I hop down and call her over with the slow crook of one finger, and she starts over. My heart pounds with each of her steps and I swear she can’t reach me soon enough, so I meet her halfway, and the moment she’s close enough to touch, I lift her in my arms, spin her around, and crush her lips under mine.

My blood sizzles as her small body melts into my bigger one, her mouth soft and as hungry as mine.

“Go fuck that pussy!” I hear some dipshit yell. I pull free, immediately pissed off. I don’t like anyone talking about her like that. I don’t like anyone even near her. I pull her closer and into her ear whisper, “You’re mine tonight.”

Her moan makes me close my eyes, and I cup her face and take her mouth again. I can’t resist her anymore, she’s got my willpower in shreds. I take it slowly, knowing we’re being watched, but telling her the same thing over and over: “Tonight you’re mine.”

I want her now. I want everyone to leave us.

“Remy, I want you, take me!” someone shouts.

Brooke’s eyes widen, and I want to tell her the only woman I’m taking from now on is her. Instead I stroke her face with my thumbs and kiss her again. I can’t stop. She gets me high and I’ve been buzzed all day since I signed her into the room with me. She’s warm and presses into me, her mouth hungry, killing me.

“Take her to your room, Tate!”

I hold her closer and tuck a strand of loose hair behind her, then I kiss the bare curve between her neck and collarbone, nuzzling near her ear, hearing myself murmur, “Mine. Tonight.”

“So are you.” With a tenderness no one ever uses on me, Brooke cups my jaw and holds my gaze, and then I’m grabbed from behind and swung in the air.

“Remy, Remy . . .” the guys chant.

When they drop me, I head to the bar to pour some tequila shots, and a woman signals for me to come get a shot glass from between her tits. I go over, but instead of complying I grab the nearest man there and ram his face into her boobs. Then burst out laughing and return to my Brooke.

Our eyes lock. I’m going crazy and hard and I’m feeling a little “speedy”—hell, I tell myself it’s the buzz. I’ve been waiting for this, wanting this, since I saw her at the first Seattle fight, looking at me like I was some sort of god and devil at the same time.

“Come here,” I whisper, and set the glass and limes down. I suck one lime edge between my lips and bend my head to pass it to her. She opens her mouth and sucks, then I draw it away and stick out my tongue. I groan with her as we linger, but eventually hand her the forgotten shot glass.

She tosses back the liquid and I hand her the lime. When she sticks it in her mouth, I duck my head to suck the juice. She moans when I tug the lime away and replace it between her lips with my tongue.

Desire roars through me.

The empty shot glasses crash to the ground as I grab her lovely ass, lift her up, sit her down on the console, wedge between her pretty thighs, and thrust my tongue into her mouth with vengeance.

She pulls me closer as I push closer, burning inside. “You smell so good. . . .” My erection aches so bad I grind it heatedly against her so she knows what she does to me, what I’m going to give her tonight. “I want you now. I can’t wait to get rid of these people. How do you like it, Brooke? Hard? Fast?”

“Any way you want it.” Shit—I remember the song she played me on the plane, teasing me, delighting and torturing me, and my underwear is near bursting.

“Wait here, little firecracker,” I say, going for more shots.

We take more shots, and I can tell she likes it. She’s smiling at me, looking at me, at my mouth, as we kiss each other between rounds. Once again they grab me and shoot me up, and I laugh as they shout, “Who’s the man? Who’s the man?”

“You bet your asses it’s me, motherfuckers!”

Dropping me down by the bar, they push an enormous glass of beer toward me, then yell and thump their fists on the bar top as they chant, “Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton!”

“Cool down, guys,” Pete says as he approaches us.

“Who the fuck is this nerd?” one dipshit says, but I grab the dude and slam him up against the wall, scowling.

“He’s my bro, you toad. Show some fucking respect,” I snarl.

“Calm down, dude, I was only asking!”

Forcing my fingers to let go, I drop him to the ground and go back to the tequila, starting to get annoyed. Brooke waits for me, and these fucking people keep stopping me. By the time I head back around to where I left her, she’s gone.

My stomach sinks as I scan the crowd and no dark-haired goddess is waiting for me to devour her mouth again. Glowering, I stalk to where Pete stands. “Where the fuck is Brooke?”

Puzzlement crosses his face. “What do you mean? She was just here.”

Shoving the shots into his hands, I stalk down the hall and start pushing doors open. A couple is fucking on the bed of the spare bedroom. The master bedroom is empty. She’s not among the crowd. I check by the elevators and then angrily push back through the entire crowd, and Brooke. Is. Gone.

I see red. A mix of pure anger shoots through me and I grab a pillow from one of the couches and tear it open. Cotton balls explode from the tear, and I do the same with the next, and the next. Because of course she’s fucking gone! Fucking gone fucking gone fucking gone gone gone GONE GONE GONE GONE!

Soon people are screaming in panic as I grab whatever object is near me and send it crashing to the ground. “Rem! Rem!” Pete’s voice pleads through the screams, but I don’t listen. I want to kill something. I want to break something. I want to break my own fucking head against the wall!

