Mine (Real, #2)(21)
My heart squeezes when I look at him. I take a roasted cauliflower floret between two fingers as a peace offering and lift it to his lips, feeding it to him.
Eyes glinting, he takes it all in his mouth, including part of my fingers, licking them. He’s still feasting on my fingers when he follows suit and grabs a piece of cauliflower and feeds it to me, and as all the herb flavors and olive oil melt in my mouth, I suck on his fingers too. I love the way his eyes flash when I do that.
“I love you, but don’t ever let them punch you on purpose like you did tonight,” I tell him in a raw, emotional voice, rubbing my wet fingertips over his lips, feeling them move under my touch at his gruff whispered, “I won’t until you make me.”
FIVE
A PRESENT
Sunlight steals through the window. Remington isn’t in bed. I twist to scan our cute little cottage but can’t see him anywhere. I force myself to slide out of bed and hop into my track pants, then my sports bra and top.
After freshening up, I grab my sneakers and pad out barefoot to find Diane in the kitchen. “Good morning, Brooke,” she says merrily. I love how she travels with her aprons and gives every one of our hotel rooms such a cozy ambience.
She even travels with her green ceramic pans—ones that don’t shed aluminum, so Remington’s food is completely pure.
“Hmm, it smells divine,” I say as I wander around in search of breakfast.
“Dive in. The big man asked me to set a ton aside for you.”
I lift a bowl of sweet potato hash and munch. “What time did he leave?”
“Pete came and got him a couple of minutes ago.”
“Pete? Not Riley? What gym did he go to?” There’s a knock on the door, and I lick the coconut oil Diane used to cook the hash from my fingers as I go to open it.
“Brooke Dumas?”
A woman stands holding a medium-size box wrapped in red paper but without a bow. “Yes?”
Her smile widens. “Mr. Tate ordered this for you.” She hands me the huge box, and I stare in disbelief.
“Remington sent me this?” I ask stupidly.
“Yes, miss. Enjoy.” I kick the door shut as she leaves, my hands full of the big box of surprise Remington sent me.
Ohmigod. He’s completely unexpected. He not only seduces me with music, with his blue devil eyes, with his spiky hair, with his dimples and his delicious f*cking smell, he gets me presents?
I immediately tear the box open and discard the top, and I see lots of white packing peanuts inside. I stick my hand among the bubblelike shapes and feel a bunch of tickles running up my finger. Frowning, I take my hand out, and three enormous scorpions come out attached to it.
For a moment, everything is in slow motion.
Everything.
I can see the insects perfectly moving up my arm. I can see the long, segmented tails. The claw on the tail’s tip, the two claws up front, and the eight legs moving on my forearm. I also dazedly register three black dots on each of their heads, as if they have three eyes. Do scorpions have three eyes?
Everything, I register.
In half a second.
And then, in the very next second, I register something else. That this is one of the most WHAT-THE-FUCK MOMENTS OF MY LIFE.
I fall back and kick the box. A dozen or more scorpions come crawling out as I try shaking off the ones already on me. My heart has flown up to my throat and now it’s constricting my airway as it flutters and pounds in my pure building hysteria.
“HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! DIANE!”
I have scorpions. Scorpions. Crawling. Up my f*cking arm! They are huge, half the size of my palm, each with eight legs. Seriously? Only eight legs? I feel a thousand legs on me. I feel legs on every inch and centimeter of my skin. I start convulsing and shaking like crazy on the floor, screaming when I feel my first sting on my forearm. “OH MY GOD, DIANE!!”
Suddenly I feel a fourth one crawling up my ankle and I notice that all this time, Diane has been screaming hysterically. “Brooke! Oh my god! Somebody do something!”
“GET THEM OFF ME, DIANE!! GET THEM OFF!”
I don’t know why I am yelling frantically as if that will scare them away. Afraid to touch them with my hand, I’m instead twisting and squirming on the floor when a bucket of water crashes upon me. I suck in my breath as I watch Diane rush back to the kitchen, fill another pan full of water, and throw it at me. But the scorpions are hanging on.
I reach for one and try to push it off me, and its tail snaps at me. The stinger hits my thumb. Instant pain shoots into me as the others keep crawling. Crawling. On me. I don’t know if these animals have been drugged or starved or given something to alter them. They are almost crawling on me like spiders, fast and frantic over me. One swings its tail and sticks its stinger into the skin of my forearm. Then it sticks a second stinger into me. Pain shoots through me. I feel another sting up on my arm, and then I stop squirming and freeze. Fight or flight is full force in me. But I can’t run, and I can’t fight, and now I freeze, my body paralyzed in fear while all my organs go wild at the threat these things pose to me. All my fear rushes to the forefront, and I start crying helplessly.
I’m on the floor, sobbing, the only thing moving on me is the awful legs belonging to these awful creatures, when I hear Diane screaming tremulously into the phone, “Get back here! Get back here please!” She keeps repeating the same thing, over and over, when she suddenly swings the door open and screams out into the hall, “REMINGTON!”