My laughter fades when I realize that his rapid, angry breath trembles the loose hair at the top of my head. It’s warm and scented of him, and it does me in. Like everything else about him.

Forcing myself not to tremble in his arms, I clutch my hands around his firm, wide neck, grateful when the couple watching us like we’re horny, drunk, young adults decide not to board with us. I just don’t want him to let me go yet. I’m selfish and needy like that. And I think what finally closed the deal was Remy’s murderous expression when he snapped at them, like they were the ones who threw eggs at us, as he held the door open with one arm and cradled me to his chest with the other, “You coming?”

And they both instantly stepped back and said, “No.”

Now we’re riding alone, and I can’t stop myself from pressing my nose to his neck. “Thank you.”

He clutches me tighter and I feel so safe here, I think I want this to be my new home. I think if I’d known this man the day I broke my knee, and he’d held me like this, my knee wouldn’t have even mattered. Only the fact that his arms were around me would.

Pete and Riley are still in his penthouse when he slides the key into the slot and carries me inside. “What the fuck is going on, Rem?” Pete demands.

“Just get the hell out, guys.” Rem holds the door open for them, and me still aloft in the other. “I do what I want, you hear me?” he snaps at them.

Both men stare at me for a moment, and they both look as startled as I feel. “We hear you, Rem,” Riley meekly answers as he shuffles out after Pete.

“Then don’t fucking forget it.”

He slams the door and bolts it after them so that nobody, not even those with a key, can come into the suite, and he carries me into the bath of the master bedroom. I admit I’m not ready to let go, and when I wind my fingers tighter at his nape, he gets the message and keeps an arm around me as he maneuvers to turn the shower knob.

The water starts falling, and he kicks off his shoes, takes off mine, and then steps into the stall with me in his arms.

“Let’s get this shit off you.” He runs his big hands over my wet hair, and I end up sliding down the length of him, to my feet. The water feels incredible on my skin, and when he peels off my dress and lifts it over my head, I feel his soapy hands rubbing everywhere, even over my underwear. I bite my lip and try to block off his touch, but it filters inside me. It’s all I can feel, or know, or think of.

I no longer worry that Pete and Riley hate me, that I’m fucking up Remy’s fight. That his fans hate me. That my sister doesn’t want to see me. That I miss Mel. That I can’t sprint anymore. That I will soon be out of a job.

It’s all about this man, my body standing utterly still as I find myself waiting in breathless anticipation just to see what he will do. Where his hands will slide to next. What part of my body will feel his wet fingers on my hot flesh.

Methodically he touches me, and though I’m breathless over his touch, he’s not in the least bit affected. He spreads my arms up and slides soap into my armpits, between my legs, my neck, then he whips his t-shirt off, and scrapes himself quickly. His powerful shoulders bulge, and the sight of his nipples excites me.

“I can’t believe your groupies called me a whore,” I say, trying not to think that I’m almost naked in the shower. And he’s in only the drawstring sweatpants and is now fully shirtless, every muscle of his torso glistening wet.

He quickly lathers his hair. “You’re going to survive.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yeah, you do.”

He comes to lather my hair with new shampoo, and his attention, so wanted, is now solely on me and my hair. “They hate me,” I say up at him. “I won’t be able to go to your fights now without fear of getting lynched.”

He grabs the shower head and angles it directly above me. I close my eyes and let the soap bubbles drip down my face, and when I open my eyes, he’s looking straight at me. Rivulets of water slide down his square jaw and cling to his eyelashes as he brushes a strand of wet hair away from my forehead, and I become aware of the fast gait of my pulse.

His eyes are brilliant blue, and as they remain resting on mine, they feel a thousand times more brilliant than usual. He’s just as wet as I am, and suddenly he holds my face between his hands and stares deeply into me. He’s breathing hard. His eyes slide down the length of my nose, to my mouth. He strokes my lips with a fingertip that is thick, blunt, and callused. And I can feel that stroke in every cell of my being. “That’s never going to happen,” he says in an odd, hot whisper.

Weakness travels up my legs and it is taking over every ounce of my willpower. I’ve never craved anyone’s gaze like I crave his. Need anyone’s touch like I need his. Or want anything as painfully fiercely as I want him.

My throat feels achy as I speak. “You shouldn’t have … said that about me, Remy. They’re going to think you and I … that you and I…” I shake my head, aware now of how my fingers tingle in the water with the urge to touch his wet spiky hair.

“That you’re mine?”

The word “mine” on his lips, spoken as those intent blue eyes look into me, makes my stomach constrict with painful unrequited lust. I laugh.

“What’s so funny?” He shoves open the glass door and wraps a towel around his hips, easily letting his wet drawstring pants slap to the floor, then his t-shirt follows. He comes back and covers me in a large towel and hauls me to the bed. He sets me down in the center, his voice with a hint of laughter, but his face frowning. “Is the thought of being mine funny?”

