RR&R 01 Real (26 page)
He tried to go to college too,” Pete offers. “But he couldn’t finish a degree, was always getting into fights. With any provocation, the guy charges, and he kept introducing his knuckles to anyone at school he thought deserved it.”
“
Was that where he met Riley?”
“
Not on the other side of his knuckles, no.” He laughs, his eyes sparkling for a moment. “Rem actually stood up for Riley. Riley wasn’t the charming young man you see now when he was in college.” He winks playfully. “He was like me. Both geeks, I tell you. Neither of us were all that cool. But Remy was the coolest bad boy ever. Everyone wanted a piece of him, especially the women. He’d get them all over him, all day, and even the guys would follow, especially when he’s getting high. Excesses abound when he’s in his beginning black days. Alcohol, women, adrenaline, adventure.”
“
He was actually under intense scrutiny all those years at the psych ward because of the eye color change,” he adds. “It’s not uncommon for BPs to have it, but it’s rare. Two conflicting gene expressions, and varying when one is triggered and the other is shut down. We have cocky, confident Remy, and black Remy. Black Remy still has a good heart, but he’s not reasonable. He’s not mean and certainly not evil. But he’s unpredictable and violent, and tends to destroy things, even himself. He flies high and then crashes low. This time you saw his low, it wasn’t nearly as bad as his other lows. Somehow Riley and I felt maybe it was because you kept him interested. He seemed to want to see you and kept coming out at least for that.”
“
Pete, how can I help him?” I ask helplessly, pushing my coffee aside and giving him my full attention. “Please tell me how to help him, I get sick thinking of you using that stupid shit you shoot up his veins again.”
Seriously?” I blink at that.
I think of how important my contract of three months working for him had seemed. And remember the night he went crazy, yelling at Pete and Riley where the fuck I was, and what had they told me about him?
Somehow the realization makes me feel warm and claimed once more.
Everything
bad
happens to Remington when he’s
black
,” Pete adds with a clatter of his empty coffee. “He wakes up and finds he was kicked out of boxing. Last time he bet all his money and woke up to find that if he loses this season, he’ll end up with very little to stand on. Riley and I try to get him in control, but he’s a handful. He’s too strong and too damn stubborn. And now, there’s you. I don’t know if you’re good for him, or the worst kind of Achilles’ heel there is to him. But it’s not our choice, is it? Remington wants you.”
But I just don’t know what I’m going to have to fight against. If it’s some fear in me … some fear in him … or that black side of him.
I want him badly too,” I tell Pete, patting his shoulder. “So much I might shoot some shit up your veins if you keep shooting him up with that, you know?”
And I carry my empty cup to the sink, wash it, then fiddle around with some breakfast items, and send a text to Melanie telling her:
The earth moved. Yes! It was that freakingfuckingtastic OMG!!!!!!!!!!!
And finally, just before ten a.m. and before Riley comes to molest us, I go back to bed and lock myself in with him. Setting a tall glass I brought him on the nightstand, I lean over his naked form and murmur, while my heart and my sex organs swell up with his nearness, “Get up, you sexy piece of man ass.”
Then I grab Remy’s sexy ass and squeeze those rocks and clench my teeth because I want to bite them, he’s so frickin’ juicy and hot.
I’m not Diane, but this used to be the breakfast of champions before the champion tore her ACL and shot her knee to hell. Now you get her services in bed, consisting of all sugary treats for this—” I squeeze his biceps, “—and this—” I slide my hand over his abs, “—and this.” I tap his lovely head and his mesmerizing maze of a brain.
His sexy voice is muffled by the pillow. “Why are you bringing me breakfast in bed?”
I slap his bum, and his flesh doesn’t move one whit. “Because you look like my every fantasy and feeding you gets all my juices going. It’s a female thing. Come on, drink.”
He sits up, squinting those baby blues, and grabs the glass. It’s a protein shake made of dates and I am so wild about dates. They taste like caramel and I can eat about two dozen in a sitting when I get my period and get that unstoppable hunger.
That's so fucking good,” he says, and then tips the glass back for more.
My phone pings while he downs the last, and the message is actually Melanie’s answer to the text I sent while blending the shake. Figuring she must be running this morning without me, I set it aside to answer later. “It’s Melanie, my friend. She’s excited that there’s been some action between tua and mua.” I grin.
He laughs, the sound rich and awesome, then he sobers, his eyes so tender on my face my insides go mush. “You miss her?”
I nod and want to tell him that she knows Nora also, and that she’s like my shrink, but suddenly he pounces out of the room, so I start gathering my athletic gear, when he returns.
Tell her to present herself at the Southwest counter, with the code on this paper. There’s a ticket under her name so she can meet us in Chicago. I’ll take care of her room.”
“
No!” I say in pure thrilled disbelief.
Remy, I…”
I want this man to know that I am absolutely wild about him, and I’m not going to quit as soon as it gets steep. But I’m too afraid of being the only one to say something so … lasting.
If I say the L word, what will it mean for my future? I want him concentrated. I want my fighter to win. And I want him to say the L word to me not because he heard it first, but because deep in his inner complicated emotional world, he’s certain that he feels this for me.
Why are you doing this?” I ask instead.
A laugh escapes me, and his dimples deepen. He tugs me closer and scents me, and I bury my face and smell his neck, then we need to part with a sound that’s a mutual groan. I go to my old room to get changed, and on my way there I’m texting Mel:
Melanie:
OMG OMG OMG! You’re serious? I’m going to go need to work the boss so I can go!
Brooke:
Work her hard! I’m dying to see u!!
The thought of seeing Melanie makes me grin and my insides bubble during the day. I urgently need to talk to her or I’m going to explode with what I’m feeling.
The thought makes me glance at him, and he’s easily jumping rope, making those slapping sounds as the rope flies all over him in twisting, turning, one foot, then the other, moves. My loins heat up as I remember the feel of him, the many times we’ve made love. I’d wanted to know what it feels like to have him inside me. Now I do. And I feel like I’m being possessed by everything man and powerful in the world.
Later, I stretch him, and my hands roam so freely over his warmed muscles, I feel like he’s been made for me. Mine to touch. Mine. Mine. Mine. Scorching heat rages through me as his slick torso clenches under my fingers. His chest is heaving, and he’s tired, and he needs to go eat, and all I can think of is jumping him when I get him back in bed with me.
As I go around the bench to work on his back, he snatches me in one arm and draws me onto his lap, his nose burying into my hair. “Hmmmm,” he softly growls in my ear.
eat me and my traps and my biceps
, I can’t help the pool of liquid heat that rushes between my thighs.
My breath goes choppy, and I slightly peer past my shoulder.
Have
you seen you? I can barely take my hands off you. Taking my eyes off is like asking me to deliberately drown, I just can’t do it.”
I know,” I sigh dramatically. Like it’s a chore.