Nodding, the guy pushes the cart back toward the elevators.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

She turns around and looks at me, breathing slowly, looking at me with wide, pained eyes. “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 burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious.”

My laughter dies when she boards the elevator.

I stand there. My heart pounding for me to chase. But I’m too disbelieving to move.

The elevator closes.

And yes.

My woman. Just fucking boarded. That shit elevator. And left me here!

I grab my suitcase and toss it across the room with a yell, then I slam the door behind me and go kick the shit out of it.

“FUUCK!” Then I kick the pillow that is still on the floor, clamp my jaw and call Pete so he can give me Diane’s fucking room number.

When he answers, and I speak, I sound murderous. “Diane’s fucking room number.”

“Wh-whaaat? Shit, Rem, Riley told me about the argument . . . please just count to fucking a hundred before you do anything,” Pete says.

“The room. Now.”

“Two–four–three–eight.”

I slam the phone down and silently does as he says and count to a hundred.

I’ve got the phone in my hand by number 98, and by 99, I got my fucking finger on the numbers. I finally pound the keys, and when Diane’s voice answers I very softly, and very angrily growl, “I’m going down there for Brooke, so you can either open the door for me, or I can break it down. Your choice.”

I slam the phone and stop at the door, telling myself to breathe.

But I can barely pull the air into my lungs I’m so agitated at the thought of not sleeping with her. I’m agitated remembering she left me. She could leave me. Any. Fucking. Day. Again. Until I win this championship and make her marry me.

I’m so ready to make her my wife, my body preps me as if for a physical fight, and I’m ready to hunt and capture her. I squeeze my knuckles and focus on my breath as I head two floors down, and the instant I reach the door, Diane opens it.

Shit, but I think I wanted to break that fucking door!

“Diane,” I greet her, then I head straight for Brooke. She’s curled in a fucking ball, crying on that bed, and all my anger and frustration arrows to stiffen my cock up instantly.

Because more than jealous, more than possessive, she’s hurt.

And my body seems to think the way to make it better is to turn those sobs into moans.

God, I need to fuck her and get fucking close to her. I need to kiss her and pet her.

I need her. In. My. Room. My Bed. And my body in her.

“You,” I quietly tell her, opening my hand. “Come with me.”

“I don’t want to.” She wipes a tear.

Breathing through my nose, I try to stay calm, telling her, “You’re mine and you need me, and I want you to please come the fuck upstairs with me.”

She sniffles.

“All right, come here.” Grabbing her by the hips, I swing her up in my arms. “Good night, Diane.”

She kicks and struggles, but I clench my hold on her to still her, bending to whisper to her, “Kick and claw all you like. Scream. Hit me. Curse the fuck out of me. You won’t sleep anywhere but with me tonight.”

She’s silently angry as I head to our room, but I’m fucking angrier that she had the fucking balls to try and leave me if only for half a moment. I don’t even know why we’re fighting about this. I was amused by her jealousy, but I’m not amused anymore. I need to be inside her, and I need it now. One touch and she’ll fucking know she’s every woman to me.

Inside our room, I toss her on the bed and jerk off my T-shirt, then I reach out to get rid of her clothes. She flails and kicks at me, her face still streaked with tears as she edges back. “You asshole, don’t touch me!”

“Hey, hey, listen to me.” I trap her in my arms and hold her gaze with mine, my heart pounding as my hunter instincts kick in full gear in preparation to make her mine again. “I am insane about you. I’ve been in hell without you. In hell. Stop being ridiculous,” I tell her, meaningfully squeezing her face. “I love you. I love you. Come here.”

I haul her onto my lap, and she quietly starts crying. Every soft sob rips me in two. I remember it all. I may not remember what I did when she was gone, but I remember the emptiness of her like a curse on me. Maybe I fucked up, but all I probably did was try to fill the void she left in me which nobody can ever fucking fill but her.

“How well did you think I’d cope when you left?” I ask her, hurting like a son of a bitch at the reminder. “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.” She looks straight at me, hurt as if I did her bodily harm. “Since I met you, all I wanted was to be yours. You said you were mine. That you were my . . . my . . . Real.”

A pained groan leaves me as I squish her to me, quietly rasping, “I’m the realest fucking thing you’re ever going to have.”

She still looks up, and those hurt, tear-filled eyes of hers claw me like talons. “It should’ve been me all those times,” she says tearfully. “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.”

She sobs harder, and my chest fucking hurts for the both of us.

“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,” I quietly tell her.

Fuck. Maybe I wish I hadn’t said that, but she hurts me and she doesn’t know it. I’m strong physically but she guts me. What she does guts me, and her pain—caused by me—guts me most of all.

As she cries herself to sleep, her sobs softening gradually until all that’s left is a hiccup in her soft breaths, I breathe her hair and hold her tighter than ever. I never ever want her to leave. Not even for a night to sleep in Diane’s suite. I don’t remember what I did when she left me, I was so out of it. But it doesn’t matter, nothing mattered but that she wasn’t with me.

When she’s sound asleep, I start stripping her clothes, leaving her panties for last, pulling them down her leg and tossing everything aside. I stand up to strip myself too, then I get back in bed, naked.

