He takes pity on me and lets my hand go, but my fingers burn at my sides, and I don’t know what to do with my hands. My head spins with his nearness. I want to take my fingers up every inch of his muscles and erase the touch of every other hand that has ever been there. I want to—

I don’t even know. I can’t think of anything now except the growing, painful throb inside my body. Inside my heart. My sex. He’s grabbed the soap and starts soaping up my naked flesh. As if doing it for the first time, he watches his hands work between my legs, his fingers curl and lather up my breasts, his thumbs rubbing soap over my nipples.

“Did you like the fight?” he asks in his quiet, deep voice as his powerful hands glide smoothly down the outside of my legs, up the inside of my thighs, rubbing my pussy. He goes around then, soaping and massaging the flesh of my ass cheeks and in between.

The pleasure of his sure, familiar touch is so complete, I bite back a moan as I watch him wash me.

One of his eyes is a little swollen, and the gash above his eyebrow still looks bright red. His plump bottom lip is still cut at the center. He’s hurt, but getting hurt is nothing to him. He wanted my attention and would do anything to get it, and even if I want to hit him for being so reckless, the urge to kiss every cut and gash is stronger than anything.

Remington has been abandoned his whole life. Parents. Teachers. Friends. Even me. Nobody has ever stuck with him long enough to show him he’s worth it. What he did, just to get me to touch him and give him some love, makes me burn to drown him with my love until he never, ever, has to ask for it.

“I refuse,” I whisper in a fervent voice, “to sit there and watch you getting hurt on purpose.”

“I refuse to let you push me away,” he says with equal fervor, filling one large, soapy hand with the weight of my breast.

Shaking my head with a frown, I let my eyes drift shut when he tilts the showerhead to my face. The spritz washes away my shampoo, and when he slides his hands down my hair to help the soap trickle down my body, I can barely keep it together.

Taking action before I lose it, I seize the soap and make lots of bubbles, then I reach out to the slick muscles of his chest and rub my soapy fingers over his hard, smooth flesh. His chest jerks at my unexpected touch, and when my eyes flick up to his, my knees almost give. All of my body clenches as I hold those starved blue eyes, my fingers rubbing wetly up his thick arm, down his chest, across his eight-pack. My voice, thick with emotion, is barely heard above the trickling water. “Is this what you wanted? When you were out there, recklessly letting yourself be hit?”

Gently, he grips my face in one hand, his voice stern and passionate as he enunciates every word. “I want you. I want you to touch me, to put your lips on mine—like before. I want you to love me. Stop fucking punishing me, Brooke. I love you.”

He presses his lips to mine, testing me with a fast, rough kiss, withdrawing to look at me with panting breaths.

His grip tightens on my face. “Is my girl going to let this break her? Is she? She’s stronger than that. . . . I know she is, and I need her to live. I need her to fight for me and I need her to fight with me. As far as I’m concerned, that never happened. Only you happened, Brooke. And you’re still happening, aren’t you, firecracker?”

Our gazes hold, and I don’t know who is hungrier, needier, or more desperate. His gaze claws into me, he looks so starved, and I feel rabid. My chest starts heaving, my heart hammering, and before I know it, my fingers push into his hair and I pull him to my lips at the same time he slams me back against the shower wall and crushes his mouth with mine.

I gasp as his taste zings through me as he forces my lips apart, sliding one of his hands up to frame my face, locking me in place as he opens me up with the force of his mouth, making me groan and claw at his scalp as I anxiously seek out his tongue with mine.

But he finds me first. No. He does not find me. He plunders me, his tongue rubbing and fucking mine. A low, pleased growl runs through his chest as he lifts me up in the air to align our mouths better. His closeness, the touch of our flesh, exhilarates me. My skin prickles where we touch as the need builds between us. I feel roped to him in a way that makes me certain that nothing can ever pull me back.

I suck hungrily on his tongue as he turns off the shower and carries us outside. He drapes a towel over me while I continue clinging, sucking his tongue, nibbling his lips, my blood rushing fast through me like an awakened river as he walks us to the bed.

He lowers me over the comforter, and he drapes the towel over my body, lightly rubbing it over my skin while he ducks his head and whispers, “Let me go get dry.”

I moan in protest when he leaves me. I’m so hot, but so wet and cold, my teeth chatter as I watch his muscled buttocks flex in the sexiest way a man’s buttocks can flex as he disappears into the bathroom. Even as every inch of my body pulses, I shakily tuck my towel tighter around me and absently dry myself, my eyes fixed on the bathroom door.

Ohmigod, I hurt like a motherfucker, too.

When he finally fills the threshold with those magnificently broad shoulders and that beautiful eight-pack, rivulets of water still slide from his hair, down his throat, to his chest and down to the towel draped around those narrow hips. My breath goes. I can see he’s run a towel over his head and his dark hair is standing up and spiked, those blue eyes shining greedily as he makes sure I’m on the bed as he left me. Suddenly all the love and painful jealousy I feel rushes through my bloodstream like lightning.

He steps in without removing his gaze from me, and I pull open my towel to watch his face harden and his eyes flash as he takes me in, completely naked.

He reaches for his towel and strips it away, and my airway constricts when I see his large erection bobbing heavily as he comes to bed and uses another towel to gently dry my wet hair.

“I’m rubbing you down with oils first,” I warn in a breathless whisper as he finishes.

Smiling devilishly, he tosses the towel aside, grabs the arnica oil I was reaching for, and tosses it onto the carpet to join it; then he brushes my wet hair back, his eyes weighted as he cups the back of my head and lowers his head to mine. “Rub my tongue with yours.”

