Katy Evans - Remy

She pulls the towel around her and angrily avoids looking at me. “I assure you that’s not happening again,” she whispers.

God, I love her. I love her sass and her spunk, and I love how she gets shy with me. Amused by her shyness when she just came for me in a way no other woman has ever come before, I bend closer to kiss her ear, my voice husky. “I’m going to make sure that it does.”

“Don’t count on it. If I wanted to have an orgasm all alone, I could have taken care of myself without giving anyone a show.” She keeps the towel to her chest as she sits up and asks, “Can I borrow a damn shirt?”

She’s so cute angry, I smile as I head over to the closet and grab one of my usual black T’s.

Her dark scowl is still in place when I come back. “This okay?” I ask, feeling possessive as fuck when she takes it and slips it on.

She still looks shy and embarrassed about it all, which I don’t want her to be.

“Come eat something with me,” I say, and I’m happy when she slides off the bed and follows me to the kitchen.

“Let’s see what Diane left you,” she mumbles as she pulls out the contents from a hot drawer and uncovers a plate, her smile mischievous. “Eggs. They must’ve been on sale tonight.”

My smile flashes, and I look at her lips, and I want them more than the eggs and more than anything in this kitchen. Watching her so she doesn’t leave, I pull out two forks from a drawer and approach her. “Come share.” Because I want to fucking feed her.

“Oh, no,” she quickly says, palms up in the air. “No more eggs for me tonight. You enjoy.”

I set the fork down and follow her to the door, catching her wrist before she leaves and telling her, “Stay.”

She holds her breath and her eyes fly up to mine.

“I’ll stay,” she firmly whispers, “when you make love to me.”

She stares at me and I stare back, battling within myself. I want her. Fuck, I want her more than anything. She has to know that. I can’t fuck it up because I’m hornier than a goddamned devil.

I won’t fuck it up because of my cock.

Sighing drearily, I hold the door open for her and place myself so that she has to brush past me to leave. Every muscle in my body contracts as she brushes past . . . and I watch her as she heads down the hall, a vision in my fucking T-shirt, giving me the bluest balls of my life.

After dinner I have to take another shower, this one cold, and when I set up our clothes to dry, I find myself sniffing her wet dress, her wet bra, and her wet, fucking, cute white panties.

For hours, I imagine charging into her room and forcing her back here with me.

I imagine stripping her, fucking her, then kissing and petting her all night until the sun appears.

And then I imagine the look on her face when I tell her I’m bipolar.

I feel like murdering something today.

Something curly haired and brown eyed. In a black fucking suit I paid for. In a tie I paid for. Wearing a fucking smile he is going to pay for.

Pete and Riley are my brothers.

I’d kill for them.

But Brooke is holding back from me, and I can’t stand watching her smile at them the way I want her to smile at me.

I hear them joke around. Laugh during breakfast, lunch. Dinner.

Now I slam the speedball, straight in the belly, while my gut hardens with anger as Pete walks with Brooke out of the house—out of my house—and they come toward me. Austin is a test to my stability. I can feel every moment of my life here choking around me, setting the wheels in my head spinning with memories that are too vague to recall clearly, but too painful to forget. This house I bought to get close to the same parents who abandoned me as a youngster. They wanted nothing of me, but like some hungry dog, it took me a while to get it in my head that they weren’t going to throw me a bone. And I kept coming and coming, somehow expecting I was going to get it.

I feel just as starved for a bone as I see Brooke coming my way with Pete.

No. I feel more starved. I feel rabid with pent-up longing for her, and my temper is in shreds. So when Pete grabs her elbows and whispers something to her, and she whispers something back, my gut roils as my jealousy corrodes me.

Oh, yeah, I feel like murdering something.

“Hey, B, you might try stretching him, his form’s not ideal. Coach thinks it’s a lower-back knot,” Riley calls out from the door of the barn.

She starts heading over, and I scowl and pound the speed bag as fast as I can. Whackwhackwhack . . .

“Coach isn’t happy with your form and Riley thinks I can help,” she tells me, watching me hit.

And I keep hitting because I’m fucking mad at her.

She belongs with me.

I want to make out with her and make her as addicted to me as anyone can be addicted to anything, and maybe when she knows the truth about me, she won’t leave.

“Remy?” she prods.

I shift my body so she doesn’t keep distracting me and keep my eyes on the ball, making it fly as I hit it madly.

“Will you let me stretch you?”

Shifting even more, I keep slamming both my fists into the belly of the bag and notice she drops an elastic band to the ground before she reaches out to me.

“Are you going to answer me, Remy?”

Her hand makes contact with my back, and a jolt runs through me. Stiffening, I drop my head and angrily wonder if Pete feels a jolt when she touches him too, then I whip around and toss my boxing gloves to the ground.

“Do you like him?” I demand.

She just looks at me blankly, so I reach out and put my taped hand on the exact spot Pete touched on her arm. “Do you like it when he touches you?”

Please say no to me.

Please say no.

There’s no word for the way she’s tormenting me. I’m trying to protect her from me. I’m trying to protect myself . . . from what could be the biggest disaster of my life.

“You have no right to me,” she says in breathless anger.

My hold tightens on her, and I growl under my breath, “You gave me rights when you came on my thigh.”

