Maybe one of the fucking whores he fucked when I was gone. God.

“Brooke, Jesus, what the hell?” Pete elbows me. “Do you want him to fuck up tonight?”

I shake my head and force myself to look at him.

He’s staring at me with a look of complete wildness and anxiety. His legs are braced apart, his jaw tight and his stance defensive, and I can tell he senses there’s something wrong with me, because his hands are fists at his sides and he looks ready to jump and come get me.

I hold his gaze proudly, because I don’t even want him to know how hurt I am, but when he smiles at me, I just can’t smile back.