I feel shot at from all sides with this information. Pure undiluted outrage for young Remy fills me to my core, making me sound breathless. “What kind of parents abandon their child like they did, Pete? And why on earth would they look for him now?”

Pete sighs. “Why indeed.” He shakes his head ruefully, then we spot Remington inside the open barn, hitting a speedball Coach has hung from the rafters. Looking slightly panicked, Pete instantly snatches me up by the elbow and draws me closer. “Don’t let on that you know anything about this, I beg you. He’s been in a pissed-off mood ever since he knew we were coming here. His parents drive him totally speedy too, and his temper is for shit these days.”

I nod and squeeze back his elbow. “I won’t. Thanks for the confidence.”

“Hey, B, you might try stretching him, his form’s not ideal. Coach thinks it’s a lower back knot,” Riley calls.

Nodding, I walk over, and I hear, rather than see, Remington punching the bag harder and faster with each step I take closer to him. Frankly, I’m surprised that he doesn’t stop when I stand right next to him.

“Coach isn’t happy with your form and Riley thinks I can help,” I say, and as I watch this lean, mesmerizing creature keep slamming the speedball with both rolling fists, a deep, concentrated frown on his face, I can’t help but admire what Remington has made with himself despite the rejection he faced when he was younger.

“Remy?” I prod.

He doesn’t answer, and instead shifts sideways and pounds one fist after the other in a matter of nanoseconds, making that poor bag fly.

“Will you let me stretch you?” I go on.

He tilts his body yet again and gives me all his gorgeous back, and keeps on hitting like mad. I want to touch him, especially after everything Pete told me, so I drop the elastic band at my feet, for now the last thing I want is anything between him and me.

“Are you going to answer me, Remy?” My voice drops as I step closer, reaching out with one arm.

Whack, whack, whack…

I touch his back. He stiffens, drops his head, and whips around, removes his boxing gloves, and tosses them aside. “Do you like him?” His whisper is low, his touch gentle as he reaches out and puts his taped hand right where Pete touched me. “Do you like it when he touches you?” But his eyes, dear god. They blaze into me. His hand is double the size of Pete’s and doing all things to my body.

I stare into him, butterflies exploding in my belly, and whatever it is we’re playing, I want it to go on endlessly, but I want it to stop. There’s something incredibly animal about the way he acts around me that brings out the deep-rooted instincts from within.

“You have no right to me,” I say in breathless anger.

His hand clenches. “You gave me rights when you came on my thigh.”

My cheeks burn red at the reminder. “I’m still not yours,” I shoot back. “Maybe you’re afraid I’m too much of a woman for you?”

“I asked you a question, and I want an answer. Do you fucking like it when other men touch you?” he demands.

“No, you jerkwad, I like it when you touch me!”

After my lashing outburst, he stares at my mouth as his thumb dips into the crease of my elbow. His tone goes gruff. “How much do you like my touch?”

”More than I want to,” I snap back, panting and breathless because of him.

”Do you like it enough to let me caress you in bed tonight?” he asks tersely. My skin tingles, and between my legs, I’m growing incredibly warm. His pupils are completely enlarged with hunger.

“I like it enough to let you make love to me.”

“No. Not make love.” He tightens his jaw and stares at me with tormented blue eyes. “Just touching. In bed. Tonight. You and me. I want to make you come again.” He watches me, a question in his expression. I feel his dark temper roiling underneath the surface in frustration. There’s a need in me that wants to appease it … but I can’t follow it.

I want to touch him so bad, I just can’t understand why he can resist the call and not take me. I can’t stand a night in his arms without going all the way.

Pulling free, I harden my voice. “Look, I don’t know what you’re waiting for, but I won’t be your plaything.”

He grabs me again and brings me close, ducking his head to me. “You’re not a game. But I need to do this my way. My way.” He buries his face in my neck and scents me, and his tongue flashes out to lick my ear. He groans and jerks my chin up so our eyes meet. “I’m taking it slow for you. Not me.”

My knees threaten to fold, but I somehow manage to shake my head in disagreement.

“This is growing old, and I’m quickly losing interest. Let’s just stretch you.” I go to his back, and he jerks free as if I’d sliced him with a knife.

“Don’t fucking bother. Go stretch Pete.”

He grabs his towel, swipes it over his front, then goes to punch the speed bag with his bare knuckles.

Marching out with a fierce scowl, I tell Riley, “He doesn’t want me.”

“Understatement of the century, girl,” he says, rolling his sad surfer-boy eyes.

An Adventure

The Underground simmers with energy tonight, and for the past hour I’ve quit looking for Nora among the crowd, somehow fearing the sight of me has encouraged her to go into hiding. I’m determined to make her come out, I just don’t know how I’m going to do it yet. But I’m definitely plotting.

