Then he points at me.
My heart stops.
It seems that everyone’s eyes follow the finger pointing in my direction, aimed straight at my chest, where my heart races for him, his red-hot blue gaze clearly saying, “This one’s for her.”
A delighted roar from the crowd explodes around me. It hits me like adrenaline, like a shot of tequila that flies straight to your head, the way his fans love him. The way he loves them back. The way he loves me.
I’m amazed by the way the public reacts to him and by the way he stands there, with his dimples flashing, sucking in all the energy in the room and channeling it into “Riptide.”
God, I love him, and I never want him to forget it!
Overcome with the impulse, I blow him a kiss.
He catches it and smashes it to his mouth.
The crowd grows even louder. Remy points at me, laughing, and I’m laughing too. My eyes burn a little because I’m so happy that I just can’t fit inside my skin. I’m happy that he’s happy, and he’s where he belongs.
This is his season. This year, nothing will stop Remington Tate from being the Underground League champion. Nothing.
He will do whatever it takes, because he’s a driven, powerful, passionate man, and whether I am afraid, worried, excited, or all of the above, I will support him.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, may we have a round of applause to welcome a newbie to the Underground, from the Fighter’s Club, the famed, feared, and deadly Grant Gonzalez, “Goooodzillaaaa!”
As his opponent is announced, Remington circles the ring restlessly like a panther until a huge lump of silver comes out from a second walkway. Remy flexes his fingers at his sides as he watches the man take the ring. Tonight, they all wear their hands taped with bare knuckles exposed, much like men used to fight in older times.
The new fighter is barely out of his robe when the public starts shunning him. “Booooooo! Booooo!”
“That guy has killed a couple people fighting,” Pete tells me under his breath. “He’s a dirty and mean motherfucker.”
“Don’t tell me people have died in these events?” I ask in horror, feeling a disturbing quake inside my stomach. Pete rolls his eyes.
“Brooke, these are uncensored fights. Of course shit happens.”
The thought of Remy fighting with killers catapults my usual pre-fight fears to a whole new level. Fears I had repressed as my man drank up the audience’s adoration. Fears that now grip me by the tummy and squeeze me like a fist.
“Pete, death is more than ‘shit’ happening.”
Remington taps his fists to his opponent’s and the crowd falls quiet. My insides go utterly still. I’m wildly, almost anxiously, measuring the new guy, as if I can get any knowledge from his looks alone. The young man’s white skin is slicked with something that looks like grease. Are they allowed to be slippery when fighting? He has long hair tied in a ponytail and beefy muscles like most every other fighter I’ve seen. Nobody is as lean and beautiful as Remy. I’ll bet no one takes care of their body and trains with the same dedication that he does.
When the bell rings, I don’t think I’m breathing.
They approach each other. Remington waits for the other man to move, his guard perfectly up, every one of his powerful muscles relaxed so they can quickly engage. Finally, Godzilla swings. Remy ducks and rams the side of his body and—unbelievably—knocks that enormous monster down with a crashing noise.
I gasp in complete disbelief when the referee’s counting begins.
A private smile curves Remy’s lips as he looks down at the motionless figure and practically dares him to move.
He doesn’t.
A roar rips through the crowd.
Pete jumps to his feet and pumps his fist in the air. “Yeah! That’s right! Who’s the man! Who. Is. The MAN!”
“ONE PUNCH, ladies and gentlemen!” the voice yells through the speakers. “One f**king punch! He’s back! HE’S BACK!!! Men and women, girls and f**king boys, I give you tonight, your one and only Riiiptide!!! RIPtiiiiide!!”
The ringmaster yanks up Remy’s arm in victory.
And although the entire arena screams his name, his dancing blue eyes immediately come to me, and my whole body starts to ache in every single place.
God.
He’s a f**king sex god. And he freaking turns me on.
“Riptide, please, oh, please let me touch you!” A screaming woman runs to the edge of the ring, stretching her hand through the ring ropes toward him.
Remington seems to take pity on her and seizes her hand. He buzzes his lips across her knuckles, and she begins to scream hysterically. I laugh, but then a snake of jealousy curls around my gut. He looks up at me as he releases her, and then, in that lithe way he moves that reminds me of large deadly cats, he swings down from the ring.
Complete stillness settles over the arena until all I can hear is my heartbeat.
Remington . . . Remington . . . Remington . . .
He walks up to me, the smile on his face telling me he thinks he’s all that.
“You’re jealous,” he says in that deep, toe-curling voice of his.
“A little,” I say, laughing at myself.
He doesn’t laugh, but he smiles a smile that sparkles in his blue eyes as he slides his fingers up the side of my throat, then I feel the pad of his thumb gently stroke across the flesh of my bottom lip. The butterflies in my tummy awaken. His eyes are at half-mast as he surveys my mouth. He does it slowly, from corner to corner, and then, because he seems to think he owns this mouth, he swoops down and takes it.
His lips fire me up. My stomach spins as he forces my lips apart, and when his tongue flashes, hot, damp, and powerful, to take a quick and heady taste of me, I trap back my moan.
“Don’t be,” he roughly tells me as he looks down at my kissed mouth and appreciates his handiwork for a moment. He presses his lips to my forehead for a fraction of a second, and then he heads back to the ring in that graceful way he walks, relaxed and almost ambling.
Behind me, I hear breathless voices.
“Holy shit, I want to do that ten ways till Sunday.”
“Ohmifucking god he was right here!”
I lick my lips, and I can still taste the sexy f**ker, which only makes my ni**les bead and my sex swell with complete possessiveness of him.
As his next opponent is called up to fight, Remington flexes the muscles of his arms, down to the tips of his fingers. His smile flashes at me from the ring, and very clearly, his two dimples tell me how much he enjoys leaving me in a puddle of love and longing. The devil.
A fighter I remember from last year, Parker Drake, “the Terror,” gets up in the ring to face him. And the bell rings.
Ting.
The crowd quiets as the fight begins, and both men start swinging and hitting. Remy’s punches are powerful, and you can hear the sound of his fists landing, deep, strong, and fast as lightning. Poom poom poom! Squirming in my seat, I watch and listen, alternating between thrill and worry, when Parker crashes to the ground. I shoot to my feet and scream “Riptide!” in chorus with all the other people, knowing that this is the first of many times I will be here watching Remington reclaim everything, every single thing, that he gave up for me.
TWO
HAPPINESS = HIM
I’ve only spent the night with one man in my entire life. I love bumping into his muscles while we sleep. I love how the sheets smell of him, of us, and how his shoulders have become my favorite pillow, even though they’re hard as hell and I can’t understand why I like sleeping on them, but I do. They come with his arm around my waist and his scent, and his heat, and I love it all, every bit of it. Especially when he ducks his head to tuck his nose into my neck, and I bury mine into his.