“That’s never going to happen,” I tell her gruffly, because I’d have to be dead first before anyone harmed her, fans or otherwise.

The sleek tendons of her throat work as she swallows. “You shouldn’t have . . . said that about me, Remy. They’re going to think you and I . . . that you and I . . .” She shakes her head, and looks at me, out of breath.

“That you’re mine?” I prod softly.

She blinks for a moment, then laughs.

“What’s so funny?” I ask her.

I shove open the glass shower door, then I wrap a towel around my hips and get rid of my sweatpants. She’s still laughing as I come back to get her, engulfing her with a towel as I scoop her up and carry her to the bed.

I set her down on the center, and I’m not sure if her laughter amuses me or not. “Is the thought of being mine funny?” I tease her.

Reaching under the towel, I tug off her panties and pry off her bra, then I rub the towel over her body and hair with brisk, sure moves.

“Is the idea of being mine funny?” I insist, running the towel over her bare little tits as I watch her. “Is it funny, Brooke?” I repeat, looking deep into her eyes.

“No!” she gasps, her laughter completely gone as she tilts her hips to help me dry her. I dry her legs, and when I reach her knee with the small scar, my movements slow down as I survey it. I’ve never wanted to kiss anything other than lips and pussy, but I’m fighting the urge to kiss her bad knee.

A small hand trembles against my hair, and I hear her whisper, “Have you ever been anyone’s?”

My eyes flick up to hers, her pupils dark as night as she watches me. A consuming jealousy rips through me as I think of someone else having her before me. Feeling a roiling in my chest, I cup her cheek in my palm and look at her. “No. And you?”

She tucks her cheek into my hand and whispers, “I’ve never wanted to be.”

“Neither have I.”

We stare, and the air crackles between us. She needs me. And I fucking need her.

I trace her jaw with my thumb, searching for words to tell her. “Until I saw this lovely girl in Seattle, with big gold eyes, and pink, full lips . . . and I wondered if she could understand me . . .”

Her chest heaves, and I bend closer and scent her, pulling the towel up to cover her body before I break down and take this little body of my dreams, and fuck this woman of my life, and let her shatter me when she realizes who I am, what I am, and what is completely fucked-up about me.

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

Resting my forehead on hers, I inhale deeply as I run my nose along the length of hers.

“You tie me up in knots.” My lips find hers for a moment, briefly kissing before I withdraw and look into her eyes. “I want to play you a thousand different songs so you get a clue of what . . . I feel inside me. . . .”

A shiver runs through her as I caress my index finger along the bow of her top lip, then her bottom one. She whimpers softly, and I hold her face between my hands and set my mouth on hers, pulling her tongue into my mouth so I can suck her.

She moans and sinks her nails into my shoulders, gasping, “Why won’t you take me, Remington?”

Groaning at that, I pull her closer to me. “Because I want you too much.”

Pushing my tongue harder against hers, I lean over her and feel her body pressing into mine, her tits, her abs, her legs tangling between my thighs.

She gasps when I pull her closer and keep devouring her mouth.

“But I want you so much, and I’m protected,” she pleads to me. “I know you’re clean. You get tested all the time and I . . .”

The tips of her nipples brush against my ribs, and she shudders and tilts her hips upward, silently begging me to slide in there and take what I want. What I fucking crave. Fuck me.

“I want you in my bed again. I want to kiss you, hold you,” I tell her roughly.

She grips my shoulders harder and whispers against my lips, “I can’t do this anymore, please just make love with me. . . .”

I silence her with my mouth and fuck my tongue into her as I shift my frame, which makes my cock hit her hip bone . . . and my thigh feels her pussy.

She’s wet.

Wet as fuck.

I’m so hot for her, I can’t stop nibbling her lips, biting softly, fisting my hands in her wet hair as she rakes her hands down my arms and rubs herself against my thigh. She whimpers softly, and my gut coils with need as she rocks her hips against me and kisses me back.

Two . . . three rocks . . . and she starts shuddering uncontrollably against me.

I stop kissing her for a moment—then I realize what’s happening. My cock starts dripping semen as I feel her come, and I spread my hand on her back and push up my leg, forcing her to ride me harder, making sure her clit gets a nice little rub as I take her mouth with mine and force her to take my tongue as she comes for me.

The noises she makes . . . the way her body goes slack against mine . . .

My chest feels heavy with tenderness as I brush her hair back and look down at her flushed face and glazed eyes. “Did that feel even half as good as it looked?” I ask, trailing my finger along her cheek.

She pulls the towel around her and angrily avoids looking at me. “I assure you that’s not happening again,” she whispers.

God, I love her. I love her sass and her spunk, and I love how she gets shy with me. Amused by her shyness when she just came for me in a way no other woman has ever come before, I bend closer to kiss her ear, my voice husky. “I’m going to make sure that it does.”

