Brooke Dumas.
God, she scrambles my head.
Her legs look lean and endless in those tight jeans she must use butter to slide into, and the soft-pink top she wears is the same exact shade of her lips.
I like the shade of her hair, dark and seductive and sun-lightened with just a hint of copper, and I like the small earrings on her ears. She’s wearing hardly anything fake. No watch. No bracelets. Just the small earrings, and her lips are shiny with something. The rest of her is fresh and natural as a flower, but not even flowers smell as f**king good as her.
She’s checking out my bare chest, and I concentrate on not blinking in order not to miss the way her cheeks heat up and her eyes fill with lust. My body tightens with need. I haven’t had anyone in days, and I’m not used to any sort of abstinence. It’s simple to me: if I want it, I indulge. Hungry? Eat, ass**le.
But all I want to eat now is her. I wish her hands were the ones on my shoulders. . . . No. I want my hands on her small shoulders. But I want them most on her clothes, ripping them away so I can see her.
When Brooke stares at me, and then the therapists, in slight confusion, I slap the ice pack down, finish my Gatorade, and toss it aside.
“Did you enjoy the fight?” I ask.
She startles slightly at my voice, which is gruff with dehydration and exhaustion, and my lips curl into a smile.
I want to run my fingers over her skin. She was a runner, and that flesh has seen the sun. It looks as warm as her eyes and the faint light streaks in her beautiful dark hair.
She’s silent as she contemplates the question. Like it has an answer other than the one I’ve always received, which obviously is yes.
Isn’t it?
“You make it interesting,” she finally answers.
I’m slightly thrown. So, she’s not a fan of mine? “Is that all?” I prod.
“Yes.”
The hands on my back and shoulders become annoying, and I roll my shoulders to jerk them off. “Leave me,” I command the women.
The women head out—and she’s alone with me. In my suite. My bedroom. Inches from my bed. Inches from me.
Once again, I’m hard as stone. I remember she’d been sitting with two women and a man who seemed protective of her. Yeah, thanks for protecting her, dude, but I’m taking it from here.
“The man you’re with . . . Is he your boyfriend?”
Amusement sparks in her eyes and I think I see a slight curl to the corners of her lips. “No, he’s just a friend.”
“No husband?” I keep prodding. Possessively, I study her ring finger and see how slim and delicate her hands look.
“No husband, not at all.”
The air is static. My entire body is ready to f**k her. Just being near her feels sexual. “You interned at a private school rehabbing their young athletes?”
She looks surprised, her eyes sparking with curiosity and disbelief. “You looked me up?”
“Actually, we did.” Pete and Riley come into the room, and her attention swings away from me. But mine doesn’t shift. I know what they’re going to say already. I told them what, exactly, they would propose today.
Miss Dumas . . . I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here, so we’ll just cut to it. We’re leaving town in two days and I’m afraid there’s no time to do things differently. Mr. Tate wants to hire you. . . .
She looks so surprised that I smile inside, even as my insides go tense. I don’t want her to say no. She surprised me today, denying she liked my fight. If she says no to this too, I’m not going to take it so well.
The tension escalates when she frowns after Pete’s explanation that I want her to travel with me from site to site. I don’t like the way her eyes darken.
“What is it, exactly, that you think I do? I’m not an escort,” she says.
Okay, so she doesn’t look as excited about the job as I’d thought she would be. Wary, I settle back down on the bench seat and watch her, torn between amusement and frustration at the way things are developing. Both Pete and Riley burst out laughing at her comment; I don’t.
“You’re onto us, Miss Dumas. Yes, I admit when we’re traveling, we find it convenient to keep one or several special friends of Mr. Tate’s to, shall we say, accommodate his needs either before or after a fight,” Pete laughingly explains.
Her left eyebrow shoots up and now I want to laugh at how these idiots paint me. But, hell, if she thinks my being friendly with the ladies is something bad, then wait until she hears about the worst part of me.
Suddenly, this whole scene is just not amusing at all. If I go manic before I can ever get close to her, I’ll be completely f**ked. But I also can’t just take her to bed and let her go; I don’t want to let this one go.
