“And then you woke with me, and I saw that you’d cuddled with me, Brooke. Soft and sweet. The next time I was lying alone in bed, I wanted to cut open my fucking veins wanting you next to me, so I went back for you. That was all that got me through the day, those days. Thinking of getting you in my bed and kissing you breathless. I kept looking through my playlist just trying to find one song that could tell you how you made me feel. Inside. I’m not good at saying this, but I wanted you to know you were special to me, you’re unlike any other woman in my life.

“You wanted me to make love to you and you don’t know how many times I almost broke down. When I showered you, I swear to god, I was breaking inside. But I couldn’t do it, not without telling you there’s something deeply wrong with me, and I’m such a coward, Brooke. I couldn’t even find the courage to say the word ‘bipolar’ to you. So, I prolonged my time with you. Because I’m selfish, and I wanted you to care before you knew. Thinking it would make a difference and you’d stay. Not even my own folks could do me long term. But something about you made me think you’d know me, understand me on a level no one else does.”

“Remy,” she whispers.

“I was right, Brooke,” I add, looking firmly into her eyes. “When I told you about me, you still wanted me. And I’ve been in love with you for I don’t know how long. Ever since you tried to knock me down in the ring, and I ended up putting your little feet against my stomach to warm them. Jesus, when I saw that photograph of you and Scorpion, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to give you whatever it was that had made you go to that fucking asshole and kiss his fucking face! I wanted to give that to you, so you would kiss mine instead.”

I explain to her what went down in the hotel room with Scorpion, her eyes going soft and teary as she listens to me tell her everything, and that it’s the first time I did something right when I was black.

I edge closer and nuzzle her temple, and she shudders against me when I whisper near her ear, “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but it had to happen like this. When I told you I wouldn’t let you leave me the night I made love to you, I meant it. I want you, Brooke, for me. I can hurt you, I can do stupid shit, but I . . .” I draw back to look at her. “I’m so fucking in love with you I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore.”

She nods and wipes her tears, and I can see the way she’s struggling with her feelings like I am.

“You’re going to want to leave me again,” I whisper, cupping her jaw. “You can’t, Brooke, you can’t leave so easy.”

I stroke another hand down her hair, and she curls into it, like a kitten seeking my petting.

“You’ve claimed me, Little Firecracker. You kicked a pair of two-hundred-pound men’s asses. I will never get over that. You kicked my whores out. Pete told me. You staked your claim on me, even before you realized I’d staked mine already.” I grab her hair in one fist and pull her close. “I’m yours now, and you can’t ditch me like you just did. Even if I screw this up, I’ll still be your screwup.”

She presses her body to mine and hooks her slim arms around my neck, her shirt getting soaked with my sweat. “Not my screwup. My Real.”

I groan and lick her cheek, and she sinks into my arms as I take my mouth lower. I lick her jaw, her chin, and then her lips. Holy god, I think I won’t ever lift my head from these soft, pink, edible lips. I feel her shudder against my diaphragm, and I slip my arms around her back and draw her closer. I lick my way into her mouth, probing her entry, until she opens and gasps and lets me.

“Don’t fucking leave me ever again,” I murmur, my tongue tracing her lips, top and bottom, then delving deep inside as I open my hands on her ass and give it a squeeze.

She makes me high, rubbing her nipples on my chest, making me throb in every part of me.

“I’ve got about a thousand songs in a new playlist that says ‘Brooke’—all about me missing you, loving you, hating and adoring you,” I rasp as I reach under her dress to pull at her panties.

I love that she wore a dress, that she looks sexy, female. Mine.

I want to peel it off with my fucking teeth and try not to get rough as I pull her panties off her legs as she confesses, “I’ve got some too, I want to spend all day playing them to you.”

When I’ve got her naked, I haul her back on my lap, and she’s got me in tangles, my cock pulsing against her through my shorts.

She straddles me and rubs my hard-on, and she’s trembling with need. “I love you,” she breathes, and I take it from there.

HOURS LATER, SHE’S spent in my bed.

Brooke Sexy-as-Fuck Dumas.

I could lie here with her all night.

Her shiny mahogany hair is spread all over my chest and falling down my right shoulder.

Her warm breath coasts over my pecs while her long, slim, little fingers are sweetly delineating the squares of my abs.

My hands run up and down her back.

I don’t know what to touch, where to lick, bite, suck, I just want to do it all at once.

I take a loose strand of hair to rub it between two fingers, then I bend my head and inhale. My head buzzes as her scent fills my lungs. I can never get over the way that feminine scent gets into my gut, tangles me like a knot. It’s a sweet fragrance unique to her, and the first time I caught a whiff, I knew she was mine.

All mine.

I’m not letting anyone take her.

I’m not letting her go.

I’m her Real.

She’s Mine.

I can barely fit inside my skin. I feel like a fucking king who’s just inherited a kingdom named Brooke Little Firecracker Dumas.

