“I won’t ever be yours if you don’t take me,” she shoots back at me. “Take me! You son of a bitch, can’t you see how much I want you?”

“You don’t know me. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“Then tell me! You think I’ll leave if you tell me whatever it is you don’t want me to know?”

“I don’t think it, I know it.” I grab her face, my insides roiling painfully as I look into her hungry, frustrated gold eyes. “You’ll leave me the second it gets too steep, and you’ll leave me with nothing—when I want you like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. You’re all I think about, dream about. I get high and low and it’s all about you now, it’s not even about me anymore. I can’t sleep, can’t think, can’t concentrate worth shit anymore, and it’s all because I want to be the fucking ‘one’ for you, and as soon as you realize what I am, all I’ll be is a fucking mistake!”

“How can you be a mistake? Have you seen you? Have you seen what you do to me? You had me at hello, you fucking asshole! You make me want you until it hurts and then you won’t do shit!”

“Because I’m fucking bipolar! Manic. Violent. Depressive. I’m a fucking, ticking time bomb, and if one of my staff messes up when I get another episode, the next person I hurt can be you. I was trying to break this to you as slowly as possible so I could at least stand a chance with you. This shit has taken everything from me. Everything. My career. My family. My fucking friends. If it takes this chance with you, I don’t fucking even know what I’m going to do, but the depression will hit me so deep, I’ll probably end up killing myself!”

When I notice the shock on her face, I force myself to release her.

Holy god, why’d I just do that? Why’d I say it like that? I sound like a fuckup. I thought she would one day stomp away and slam the door? Hell, all I have to do now is count the seconds. My nerves are run ragged like wires. I haven’t slept, and everything I’ve told her is not even half of the truth. My chest is a mass of tangles as I go grab a pair of pajama bottoms, then I grab a T-shirt from the closet.

I can see her struggling with the word. Bipolar.

Manic-depressive.

Crazy fucking loon.

I give her time to process and clench my hands, the T-shirt still at my side, and I feel like a grenade is about to explode inside my chest as I watch her struggle. I’ve just shot my plan of taking it slow and proving myself to her all to fucking hell. I’d been postponing. Biding my time. Maybe I didn’t want her to know. I wanted to pretend she’d never have to know. And I could be just this normal guy with her. I’ve tried all my life not to let it define me, even when for years that was the only thing I was.

Nobody told me I was a fighter, or that I could be a friend, a son, or a companion. All the medics told me was I was bipolar.

And now she knows. She knows this is me—and I’ve lost her. Before I had her.

I’m still adjusting to the fact that she will want nothing to do with me when, one by one, she slowly flicks open the top buttons of her top. At first I’m sure my brain is fucking with me. One button pops open, then the next, revealing sweet, tanned skin, more and more skin. My pulse jumps and my throat starts closing from the force of my need. Somewhere in the room, someone speaks, and it’s probably me. I’m in denial. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it and she better get out of here before I do. “I’m take as-is,” I warn her. “I’m not medicating. It makes me feel dead and I intend to live my life alive.”

She nods.

I clench inside, right there, where my fucking heart is, as her fingers keep moving over her buttons.

“Take your clothes off, Remy.”

She flicks open her last button and parts her shirt through the middle, and my fingers spasm so hard at my side that the T-shirt I hold falls to the floor.

She’s so beautiful my eyes devour the parting of her shirt and the smooth skin she just revealed, and I still can’t believe something so beautiful and perfect would want to be with me. “You have no idea what you’re asking for,” I rasp, and I don’t know who I’m angry with. I’m just angry that I’m bipolar, and right now nothing can convince me that I’ll ever be good enough for her.

“I’m asking for you,” she counters.

“I won’t let you fucking leave me.”

She holds my gaze steadily, and my heart pounds so fast in my temples, I can barely hear her. “Maybe I won’t want to.”

My heart whams hard in hope, and I feel like it’s about to break all the ribs around it. “Give me a goddamned guarantee. I won’t let you fucking leave me, and you’re going to want to try. I’m going to be difficult and I’m going to be an ass, and sooner or later, you’re going to have fucking enough of me.”

She tosses her shirt to the floor and then pushes her skirt down her hips. She stands in a cotton bra and panties, her chest heaving, her eyes so deep and endless I feel sucked down to the pit of me. “I’ll never have enough of you, never,” she breathes.

I swear, in my life, nothing can come close to this. To the way I need her. Want her. Fucking love her. I’m being devoured on the inside with my feelings, tons of stuff I’ve never felt in my life, and a low, hungry sound rips unbidden up my throat.

She stops breathing, while I’m breathing so hard I can hear myself in the room, and I need to grab her to me so bad, I curl my fingers into fists at my sides as I speak roughly to her. “Come here then.”

She looks at me helplessly, and I wait, my heart crashing into my rib cage as I take her in, in that underwear. She’s the sexiest, hottest thing I’ve ever seen, every little muscle in her body sleek and compact, while her hips are curved like a soda bottle, her little nipples poking into her bra. When she takes the first step forward, my entire body tightens. Her pulse flutters, and my mouth waters with the need to taste her, suck her.

She stops a foot away, and I reach out and instantly tangle my hands in her hair and yank her head back, burying my nose into her neck. Her feminine scent makes me growl, and as she shudders and scents me back, I lick a wet path up her neck and engulf her in my arms. “Mine.”

“Yes, yes, yes, Remington, yes.” She fists her hands in my hair and I inhale her like a madman, then I grab her face and drag my tongue up her neck, her jaw, and lick the entry of her lips.

