His lips graze the curve between my neck and collarbone, and the feather-touch sends a painful little ripple to my heart. I feel as if I’ve swallowed the entire garden full of searing-hot cacti as I pull up the collar of my shirt and turn.

“Did you fuck other women?”

Our eyes meet, and a familiar shiver of awareness runs through me as I stare into his face. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what he’s thinking.

“I realize I have no right to ask you.” I search deep into his blue eyes, and they search me back with equal intensity. “We broke up, right? It was the end of it. But . . . did you?”

I wait, and his eyes begin to twinkle.

He. Is. Actually. Grinning!

“It matters to you?” he asks cockily, one eyebrow high. “If I slept with anyone?”

The rage and jealousy bubble up inside me so fast, I grab a couch pillow and slam it into his chest as I explode. “What do you think, you fucking jerk?”

He grabs the pillow and easily discards it. “Tell me how much it matters.” The sparkle of mischief in his eyes only makes me grit my teeth harder, and I shoot another pillow his way.

“Tell me!”

“Why?” He deflects the pillow and comes after me as I start backing off, his smile full of amusement. “You left me, little firecracker. You left me with a sweet letter telling me, very nicely, to go fuck myself and to have a nice life.”

“No! I left you with a letter that told you I loved you! Something you hadn’t told me until I came back to you and begged you to tell me.”

“You’re so fucking cute like this. Come here.” He grabs the back of my head and pulls me into his arms, and it takes all my force to yank free.

“Remington. You’re laughing at me!” I cry wretchedly.

“I said come here.” He gathers me back into his arms, and I twist my head and shudder as I try to squirm free.

“Remy, tell me! Please tell me, what did you do?” I beg.

He pins me to the wall and sets his forehead on mine, his gaze completely territorial. “I like that you’re jealous. Is it because you love me? Do you feel proprietary of me?”

“Let go,” I breathe angrily.

He lifts one large, tan hand and cups my face so, so gently, I could be glass. “I do. I feel completely proprietary of you. You’re mine. I’m not letting you go.”

“You said no to me,” I breathe, blazing with hurt inside. “For months and months. I was dying for you. I was going crazy. I . . . came . . . like a fucking idiot! On your fucking leg! You withheld yourself from me until I was . . . dying a little inside with wanting you. You’ve got more willpower than Zeus! But the first women they bring to your door . . . the moment I’m gone, the first whores they happened to bring you . . .”

His smile remains on his face, but the light in his eyes has dimmed, and now there’s a fierce intensity in his stare. “What would you have done if you were here? Stopped it?”

“Yes!”

“But where were you?”

My breath comes in jerks.

He lowers his head and looks deep into my eyes, now curious. “Where were you, Brooke?” One big, warm hand curls around my throat, and he strokes his thumb across my pulse point.

“I was broken,” I cry in a mix of anger and pain. “You broke me.”

“No. You. Your letter. Broke me.” The laughter has faded from his gaze as he runs the pad of his thumb up my throat then runs it, lovingly, along the curve of my jaw then finally trails it, like a feather, softly across my lips. “What does it matter if I had to kiss a thousand lips to forget these?”

There’s a knock on the door, but our warring energies are locked like missiles on their targets. He’s too busy caging me in with his arms, and I’m too busy having my heart broken inside me, loathing that I’m the actual wielder of the axe, because we’d broken up. I know he needs sex when he’s manic. I know I left. I had no right to Remington or anything he did or said.

So I broke my own heart when I left, and now the reality of what happened when I left is coming back and continuing to break it. And here I am, with a huge lump in my throat and exhaling as hard as a fire-breathing dragon.

He eases back to open the door and pull inside one of the suitcases a bellman is standing there with. As I try to pass, he grabs the back of my shirt and says, “Come here, settle down now.”

I push his hand away and don’t know if I want to let him settle me down or not. I’m being irrational. I broke up. I left. The one I’m angry with right now, the one I want to hit right now, is me. My insides wrench with pain as we hold each other’s gaze. I wipe a tear as I head to the open door, where Remington continues pulling the rest of our things inside.

I know I caused all this. Because I thought I was strong and had tried to protect myself, and so I hurt me, and I hurt him and a whole shitload of people, because I was strong and thought I could protect him and my sister—and I fucked everyone instead. But I’m so wounded inside, I just want to lock myself up somewhere and have a good, long cry. I imagine the glittery whores coming into this hotel room when he wasn’t even in his full senses, and I know I’m going to vomit.

I tell the bellman, “Thank you. Would you send this duffel with that other suitcase to the other room?”

The guy pushes the cart back toward the elevator bank and nods.

“Where are you going?” Remington asks as I step into the hallway.

I drag in a breath and turn. “I want to sleep with Diane tonight. I don’t feel so well and I’d rather we talk about it when I . . . when I . . . am settled down,” I say with a closed throat.

He laughs. “You can’t be serious.”

When I go over to the elevator and press the CALL button, his laughter quickly fades.

When I board with the bellman, I’m holding it in, my vomit and my tears. The young guy smiles at me and asks, “First time at this hotel?”

I nod and swallow.

As soon as I arrive at Diane’s room, I burst out crying. She brings the suitcases inside and shuts the door. “Brooke, I didn’t mean to cause trouble! I thought you knew. The groupies and women—it’s always been like this except when you’re around. I’m so sorry.”

“Diane, I broke up with him! Yes! I understand it’s all my fault. Everything is all my fault. Even him losing the championship.”

