Then I take his big hand and slip the platinum band I got him, engraved smoothly on the inside, TO MY REAL, YOUR BROOKE DUMAS.
“MR. and MRS. RIPTIDE!!!” the gang calls when we’re done.
We laugh and Remington lifts me up from the ground, flings me up in the air and catches me. “Now you’re Mine,” he claims happily then squeezes me close and his laugh turns into a smoldering gaze. Running his eyes admiringly over my face, he holds the back of my neck, leans down, and gives me the softest, gentlest, most lingering kiss he’s ever given me in his life.
“We got you a gift, Brooke.” Pete and Riley hold out a box as they come over. “It’s from the team, including our new member, Jo.” I wave at Jo at the end of the aisle and then tear open the gift.
A flash of red appears, and I pull out a shiny red robe identical to Remy’s boxing robe. But this one reads RIPTIDE’S GIRL.
Smiling delightedly, I hug them, but not for long, because I hear a growl and am pulled into bigger, stronger, more possessive arms.
Forty days of pent-up sexual desire ride with us on the way home. Primitive sexual energy swirls between us like a growing tornado, feeding on our emotions. On our happiness, our love. Our need. When we enter our apartment, Racer is sound asleep in his cradle, which Diane seems to have pulled out to the living room. She sets down a magazine when we come in and, with a happy squeal, embraces Remington so tight, he chuckles in surprise. Then she wraps her warm arms around me.
“I hope you both know I will treat this baby like a grandson,” she tells us.
“Diane,” I say with emotion, completely moved by her words, “thank you.”
Remington smiles at her, his dimples all gorgeous, and Diane hugs him one last time before she leaves. Remy pulls off his black tie and tosses it aside. Flicking open the top button of his snowy white shirt, he pulls me into his arms and takes my mouth, mating his tongue to mine as he lifts me to a sleek wood console by the entry.
“I need to kiss”—he slides his hands all over my curves—“my beautiful wife.”
Shudders of happiness and love course through all my body as I slide my hands into his spiky hair and devour his lips as fiercely as he does mine. Racer wakes up, on the clock, with a sudden wail, and we both tear free and turn to the noise. Before I can push off the console, Remington sets me down and kisses the back of my ear, his voice terse: “Feed him so you can feed me next.”
“I have a good idea of what you want, so okay.”
“Okay?” he calls as he ambles into the kitchen, and I lift Racer from his cradle.
“More than okay!” I shout. “Bring the cradle when you come to the bedroom.”
Quickly, I sit at the edge of the bed and I jerk my top off, pull my bra down, and press our protesting little baby up to my breast, checking the clock to alternate between br**sts.
Soon, Remy sets the cradle down on my side of the bed and starts pacing.
My lion is restless.
A supercharged sexual current floats between us—it has been charging for forty days. In my mind, I have f**ked Remington a thousand ways, and I know he’s been eye-fucking me every day.
While I feed Racer, Remington watches intently. He finishes one peach and two apples, and he is now pacing again, watching me feed our son as he flicks open the buttons of his jacket, then of his entire shirt. His eyes are hungry. I am so hungry. I’ve never yearned like this. We’re used to quick fixes in this life, but there’s no quick way of fixing your body after childbirth, and we had to wait no matter what. But god, Racer is such a good baby. He eats and sleeps. I feel like he knows that Daddy is special. And he tries to make it easy on me. I guess if he doesn’t, we’ll just get help. We have options. Choices. We own ourselves, our lives, and we and the people around us are happy with them.
“You done yet?” he asks roughly, pacing to come see as he untucks his shirt from his slacks. He’s so possessive. Every day, every night, he pulls me close and tells me I’m his. But he doesn’t realize every time he says that, he’s also saying he’s mine. You can’t really own something that doesn’t own you right back, not even a car.
While I feed our son, we listen to music and play each other songs, and play songs for Racer. Now Remy’s shirt drapes to his sides, revealing his eight-pack, and he comes and puts his hand on the breast Racer isn’t already occupying. He holds my neck and leans down and kisses me.
Desire rushes through my veins, and by the time Racer stops suckling and dozes off, Remington edges back and looks at me, his lids weighted, my lips throbbing from his kiss.
“Do you remember asking about family you didn’t miss because you never had one?” I whisper, reaching out and curling my fingers on his jaw, loving that his lips look swollen from our kiss too. “You don’t miss it because you do have one. You built one, Remington. You went straight to being the head of one. And you know what? Your family isn’t with you because of destiny or blood or because they have no choice. They’re with you because they love you. And chose you.” I gaze into his blue eyes. “I choose you.”
Still keeping Racer to my breast, I reach behind me and pull out a folded envelope that I tucked into my nightstand behind me. “I wrote you a letter.”
Lips curling cockily, he reaches out for it, but I hold it back with a smile of mischief. “I’ll trade it with you, in exchange for my old letter.”
“No,” he says, tweaking my nose.
I laugh. “You greedy man! Yes!” I insist.
“What does it say?” he asks, his eyebrows raising in a dare.
“You’ll get to see if you give me my old one, which I wrote when I was young and scared, and you get this new one, which I wrote now when I am . . . when I am yours.”
His eyes blaze at my last words. When he pulls the old letter out of his nightstand, I quickly take it away, so that he never has to remember that I left him, because now I will never leave. “You can read this new one any time,” I tell him as I stand and head for the cradle, and his eyes flash. He nods as he places it on the nightstand.
Instead of reading it, he watches me set Racer down, and as he waits for me to settle him on his side, he goes to the iPod already sitting on our speakers. When we drove back from city hall, I told him I felt like playing him “From This Moment” by Shania Twain and Bryan White, and all of a sudden, the song is filling our bedroom.
My heart trembles as I turn around to look at him, my hands empty, empty of him. He curls his fingers at his sides and drags in a deep breath, his gaze blazing with blue-hot yearning, and in a fraction of a second, we both snap into movement on the opposite sides of the bed. I start to frantically strip off my skirt and he jerks off his shirt, our eyes watching what the other does.
I’m na**d before he is, and I climb into bed and crawl across it, reaching out to undo his pants. In one jerk, he grabs the back of my head and crushes my mouth like he hasn’t kissed me in his whole life. Sparks race throughout my body as our mouths feast and we both make starved groaning sounds. Eagerly I push his dark slacks down his hips, and the buckle hits the floor. He kicks them aside and lowers me to the bed, and not for a moment does his mouth leave mine. My hands slide up his hard muscles, his smooth skin, as I feel all his calluses rasping over me and every part of my body awakens for him.
“I want you, I love you like nothing in my f**king life, nothing,” he passionately rasps, brushing my hair back, and I shudder as our lips lock again and we roll on the bed. He pulls my arms up and laces our fingers together as I lock my legs around him. He eases inside me, and I gasp and mew and lick into his mouth as I feel his length, his width, his pulsing hardness advancing in me. Groaning in pleasure, he licks me back, penetrating with slow, delicious control even though I feel the vibrant tension in his body above mine.