RR&R 01 Real (23 page)

My body seizes the instant he swings his gaze to mine. His smile flashes, but it has an edge to it today. He’s been fighting with fierce intensity, and his smile is as equally intense, a blast of sex, and suddenly there’s nothing innocent or playful about it. He keeps his gaze trained possessively on me as his breaths continue jerking out of his powerful chest and rivulets of sweat slide down his body, and he looks as perfect as he did the first moment I laid eyes on him in Seattle.

I want him more than ever.

I’m so wet, and so desperate by what he makes me feel, I just stare back at him, not returning his smile, my eyes imploring for him to finish whatever is going on between us, whatever it is that leaps like currents of electricity between us every time we’re close. I’ve put it all out there, telling him I want him, and he continues to be as unattainable to me as a comet.

With glinting blue eyes, he points at me now, then at himself, and then at a figure approaching me in the pathway before my seat. The figure is carrying a bright red rose.

She shoves it in my line of vision. “From Remy,” the smiling young girl whispers.

Another rose follows, and a different voice proudly states, “From Remy.”

A third one falls in my hand. “From Remington.”

A fourth. “From Riptide.”

“
From Remy.”

My pulse is somewhere near the moon while at the same time, my bottom drops from underneath me. I stare in utter disbelief at the line of people forming before me, easily several dozen, all of them handing me red roses from
him
.
He watches, with that dimpled smile that fairly tells me that I belong to him, and my heart aches so much I want to rip it off my chest and throw it somewhere. Word of what he did in Los Angeles must have gone out through Twitter or I don’t know how, all I know is my arms are full of roses, and they’re all from
him
.

And suddenly I can’t stand it anymore.

I don’t even glance at him when we ride back to the house. His gaze is glued to my profile, every cell in my body aware of it. I know he wants to know if I’m grateful for my roses, but my insides are so wound up, I’m simmering. All my desire for him has not been appeased, and it has morphed into the sort of anger that will probably give me a disease and kill me.

I’m shaking with it. With need. With pain. With fury.

How dare he.

Make me want him like this.

Offer me the job of my dreams, and then become the center of my very existence, until I’m ready to risk everything for him. Even my job. My family. My friends. The city where I grew up.

“
Great fight, son,” Coach says, sounding the happiest I’ve ever heard the somber man speak. “Never broke form. Never dropped guard. Even Brooke felt the love tonight, huh, Brooke?”

Silence follows, and I hold still in my seat and keep my gaze on the lights flickering out the window as though I’m not even hearing their conversation. I absolutely
refuse
to gush about my roses or compliment him. Yes, his fans showered me with roses and he fought like a true freaking wonderful champion … my pussy clenches as I remember the powerful plows of his fists, and now I refuse to think more about that either.

“
You totally killed it,” Riley says.

I notice Remington doesn’t answer their compliments. His gaze now feels like a scorching brand on my profile and his energy is becoming as tumultuous as mine. He must have wanted a different reaction to his gesture. He must have wanted me to be all gushy and tell him, “Oh my stars, you’re so amazing!” But I won’t. Because I hate what he does to me. I hate that I want him like this, I hate that I feel so volatile, I want to tear his eyes out and then go cry about it. I want to fling all these roses in his lap and tell him to fuck
them
now because I don’t even want him to fuck
me
anymore!

His stunned gaze fixes on me, and the towel falls at his feet.

He grabs my wrists and angrily yanks me forward, pinning my arms down. “Why’d you want to have sex with me? To have a fucking adventure? What was I supposed to be? Your one-night-fucking stand? I’m every woman’s adventure, damn you, and I don’t want to be
yours.
I want to be your fucking REAL. You get that? If I fuck you, I want you to belong to me. To be mine. I want you to give yourself to
me
—not Riptide!”

“
I won’t ever be yours if you don’t take me. Take me! You son of a bitch, can’t you see how much I want you?”

“
You don’t know me,” he strains out through gritted teeth, his face anxious as he clenches my wrists at my sides. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“
Then tell me! You think I’ll leave if you tell me whatever it is you don’t want me to know?”