“Don’t count on it. If I wanted to have an orgasm all alone, I could have taken care of myself without giving anyone a show.” She keeps the towel to her chest as she sits up and asks, “Can I borrow a damn shirt?”

She’s so cute angry, I smile as I head over to the closet and grab one of my usual black T’s.

Her dark scowl is still in place when I come back. “This okay?” I ask, feeling possessive as fuck when she takes it and slips it on.

She still looks shy and embarrassed about it all, which I don’t want her to be.

“Come eat something with me,” I say, and I’m happy when she slides off the bed and follows me to the kitchen.

“Let’s see what Diane left you,” she mumbles as she pulls out the contents from a hot drawer and uncovers a plate, her smile mischievous. “Eggs. They must’ve been on sale tonight.”

My smile flashes, and I look at her lips, and I want them more than the eggs and more than anything in this kitchen. Watching her so she doesn’t leave, I pull out two forks from a drawer and approach her. “Come share.” Because I want to fucking feed her.

“Oh, no,” she quickly says, palms up in the air. “No more eggs for me tonight. You enjoy.”

I set the fork down and follow her to the door, catching her wrist before she leaves and telling her, “Stay.”

She holds her breath and her eyes fly up to mine.

“I’ll stay,” she firmly whispers, “when you make love to me.”

She stares at me and I stare back, battling within myself. I want her. Fuck, I want her more than anything. She has to know that. I can’t fuck it up because I’m hornier than a goddamned devil.

I won’t fuck it up because of my cock.

Sighing drearily, I hold the door open for her and place myself so that she has to brush past me to leave. Every muscle in my body contracts as she brushes past . . . and I watch her as she heads down the hall, a vision in my fucking T-shirt, giving me the bluest balls of my life.

After dinner I have to take another shower, this one cold, and when I set up our clothes to dry, I find myself sniffing her wet dress, her wet bra, and her wet, fucking, cute white panties.

For hours, I imagine charging into her room and forcing her back here with me.

I imagine stripping her, fucking her, then kissing and petting her all night until the sun appears.

And then I imagine the look on her face when I tell her I’m bipolar.

PAST

AUSTIN

I feel like murdering something today.

Something curly haired and brown eyed. In a black fucking suit I paid for. In a tie I paid for. Wearing a fucking smile he is going to pay for.

Pete and Riley are my brothers.

I’d kill for them.

But Brooke is holding back from me, and I can’t stand watching her smile at them the way I want her to smile at me.

I hear them joke around. Laugh during breakfast, lunch. Dinner.

Now I slam the speedball, straight in the belly, while my gut hardens with anger as Pete walks with Brooke out of the house—out of my house—and they come toward me. Austin is a test to my stability. I can feel every moment of my life here choking around me, setting the wheels in my head spinning with memories that are too vague to recall clearly, but too painful to forget. This house I bought to get close to the same parents who abandoned me as a youngster. They wanted nothing of me, but like some hungry dog, it took me a while to get it in my head that they weren’t going to throw me a bone. And I kept coming and coming, somehow expecting I was going to get it.

I feel just as starved for a bone as I see Brooke coming my way with Pete.

No. I feel more starved. I feel rabid with pent-up longing for her, and my temper is in shreds. So when Pete grabs her elbows and whispers something to her, and she whispers something back, my gut roils as my jealousy corrodes me.

Oh, yeah, I feel like murdering something.

“Hey, B, you might try stretching him, his form’s not ideal. Coach thinks it’s a lower-back knot,” Riley calls out from the door of the barn.

She starts heading over, and I scowl and pound the speed bag as fast as I can. Whackwhackwhack . . .

“Coach isn’t happy with your form and Riley thinks I can help,” she tells me, watching me hit.

And I keep hitting because I’m fucking mad at her.

She belongs with me.

I want to make out with her and make her as addicted to me as anyone can be addicted to anything, and maybe when she knows the truth about me, she won’t leave.

“Remy?” she prods.

I shift my body so she doesn’t keep distracting me and keep my eyes on the ball, making it fly as I hit it madly.

“Will you let me stretch you?”

Shifting even more, I keep slamming both my fists into the belly of the bag and notice she drops an elastic band to the ground before she reaches out to me.

“Are you going to answer me, Remy?”

Her hand makes contact with my back, and a jolt runs through me. Stiffening, I drop my head and angrily wonder if Pete feels a jolt when she touches him too, then I whip around and toss my boxing gloves to the ground.

“Do you like him?” I demand.

She just looks at me blankly, so I reach out and put my taped hand on the exact spot Pete touched on her arm. “Do you like it when he touches you?”

Please say no to me.

Please say no.

There’s no word for the way she’s tormenting me. I’m trying to protect her from me. I’m trying to protect myself . . . from what could be the biggest disaster of my life.