Remy (4 page)

“Yes.”

The hands on my back and shoulders become annoying, and I roll my shoulders to jerk them off. “Leave me,” I command the women.

The women head out—and she’s alone with me. In my suite. My bedroom. Inches from my bed. Inches from
me.

Once again, I’m hard as stone. I remember she’d been sitting with two women and a man who seemed protective of her.
Yeah, thanks for protecting her, dude, but I’m taking it from here.

“The man you’re with . . . Is he your boyfriend?”

Amusement sparks in her eyes and I think I see a slight curl to the corners of her lips. “No, he’s just a friend.”

“No husband?” I keep prodding. Possessively, I study her ring finger and see how slim and delicate her hands look.

“No husband, not at all.”

The air is static. My entire body is ready to fuck her. Just being near her feels sexual. “You interned at a private school rehabbing their young athletes?”

She looks surprised, her eyes sparking with curiosity and disbelief. “You looked me up?”

“Actually,
we
did.” Pete and Riley come into the room, and her attention swings away from me. But mine doesn’t shift. I know what they’re going to say already. I told them what, exactly, they would propose today.

She looks so surprised that I smile inside, even as my insides go tense. I don’t want her to say no. She surprised me today, denying she liked my fight. If she says no to this too, I’m not going to take it so well.

The tension escalates when she frowns after Pete’s explanation that I want her to travel with me from site to site. I don’t like the way her eyes darken.

“What is it, exactly, that you think I do? I’m not an escort,” she says.

Okay, so she doesn’t look as excited about the job as I’d thought she would be. Wary, I settle back down on the bench seat and watch her, torn between amusement and frustration at the way things are developing. Both Pete and Riley burst out laughing at her comment; I don’t.

“You’re onto us, Miss Dumas. Yes, I admit when we’re traveling, we find it convenient to keep one or several special friends of Mr. Tate’s to, shall we say, accommodate his needs either before or after a fight,” Pete laughingly explains.

Her left eyebrow shoots up and now I want to laugh at how these idiots paint me. But, hell, if she thinks my being friendly with the ladies is something bad, then wait until she hears about the worst part of me.

Suddenly, this whole scene is just not amusing at all. If I go manic before I can ever get close to her, I’ll be completely fucked. But I also can’t just take her to bed and let her go; I don’t want to let this one go.

“A man like Remington has very particular requirements, as you might guess, Miss Dumas,” Riley tells her. “But he’s been very specific in the fact that he’s no longer interested in the friends we had secured for him during our trip. He wants to focus on what’s important, and instead, he wants you to come work for him.”

She glances at Riley, then Pete, and then at me, and she looks puzzled, which is cute.

Pete flips through the folders. “You interned at the Military Academy of Seattle in sports rehab for their middle graders, and we see you’ve graduated only two weeks ago. We’re prepared to hire your services, which will cover the duration of our eight cities we have left to tour, and Mr. Tate’s continued conditioning for future competitions. We will be very generous with your salary. It’s very prestigious to tend to such a followed athlete and should be impressive in any résumé. It might even allow you to be a free agent if in the future you decide to leave.”

She blinks and seems completely disconcerted. “I’ll have to think about it. I’m not really looking for something away from Seattle long term.”

She glances at me, somehow hesitantly and even confused. “Now if that’s all you wanted to say to me, I’d better get home. I’ll leave my card on your bar.” She swings around and heads for the door.

For a moment, I stare at her retreating back, disappointed as fuck.

I’ve been planning this for days. I’ve been wondering what it would be like to have her with me every day. I’ve been stone-hard to the point of pain imagining what her hands on me will feel like. . . .

“Answer me now,” I say, my voice harsher than I anticipated.

“What?” She pivots around in surprise, and I pin her down with my eyes and silently will her to fucking understand that I’m trying to do a good thing here, to get to know someone—to get to know
her
—and I don’t want her pissing on it like it’s nothing. Like I’m used to doing this sort of shit for anyone.

