He looks up at me with a devilish smile, then he reaches out and sets his headphones over my head, and I’m terribly excited when he clicks PLAY. The song starts, and penetrating, curious blue eyes stay on me, watching my reaction.

Which is melting in my seat.

And feeling my soul shudder inside me.

Because the song he chose has completely made me stop breathing.

He presses his forehead to mine as he watches me listen, and I’m so moved by this song, my hands tremble as I exchange his headphones for my earbuds and place one in my ear, and one in his, so that we both listen together.

Pressing our foreheads back together, I watch his expression as intently as he watches mine . . . and we both listen to this amazing song. Not just any song. His song.

Iris . . .

By the Goo Goo Dolls.

His gaze darkens with the same emotions burning inside me, and then he cups one side of my face in his hand. My body tightens in anticipation as he moves closer. I feel his breath bathe my face as he slowly eliminates the distance between our mouths. By the time he brushes my lips with his, I’ve already parted them and let my eyes drift shut. He brushes once, twice. Softly. Lazily. A sound escapes me, like a moan demanding he kiss me harder, but instead of hearing that, I hear this:

When everything’s meant to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

God, I can’t listen to this song without feeling eaten on the inside. I need to get as close as possible to him. As close as I can get. Head to toe, I crave him, every bit of me craves every bit of him. I tip my face up and press my lips lightly to his, eagerly sliding my fingers into his hair. Remy, oh god, kiss me harder.

He makes me wait a little more as he uses his hand to turn my head at an angle, and then, then, his lips finally lock over mine, his tongue tracing through the seam of my mouth until I open wider and gasp, electrified, when our tongues brush. I don’t hear his groan, but I feel it vibrate through his chest against my breasts, and I shudder as I touch my tongue to his and relax my mouth under the command of his. Because there’s no one I trust more, no one I drop all my walls with in the way they came tumbling down with this man. Stroking one hand up the side of my body, he sucks gently on my lower lip, and I feel the swelling heat between my legs. The hitching of my breath. The hardening of my nipples. The pulling sensation along my skin.

I didn’t even know how much I needed this kiss until right now, when all my body buzzes under his mouth, and I move my lips and use my tongue to coax his tongue back in me.

I don’t even know if Pete or Riley or anyone is watching; Iris is playing in our ears and our mouths are wet and hungry. He eases his fingers under my top as he sucks, suckles, probes, tastes. It seems impossible, but every quaking inch of my body feels pleasure merely from what his mouth does to mine.

I moan in need and bite him, and he loses a little control.

He unsnaps my seat belt and leans me over until I’m spread all over the backseat.

The music stops and another song starts, but he makes a frustrated noise when the cords get tangled between us, and he jerks our earbuds off and tosses them aside. Then he runs his eyes over my body. Suddenly, I’m no longer listening to anything except the pounding of my heart as he lowers his head again.

“Fuck, I want you,” he says, then I hear the slick sound of his mouth meeting mine once more. Heat blazes through my bloodstream as he takes over my mouth again. Tongues rubbing. Hands fondling. Breaths mixing.

Between my thighs, I’m getting so swollen, I squirm restlessly under his weight and move my mouth faster and more anxiously under his. I feel the bumps of his eight-pack under his T-shirt, and my nerves ignite as he slides the tips of his long, strong fingers under my top again.

He’s killing me. I wanted this kiss—but now I want more. Every pore, atom, and cell heats up to supernova. Our mouths move so right together, I feel alive, expanded, loved. I love, I want, I need . . . him. So freaking much. I don’t think he will ever truly know . . . how ashamed I feel for leaving . . . how I ache for the way he hurt for me . . . how determined I am to stay with him . . . how much I really love him. . . .

His thumbs find my nipples through my bra and they feel so sensitive, the merest stroke arrows a bolt of pleasure to my toes.

“Remy, we have to stop,” I gasp, panting, while I still have a couple of neurons working in my brain. But even as I say one thing, I’m clutching his muscles and the crazy-as-hell aroused part of me doesn’t even care if we do it right here, right now.

But I’m guessing he’ll go ballistic if anyone here listens to me come.

He edges back a little and drags in a long, audible breath. Then, he looks at me, his eyes on fire, and kisses me again, a little rougher. He groans softly and stops, leaning his head on mine, his breath harsh in my ear. “Play me a song,” he says in a rough murmur, pulling me up to sit.

Very aware of my swollen mouth, I grab my iPod and start browsing my playlists while trying to ignore the throbbing between my thighs. “Just give me back my brain first.”

He laughs and tweaks my nose. “Play me one of your sassy anti-love songs.”

“There’re so many, I don’t even know where to start.” I begin searching when he puts his thumb over mine and swiftly, he starts guiding me.

“I got one for you. The kind you like.”

His voice close to my ear causes pleasant little chills to rush through me. He clicks PLAY on a saucy song like the ones I like, but it’s not a girl power song at all.

It’s Kelly Clarkson’s “Dark Side.”

My insides melt when I hear the music. I love Kelly, but oh, this song. The words. Remy wants to know . . . that I will stay, that I will promise not to run away . . . ?

He looks at me again, with that cocky little smile. But his eyes are not so cocky. His eyes are questioning. He wants to know.

And when he takes my hand and laces his fingers between mine in a very boyfriend gesture that never fails to get me, I go to the ear without the earbud and tell him, “I promise. I promise, you have my heart, and you have me. You will always have me.”

