RR&R 01 Real (11 page)
I’ve toppled men much heavier than you!”
“
A fucking tree topples sooner than Remy, Brooke,” Riley shouts.
“
Well, I can see
that
,” I grumble, and cup my mouth to yell, “Thanks for the heads up, Riley.”
I just seemed to
wrongly
send all my weight to my ankle,” I grudgingly admit.
“
Why’d you hit me? Are you pissed at me?”
His eyes peer intrusively into mine, and he looks frighteningly solemn and definitely annoyed. “You tell me.”
Ducking my head, I stare down at my ankle and refuse to spill my guts out to anyone but Melanie.
Hey, can we get some water over here?” he calls out, a sharp note of frustration in his words. Riley brings over a Gatorade and a plain bottle of water and sets them both on the ring floor at my feet.
“
We’re wrapping up,” he tells us, and then, sounding concerned, asks me, “You all right, B?”
“
Dandy. Call me tomorrow please. I can’t wait to get back in the ring with this dude.”
His chest is soaked with sweat and his dark head is ducked low as he inspects my ankle, his thumbs pressing around the bone. “That hurt, Brooke?”
I think he’s worried. The sudden gentleness with which he speaks to me makes my throat ache, and I don’t know why. Like when you fall, and it doesn’t hurt, but you cry because you feel humiliated. But I’ve already fallen worse in front of the world, and I wish I hadn’t cried back then just as fiercely as I wish not to break down in front of the strongest man in the world.
all
I can feel are his thumbs on my skin.
“
You weigh a ton,” I complain, like it’s his fault I’m an idiot. “If you weighed a little less I’d have toppled you. I even toppled my instructor.”
You’re sorry? For my pride’s sake?”
His eyes drop to my lips as I take a sip and I can feel, suddenly, something unmistakable on his lap beneath my bottom. As the cool liquid runs down my throat, it makes me realize the entire rest of my body is feverishly hot and getting hotter.
Can I get some?” His voice is strangely husky as he signals to my drink.
Right over the spot mine have just been.
want
him so badly I can’t think straight. It
is
a deal. A big deal.
I know it’s crazy, and that it’s never going to happen, that it can never happen, but I just can’t help it. He’s like my Olympics, something that I’m never going to have, but which I crave with my entire being. And I absolutely loathe the thought that his arms have been around one, possibly two, women less than twenty-four hours ago, when I wanted it to be me.
Agitated all over again at the memory, I try standing, carefully, and he takes my Gatorade and sets it aside as he grabs two towels from a basket and wraps one around his neck, then drapes the other around mine, all the time holding me up by the waist. “I’ll help you up so you can ice that.”
He lowers me from the ring like I weigh no more than a cloud, and then I have to lean on him, my arm around his narrow waist as we walk out.
It’s fine,” I keep saying.
“
Stop arguing,” he says.
He walks me to my room, and my body is in such a state, my brain can’t even come up with a topic of conversation to get rid of the tense silence that accompanies us.
Hey, man, ready for the fight?” A uniformed hotel staff member, who seems to be a fan, asks from across the hall.
Diane isn’t here, and I know she’s probably making his super luxe dinner right now. He sets me down on the edge of the second queen bed, which I guess he figures is mine because Diane has a picture of her two kids facing the first bed, and he grabs the ice bucket. “I’ll get you ice.”
That’s fine, Remy, I’ll do it later…”
He leaves the lock out so he doesn’t have to knock, and I stiffen when he returns and slams the door shut. He runs the water in the bathroom, and then he’s back, looking enormous and commanding inside my hotel room as he plops the bucket on the carpet.
He kneels at my feet, and at the sight of his powerful body and dark head bending down to tend to me, a rush of wanting ripples through me with such force, I stare down at the ice and want to dip my head in the bucket.
He yanks off my tennis shoe and then my sock, then he holds my leg gently by the calf as he eases my foot inside. “When we get this fixed I’m going to show you how to knock me down,” he whispers. When I can’t answer and am completely undone by his touch, he glances up, and his eyes are both tender and intimate. “Cold?”
but
, my toes start freezing as the water envelops them. “Yeah.”
No pain no gain
. My lungs seize up as my body absorbs the cold. “Oh, shit.”
Voltage surges through me. His warm, big, callused hand is curved around my instep, holding my feet to his stomach so firmly it almost feels like he wants me there. I wish my hands were my feet, feeling those washboard abs under my fingers. Every dent perfectly presses against the arch of my foot and my toes, and the numbness has left me completely.
I didn’t know you gave pedicures, Remy,” I say, and I can’t understand why I sound so breathless.
“
It’s a fetish of mine.”
My heartbeat suddenly roars up in my head. God, this man is more tactile than I am. Then, as if to confirm my thoughts, the hand holding my foot to his stomach shifts slightly, and he rubs his thumb along the arch of my foot while the cool ice cube continues being rubbed across my skin. A tingling begins at the center of my stomach, and I’m afraid within minutes, it will take over my body.
My voice trembles like the rest of me. “Do you do manicures too?”
He glances up at me again, and my heart turns over from the effect his blue eyes have on me.
Let me do your feet, first, then I’ll do the rest of you.”
I’m entranced as he watches the ice over my creamy white skin, the silence charged with electricity. Helplessly I drag my feet slightly over his stomach, feeling the ridges of his abs under me. He looks up, and the piercing intensity in his eyes draws me right in until I’m breathless and drowning.
Feel better?” he murmurs, raising his dark brows, and I can’t believe how his voice affects me, how his touch affects me, his scent, how another human can have such power over me. I can’t let it.
Can’t.
Let it.
me
tearing
his
clothes off and of
him,
crushing
me
against
him
. Images of his lips on mine, of us falling recklessly in bed together, throb through me. He makes me feel eighteen. Virginal and wanton. Just thinking of boys … except he only makes me think of one. And he’s very male. Very man. But a little bit playful, like a boy.
The sudden, brutal reminder cools me down like a dip in the frigid waters of Alaska. “It feels perfect now. Thank you,” I say, my voice cool as the melting ice as I try wiggling my foot free from his grip.
I’m about to successfully pull free when the door opens with an unlocking noise, and Diane enters. “There you are. I must feed you now so you can recharge for tomorrow!”
am
sorry, about your ankle,” he says to me, softly, as he straightens, his expression confused and almost vulnerable. “Don’t worry if you can’t make it to the fight.”
“
No. It wasn’t your fault. I’ll be fine,” I rush out.
“
I’ll ask Pete to get you some crutches.”
“
I’ll be fine. Serves me right for messing with trees.”
Good luck, Remy,” I say.
Diane stares at me in complete puzzlement. “Did I come at a bad time?”
No.” I shake my head. “You came just in time before I made a total fool of myself.”
Not that trying to knock a man like him off his feet had been a very smart move to begin with
.
He needs to zone out, go get your seat, you’re distracting the hell out of him,” Pete tells me, and although he’s the one I consider most gentle among the men in the team, he really sounds frustrated today. Maybe because it’s his birthday number thirty-two and he’d rather be anywhere else. “Here. Take this ticket and go meet the girls next to you. They’re nice people, and they’re here with us. We’re all partying later.”