“I’ve offered you a job, and I want an answer.”

A leaden silence descends.

She stares at me, and I stare back just as fiercely, the air charged around us.

I’ve wanted nothing but to kiss her since the first night I saw her. I only gave her a peck, just so she knew I was going to have her. Now I wish I’d stuck my tongue inside so I could have appeased this wild craving to know what she tastes like. I want to know
all of her
, every scarred little piece of her knee, to the perfect contours of her face, to the way she thinks. And whether she wants to or not, I want her to know
me.

She seems to drag a breath for courage before she starts nodding. “I’ll work with you for the three months you have left to tour, if you include room and board and my transportation, guarantee me references for my next job application, and let me promote the fact that I’ve worked with you with my future clients.”

Her answer takes me aback, and when she swings around to leave, I quickly stop her by saying, “All right.” When she turns, I glance at the guys. “But I want it on paper she’s not leaving until the tour is over.”

I get up and head over to her.

She watches me approach with those alarmed doe eyes again; they are soft as a deer’s, but far prettier. Her breasts rise and fall, and I like that she knows. She knows something is going on here. She’s confused that I didn’t pursue her like she’d thought, but that is all right. Because my pursuit will be slower now, and deeper, so that in the end I can take her, fast and hard, like I’m used to taking everything in my life by force. But she’s so special, I want to reach the very core of her being before she’s mine. And when I’m there, and she’s soft and yielding to me, I’m not going to let her go.

Holding her gold gaze, I squeeze her hand gently, whispering, “We have a deal, Brooke.”

There’s an image in my head of Pete and Riley arriving at the airport without Brooke Dumas, and I don’t like it. Pacing the length of my jet, up and down, I ram my hands into my jeans and peer out the window, but there’s still no Pete or Riley or Brooke Dumas.

I pull my hands out and crack my knuckles.

“Save it for the ring, boy,” Coach grumbles, flipping through a sports magazine, and I flex my fingers and inhale deeply. I need to train. I’ve needed to train longer, harder lately. I’m horny as fuck and just thinking about her gives me a hard-on.

From the bar, I grab a bottle of water, down it slow and cold, trying to relax. Then I go take a seat on the bench and put on my headphones. I scan my songs and look for something fast and hard, select it, and let it blast in my ears—then I see movement up in the front of the plane.

All my insides go still.

Nothing does that to me but looking at her.

And, yep, I’m looking.

My eyes feel out of control as they run up and down her body while Pete introduces her to Coach and Diane. My heart starts pumping blood to the south of my body, and the music blasting into my ears is forgotten. She doesn’t see me yet, but I see her. Every inch of my rapidly swelling cock is aware that she’s near.

Her round butt is encased in a knee-length skirt. My eyes run down her lean, toned calves and her pretty ankles to her feet in plain ballet-type shoes. An image of those ankles locked at the small of my back as I thrust into her body flashes through me. I fist my hands at my sides and force myself to exhale, but my blood is still prepping me to mate with her.

I watch as Pete finally directs her in my direction, and every primal instinct inside me stirs as she starts down the aisle toward me. A blush reddens her pretty tan skin. It colors her face and spreads down her throat and dips into her cleavage, and I want to pull open the buttons of her top and see if she’s blushing all the way to the tips of her pretty little tits. God, I want to hold those little tits and take them in my mouth, and most of all, I want to see the expression on her face while I do so.

Pushing the thought aside, I pull off my headphones, turn off my iPod, and stare at her face. She’s not only beautiful as fuck, but she’s excited, her eyes shining into me.

“You’ve met the rest of the staff?” I ask her, my voice gruff with arousal.

“Yes.” She smiles, a genuine smile that goes all the way to her eyes as she takes her seat and neatly straps on her seat belt. Her soft, smoky voice has a strange, calming effect on me. But my dick is still pressing hard against my zipper, and I have no idea what I’m going to do with it for the next couple of hours.

“Did you hire me for a particular sports injury or more as prevention?” she asks.

