“Remy, tell me! Please tell me, what did you do?” she jealously begs, squirming to get free as she looks up at me. I swear I could look into her eyes all day, look into her face all day.
Using my body to flatten her against the wall, I place my forehead against hers and look into her eyes. “I like that you’re jealous. Is it because you love me? Do you feel proprietary of me?”
“Let go,” she angrily breathes, squirming between me and the wall.
God, she’s so lovely. I cup her cheek and softly tell her, “I do. I feel completely proprietary of you. You’re mine. I’m not letting you go.”
“You said no to me,” she angrily grits out, her eyes burning with fury. “For months and months. I was dying for you. I was going crazy. I . . . came . . . like a f**king idiot! On your f**king leg! You withheld yourself from me until I was . . . dying a little inside with wanting you. You’ve got more willpower than Zeus! But the first women they bring to your door . . . the moment I’m gone, the first whores they happened to bring you . . .”
“What would you have done if you were here? Stopped it?” My dare comes out as a whisper, and I’m struggling not to remember how I felt when I realized she f**king LEFT ME!
“Yes!” she cries.
“But where were you?” I demand, my blood starting to simmer.
“Where were you, Brooke?” I demand. I curl my hand around her throat and caress the pulse point with my thumb, searching her eyes.
“I was broken,” she whispers. “You broke me.”
“No. You. Your letter. Broke me.” Watching her, I trail my thumb along her throat and jaw, and then I watch as I trace her pink mouth, the only mouth I want. “What does it matter if I had to kiss a thousand lips to forget these?”
We hear a knock. I don’t move.
My body is tight and ready to claim hers. She’s my mate, and I want her to f**king tell me she’s jealous because I’m hers, and she’s mine, and that’s the end of it.
Then I want her to take me inside, I want to pound her hard and fill her with me.
But she doesn’t speak. My stubborn little minx doesn’t speak.
Letting her cool down, I open the door, tip the bellman, and pull in the suitcases on my own as fast as I can, one of my arms shooting out to stop her when she walks past me. “Come here, settle down now,” I command.
But she pushes my hand away, then steps out and says to the bellman, “Thank you. Would you send this duffel with that other suitcase to the other room?” she says, pointing at her suitcase.
Nodding, the guy pushes the cart back toward the elevators.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
She turns around and looks at me, breathing slowly, looking at me with wide, pained eyes. “I want to sleep with Diane tonight. I don’t feel so well and I’d rather we talk about it when I . . . when I . . . am settled down.”
I burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious.”
My laughter dies when she boards the elevator.
I stand there. My heart pounding for me to chase. But I’m too disbelieving to move.
The elevator closes.
And yes.
My woman. Just f**king boarded. That shit elevator. And left me here!
I grab my suitcase and toss it across the room with a yell, then I slam the door behind me and go kick the shit out of it.
“FUUCK!” Then I kick the pillow that is still on the floor, clamp my jaw and call Pete so he can give me Diane’s f**king room number.
When he answers, and I speak, I sound murderous. “Diane’s f**king room number.”
“Wh-whaaat? Shit, Rem, Riley told me about the argument . . . please just count to f**king a hundred before you do anything,” Pete says.
“The room. Now.”
“Two–four–three–eight.”
I slam the phone down and silently does as he says and count to a hundred.
I’ve got the phone in my hand by number 98, and by 99, I got my f**king finger on the numbers. I finally pound the keys, and when Diane’s voice answers I very softly, and very angrily growl, “I’m going down there for Brooke, so you can either open the door for me, or I can break it down. Your choice.”
I slam the phone and stop at the door, telling myself to breathe.
But I can barely pull the air into my lungs I’m so agitated at the thought of not sleeping with her. I’m agitated remembering she left me. She could leave me. Any. Fucking. Day. Again. Until I win this championship and make her marry me.
I’m so ready to make her my wife, my body preps me as if for a physical fight, and I’m ready to hunt and capture her. I squeeze my knuckles and focus on my breath as I head two floors down, and the instant I reach the door, Diane opens it.
Shit, but I think I wanted to break that f**king door!