I grab Pete by the jacket and he wiggles out of his sleeves to escape me, then he pulls off his tie and tosses it aside as if he thinks I’ll choke him next. He slowly reapproaches me, hunching like he’s approaching a rabid animal, and I hear him speaking things, but I don’t hear anything except the roaring in my ears and my own yells. “What the fuck did you tell her about me? Where the shitfuck is she?”

I grab the closest glass bottle I can find and send it crashing into the wall. More screams. Nervous laughter.

Riley is busy ushering people out of the open suite doors when a familiar voice joins from the direction of the hall.

“Out, out, out!”

I swing around. Brooke. There she is, cheeks flushed and looking concerned. Heat and relief flash through my body and I realize I have something in my hands. I toss it behind me and hear a shattering sound, then clench my fingers as I start for her. Holy god, my Brooke. I need my hands on her, I need my body in hers, my tongue on hers.

Pete grabs my arm and pulls me back with wild, pained eyes. “See, dude? She signed a contract, remember? You don’t need to destroy the hotel, man.”

My knees feel weak from the sheer insane relief I feel.

My Brooke my Brooke my Brooke is here.

As I charge for her, Pete sticks me in the neck and I feel a prick and a burn of liquid pushed into my skin. The roiling energy inside me halts and dies, my feet slow, and my vision fogs and tunnels on her. Fuck! Fuck no! No no NO!

My brain sputters one last stream of panic that she, Brooke Dumas, who looks at me like I’m a god, is watching this. My head hangs and it’s all black. Black like me. And now she will know. She will know. And she. Will. Leave.

The despair hits me so hard, I want to die right here, right now. I try to lift myself but can’t, and Pete, with his diminutive power, is struggling to prop me up against the nearest wall. The frustration I feel, and the pain that comes when all my hopes shatter over Brooke and me, is indescribable. If this whole building sat on top of me it wouldn’t even compare.

Pete maneuvers one of my arms around him, and Riley comes to drape my other arm around the back of his neck. My feet drag, and I’m burning with the shame and humiliation of not being able to pull free and stand upright on my own. Me. I’ve fought like a madman to show her I’m strong and there could be no better protector for her than me. Now I’m a pitiful mass of muscles and bones, slumping into the guys, but the last of my adrenaline, coupled with all the panic in me, still forces me to speak.

“Don’t let her see.”

“We won’t, Rem.”

I want to lift my head to try to make sure that what she’s seeing is hopefully not me, but I can’t move. It takes the energy it would take me to move a mountain just to strain out the rest of what I need to. “Just don’t let her see.”

“Yeah, man, got it,” Pete assures.

They drag me into the room and start mumbling about me maybe getting strangled in my clothes and they strip me and plop me on the bed. My mind is already tormenting me. If she saw, she’s going to leave. She will fucking leave. She’s mine, but I can’t have her. She’s fucking mine and I can’t tell her that she is, I can’t take what I want, I can’t do anything but lie here and try to stay awake, so that if she leaves, I can stop her.

“There you go, big man.”

“Don’t let her see,” I groan.

Pete grunts and so does Riley as they try centering me on the bed. “She’s all right, she won’t see anything, Rem. Hang tight, we’ll get someone to come and make you feel good,” Riley tells me.

I bury my face in my arm and know it’s not possible. I’ll never feel good.

Brooke saw me. I saw her face for a moment. I saw her wide, scared eyes, fuck me.

I hear the door close quietly after them as the blackness claims me. It’s a familiar place I’ve been in a thousand times. Sometimes I sink to it willingly, but today I ache in all the places inside me that Brooke Dumas touches with her smiles, and all I can think of is clawing my way out of here to stop her from leaving me.

THE SOUND OF clapping wakes me. The sheets rustle at my side, and this is something I don’t understand because I sure as hell am not moving. “Get your lazy asses out of bed, guys, and let’s try hitting the gym,” Riley says from the threshold.

Gym, I tell myself, even when today is one of the days when I don’t give a shit. My body feels about as flexible as a building, but I make the effort to push up on my arms—

And stop short, squinting when I spot Brooke lying next to me.

She jumps to a sit when she sees me, and all the cobwebs in my mind clear in a fucking second as I take her in.

She’s sitting like a fantasy in my bed. No. More than a fantasy. She’s fucking unreal. Gut-wrenching, ball-twisting, chest-punching beautiful. Her dark hair tumbling down her shoulders, her lips pink, her eyelids heavy and sleepy. She’s breathing fast as if she’s got on her fight-or-flight from the mere sight of me, and she wears a Disneyland T-shirt that looks so fucking old it’s screaming at me to tear it off her. The sun touches her skin and reveals a trio of freckles on her temple that I’d never seen before, and if I weren’t so sedated, I’d be tracing them with my fingers while I latched my fucking mouth onto hers.

Struggling within myself, I watch as she takes a deep breath and eases off the bed like she can’t get out of here fast enough. My heart gives a wild, helpless kick as I watch her cross the room and close the door behind her. Fuck.