But I’m so fucking selfish, I still want it.

I don’t want her to lose it.

I want her, I want everything with her.

“You need to go,” she whispers, suddenly pushing me away.

Fuck, I haven’t even left and it already hurts as I breathe her in one last time and set my forehead against hers. I take her face in my hand and wipe her tears with my thumbs, rasping, “You okay, baby firecracker?”

“I will be. More than okay,” she assures.

Her phone vibrates, and she checks the message, her eyelashes wet with her tears. “Melanie is five minutes away.” Her voice cracks in the end as she turns her attention back to me. “Please go before I cry,” she begs.

I curl my fingers around the back of her neck and shut my eyes closed as I lean my head on her. “Think of me like crazy.”

“You know I will.”

I lean closer. “Now give me a kiss.”

She presses her lips to mine, and I spread out my hand on the small of her back, memorizing her, drinking her up because I’m going to be thirsty and there won’t be water for me until she’s home. With me. I feel a tear against my jaw and I lick it up from her cheek when we hear Melanie outside.

“Brookey!! Where’s the hot dad and the upcoming momma?”

I curse and take another hard, fast kiss before I go, sucking on her tongue, taking everything I can, then I ease back and survey her pink swollen mouth and beautiful wide eyes, with the dilated pupils, just for me.

“You’re everything I never knew I wanted,” I huskily whisper, tucking her hair behind her. “And all mine, remember that tidbit,” I add, forcing myself to stand. “Completely mine . . . Brooke Dumas.”

She watches me back up to the door, her chest heaving, her heart in her eyes. “I’m pregnant with your baby, if there was any doubt about whose I was,” she says, with a shaky smile.

“You’re both mine.” I point right at her. “Especially you.”

When I turn, she calls me.

“Hey! You’re mine, too.”

Nodding, I pull out my iPod and toss it straight at her. “Don’t miss me too much.”

She catches it like she just caught my soul, holding it tightly. “I won’t!” she cries, and I memorize every inch of the smile on her face. Brand it inside your fucking skull, Tate.

And I do.

It’s still in my head when I meet her friend out in the hall. “Hey, Melanie.”

She gives me the same doting look all my fans give me. “Hey, Remy.”

My eyebrows furrow. “I want to be the first to know anything. If she’s sick, if she’s lonely, if she needs me.”

She keeps nodding with that ridiculous smile. “Don’t worry, I will call you or make sure she does,” she assures, patting my chest with sparkling green eyes. “Now go.” She pats my chest again, this time flattening her palms and pushing, to no avail. “Go! You sex god! I’ll take care of your girl.”

I grab her wrists, lower them, then force myself to head to the elevator. In the car, I’m drumming my fingers on my knees. In the plane, I’m flying with my headphones at my side, but no music. She has my music now. She’s ALL. MY MUSIC.

When we land and I power up my phone, I get a message from her.

Call me tonight if you want to?

Hell, of course I fucking want to.

I’m still sweaty in the gym as I try to work out, but I grab my phone and call her, dropping down onto a bench while I suck up my Gatorade. No answer.

I call again.

No answer. After several tries, it vibrates with a text message.

My friends are still here. Maybe we should talk tomorrow?

I set my Gatorade aside to text. Same time?

Yes, any time

My thumbs are too blunt and big and I struggle to pound out Ok

Good night Remy

More struggling to write down You too.

Then I stare at the screen, but there’s no more.

I can’t sleep that night. I do sit-ups, push-ups, jump rope. I want her to marry a fucking champion, so I’ve decided I’ll be training like one. Hours later, I stop working out, sit up on the carpet, prop my arms over my knees and hang my head between them as I think of the smile I’m carrying around, branded in my head.

I take a shower and play on my iPad, beating the hell out of some guy at chess at five a.m., trying not to think how much I’m craving her. The smell of her, the feel of her, the look of her. I move my pawns and in my head I’m thrusting her and making her moan. In the morning, I’m calling the florist closest to her apartment, but it’s too early and they haven’t opened.

During breakfast, Pete and Riley study my face. “Who are you calling and calling? Let Brooke rest,” Riley says.

I sigh and put the phone down.

“Hey, look at me for a sec, Rem,” Pete says, alarm in his voice.

I lift my head, and I meet his gaze so he knows I’m not fucking black. This time my sadness doesn’t come from a chemical imbalance in my body. My sadness comes from my heart.

“Remy, here we go,” Diane says as she comes up with my breakfast, and she’s smart, that one is. She seems to sense I’m not hungry and will give her shit about the food, and she’s blended all kinds of things with egg whites in three huge glasses. I down them one by one. “Why do you keep redialing?” Pete asks, watching me. “I can do it for you, what do you need?”

“I don’t want Brooke to miss me.”

“All right, so what’s the plan?”

I drag my hands down my face and growl, “I feel like I’m breathing under fucking water without her.”

“Dude, she’s a fighter, like you. They’ll be all right. Both of them,” he stresses.

He heads over to grab my iPad to check the store number. He pats my back before he calls the florist.

“I want hundreds of roses, Pete!” I yell as he walks around the living room, talking into the receiver. “I want them all over her apartment,” I continue instructing. “All of them red. And I want every dozen to have a song so she’ll think of me. I need her to think of me.”

She does, think of me.

She calls and texts me, and I call and text her.

Every day I hear a report on what she did, how she is. The guys tell me it will get easier, but it doesn’t. It gets worse.