There’s just no song on this earth, and no playlist big enough, to tell him that I truly love him. I love him when his eyes are black, and when his eyes are blue, and although I know—deep down—that he doesn’t believe I’m here to stay—one day, I swear one day I will make him believe me. We smile as we keep listening to this song, and when he squeezes my hand, I squeeze back, telling myself no matter what happens, I will never, ever, let go of this hand.

* * *

OUR PHOENIX HOTEL looks like something out of a drawing. The long, twenty-story adobe building spreads out prettily over a desert landscape, surrounded by blossoming cacti with flowers so ginormous and bright, I have the urge to go and touch—just to make sure they’re not plastic.

Inside the marble lobby, two teenage girls whisper and point at Remy as he passes—because of course they noticed him. You notice him like you’d notice a bull walking past you in a hotel lobby. Their gazes quickly seem to scan us—the group that came in with him—and they start checking me out next.

I lift one of my eyebrows with an amused smile, and they seem to determine that I am probably his girlfriend, but I can’t help that my stomach does crazy twisting motions of proprietorship as they give him one last up-and-down with their starved little gazes.

“Look at those two infatuated girls! He’s always drawing eyes,” Diane tells me. “It doesn’t make you jealous?”

“Extremely,” I say, wrinkling my nose in disgust at my own jealousy.

Remy glances my way and winks as he and Pete wait for the keys, and Diane elbows me with a laugh.

“Goodness, that man knows his own appeal!” she says. “But I wouldn’t be jealous, Brooke, the entire team feels the love between you two. We’ve never seen him like this over anyone. No matter how many women paraded through here, he still went back for you.”

“What do you mean?” I frown at her. “Women paraded through where?”

“Our hotel.”

“You mean recently?”

My stomach drops, and I mean, drops, when Diane’s eyes widen, and her face loses all color.

She starts shaking her head, and then . . . then she starts glancing around as if she wants to hide in a fucking flowerpot! “Brooke,” she whispers, her tone apologetic as she backs up a step. Why?

Does she think I’m going to hit her?

Do I look like I’m going to hit someone?

I don’t want to hit someone, I can barely even stand.

Everything blurs as I turn to stare at Remy’s back. Across the lobby. I think of the way he moves, like a predator taking me, when we make love. In my mind, I see his eyes, the way he watches me come for him. I imagine him thrown across a hotel bed while dozens of women pleasure him, his blue eyes—my blue eyes—watching them come apart for him too.

And then, then I think that he might not have been blue. He could have been black. Remy in his rawest form, intense and manic, as reckless as he will ever be.

Because he’s not normal. Not even close to normal. He’s not only fucking Remington “Riptide” Tate—he’s bipolar and he swings from one mood spectrum to the next. When he goes manic, he does not remember, sometimes, what he does. And the month I left, he was very, very manic. His eyes, black and mysterious, looking at me desperately from a hospital bed . . .

My insides twist until my lungs feel jammed in my throat as I remember how he tried to pull his respirator off and stop me.

Heart pounding fight or flight, I locate Riley across the lobby, and he’s scanning his phone while I vividly remember him leading a bunch of glittery, beautiful women into Remington’s suite not so long ago—to “cheer” him up when he had a black episode.

Before I can stop myself, I charge over to him like a bullet, my fists trembling at my sides. “How many whores did you bring to Remington’s bed, Riley?”

“Excuse me?” He lowers his phone in complete puzzlement.

“I asked how many . . . whores . . . you brought to his bed. Was he even aware of what he was doing to them?”

He glances at Remington’s broad back, then he grabs me by the elbow and pulls me aside to the elevator bank. “You don’t get to have an opinion, Brooke. Remember? You left! You left when he was broken in a fucking hospital bed, Pete was babysitting your sister—in drug rehab—and I could barely pick up all the pieces of what your letter . . . your fucking letter . . . did to him! Something that you will never, ever even so much as comprehend! In case you have forgotten, Rem has a mood disorder. He needed to be pulled out of the fucking dark—”

“Hey.” Remington yanks him back by the collar and makes a fist as if he’s about to lift him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Riley jerks free and glares as he retucks his tie into his stupid new Boss jacket. “I was trying to explain to Brooke, here, that things weren’t as happy as they are now when she was away.”

Remy shoves a finger into Riley’s chest. “It’s done with. You got that?”

Riley clamps his jaw, and Remington rams his finger into his chest so hard, he forces him back a step. “You got that?” he demands.

Riley nods tightly. “Yeah, I got that.”

Without another word, Remington curls his hand around the back of my neck and steers me into the elevator.

But the entire elevator ride, my insides squeeze with hurt even though I try to reason with myself that I have no right to feel this way.

Without really seeing anything ahead, I stare at our penthouse as we walk in. It’s our new home. Our hotel rooms have always been like home, but they’re not my home. My home is far away. My home is now this man. And I need to accept the fact that loving him might break me. Over and over, loving Remington is going to break me. When he’s fighting and takes more punches than I can bear, I will break. When he’s tender with me and gives me all the love I don’t feel I deserve, I will break. When he has an episode, where his eyes go black and he doesn’t remember things he said or did . . . I will break.

“You like the room, little firecracker?” His body heat envelops me as he comes up from behind and tucks me into his body with his arms. I feel warm. Protected. “Want to hit the running trail when it gets dark?”