“Don’t kiss me!” I hiss.

He seizes my face in one open hand and turns me around, and he takes my mouth again, forcing my lips to part so he can thrust his tongue in me with a groan. I moan as his tongue touches mine, fighting weakly as I squirm between him and the seat and I push at his shoulders, twisting my head away.

“Let go!” I moan.

“God, I need you like I need to breathe. . . .” He slides his callused palm under my dress, stroking his long fingers up my thigh as he presses a path of hungry, wet kisses up my throat. “Why are you playing games with me? Hmm? I need to be inside you right now. . . .”

“Did you tell that to your groupies?” Panting and angry as his hand advances up my thigh, I push at his granite chest and make a frustrated sound when he doesn’t budge. “Tell that to the one who kissed your chin, your temple, your jaw, and your fucking mouth!”

He edges back with a confused scowl.

“You’ve got lipstick all over your face, Remington!” I say, straightening my dress.

With a low, exasperated noise, he drags the back of his forearm across his lips, then looks down at it and narrows his eyes when he sees the red streak on his skin. He clamps his jaw shut and falls back in his seat, dropping his head back with a groan. He rakes his hands through his hair and stares angrily at the ceiling, breathing through his nose. I try sliding to the other end of the seat, but his hand shoots out and clamps around my wrist.

“Don’t,” he rasps, like he’s in pain.

I swallow a lump of anger in my throat as he slides his hand from my wrist to my hand and links our fingers. The entire ride, I am acutely aware of his palm against mine, his thick, long fingers laced through mine, holding me tight while my chest feels like bursting and imploding, all at the same time.

We get to our hotel and Riley cautiously checks on us via the rearview mirror. “I’ll pick up the rest of the team now,” he says.

“Thanks,” Remington flatly says as he helps me down from the car. Then, with his hand still holding mine, he walks me across the lobby to the elevators.

We hop on, and his scruffy jaw is still all streaked in red. Even with those streaks, his face is every woman’s fantasy. His hair rumpled and black, those sweatpants riding low on his hips while that T-shirt clings to his eight-pack and broad shoulders and bulging biceps. He’s still the same sex symbol he’s always been, while I feel more pregnant than ever, with the tiny bump of my stomach.

He pulls me into our room, the door slamming with its own weight behind us, and the instant he lets go of my hand he grabs me by the hips and lifts me up to set me down on the dining table.

“Don’t do this to me.” He nips my neck and slides his hand under my dress again, raising it up quickly to cup me over my panties this time. “Don’t fucking do this to me now,” he groans.

I start to shudder when he drags his mouth up to my jaw, nipping my lips as he rubs the tip of one finger over my panties. I hate the whimper that comes out of me, but he seems to like it, for he groans and heads straight for my mouth. I jerk my head away, my voice soft and pained. “I want to kiss you, not them!” I cry, weakly pushing at his big chest.

“It’s me.” He pulls his hand out of my dress, grabs the sides of my face in both hands, and kisses me, smearing me with someone else’s lipstick as he covers my mouth and forcibly opens me. I push on his chest until I can’t push anymore while his tongue overpowers mine and he curls his arms around my back as he leans me down on the table, his arms protecting me from the hard surface as he suckles on me with desperate hunger. “It’s me,” he rasps, rubbing a hand along the side of my body and to my breast.

I whimper needily and hate that I do. I’m so wet. I need him so much. He smells so fucking good. I’m going crazy, but when he covers my breast with one hand, I’m still so jealous and angry, I try to push his hand away. He makes a low, pained noise. “Brooke . . .” With a frustrated sound, he grabs the fabric of my dress in both fists and rips it open in one jerk. I gasp as he spreads the fabric aside to reveal me in my underwear, his dark head quickly diving so he can drag his tongue over my skin, from my belly button upward, as he parts the material even more and strokes his hands up my ribs.

Tremors run through me and I clutch the back of his head, torn between pulling him up to my mouth and pushing him away; instead, I pull him up by the hair. “No,” I groan, and he eases back and looks at me with those wild-animal eyes, and I know I shouldn’t provoke him, I should calm him, but I am jealous out of my fucking mind. He has turned me into this. Loving and obsessing about him, wondering who he’s been with. He might not even know himself—but they know, and they aren’t me.

Seized by a new determination, I sit up and angrily grab his jaw and start scrubbing my palms and fingers furiously over the marks. When I can’t remove much of them, I grab his white T-shirt and pull it up to wipe him. He stands there, breathing harder than he does when he fights, looking at me like he’s begging me for something—for me—as he patiently lets me wipe him clean.