Hungrily, I part her open and nibble the soft flesh, making her whimper as I thrust inside. Our tongues tangle, and holy god, I swear I can feel her melt for me while I burn for her. I burn so fiercely my nerves crackle like fireworks inside me as I strip off my bottoms and her bra. I fill my hand with the flesh of one full breast and lift a puckered nipple to my mouth. I wet it with my tongue while I sift my fingers under her panties . . . and then she’s in my hand. Hot and slick. Mine.

“Tell me this is for me,” I gutturally command, teasing the tip of a finger inside her.

“It’s for you,” she gasps, then she kisses my temple and jaw as I tear off her panties with one quick yank.

Her eyes widen in pure female excitement as I lift her and swing around, slamming her back against the wall, her legs coming around me. I settle the length of my cock at her entrance and yank her arms up above her head.

“Are you mine?” I demand, sliding a hand between us and easing my middle finger inside.

“I’m yours.”

The words ripple through me as I scrape my middle finger deep inside her channel. “Do you want me inside you?” I huskily demand.

Her eyes are glazed with desire, her lips reddened and wet by me. “I want you everywhere. All over me. Inside me.”

I struggle to stay in control when I start penetrating her, slow and easy. Slow enough not to hurt her. Only to pleasure her. She whimpers as I stretch her, and as I start to pull out, she holds on to me and drops herself lower—taking all of me inside. Pleasure rips through me as her heat envelops me.

Crazed with desire, I grab her breasts and push my tongue inside her mouth, and she sucks me, drinks me. I feast on her jaw, her chin, her tasty little neck, then I duck my head and suckle one of her pretty nipples into my mouth.

“Remy,” she moans, and tightens her arms around my neck. Her strong, lithe, little thighs clench around my hips, and a bolt of pleasure shoots through my body, making me tremble as I hold still.

“Remy . . .” she pleads, rocking her hips. “Please, please . . . move.”

I groan and try not to think about how good she feels so that I can make it last, but she wants it . . . fuck, I want it more than I want to live. Slowly, I withdraw from all that wet, delicious heat, then thrust back in. A sound of pleasure tears from both of us. Her pussy ripples around me, and my cock is so ready to jet off, it takes everything in me to pull out of her snug warmth and thrust back in, and when I do, I growl and drop my forehead to hers, kissing her without control. I rasp her own name into her mouth and clench her hips as I pull out and ram back in, deep enough that every part of my cock is embedded inside her. I’m so worked up with this new rhythm, I go off violently inside her. She comes with me, and we shake and clutch each other. She twirls her little tongue up my throat as our bodies contract and unwind as we press together, and when I finally relax, I growl softly.

I’m still hard as rock and she’s still wet as fuck, so I grab her ass and keep her legs around me, carrying her to the bed. Still inside her, I set her down gently, prop a pillow under her head, and I start moving again.

Testing her first, doing it slowly, I’m wordlessly asking, You want more?

She responds with a sexy little mew as she rakes her nails down my back, and she’s stunning beneath me. A fucking wet dream looking up at me. Swollen lips. Glazed gold eyes. Flushed cheeks. Dark hair. She pants for air as I bend to force my tongue into her mouth.

“You wanted me,” I rasp, and, god, I can see that she does as she stops gasping to suck on my tongue. “Here I am.”

I claim her harder this time, plowing her so that every cell in her body is jarred by my fucking thrusts and so she knows I’m her fucking man now. She takes it so well and looks so hot as she comes, I pull out and rub my wet cock over her thighs, her abdomen, squeezing her lovely breasts in my hands and tasting her neck as I get her all sticky and wet with me.

“I’ve wanted to touch you for so long, Little Firecracker.”

I love how she likes when I play with her nipples. I love how hard and tiny they are, and how pink and responsive. Tweaking them until they look red and happy from my pinching, I grab her hips and take her again. Deep. Hard. My fingers dig into her hips, and she’s so hungry and tight, she moans my name, “Remington.”

I’m claiming her—and she’s giving it up to me with no protest. She wants to be claimed. She wants to be mine.

She is. Mine. Now.

She gasps . . . “Please, oh, god, you’re so hard, you feel so good.”

And I tell her she’s “so sweet and wet” as she grabs my buttocks and pulls me closer as she twists underneath me, and I can’t resist the way her pussy starts milking me. Her orgasm tears out a soft cry from her lips, and I release a low, ragged moan, my body clenching and releasing with her.

We collapse on the bed, and she draws my arm around her body and cuddles closer, kissing my nipple. I shift her so I lie on my back and she lies straight over me, her tight tummy against mine.

I feel like a goddamn king. I’ll never get enough of you, never. . . .

She’s the first woman I’ve ever come inside of. She fucking let me. To me, that’s code for You’re definitely my man.

Yeah, I feel fucking fantastic and I still want to bathe her in me so every inch of her beautiful skin smells of Remington Fucking Tate tonight, her man.

Shifting her, I spread her small, loose body over mine, stomach to stomach, and nuzzle her ear as I run my hands down her sweet curves. “You smell of me.” I fucking like it so much, I start sniffing her neck.

“Hmmm” comes her lazy answer.

My nose brushes against her temple as I clench her juicy ass. She sounds sleepy, but I’m too wired now to rest. “What does hmmm mean?”

“You said it first,” she saucily counters, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

My gaze trails down the curve of her jaw in the darkness as I gently tell her, “It means I want to eat you. Your little biceps. Your little triceps.” I nudge her nose with mine so she tips her head back, then I kiss her sweet mouth. “Now you.”