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 fucking 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 dynamite, 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 assholes,” he murmurs. He’s visibly trying to calm himself as he rakes a hand through his spiky hair. “I’m going to fucking 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.

His own deep inhalation reaches my ears, and I find myself touching his mouth with a lone fingertip. His lips are so plump and firm, but at the same time, smooth and silky. I feel a quick, damp flick as his tongue flashes out to lick me, and a shudder shoots through my spine. He groans and pulls my whole finger into his mouth and closes his eyes as he sucks it.

“Remington…” I breathe.

“Honey, I’m home!”

We spring apart at the sound of a slamming door and Pete’s sarcastic voice.

“Just wanted to make sure you guys got here okay. Scorpion sure seems to have a hard-on to get your ass back in jail.”

The lights flare on, and Remington drops my finger as if it’s a loaded gun and rises and goes to the window, and he’s breathing hard, audibly hard. As hard as I am.

I’m instantly on my feet. “I’d better go.”

Pete takes in the scene with an impassive face, and he doesn’t say anything as I rush across the room to leave. “I’ll just wait for you here, Rem,” Pete says calmly.

Remy doesn’t respond but follows me to my room.

I feel his body warmth on my back as I slide my key into the slot. I hear him breathing behind me, still a little unevenly, against my hair. I want him, but I can now see past my open door to the first of the queen beds, and Diane’s feet are in it.

My nipples are two hard points pushing into my bra, my panties soaked from all night of desperately wanting him. I want him, so bad, I feel a knot of need and frustration doubling in size in my throat, because I can’t have him. How will things change if we do anything? It just can’t work. It can’t be. I’m his employee and this is only temporary and a one-night stand with him is no longer an option. Is it? I like him too much. Oh, god. I like him. Too. Much.

“Goodnight,” I whisper, forcing myself to look at his handsome face.

The violent tenderness in his eyes seeps into every pore of my body, and he grabs me and plants a kiss on my lips, quick and dry, but it bursts open a wealth of longing inside me, like it did the first night he kissed me in Seattle, and he whispers, “You look beautiful.” He runs his thumb with desperation along my jaw, and tilts my chin up, kissing my lips, dry and quick again. “So damn beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off you all evening.”

Then he’s gone, and I’m once again in my room, hearing him call me beautiful, I’m so beautiful, and I’m shaking as if I’m naked and alone in the middle of a hurricane.

I cover myself with all the blankets in my bed and put my fist against my lips as though that can lock his kiss in them, and an eternity later, I hate that I’m still awake, and that I’m still trembling.

And I just don’t know what I’m going to do, but I want to make him mine more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

Even the Olympics.

Miami is not so hot

We’re flying to Miami today.

The front seating section of the plane is talking about Scorpion and the “off-ring fight” that almost ensued last night. I sit in the back bench with him, as seems to be becoming the usual, and we’ve just brought out our headphones. He has his iPod in his hand and is already searching his songs, and I’m searching mine, not sure if the song I’m choosing will be listened to by me, or by him.

In the car on our way over, he extended out his arm and whispered, “Fix my wrist for me.”

He has the thickest, most dense wrist I’ve ever seen, and as soon as I started moving it, I just knew it was an excuse to get me to touch him, for it felt perfectly mobile, which makes my pussy clench as I remember. Does he want my touch as badly as I want his?

“Put a song on for me,” he whispers now. Amazing, how one look from him can flip my heart over.

I nod, but I’m wavering between what to play. He’s searching around too, and I see him hesitate as well.

Neither of us is smiling anymore. Neither of us has smiled since yesterday. When we almost did something crazy and … wonderful.

I’m still looking for a song when he hands me his iPod and I plug my headphones in to listen, and the song that starts is Survivor’s “High on You.” It flashes me back to his first fight as I pay attention to what the lyrics say.

They play in my ear, sounding fun, upbeat, and joyful, reminding me how I stood watching him fight, and later, how the crowd crushed around us and how his hand touched mine, and how we both felt electrified…

I’m feeling so equally mischievous and frustrated, I just want to see what he’ll do if I do something crazy, so I search for a really fun older song I recently heard revived in an episode of Glee, called “Anyway You Want It,” by Journey, and I pass it over to him.

He starts listening with a smile, and when he realizes the chorus is basically saying he can get “it” any way he’d like, he lifts his eyes to mine. There’s a question inside those eyes, and his gaze jumps restlessly between my eyes and lips, eyes and lips, until it falls and stick on my lips. I lick them, and I notice his eyes grow so heavy, they seem weighted.

“Rem,” Pete calls from up front.

“He’s got headphones on, he can’t hear you,” I respond, for I could hear since my song was no longer playing.

“Jesus, stop turning him on, Brooke. Especially if you’re not going to…”

A laugh escapes me, and Remy, oblivious to what Pete just said, seems deeply absorbed with me and the music. I don’t know what his stare means, but he dips his head closer. “Play me another one,” he roughly commands, his somber blue eyes staring intently.

I hesitate for a moment, but inside, I’m bubbling with lust and mischief, so I go all out with another oldies song that seems fitting, and play, “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You,” by Heart.

The moment the chorus begins, I notice that his pupils are wildly dilated. My breath catches, and I realize by playing that song, I am basically begging the man to make love to me, to say that he will…

Anxiety about the ravenous look on his face makes me slide back on the couch as he leans forward. His gaze holds mine as he dips his dark head lower, his stare so hot, it galvanizes me.

He slides his hand around my waist and brings me a little closer to him, then he angles his head and presses his lips into my ear. I think he just kissed my ear. My nerve endings sing when he grabs his iPod and puts on music for me. He plays “Iris” again, watching me as every beat steals my breath again, and the lyrics make me want to weep.

Flooded with longing, I hold his gaze as the song plays, and his eyes are as ardent and consuming as the words I’m hearing. When the song ends, he removes my headphones and pulls off his, his breath cragged and uneven as he leans into me and kisses my ear again. “Do you want me?” he asks in a guttural voice that sends the hairs on my body up in alert.

I nod fiercely against his head, and his hands clench around my hips. He ducks into my neck and inhales me. A shudder bursts through me, and I’m awash with the sudden certainty that tonight, tonight after the first Miami fight, Remington is going to make love to me.