“
I don’t think it, I know it.” He grabs my face in one open hand and squeezes both my cheeks, his eyes violently blue and almost frantic. “You’ll leave me the second it gets too steep, and you’ll leave me with nothing—when I want you like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. You’re all I think about, dream about. I get high and low and it’s all about you now, it’s not even about me anymore. I can’t sleep, can’t think, can’t concentrate worth shit anymore and it’s all because I want to be the fucking ‘one’ for you and as soon as you realize what I am, all I’ll be is a fucking mistake!”

“
How can you be a mistake? Have you seen you? Have you seen what you
do to me? You had me at hello, you fucking asshole! You make me want you until it hurts and then you won’t do shit!”

“
Because I’m fucking
bipolar!
Manic. Violent. Depressive. I’m a fucking ticking time bomb, and if one of my staff messes up when I get another episode, the next person I hurt can be
you
. I was trying to break this to you as slowly as possible so I could at least stand a chance with you. This shit has taken everything from me. Everything. My career. My family. My fucking friends. If it takes this chance with you, I don’t fucking even know what I’m going to do, but the depression will hit me so deep, I’ll probably end up killing myself!”

Helplessly, I watch him grab a t-shirt from the closet, and my heart has completely stopped beating in my chest. The word “bipolar” is not really a word I’m familiar with, except by listening to it from afar. I’ve never met anyone who’s had it, but suddenly I go back through these weeks, and I get a little hint of it. I do. I get it. Remy both loves and hates himself. He loves and hates his life. One second it’s all good, the next it’s all bad. He’s hot, then he’s cold. Maybe he’s never been accepted, not even by himself, and maybe everyone drops him cold the second it gets … steep.

A thousand emotions roil in my chest, and I can barely contain them all in my body.

His chest heaves as he watches me across the room now, his eyes brilliantly blue as he clenches his hands at his sides and waits for me to speak, the t-shirt still in his grip, dangling at his side.

Suddenly all I know is that this man has god-like proportions in my mind, but now I realize he’s also human and imperfect, and with every aching, quaking inch of my body, I want him all the more. So much I want to drown if he denies me tonight.

Dragging in a fortifying breath, my hands tremble as I slowly open the buttons of my top, sifting them one by one through my fingers. The rustle makes his eyes drop to my chest and his eyes flash in pain. His stare devours me so fiercely, I feel the bite of his eyes in my heart.

I’m no one to tell him what to do. But does he even realize how important he is? Where he’s gotten to, all on his own? Does he see what a great team he’s built? I can see how Coach, Diane, Pete and Riley love him even when they quarrel. I wanted to belong to this team, but now I just want to belong to this man.

And I want him to belong to me.

His eyes rake me, his voice an angry pained rasp. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

“
I won’t let you fucking leave me.”

At first, my words seem to have no effect on him.

And I think I’m slowly dying.

Then a low, hungry sound rips up his throat.

My breath stalls in my throat.

He stands watching me, motionless in those drawstring pants, his legs braced in a fighting stance, his eyes bursting with need. His broad shoulders jerk with his breaths, and he curls his fingers into fists at his sides. The deep roughness of his voice scrapes my flesh. “Come here then.”

All of my body wants the same thing but it seems too wound up to unite.

When I at last come together with a ragged breath, I feel so alive and yet so unraveled, even my toes tingle when we—me and my heart and my bones and my skin—finally manage to take the first step.

A fierce nervousness eats me raw, all the way to my destination.

Remington’s breathing escalates. His powerful chest rises even faster as I approach. Step by nerve-wracking step, my pulse throbs in my temples as the heat of his stare creeps into me. Between my legs, I burn for him. My nipples throb. The hard tips push painfully against the cotton of my bra. Every pore in my body wants to beg him to suck them. To touch me. To love me.

Stopping a foot away, I can barely breathe as the smell of his soap envelops my lungs, drugging all my senses. His arms come out, and he tangles ten angry fingers in my hair as he yanks my head back in his fists and buries his nose in my neck, growling softly. His deep inhale reaches me, and a shudder runs through my body as I do the same, absorbing every color and flavor of his strong male scent into my body through my nostrils. His tongue flashes out to lick a wet path up my neck as an arm coils around my waist, and he crushes me to his body, whispering, “Mine.”