“A man like Remington has very particular requirements, as you might guess, Miss Dumas,” Riley tells her. “But he’s been very specific in the fact that he’s no longer interested in the friends we had secured for him during our trip. He wants to focus on what’s important, and instead, he wants you to come work for him.”
She glances at Riley, then Pete, and then at me, and she looks puzzled, which is cute.
Pete flips through the folders. “You interned at the Military Academy of Seattle in sports rehab for their middle graders, and we see you’ve graduated only two weeks ago. We’re prepared to hire your services, which will cover the duration of our eight cities we have left to tour, and Mr. Tate’s continued conditioning for future competitions. We will be very generous with your salary. It’s very prestigious to tend to such a followed athlete and should be impressive in any résumé. It might even allow you to be a free agent if in the future you decide to leave.”
She blinks and seems completely disconcerted. “I’ll have to think about it. I’m not really looking for something away from Seattle long term.”
She glances at me, somehow hesitantly and even confused. “Now if that’s all you wanted to say to me, I’d better get home. I’ll leave my card on your bar.” She swings around and heads for the door.
For a moment, I stare at her retreating back, disappointed as f**k.
I’ve been planning this for days. I’ve been wondering what it would be like to have her with me every day. I’ve been stone-hard to the point of pain imagining what her hands on me will feel like. . . .
“Answer me now,” I say, my voice harsher than I anticipated.
“What?” She pivots around in surprise, and I pin her down with my eyes and silently will her to f**king understand that I’m trying to do a good thing here, to get to know someone—to get to know her—and I don’t want her pissing on it like it’s nothing. Like I’m used to doing this sort of shit for anyone.
“I’ve offered you a job, and I want an answer.”
A leaden silence descends.
She stares at me, and I stare back just as fiercely, the air charged around us.
I’ve wanted nothing but to kiss her since the first night I saw her. I only gave her a peck, just so she knew I was going to have her. Now I wish I’d stuck my tongue inside so I could have appeased this wild craving to know what she tastes like. I want to know all of her, every scarred little piece of her knee, to the perfect contours of her face, to the way she thinks. And whether she wants to or not, I want her to know me.
She seems to drag a breath for courage before she starts nodding. “I’ll work with you for the three months you have left to tour, if you include room and board and my transportation, guarantee me references for my next job application, and let me promote the fact that I’ve worked with you with my future clients.”
Her answer takes me aback, and when she swings around to leave, I quickly stop her by saying, “All right.” When she turns, I glance at the guys. “But I want it on paper she’s not leaving until the tour is over.”
I get up and head over to her.
She watches me approach with those alarmed doe eyes again; they are soft as a deer’s, but far prettier. Her br**sts rise and fall, and I like that she knows. She knows something is going on here. She’s confused that I didn’t pursue her like she’d thought, but that is all right. Because my pursuit will be slower now, and deeper, so that in the end I can take her, fast and hard, like I’m used to taking everything in my life by force. But she’s so special, I want to reach the very core of her being before she’s mine. And when I’m there, and she’s soft and yielding to me, I’m not going to let her go.
Holding her gold gaze, I squeeze her hand gently, whispering, “We have a deal, Brooke.”
PAST
TO ATLANTA
There’s an image in my head of Pete and Riley arriving at the airport without Brooke Dumas, and I don’t like it. Pacing the length of my jet, up and down, I ram my hands into my jeans and peer out the window, but there’s still no Pete or Riley or Brooke Dumas.
I pull my hands out and crack my knuckles.
“Save it for the ring, boy,” Coach grumbles, flipping through a sports magazine, and I flex my fingers and inhale deeply. I need to train. I’ve needed to train longer, harder lately. I’m horny as f**k and just thinking about her gives me a hard-on.
From the bar, I grab a bottle of water, down it slow and cold, trying to relax. Then I go take a seat on the bench and put on my headphones. I scan my songs and look for something fast and hard, select it, and let it blast in my ears—then I see movement up in the front of the plane.