“Diane,” I greet her, then I head straight for Brooke. She’s curled in a f**king ball, crying on that bed, and all my anger and frustration arrows to stiffen my c**k up instantly.
Because more than jealous, more than possessive, she’s hurt.
And my body seems to think the way to make it better is to turn those sobs into moans.
God, I need to f**k her and get f**king close to her. I need to kiss her and pet her.
I need her. In. My. Room. My Bed. And my body in her.
“You,” I quietly tell her, opening my hand. “Come with me.”
“I don’t want to.” She wipes a tear.
Breathing through my nose, I try to stay calm, telling her, “You’re mine and you need me, and I want you to please come the f**k upstairs with me.”
She sniffles.
“All right, come here.” Grabbing her by the hips, I swing her up in my arms. “Good night, Diane.”
She kicks and struggles, but I clench my hold on her to still her, bending to whisper to her, “Kick and claw all you like. Scream. Hit me. Curse the f**k out of me. You won’t sleep anywhere but with me tonight.”
She’s silently angry as I head to our room, but I’m f**king angrier that she had the f**king balls to try and leave me if only for half a moment. I don’t even know why we’re fighting about this. I was amused by her jealousy, but I’m not amused anymore. I need to be inside her, and I need it now. One touch and she’ll f**king know she’s every woman to me.
Inside our room, I toss her on the bed and jerk off my T-shirt, then I reach out to get rid of her clothes. She flails and kicks at me, her face still streaked with tears as she edges back. “You ass**le, don’t touch me!”
“Hey, hey, listen to me.” I trap her in my arms and hold her gaze with mine, my heart pounding as my hunter instincts kick in full gear in preparation to make her mine again. “I am insane about you. I’ve been in hell without you. In hell. Stop being ridiculous,” I tell her, meaningfully squeezing her face. “I love you. I love you. Come here.”
I haul her onto my lap, and she quietly starts crying. Every soft sob rips me in two. I remember it all. I may not remember what I did when she was gone, but I remember the emptiness of her like a curse on me. Maybe I f**ked up, but all I probably did was try to fill the void she left in me which nobody can ever f**king fill but her.
“How well did you think I’d cope when you left?” I ask her, hurting like a son of a bitch at the reminder. “Did you think it would be easy on me? That I wouldn’t feel alone? Betrayed? Fucking lied to? Used? Discarded? Worthless? Dead? Did you think there wouldn’t be days where I loathed you more than I loved you for tearing me apart? Did you?”
“I’ve left everything for you.” She looks straight at me, hurt as if I did her bodily harm. “Since I met you, all I wanted was to be yours. You said you were mine. That you were my . . . my . . . Real.”
A pained groan leaves me as I squish her to me, quietly rasping, “I’m the realest f**king thing you’re ever going to have.”
She still looks up, and those hurt, tear-filled eyes of hers claw me like talons. “It should’ve been me all those times,” she says tearfully. “It should’ve been just me, only me.”
“Then don’t f**king tell me you love me and leave me. Don’t f**king beg me to make you mine and then run the first chance I’m not f**king looking. I couldn’t even come catch you. Is that fair to me? Is it? I couldn’t even get up on my own f**king legs and come stop you.”
She sobs harder, and my chest f**king hurts for the both of us.
“I woke up to read your letter instead of getting to see you. You were all I wanted to see. All. I wanted. To see,” I quietly tell her.
Fuck. Maybe I wish I hadn’t said that, but she hurts me and she doesn’t know it. I’m strong physically but she guts me. What she does guts me, and her pain—caused by me—guts me most of all.
As she cries herself to sleep, her sobs softening gradually until all that’s left is a hiccup in her soft breaths, I breathe her hair and hold her tighter than ever. I never ever want her to leave. Not even for a night to sleep in Diane’s suite. I don’t remember what I did when she left me, I was so out of it. But it doesn’t matter, nothing mattered but that she wasn’t with me.
When she’s sound asleep, I start stripping her clothes, leaving her panties for last, pulling them down her leg and tossing everything aside. I stand up to strip myself too, then I get back in bed, naked.