I open a hand to cup the back of her head and place a kiss on her forehead. She moans softly and turns her head to kiss my chest. I peer down at her pretty face and trace my thumb along her lower lip. I’m wild about this mouth. The things it says to me. The things it does to me. The way it feels, the way it tastes, the way it looks.

I drag my lips along her forehead, the shell of her ear, inhaling her and feeling every inch of her small, lean body against mine. She’s sweaty and sticky with me and she’s warm as a little sun. I nuzzle her earlobe and then I lick her, pushing my tongue gently into the crevice.

I feel her shudder as I pet my other hand down her head and then down her smooth back while I have my way with her ear, slowly letting my tongue make love to it, and I can’t get enough.

I pull her over me and swipe her hair to the side, then I bury my face in her neck so her nose is tucked into my throat and I’m tucked in hers. “Brooke Dumas,” I murmur huskily into her ear. “I love you, my little firecracker.”

She sighs into my neck and slides her hands into my hair and sifts her fingers through my scalp. “I’m so happy,” she says. She eases back and looks at me, her eyes shining in the darkness.

She meets my gaze with a smile, and I know I’m smiling back at her, and she’s naked like I like her and suddenly my eyes rake her up and down. I’ve been starved for the sight of her, and now I’m going to look my fill until my eyes burst. Her breasts, her abs, her toned little arms, her slim throat, her lovely chin, her high cheekbones, her smart, proud little forehead.

“Remy . . .” she whispers.

She reaches out with one hand, and she starts caressing my jaw so tenderly it’s like she can’t believe she’s in my arms.

I cup her little face in my big hand and stroke my thumb across her lips because I can’t believe it too.

“Come here.” I sit up and cup the back of her head and pull her to me. I bury her face in my neck and squeeze her closer. She straddles me and wraps her arms around my neck. She kisses my neck and I rub my hands all over her body.

“You won’t leave me again,” I growl softly into her hair, and she kisses the tendons of my neck, then grasps my jaw in her small hands and kisses my nose, my forehead.

“I love you. I’m going to say it until you’re so sick and tired of hearing it, you’ll kiss me to shut me up,” she tells me.

I laugh. “That’ll never happen.” I clutch her tight and pull her face back. “I’ll kiss you anyway.”

I buzz her lips and she licks me softly, like I lick her, and I growl and suckle her tongue. I love her so much. She’s given me love in ways no one in my life ever has. I had never known someone could love me until she loved me. So alien it is to me, I wasn’t even sure why she spent nights stroking my head and I’d wake up to find her sleepy but still running her little hands all over me. I know how she defends me when I can’t. I know how strong she is. As strong as I need her to be.

“I’m going to rain kisses all over you,” she whispers.

I growl softly and nod. When she speaks, I listen because her words are my sweetest music. When she tells me her stories, about her friends. Her words have always done stuff to me—and her touch . . .

The knots inside me tighten as she drags her teeth up my jaw, up to my temple, and I squeeze my eyes shut and inhale heavily through my nostrils while my body responds fiercely to her caresses.

My muscles tense; my heart picks up, and I want to sink inside her and feel her warmth and her love, her understanding and her acceptance. Making love to her makes me feel whole and perfect, like I was made to provide and protect and mate with this woman. My woman.

She just came back to me.

I’ve been hurting like a motherfucker for over a month, wanting nothing but my Brooke.

I want her to know that she’s mine. That I’m going to protect her and that I’m going to be there for her. That I love her. That it doesn’t matter to me anything except she’s here and she’s not leaving me again because I won’t allow it. Not a single part of me will allow it.

No. I’m the one who wants to feel that she’s mine.

That she’ll never leave me.

That she will love me and touch my face and my hair in the way she touches me and everything inside me goes still and focuses on that single tender touch, the point of contact of my body with hers.

I rub my thumb over her tears and lick them one by one as they keep coming, my brain shooting a thousand words in my head. Female. Beautiful. Mine. I want to say it all but instead I don’t say anything and roll her over and cover her. I tug on her earlobe, and her sobs have turned to whimpers as I ease inside her. She slides her arms up my chest and curls her fingers on my shoulders, and I grab her breasts and squeeze them gently like she likes, then I kiss each tip with only my lips.

She arches her spine and mews when I add my teeth on the tips, and a shudder rocks her body when I swipe the little, hard points with my tongue.

She twists her neck aside when I twirl my tongue up her skin, and she opens her throat to me. I bite close to her pulse point, and she gasps and grabs my hair to lock me in place. She moves her body under mine, keeping my face to her neck. My every muscle is coiled for release. My body is used to pain, I’ve trained it to embrace it, but this is soul deep and I hurt with it.

I lick the spot on her neck where I just bit, and she claws her nails along the bunched up muscles on my back. “Remington . . .”