My fingers tremble. His eyes are brilliant in the shadows of the suite as I scrub, but I still can’t get the lipstick off, and I can’t stand it.

I lick my finger and then rub saliva on the lipstick marks, then pass his T-shirt over the damned spot.

He grows frustrated and shoves his fingers into his mouth, then starts rubbing the places I am, our fingers bumping as we scrape our saliva all over his jaw. I lift the T-shirt and scrape again, going breathless as it finally starts coming off.

I stop when there’s nothing left, only his hard jaw, a little raw, my body on fire with need and my heart on fire with love and every inch of me burning with jealousy. And I grab his hair and lean over and set a kiss right there, where another kiss used to be, desperately trying to erase anything before. And I set another kiss there, and another where another mark used to be. He grasps my hips tight as I drag my lips along his jaw and head for his mouth, and I kiss it, fast and almost as if I don’t want to, and ease back, sucking in a breath as I let go.

He raises a brow. “Done?” he asks in a haggard voice, and I don’t think I’m breathing when I nod.

His chest expands as he grabs the stained T-shirt and lifts it in one single, fluid move, tossing it aside. “You and I are going to make love now. We don’t have to wait a second . . . longer . . . to be together.”

Shivers run through me, and my voice is raw with emotion. “I can’t stand seeing their lipstick on you, Remington—I won’t let them kiss you. And this isn’t some pregnancy craziness talking or my insecurities! I told you a long time ago that I won’t share. I won’t share you.”

“Shh, baby, I neither expect you to nor want you to.” He eases my tattered dress off my shoulders, then lets it spread out beneath me on the table. He urges me down and then looks at me splayed for him, with my knees folded back. He touches me everywhere—my legs, my arms, between my breasts—as he leans over. “Coach was tying up my hands, I had my headphones on. I didn’t see them coming until they were all over me. It won’t happen again. I kiss no one. I kiss no one. But my little firecracker.”

He ducks to my breasts and licks one nipple through my bra, sliding his thumb under the plain white cotton, easing the fabric down and hooking it beneath the rising swell. “I am going to lick these and I am going to suck these and I am going to do whatever I want with these.”

My heart pounds hot blood through my veins as he lowers the fabric on the other side and licks the sensitive peak, sending bolts of pleasure everywhere in me. My breasts are bigger, thrust out, the nipples darker and puckered, and he cups them as if exploring new territories that delight him. The sound that rumbles up his chest causes me to make a small little sound of my own as I squirm needily. His eyes lift to mine when he hears that sound, and he grabs my hips and drags me to the edge of the table, my butt flying off the very edge, and he jerks loose his sweatpants. Suddenly I feel how hard he is, his heavy erection brushing against my soaked entry as he leans over to lave and lick my breasts again, his hardness nestling into the apex of my legs.

“Sensitive?” He presses one nipple in with his thumb, then the other, his hands rough but gentle. I arch and mew softly. I want a bruise, I want to ache, I want to ache in my skin and my muscles like I ache inside with love for him.

“Yes,” I gasp and there’s a lump in my throat and tears of need in my eyes.

He takes my lips in a voracious kiss, then ducks his head and groans into my neck, “Brooke.” He caresses between my legs and pushes his thumb into my body as he turns his head and strokes my tongue with his own. My insides tremble when he draws back to observe how debauched I look as he thumbs me.

I see the raw need in his face as he watches; then he lifts his hand and licks his glistening wet thumb. Oh god, I see him—primal and male, still with that boyish charm and that disheveled crazy black hair, and I squirm and moan because I want him, I want him, I WANT HIM.

“You’re restless, what do you want?” The ragged need in his voice makes me tremble as I say, “I want to lick you like you lick me,” and he nods and bends over and gives me his tongue first; then he cups the back of my head and presses me to his neck.

Wet and burning hot, his skin is silk under my twirling tongue. I shiver as I go up and grab his hair and suck his top lip into my mouth. He tastes like he does, and he tastes like he wants me. We kiss intensely, and my breathing hitches even more. He tears my bra as I bite his lower lip, and he’s breathing deeply when he pulls down my panties and draws back to see me fully naked now. His eyes trace me, devour me. He sees my breasts just thrusting out, bare, and they’re fuller, and I know he desires them. He cups one, like he’s knowing me for the first time. This is what he did to my body. This is what happens to my body after him.