He parts his mouth on mine, and our breaths mingle, and a delicious shiver runs through me as his lips pull me apart and our tongues flick out.

“Your lip,” I breathe, so he’s careful.

He playfully nips me and brushes my tongue with his again, rubbing a little harder and driving me insane. “Your lip,” I moan, squirming needily beneath him.

He draws back. Then, torturously slow, he caresses the backs of my legs, awakening a thousand and one tingles.

“Remington, your lip . . .” I protest when I see the cut bleeding again, and I reach out to catch a drop of blood with my finger.

“Shh . . .” His tongue flashes out, and he licks and sucks my finger; then he lets go and watches me with those violently tender blue eyes as he trails his fingers up the backs of my legs to stroke my buttocks.

My breasts rise and fall as he runs his fingers up my legs, then possessively cups my ass. “Are you turned on by this?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He slides his hands to the backs of my knees, down my calves, then slowly back up until I’m dissolving into my bones and dying.

“How turned on are you?” he asks softly, settling a kiss on my stomach.

“I have to put something on that lip again,” I breathe. A thousand flames lick my body as I sit up and reach with trembling hands for my salve and manage to press some to his cut.

He presses a kiss to my fingertip, and I close my eyes as a bolt of pleasure arrows through me. “Remy . . .” I say, melting.

“Lie back down,” he tells me. Dizzy with anticipation, I do as I’m told.

“Don’t kiss me, Remington,” I warn.

He whispers roughly, “Fix me up later.”

A shudder courses through me as he caresses my sex, briefly opening my lips with his thumb while, at the same time, he ducks to slide his tongue across the tip of one nipple.

I buck a little, mewing, and he laughs softly as he licks my other nipple, tonguing it, playing with it, before covering it with his hot, wet mouth and sucking.

He runs his hands up my body, growling, “God, Brooke. You knot me up and tear me open. You’re getting me in you now.”

“Okay,” I gasp eagerly as he spreads me wide, his erection pulsing and hard as he flattens me on my back and covers me with the heat of his body. His mouth sears my own, and I disintegrate on the mattress. We’re both wound up. I need him like I need air. The way our skins touch. The way his calluses rasp over me. The way my hands slide over his slick chest. I claw his back as he buries his face in my neck and his mouth works hungrily over me like he doesn’t know whether to kiss, bite, or lick, so he does all three.

“Who do you belong to,” he rasps urgently.

“You,” I pant.

He grabs my legs and pulls them around his hips, then pins my arms above my head, looking down at me, his eyes devouring my face, my mouth, raking me with a look that is dark, and tormented, and starving.

He curls his fingers into mine and crushes my mouth with his. This closeness to him—the tangle of our limbs, our tongues, our breaths—activates all the pleasure centers in my brain and all the mating instincts inside me. Fire streaks through my veins as our tongues rush to meet. I moan, he groans, my body tingles on every point of contact with his as he rocks his hips against me. His chest against my nipples. His cock against my sex entry. His thick, powerful leg muscles almost crushing my thighs. Our palms against each other.

My every cell knows this is my mate and prepares me for him. Just him. He lets go of me and palms my ass as we intensify the kiss, his fingers proprietary and firm, bringing me closer until we are perfectly aligned, and I tip my head back so that his tongue reaches every corner in my mouth. “Yes . . .” I gasp.

He draws back, and our eyes meet in the shadows. The need I see in his eyes takes my breath away. He is the most male and mesmerizing thing I’ve ever seen. He ducks once more to set his hot lips on mine. Wet. So, so, hot. I gasp as he slides a hand between my legs. He turns to suckle my earlobe, and I run my tongue over his skin and the stubble of his jaw, anywhere I can taste as he passes his thumb over my sex.

“Oh, that feels so right . . .” A burning rush spreads through my body when his fingers slide between my legs to caress me. My blood starts boiling, and my folds grow damper.

He murmurs my name in that thickened voice that drives me crazy and lowers his lips to my breasts, laving the tips. They feel extra sensitive today, shooting ripples of pleasure to my sex. I gasp and bite his earlobe, saying his name. I can’t say it enough. “Remy . . .”

“Go off for me,” he pleads, plunging his longest finger inside me. I thrash and clutch his shoulders as his fingers burrow into my cleft. I’m soaked, my whimpers of pleasure echoing in the room.

“Shh, baby, loosen up for me.” He slides down my body and bends to lick my belly button. He drags his tongue down my navel and then I feel him trailing it lower. I scream when he traces my clitoris. He pulls me open with his thumbs and licks into me. Pleasure rushes through me as my body tightens for release. Then I come.

I gasp as he licks me all up and am still thrashing in residual waves when he goes up to his knees between my legs, takes his cock in his hand, and feeds it into me. I see his muscles clench, his body working as he pushes himself deep. I moan when he presses my clit down with his thumb and fucks me even deeper with his big, thick cock.

Thrashing as a sound of pleasure escapes me, I tilt my hips up for more. He mutters my name and leans over to brush kisses along my face, cooing down at me, “You’re so fucking tight, baby. . . . You drive me so crazy.”

When he’s buried in me, we stop.

I hear our breaths, my own rapid heartbeat, in this stillness.

The urgency is there, pulsing and shimmering in our bodies. But he’s in me. I have him. I fucking grip him and don’t want to let go.

He doesn’t want to come out of me—he’s in me. Hard and pulsing. Completely possessing me.

We start kissing as he sinks a little farther in, his mouth primal and raw, loving but deliciously rough. I feel that familiar stretch of him inside me and bite his neck, whimpering as I adjust. He stays in place, waiting for me to start moving.