He reaches under my towel and pulls off my panties, and then my bra, then he works the towel through my hair and then my body, his blue eyes not glinting anymore. “Is the idea of being mine funny?” He covers both my breasts with the towel and dries me, still watching me. “Is it funny, Brooke?” he insists, peering intently into my eyes.

“No!” The word is just a gasp as desire shoots through my nerve endings. My hips tilt up when he starts drying me between my legs, and I can’t help but be totally turned on.

He runs the towel through the length of my legs, and I lick my lips as he bends his head at last, and my bones become liquid with pure red-hot want. He seems especially obsessed in drying my bad knee. The towel almost feels loving as he rubs it over my scar. A burning fever follows the path of the towel as I helplessly watch him.

A drop of water clings to one of the small, brown tips of his nipples, and it takes all my willpower to fight against a deep, soul-shattering need to lean over and suck it into my mouth. Not the drop of water. His nipple.

My heart pounds when I reach out, my hand quaking as I touch the top of his head. “Have you ever been anyone’s?” I ask, a feathery whisper in the quiet bedroom.

He lifts his head to mine, and I want him so bad I feel consumed inside, like he’s already possessed my soul, and now my soul aches for him to possess my body.

A powerful emotion tightens his features as he reaches out to cradle my cheek in his big hand, and there’s an unexpected fierceness in his eyes, in his touch, as he cups me. “No. And you?”

The calluses in his palm rasp on my skin, and I find myself tucking my cheek deeper into them. “I’ve never wanted to.”

“Neither have I.”

The moment is intimate. Heavy with things unsaid. Charged with something without a name, leaping between us. From him to me. Me to him.

He drags his thumb along my jaw like he’s memorizing it.

Ripples shoot across my body, shooting from his thumb straight to my core as he continues caressing my face, all the time watching me with those breathtaking, heartbreaking, beautiful blue eyes as though engrossed. His voice is velvet on my skin. “Until I saw this lovely girl in Seattle, with big gold eyes, and pink, full lips … and I wondered if she could understand me…”

My chest heaves at his unexpected words, and when he bends his head closer, his gaze almost asking permission, I border on sensory overload as his scent of soap and shampoo and water cling to my nostrils.

The ache for his touch throbs through me, but instead of reaching for me, he spreads the towel and draws it over my body and gently covers me. His voice is rough with emotion.

“I want to say so many things, Brooke, and I just can’t find the words to tell them to you.”

He sets his forehead on mine and inhales deeply. Slowly, still breathing me in, he drags his nose along the length of mine.

“You tie me up in knots.” He presses my mouth with his. Briefly. Then he withdraws, breathing hard, and looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “I want to play you a thousand different songs so you get a clue of what … I feel inside me…”

Raw need streaks through my bloodstream, my nerves, my very bones, as he strokes his thumb up my jaw and around the shell of my ear. Shivers run through my body as he slides his index finger across my top lip. He strokes liberally across my bottom one too, and I whimper. There’s an ache in my beaded nipples, my wet sex, my heart.

He holds my face between his palms and angles his head, fitting my lips softly to his as he draws my tongue into his mouth, sucking strongly on me.

I moan and grip his shoulders with my nails, locking him to me. “Why won’t you take me, Remington?”

He groans and pulls me closer. “Because I want you too much.”

His tongue dips hard against mine, and sensations spark up in my nerve endings as he leans his body into mine, his skin damp and hot, the towel falling to my waist and my breasts getting flattened by his diaphragm.

I gasp into his mouth as he pulls me closer and continues his sensual assault with his lips.

“But I want you so much, and I’m protected,” I pleadingly cajole. “I know you’re clean. You get tested all the time and I…” I shudder at the feel of his chest muscles against the sensitive tips of nipples, hard and bulged. My hips tilt up by pure instinct, and I’m just a female. Seeking my male. His hardness. His touch. I can’t breathe, can’t think, want him want him want him.

An orgasm is not what I want and I know it. What I want, need, is so much more than that. It’s the connection. The exhilarating contact with this human being, a being that compels me like no other. I miss his touch, his kiss. I don’t care if he gives me just a little kernel of what he can give; I’m just starving to be fed, and my body has never been this hungry.

“I want you in my bed again. I want to kiss you, hold you,” he groans.

“I can’t do this anymore, please just make love with me…” I beg.

Pressing into him as he hungrily takes my mouth, I shift my body until one of his legs is wedged between my thighs.

He nibbles and bites my lips, his hands fisting my hair. I’m so desperate I rake my nails down his arms as I rub my sex against his hard thigh. Sensations shoot off. I whimper, feeling the coiled tension in his shoulders, the smooth velvet of his chest as he devours me, and at the first scrape of my nubbin against the rock-hard quad muscle of his thigh, I explode.