Mine (Real, #2)(67)
The silence becomes oppressive, as if Riptide has stopped smiling and now everyone knows something’s going on.
I can feel his eyes boring into the top of my head. And I know that when I look up, all I will see is that red. Lipstick. On his beautiful face. Like the lipstick I smeared him with once, but that belongs to someone else today. Maybe one of the f*cking whores he f*cked when I was gone. God.
“Brooke, Jesus, what the hell?” Pete elbows me. “Do you want him to f*ck up tonight?”
I shake my head and force myself to look at him.
He’s staring at me with a look of complete wildness and anxiety. His legs are braced apart, his jaw tight and his stance defensive, and I can tell he senses there’s something wrong with me, because his hands are fists at his sides and he looks ready to jump and come get me.
I hold his gaze proudly, because I don’t even want him to know how hurt I am, but when he smiles at me, I just can’t smile back.
His smile fades.
His eyes flash with hurt as he curls his fingers into his hands and the wildness in his expression almost claws into me, but I feel equally wild, and this time, I just can’t appease him I am so f*cking hurt, and angry, and jealous, and pregnant.
Vaguely, I remember there were times when I sat on these sidelines, wishing that magnificent raw beast up there were mine. And this moment I sit here, pregnant with his baby, hurting because some woman, or women, kissed and touched what I feel is mine, and suddenly I want what I had before. I want to be just a girl, just wanting a job. Simple. Simple goals and a simple life. But no. I can’t have that now. Because I am more in love with Remington Tate than I ever thought possible. And he is as elusive as a falling star, one that nobody will ever really catch, and if you catch him, he will only burn right through you.
Like he burns into me right now, right in the center of my chest, my love for him corroding me.
Unable to look into his dark eyes any longer, I force my gaze away to watch his opponent take the ring, and my eyes slide over but quickly return, to the tattoo of a dark, elegant curled B on Remington’s right bicep.
My heart stutters in disbelief. Staring at the inky design in confusion, I realize that yes, it’s right there, on his right bicep: a perfect, beautiful B.
It does something crazy to me. My poor panties suddenly feel soaked, and I start to throb.
Remington turns to his opponent, and I see his lips curl cockily when he spares a look at the fighter he goes up against, someone young and jumpy, clearly too eager to get started.
They tap gloves, and Remington looks at me. Then, without smiling, he meaningfully flexes his bicep with the B and kisses it so that I see. A furious, hot little ripple runs down my sex, and I clench my legs together.
His smile flashes, as if he knows he makes me wet and I can’t help myself.
The bell rings.
“When did he get that tattoo?” I ask under my breath. I can’t stop staring at the mark.
“Right after we left Seattle,” Pete tells me.
Remington goes toe-to-toe with the “eager young buck” as Pete called him, and immediately slams him; then he backs out and feints, making the new fighter come after him. The buck swings and fails, and Remington comes back with a powerful one-two punch that launches the man back like a cannon blast. The guy bounces on the ropes, and then falls facedown on the mat.
“Oooooooooo!” the public says.
“Ouch, that must’ve hurt,” says Pete, but he’s grinning while behind me, someone yells, “That’s what you get when you go up against Riptide, sucker!”
No matter what’s going through my head, watching Remington fight is such a thrilling experience that, inside me, all my muscles brace as if I were the one fighting.
The other guy gets up, and Remington hits him again, his punches precise and powerful, his body moving sinuously, the sexy black B on his bicep rippling as that muscle hardens in action. I’m a mess of emotions as the fight progresses, and a drop of perspiration slides between my breasts.
My body temperature seems higher with the pregnancy, but watching my baby’s father up there—a master of complete disaster, with that tattoo screaming to the world that he is mine, but at the same time kissed by some other bitches—makes me possessive and angry. I feel like a volcano.
After Remington knocks the young buck down permanently for the night, fighter after fighter is brought out to challenge him. He rams them so hard they bounce on the ropes, drop on their sides, face-forward, or onto their knees, all of them shaking their heads in consternation like their brains are shuddering inside them.
He’s unstoppable.
Pete laughs at my side. “It never ceases to amaze me how much that man likes to SHOW THE FUCK OFF WHEN YOU WATCH HIM!”
I shake my head in disbelief, and Pete nods somberly. “Seriously. The difference in his blood work when he’s exposed to you—the way you alter his chemistry and bring out all his testosterone, bring his fighter’s instincts to life—it’s incredible. Did you know men’s testosterone rises when they see a new attractive female? His doesn’t. It just goes through the roof when he sees you—his female.”
Pete’s words kill me. Remington always seems to want to prove to me that he is the strongest male in the world and the one who will protect me—and oh, yes, do I believe him.
He takes on a fourth fighter and then a fifth, his body a bulldozer of sex and strength as he pounds them down, one after the other, those dark eyes checking me out—in my seat—making sure I’m watching him. Every look he sends my way, I ache a little more inside me, get a little more angry and embarrassingly horny, until my sex is so swollen and my hands so tightly curled on my lap, I don’t know what I want to do most: f*ck him or slap him.