It doesn’t get any better until that fantastic day I finally get to go pick her up and bring her back on the circuit with me.

* * *

THE FINAL, FINALLY. My little firecracker and I made an agreement when she came back, and she better fucking stick with it. The thing is, Scorpion has blackmailed her sister back to his side too. Motherfucker.

Pete and I have planted a snitch, and we now know Scorpion had something on her, which must’ve been why she went back to that asshole. But I’m not letting Brooke step in this time. Tonight I take care of it all.

This season hasn’t been easy, but then nothing worthwhile ever is.

We’re headed down the hotel elevator, on our way to the Underground, and I’ve barely been able to shake myself out of the deepest hole in the history of my lows.

I’m trying to pump myself up for the fight with some mashups as we ride down the elevator, but though my body feels ready, my mind is with my girl. As we shuffle out of the elevator and into the hotel lobby, I grab Brooke by the hips and pull her back to me, murmuring, “In my peripherals.”

Her worried gold eyes meet mine, and I yank down my headphones.

“In your seat at all times, Brooke,” I say, while winding my fingers into her hair, then I crush her sweet, hot, delicious fucking mouth under mine. She looks dazed when I pull her back an inch, and I set my forehead on hers while I keep my eyes on her. “I adore you with every breath I take—in every ounce of me, I adore you.” Another fast, hard kiss later, I slap my favorite ass and whisper, “Watch me break him.”

I play my music while we ride to the Underground. I need to concentrate, but I’m eyeing the back of her neck, the way her breasts rise and fall, and for a moment, I forward into the future, to the way she’ll look at me when I ask her. The guys tell me everything is ready, and I just hope that she is. Ready for me. For all of me.

I’m winning tonight. Even if I have to kill for it. I’m taking it all. Everything I’ve never had, by force if I have to.

My championship, my woman, I’m winning, and when the crowd is screaming my name, I’m taking the yes out of her mouth that I want.

When we reach the Underground, I keep my headphones on my head as I watch Brooke head to her seat. She ducks her head and spreads her hand over the mound of her little round stomach as she follows Pete, avoiding looking at me. God, she stirs up all my protective instincts and then some.

She’s nervous.

I don’t want her to be.

The last time she saw me in a final, Scorpion broke me. This time I want her to watch me break him. I want her to be proud. I want her to be proud of being with me.

I wait in the locker room—no other fighters here tonight. Just Coach, Riley, and me. They’re arguing about something. I can see the tendons popping out of their necks while Coach tapes up my hands. I know it’s hard for them to trust me when I’m pulling out of a swing. Maybe they think I’ll do what I did last season.

No shit I’m getting Brooke’s sister back again. But this time I’m the one who fucks Scorpion in every damn hole of his body. I get the girl, the championship, rescue the sister, and break the blackmailing motherfucker. All of which he can watch from his prime spot inside the ring—with me.

I turn up my music and tune into the rhythm of my heartbeat, the hard, steady pump of my blood reaching every inch of my muscles. I do a mental check, head to toe. Nothing hurts. I study my taped hands and squeeze my fists, popping out my knuckles. Every part of me is ready to fight.

I’ve been a sad, depressed fuck for weeks. Wondering if I’m good enough for Brooke, for our baby.

Tonight, I’ll prove to myself that I am worthy.

Despite what every other person in my life has thought about me.

I stop my iPod when I see Riley lift two fingers in the air. Pulling off my headphones, I set them aside and stand to jump in place when I hear the voice out in the arena.

“Ladies and gentlemen, hello! Well, here we are this evening with you all! Are you people ready? Are you all READY for a fight unlike any other? Unlike ANY OTHER, people! Ringmaster?”

There’s silence.

Breathing as I warm up, I twist my neck to each side, then forward and back.

“Sir, we won’t need your services tonight,” the announcer says.

The crowd lets loose a roar.

“That’s right!” the announcer joins them as he keeps on yelling. “Tonight, there are NO rules, NO ringmaster. Anything goes. ANYTHING GOES, PEOPLE! No knockouts—this is a fight of submission. Submit!”

“Or die!!” the crowd screams.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Yes! It’s a submission fight here tonight in the Underground! Now, let’s call your worst nightmare into the ring! The man your daughters cry about. The man you want to run from. The man you certainly don’t want to be up in the ring with. Our defending champion, Benny, the Blaaaack, Scorpionnnnnn!”

I keep jumping in place and pumping out my arms, keeping my shoulders loose and my core tight.

“Booooo!” the crowd yells outside. “BOOOOO!!”

A few feet away, Riley stretches out my RIPTIDE robe, and I step up and ram my arms into the sleeves, tying it loosely around me.

“And challenging our champion tonight, we all know his name! We are all waiting to see if he’s gonna bring it to this ring tonight. So . . . is he? Get rrrready to welcome the one and only Remingtooooooon Tate, yourrr Riiiiiptide!!”

I charge out the walkway to the instant chant of the crowd.

“Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton!”

The color red streaks across the arena as the fans stand to greet me. “Remyyyyy, kill him, Remyyyy!”

“Go, Rrrrrriptide!”

I leap into the ring and take off my robe, then I look around with a smile, sucking it all in, my fans’ faces full of expectation, the way the arena looks in this season’s final.

I will not fail.

I stretch my arms out and do my turn so that they can keep on screaming like they like to, feeding me, and the noise heightens as I start slowly turning around.

That’s right, I’m going to break him tonight, and it’s all for . . .

My eyes spot her, and I smile.