“I’m still not yours,” she shoots back at me, her cheeks red. “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?” I demand, my temper rising.

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

This appeases me.

It appeases me so much, the ice in my gut immediately morphs into lava. Dipping my thumb into the crease of her elbow, I gruffly ask, “How much do you like my touch?”

“More than I want to.”

She’s furious, but I know why she is.

Because we’re fucking killing each other being apart, and I want to end it. “Do you like it enough to let me feel you in bed tonight?” I prod.

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

“No. Not make love.” Fuck, she not only makes my cock hard, she makes life hard, period. “Just touching. In bed. Tonight. You and me. I want to make you come again.”

She surveys me in silence, and for a moment I feel her consider my proposal.

I have never before in my life seen a woman come like she comes for me.

Because she’s mine—and she’s as stubborn as they come. Fuck!

“Look, I don’t know what you’re waiting for, but I won’t be your plaything,” she says as she starts to pull herself free of me.

Grabbing her close, my voice is thick with frustration. “You’re not a game. But I need to do this my way. My way.” Before I can help myself, I bury my nose in her neck and scent her, my tongue sliding out to lick a wet path to her ear. A low groan rumbles up my chest before I seize her chin and force her to meet my gaze, silently willing her to understand. “I’m taking it slow for you. Not me.”

She shakes her head as if she doesn’t believe me. “This is growing old. Let’s just stretch you.” She walks to my back, and right now all her touch does is remind me what I want and she won’t fucking give me.

I jerk free and glower. “Don’t fucking bother. Go stretch Pete.” I wipe the sweat off my chest with a nearby towel, then ignore my boxing gloves and take up hitting the speed bag with my knuckles.

Whack, whack, whack.

“He doesn’t want me,” I hear her tell Riley as she stomps away.

I clamp my jaw and hit the bag harder.

* * *

THE AUSTIN CROWD loves me a thousand times more than my parents ever did. It’s my city. Where I should’ve been raised. Where I hear people yelling my name, telling me they love me.

But it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel like home. Not even the ring feels like home anymore. I feel fucking homeless lately. I walk around with a hole in my chest, and no matter how hard I punch, how much I train, it won’t go away.

Banners wave all over the arena. Women scream my name. Yet all I want is for Brooke Dumas to scream it. But she never does.

I take down my last opponent with a solid KO, and the screaming that follows is deafening.

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

Sweat drips down my chest, my body hot with exertion. My arm raised in victory, I glance at her to see if she’s watching. She is.

My lips curl into a smile as I point a finger at her, and I watch as a line of people start heading in her direction. Holding her gaze with an even wider smile, I point at a girl coming toward her with my red rose. Brooke’s gold eyes widen in disbelief, and my chest swells with happiness as she’s soon crowded by my fans, handing her roses.

She looks stunned, grasping each rose with an expression of consternation.

On our way back to the house, she’s trembling in her seat. I’m wound up too. There’s no way in hell she’ll be able to deny my kisses tonight.

“You were awesome, Rem!” Pete bursts out inside the car. “Man, what a great night.”

“Great fight, son,” Coach adds, his voice deep with pride. “Never broke form. Never dropped guard. Even Brooke felt the love tonight, huh, Brooke?”

Silence.

Brooke is completely silent, not looking at me, her lap filled with roses. My roses. And yet she won’t look at me.

“You totally killed it,” Riley continues.

I’ve stopped listening to the guys. The only thing I hear now is the silence coming from where Brooke sits, tense across the seat from me, with an armful of roses and completely fucking ignoring me. Frustration eats at me. Don’t all women like roses? She’s clenching her jaw and won’t even look at me, and I’m so fucking confused I want to pull my hair out.

My blood boils in my veins as I stalk into my room and step into the shower, open the cold water, and stand there, closing my eyes and reliving the way she stood there, watching the roses come at her. She’d looked surprised. But had she looked excited? Had she looked happy? This just isn’t playing out the way I’d planned. I’d planned to have her in my fucking bed tonight. Where I wanted to watch her look at me the way she does while I rammed into her panties and made her come a couple of times and gasp, Remington . . .

I’m still simmering in frustration and have just stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel when I hear the door of my bedroom slam shut.

Suddenly my senses heighten. Every pore in my body buzzes with the knowledge she’s near.

And there she is. Brooke fucking Dumas.

I drop the towel.

She’s standing inside my bedroom and looking straight at me—even after the cold shower, my cock jumps to attention.

Her gaze drops, and her face flushes red as she stomps forward with gold eyes that flash with anger and hurt. She strikes my chest repeatedly, and the pain in her voice reaches into even deeper, more vulnerable places inside me.

“Why haven’t you touched me? Why don’t you fucking take me? Am I too fat? Too plain? Do you just delight in fucking torturing me senseless or are you just plain damn mean? For your information, I’ve wanted to have sex with you since the day I went into your stupid hotel room and got hired instead!”

I react instinctively and yank her up against me while pinning her arms down. “Why’d you want to have sex with me?” I angrily demand. “To have a fucking adventure? What was I supposed to be? Your one-night fucking stand? I’m every woman’s adventure, damn you, and I don’t want to be yours. I want to be your fucking real. You get that? If I fuck you, I want you to belong to me. To be mine. I want you to give yourself to me—not fucking Riptide!”