For now, I’ve let myself be swept into the magic of the fights, and I find myself watching all the contenders more avidly than I ever have before, if only to try to see their fighting strategies in case they final and have to face Remington.

Some fight extremely dirty, and I realize there’s no one that fights like he does. Remy fights like he loves it. He has a blast up on the ring, and makes it appear like he’s a lion, and his opponent a mouse, and he’s just playing with it. He jumps up and down sometimes, and makes the crowd participate sometimes when he clinches his opponent, and then lets go and points at him as if asking, “Do you all want me to beat this asshole’s face in?”

Of course the crowd roars, and I’m all wound up, jacked up, and more, exhilarated just watching him.

When he was announced tonight, the Austin crowd went wild, most everyone present standing and hollering, and I watched with a fluttering stomach as he appeared down the pathway and climbed into the ring, and suddenly the room comes alive with him. Now banners keep waving across the room as he pounds his third opponent of the night, and he’s worn the other man so bad, it will probably end in a couple more minutes.

He’s on a roll. He’s taken out anything and everything they bring out. I haven’t really seen any of his opponents able to get a really good hit on him, his face is intact and so is his guard.

Somehow I feel that he’s proving something to this city, where he was born. I feel like he’s telling his parents with every punch that they were wrong. And it makes me privately cheer for him even more. I’m so stunned from what I learned, and I just can’t picture Remington being locked up anywhere, helpless and angry. He’s a man that is strong and primitive, who knows exactly what he wants, and it enrages me to think anyone hurt him when he was younger and more vulnerable. It makes me feel fiercely protective of him, and makes me wish I’d known him sooner, as if I could have even done something to stop it.

I hear the slam of his KO and the screaming that follows, and my heart is already skipping in my chest as the ringmaster grabs Remy’s arms and raises it.

“Our victor of the night, Remingtoooooooon Tate, your RIPTIDE!!”

His arm raised in victory, my breath holds in anticipation as I wait for what comes next. What he always does next.

He seeks me out with those blue eyes.

My body seizes the instant he swings his gaze to mine. His smile flashes, but it has an edge to it today. He’s been fighting with fierce intensity, and his smile is as equally intense, a blast of sex, and suddenly there’s nothing innocent or playful about it. He keeps his gaze trained possessively on me as his breaths continue jerking out of his powerful chest and rivulets of sweat slide down his body, and he looks as perfect as he did the first moment I laid eyes on him in Seattle.

I want him more than ever.

I’m so wet, and so desperate by what he makes me feel, I just stare back at him, not returning his smile, my eyes imploring for him to finish whatever is going on between us, whatever it is that leaps like currents of electricity between us every time we’re close. I’ve put it all out there, telling him I want him, and he continues to be as unattainable to me as a comet.

With glinting blue eyes, he points at me now, then at himself, and then at a figure approaching me in the pathway before my seat. The figure is carrying a bright red rose.

She shoves it in my line of vision. “From Remy,” the smiling young girl whispers.

Another rose follows, and a different voice proudly states, “From Remy.”

A third one falls in my hand. “From Remington.”

A fourth. “From Riptide.”

“From RT. Sorry those jerks egged you…”

“From Remy.”

My pulse is somewhere near the moon while at the same time, my bottom drops from underneath me. I stare in utter disbelief at the line of people forming before me, easily several dozen, all of them handing me red roses from him. He watches, with that dimpled smile that fairly tells me that I belong to him, and my heart aches so much I want to rip it off my chest and throw it somewhere. Word of what he did in Los Angeles must have gone out through Twitter or I don’t know how, all I know is my arms are full of roses, and they’re all from him.

From a man who fights like crazy, arouses me like no other, is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. From the man who plays me sexy music, gives me his t-shirt to sleep in, protects me as fiercely as a lion, and yet won’t take me when I’m naked and trembling in his arms.

And suddenly I can’t stand it anymore.

I don’t even glance at him when we ride back to the house. His gaze is glued to my profile, every cell in my body aware of it. I know he wants to know if I’m grateful for my roses, but my insides are so wound up, I’m simmering. All my desire for him has not been appeased, and it has morphed into the sort of anger that will probably give me a disease and kill me.

I’m shaking with it. With need. With pain. With fury.

How dare he.

Make me want him like this.

Offer me the job of my dreams, and then become the center of my very existence, until I’m ready to risk everything for him. Even my job. My family. My friends. The city where I grew up.

How dare he touch me in the shower, and kiss me like he wants to eat me for every meal until he dies! How dare he be my living breathing fantasy, come to goddamned life, and only teases and tortures me until I can’t stand it. I used to feel so damned free and happy that I didn’t have any romantic dramas. I used to hear Melanie rant and rave and I’d tell her, “Mel, he’s just a man. Chin up and onto the next.” And now I’m in knots because of one man, and my own advice is worth shit because there is no other man like him to me.