My voice trembles, but I’m so scared and drunk and sexually frustrated, if he doesn’t give me an answer I think I’m going to go and smash the rest of what Remington left intact.
Pete hesitates, then pries my arm free from the death grip I seem to have on him. “He doesn’t want you to see him.”
I’m stunned speechless, but my need to make sure Remington is all right is so overpowering that I still try to go in. Pete quickly yanks me firmly aside.
“Look, he’s been speedy since you got here, and this kind of thing happens after the speedy. All he needs is some physical contact to make him feel good, get him out of that funk, and he’ll be fine soon. We knew it was coming, it was just a matter of days. It always begins when he can’t be worn off in the ring. And the fact that he’s been panting after you like a dog doesn’t help, Brooke.”
“And who the hell gives you the right to shoot chemicals up his veins, Pete?” I demand, reeling in fury on Remington’s behalf.
“He does. A thousand trashed hotel rooms, Brooke. I’ve been with him a decade, and so has Riley. He’s the most high maintenance man you’re ever gonna meet!”
Riley walks back to us with a bleak expression. “They’re on their way.”
“You got two?” Pete asks.
“Three. New ones. See if that will whet his damned stubborn appetite.”
When I realize what they’re talking about, I immediately want to hit them. “Three new what? Prostitutes?”
With a fresh glimmer of concern, Pete pats my shoulder in an appeasing there-there mode. “This is standard protocol, all right? These are clean women and very expensive ones. He won’t care who it is. We shouldn’t have let him go so long without working that off especially with you around. Sorry about being graphic but this is our problem to fix now, and he can’t fight like this tomorrow. Hell, it’s going to be a miracle if we get him out of bed.”
Something bleak and green twists inside me, knotting viciously in my chest. “I don’t want those women here,” I tell them in deceptive calm.
Maybe I don’t have a say in the matter, but I remember Remy’s kiss tonight, the gentle cup of his hands. His words. You’re mine tonight…
The sudden, vivid image of his body entwined with someone else’s makes me want to rush to the toilet again and throw up. I’m a little drunk, or maybe already hung over. I don’t know. But my heart hurts and my stomach roils at the mere thought of anyone else touching him. And suddenly I do need to cover my mouth and rush to the toilet again for real.
I spend the next ten minutes there, then wash my mouth again, clean everything up, and wind my way back to the living room just in time for the stinking prostitutes to arrive. Riley seems to have gone down to the lobby to bring them up—as no respectable hotel would allow these women access on their own—and when Pete opens the door to let them inside, with their stinking perfumes and glittery ensembles, I gape and feel green and twisted all over again.
They’re so beautiful, I realize with horror I may be the kind of drunk who starts yelling at people and then crying, because I feel like doing both. I’m so furious I charge forward and halt the women only two steps into the living room, all three of them stopping when they see my messed-up hair and my angry glare.
“We don’t need your services anymore, ladies. I’m sorry for your time, here’s for your expenses coming over.”
Grabbing a hundred dollars from Riley’s wallet, who was the closest and also the jerk who had the gall to call them, I shove the women out into the hall and slam the door in their faces. Then I spin around, a scowl biting into my face.
“That’s the last time you call some tramps when he’s like this,” I say, sticking a finger out threateningly, my heart pounding in pure rage and protectiveness. “I realize I’m in no condition to make decisions here, but neither is he. He doesn’t want them!” I cry.
The men, both of them completely sober and always quite sharp in their “bodyguard-looking” suits and ties, except Pete who lost form tonight, they just stare at me in utter confusion, making me feel like I’ve gone mad.
Well?
Have I?
I’m not sure. But my chest aches for the man in the master bedroom and my br**sts heave from my fast breaths as I fight to stand my ground. I know what these guys are thinking. I know they want to know why the hell I won’t let those women in. They think I want to f**k Remington, and that I think he truly wants me. And maybe I do. I desperately do. I not only want to f**k him, I may possibly have gone all out and have deep complicated feelings for him.
But the thought of anyone touching him makes me want to breathe fire. I don’t care that he’s not mine. I care that right now, Pete just shot something up his veins, his beautiful body is on standby, and his brain is shot. If I can stop this nightmare from happening, I will, and I just did.
“I’m not drunk now,” I state to the men when they only keep staring at me.
Both of them sigh. “I’m going to bed in case he starts up when it wears off,” Riley says, and stalks to the door.
“Don’t go in there,” Pete warns to me, signaling at the master. “Sleep in the other room. He’s possibly not going to remember anything you say right now, and if what we gave him wears off too soon, he can get more difficult than you can imagine.”
“Fine,” I lie, and go to other room to get into my sleep shirt, but I just can’t leave it at that. Only Remy and I are sleeping in this suite, and when the door shuts after Pete, I know we’re alone.