I’m so fucking hard my balls hurt, but Brooke shivers in her sleep and searches for my body heat, innocently rolling in her sleep to press closer to me. “That’s right, I’m right here,” I say and wrap my arms around her. I drag my nose along her nape, petting her during the night, scenting and licking her. “I only love you. You’re mine, and I’m yours. Nobody will ever have me but you.”

* * *

SHE’S TANGLED IN bed with me two mornings later.

Yesterday morning, she was quiet and angry at me, but this morning I’ve finally appeased her, and she’s relaxed and in my arms. Her dark hair is spread behind her pillow and she’s resting on her stomach, her face buried in my chest while I at last pull in a good breath.

Hell, I felt like such an unwanted piece of shit yesterday, every breath felt like I was pulling in water. I got punched last night at the fight so she would stop ignoring me and touch me.

She wouldn’t touch me and I couldn’t fucking stand it.

She had no choice but to touch me after the fight.

She was worried about me, tending to my cut lip up to the point she realized I took the hits on purpose. Then she was all fire and anger, ordering me into the shower so she could rub me with her oils after. I like to let her think she can order me around. But not this time. I carried her into the shower with me and told her she would fucking love me if it killed us both. Jesus, I’m so fucking greedy when it comes to her.

“You coming to the gym?” I quietly ask, massaging her butt with the palm of my hand.

She doesn’t stir. Pressing against her back and scenting the back of her ear, I nip her playfully, then tongue her ear, and my cock hardens instantly, and a quick glance at the clock tells me there’s time for that. “You’re the most fuckable thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing, touching, and sucking the hell out of,” I rasp, nuzzling her.

She sighs softly. I force myself to get up and brush my teeth, then I grab my clothes from the closet and ram my legs into my sweatpants. She’s still asleep, and I’m still hard, so I set my T-shirt aside, and go back to bed to wake her.

I pull the sheet down so the cold air makes her skin pebble and I can lick all those little cold bumps on her ass. I bite one cheek, then the other, sliding my hands between her legs to cup her pussy, growling softly when my cock starts pulsing, but when she doesn’t squeal or so much as move, I frown and ease back to look at her.

Last night she was tired, and yet she still let me have her. She was languid as I fucked her, letting me turn her, suck her, finger and tongue her. She kept coming fast and hard for me every time, her eyes dewy and sleepy, watching me as I told her how good she felt, how good she smelled . . .

You’re so hard for me, I love having you in me, she breathed, half-asleep.

I want to fucking live in you, I said, again and again, as I’ve said before.

She sighed and came, and after our fight, I still couldn’t have enough, so after relaxing for an hour or two, I woke her up, scented her, and fucked her, loving how wet she was.

She’s sleeping so soundly now I can’t wake her again. Running my eyes down her curves, I make love to every inch with my eyes, then I pull the sheets and cover her back up, leaning over as I brush her dark hair behind one ear.

I press my lips to her ear, “Dream of us.” Then I pat her butt again and stand. I bounce in place a few seconds to bring the blood from my cock back to my limbs and brain, then I head out to the kitchen to find Diane already on breakfast.

Pete is already in the living room, dressed and with the car keys.

I grab a green bar and a protein shake, tell Diane to feed my girl, and then we’re off.

We’re not a block away when Pete’s phone beeps. He answers, “Yeah,” and starts listening, his smile vanishing and his face paling by the second. My instincts shift into overdrive. My heart starts kicking harder and deeper.

BROOKE.

BROOKE.

BROOKE.

Pete swerves the car around and tosses me the phone as he speeds back into the hotel driveway. Diane’s voice screeches out of the receiver before I even place it on my ear, “Get back here! Get back here please!” she begs.

I see red.

Before the car screeches to a halt, I yank open the door and charge out and into the elevator, my reflexes lightning fast. Pete slides in behind me, and neither of us says a word as I press the floor button over and over as we head up.

“REMINGTON!” Diane screams from the door when I charge out the elevator with Pete running after me. I charge past Diane and slam the door wide open only to see Brooke motionless on the floor, a puddle of water surrounding her, and soft crying sounds trembling out of her.

And there are . . . scorpions! All over her! Lightning fast, I charge over, grabbing and crushing them in my hands one by one. Stingers sink into my palms, but there’s no pain. All my senses are honed in on Brooke. The way she’s crying, the way she’s trembling, everything I see making me half mad. I toss the last scorpion aside and pull her like a man clinging to life into my arms, and she’s shaking and whimpering while I struggle to breathe through my nose, my body trembling with the need to fight and protect her, my system overloaded with adrenaline as a rage unlike any other starts bubbling in my veins.

“I got you,” I passionately hiss as I wipe her tears, squeezing her to me. “I got you. I got you.”

If I lose her, it’s over for me. I’m done.

“A woman just came and knocked! She said Remy had ordered the box for her!” Diane cries out between sobs.

I don’t hear the rest of what they’re saying. I squeeze Brooke closer to my body and bend to her little ear. “I’m going to kill him,” I angrily promise her. “I swear to god, I’m going to kill him so slowly.”