“Brooke,” Diane tries to console as she sits me on the bed. “They came and went. It wasn’t . . .”

I wipe my tears and sniffle, but my misery feels like a steel weight. “He lived like that before I came into the picture. I don’t know what I expected when I left. I thought it would take him a little time to get back on the horse, you know? But I know that being helpless and moping around isn’t Remington. He would’ve been . . .”

Reckless. Manic. Or causing trouble. Or breaking things. But what if he was low and feeling down? I left him to bear it alone, and for Pete and Riley to handle it the way they always have. Fresh tears stream out of me.

“Go on,” Diane encourages me. I wince when I hear the room phone. “Yes, Remington,” she whispers into the receiver and then hangs up.

“He’s on his way here. He wants me to open the door, or he’s crashing it.”

“I don’t want to see him like this,” I cry, sniffling and grabbing a tissue as if I can hide the fact I’m crying like a baby here.

I feel him approaching like a tornado as Diane swings the door open.

“Diane,” he says in a low murmur, then he cuts across the room straight to where I’m curled in a ball on the bed.

His eyes are dark blue with emotion. “You,” he says, opening his hand. “Come with me.”

“I don’t want to,” I say, wiping a stray tear.

His nostrils flare and I can see he’s having trouble controlling himself. “You’re mine and you need me, and I want you to please come the fuck upstairs with me.”

I duck my head and wipe a tear.

I sniffle.

“All right, come here.” He swings me up in his arms. “Good night, Diane.”

I kick, and he grabs me to him and squeezes me as he speaks in my ear, “Kick and claw all you like. Scream. Hit me. Curse the fuck out of me. You won’t sleep anywhere but with me tonight.”

He carries me into the elevator and then into our room. He kicks the door shut, drops me on the bed, and jerks off his T-shirt. His muscles bulge with the powerful movement, and I see every glorious inch of that beautiful skin—skin that some other women touched and kissed and licked, and a rush of new jealousy and insecurity knifes through me. I scream like crazy and kick when he reaches out and starts stripping me. “You asshole, don’t touch me!”

“Hey, hey, listen to me.” He traps me with his arms and his gaze. “I am insane about you. I’ve been in hell without you. In hell. Stop being ridiculous,” he says, squeezing my face. “I love you. I love you. Come here.”

He gathers me onto his lap. I didn’t expect his gentleness, I expected a fight so I could vent, but he disarms me, and instead I bawl in his arms as he holds me, his lips open on the back of my ear, his voice soft but firm and regretful. “How well did you think I’d cope when you left? Did you think it would be easy on me? That I wouldn’t feel alone? Betrayed? Fucking lied to? Used? Discarded? Worthless? Dead? Did you think there wouldn’t be days where I loathed you more than I loved you for tearing me apart? Did you?”

“I’ve left everything for you,” I cry, so hurt I have my own arms curled around myself as I physically struggle to hold myself together. “Since I met you, all I wanted was to be yours. You said you were mine. That you were my . . . my . . . Real.”

He groans softly and squeezes me hard against him. “I’m the realest fucking thing you’re ever going to have.”

My tears keep streaming as I look into his eyes, and they are so beautiful, Remington’s eyes. They are blue and tender, the eyes that see straight through me, the eyes that know everything about me, and they are no longer laughing and instead reflect a little bit of the pain I feel. I can’t look at them anymore and I cover my face as new sobs overtake me.

“It should’ve been me all those times,” I say. “It should’ve been just me, only me.”

“Then don’t fucking tell me you love me and leave me. Don’t fucking beg me to make you mine and then run the first chance I’m not fucking looking. I couldn’t even come catch you. Is that fair to me? Is it? I couldn’t even get up on my own fucking legs and come stop you.”

I sob harder.

“I woke up to read your letter instead of getting to see you. You were all I wanted to see. All. I wanted. To see.”

His words are so painful to hear, I can’t even talk through my tears.

I think I cry myself to sleep on his lap, and when I wake up in the middle of the night, my eyes and head hurt from crying. I’m naked. I realize he’s stripped me like he always does, and his skin is hot against mine, and his nose is in the crook of my neck and shoulder, and I feel his arms around me and I curl closer even when it hurts. We’re the object of each other’s hurt and each other’s solace. He pulls me closer, and I hear him scent me as if it’s the last whiff of me he’ll ever take, and before I know it, I scent him back just as fiercely.

FOUR

PHOENIX RISING

I feel like shit the next day, but then I hear Remington murmur, as we quietly have breakfast, “Run with me to the gym?”

I nod.

He seems to be watching me like he can’t figure out what to do with a detonated grenade. I’m trying to figure out what to do with myself too. I have never felt so consumed with jealousy and hurt, anger and self-loathing in my life. I’m so nauseous I don’t even eat, just sip an orange juice, and then I slip into my running pants and tennis shoes, and try not to barf when I brush my teeth.

Arizona today is an inferno of heat, and on the trail outside our hotel, I pull on my cap and quietly stretch my quads, trying to concentrate on the second thing I love most in the world after Remington: running. I know it’s going to make me feel good—if not good, then at least better.

We haven’t talked about it.

We haven’t kissed.

We haven’t touched.

Since I bawled like an idiot in his arms last night. When I woke he was looking out the window, his profile unreadable, and when he turned, as if sensing me, I had to close my eyes because I’m just afraid that if he’s gentle with me I’ll break again.