More so I could claim you. “Prevention,” I whisper.

She chews on the inside of her cheek as she surveys me, and she has no idea that as she measures the breadth of my chest, my arms, and my torso, I’m struggling hard not to lean down and kiss her lips.

“How are your shoulders?” she asks, looking quite the professional little thing. “Your elbows? Do you want me to work on anything for Atlanta? Pete tells me it’s a several-hour flight.”

Yeah, it will be, and I’ll probably have blue balls by the end, but what the hell. I want her to touch me bad enough that I stretch out my arm and offer her my hand.

She seems slightly surprised but takes it in both of hers; I don’t expect the way my gut tangles at the contact. Her body warmth blends with mine when she opens my huge hand with her little fingers and starts rubbing my palm, searching for knots. Her fingers are strong, but soft, and her touch is torture to my libido but too close to heaven to stop.

“I’m not used to such big hands. My students’ hands are usually easier to rub down,” she tells me animatedly.

Soft fingers scrape across the calluses in my palms as we talk about her students, and how I condition eight hours a day.

“I’d love to stretch you when you’re done training. Is that what your specialists also do for you?” she asks.

I nod, and my mind instantly goes to the YouTube video I’ve been watching nonstop. I really fucking wish I’d been there so I could crush the asshole woman’s video camera with my hands.

“And you? Who pats your injury down?” I ask as I signal to the knee brace that peeks from under her skirt.

“No one anymore. I’m done with rehab.” She raises a brow and looks alarmed. “You googled me too? Or did your guys tell you?”

I googled you, and I wanted to punch my fist through a wall, then go get you and carry you off that track and lick your tears dry.

Pulling free of her hand, I realize I’m the one who wants to do the touching here, so I signal at the knee. “Let’s have a look at it.”

“There’s nothing to see.” She doesn’t seem delighted about the attention, but ends up lifting her knee anyway. I seize it with one hand and rip open the Velcro, instantly spotting the scar cutting across the joint.

I hold her knee in my hand, and I stroke my thumb across, noticing her slim, muscled thighs, the tightness of her quad muscle. She’s strong and lean, but lithe, like a cheetah. I want her. Refusing to stop touching her, I explore her marred skin and she bites her lip and exhales.

“It still hurts?” I gently ask.

She nods and explains that it’s a double injury. She tore her ACL first six years ago, and then again two years ago.

“It hurts not to compete anymore?” I prod.

Her expression softens when she holds my gaze, and something, something invisible, tugs me to her even as I watch her lean the slightest fraction closer to me. “Yes. It does. You’d understand, right?”

Slowly I lower her leg, and instead of nodding, I stroke my thumb across her knee, so she knows that I do understand. More than she knows. We both watch me caress her, and, god, it feels so right I want to drag my finger up the inside of her thigh and under her skirt, so before I follow the impulse, I pull back and stretch out my free hand, gruffly telling her, “Do this one.”

Testing the territory, I slide my arm along the seat behind her as she takes my hand and starts working it. My nostrils twitch at our closeness; she doesn’t pull away. She smells . . . of soap and some sort of berry shampoo, plus her own female scent is sweet and warm in my nose. She probes and searches and I open my eyes and watch her face, soft and yet concentrating. My heart pounds faster.

She moves to my wrist, and she twirls and then probes into my forearm, and when she closes her eyes with a look of utter concentration and pleasure, I want to groan and tease and laugh at her and kiss her all at the same time. She looks young and innocent, and my hunter-gatherer instincts are in full force. I’ve hunted her and now I want to gather her to me. . . .

I decide to touch her. Tease her. I want to make her smile. Hell, I want to see her smile at
me
.

I cup the nape of her neck and I lean in. “Look at me.”

She opens those gold eyes, lowers my hand, and smiles in bemusement. Fuck me standing, but she was getting worked up with me and every inch of my body knows it.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.” I smile, but I’m hot and bothered and delighted, all at once. “I’m very impressed. You’re very thorough, Brooke.”