I’m so fucking hard my balls hurt, but Brooke shivers in her sleep and searches for my body heat, innocently rolling in her sleep to press closer to me. “That’s right, I’m right here,” I say and wrap my arms around her. I drag my nose along her nape, petting her during the night, scenting and licking her. “I only love you. You’re mine, and I’m yours. Nobody will ever have me but you.”

* * *

SHE’S TANGLED IN bed with me two mornings later.

Yesterday morning, she was quiet and angry at me, but this morning I’ve finally appeased her, and she’s relaxed and in my arms. Her dark hair is spread behind her pillow and she’s resting on her stomach, her face buried in my chest while I at last pull in a good breath.

Hell, I felt like such an unwanted piece of shit yesterday, every breath felt like I was pulling in water. I got punched last night at the fight so she would stop ignoring me and touch me.

She wouldn’t touch me and I couldn’t fucking stand it.

She had no choice but to touch me after the fight.

She was worried about me, tending to my cut lip up to the point she realized I took the hits on purpose. Then she was all fire and anger, ordering me into the shower so she could rub me with her oils after. I like to let her think she can order me around. But not this time. I carried her into the shower with me and told her she would fucking love me if it killed us both. Jesus, I’m so fucking greedy when it comes to her.

“You coming to the gym?” I quietly ask, massaging her butt with the palm of my hand.

She doesn’t stir. Pressing against her back and scenting the back of her ear, I nip her playfully, then tongue her ear, and my cock hardens instantly, and a quick glance at the clock tells me there’s time for that. “You’re the most fuckable thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing, touching, and sucking the hell out of,” I rasp, nuzzling her.

She sighs softly. I force myself to get up and brush my teeth, then I grab my clothes from the closet and ram my legs into my sweatpants. She’s still asleep, and I’m still hard, so I set my T-shirt aside, and go back to bed to wake her.

I pull the sheet down so the cold air makes her skin pebble and I can lick all those little cold bumps on her ass. I bite one cheek, then the other, sliding my hands between her legs to cup her pussy, growling softly when my cock starts pulsing, but when she doesn’t squeal or so much as move, I frown and ease back to look at her.

Last night she was tired, and yet she still let me have her. She was languid as I fucked her, letting me turn her, suck her, finger and tongue her. She kept coming fast and hard for me every time, her eyes dewy and sleepy, watching me as I told her how good she felt, how good she smelled . . .

You’re so hard for me, I love having you in me, she breathed, half-asleep.

I want to fucking live in you, I said, again and again, as I’ve said before.

She sighed and came, and after our fight, I still couldn’t have enough, so after relaxing for an hour or two, I woke her up, scented her, and fucked her, loving how wet she was.

She’s sleeping so soundly now I can’t wake her again. Running my eyes down her curves, I make love to every inch with my eyes, then I pull the sheets and cover her back up, leaning over as I brush her dark hair behind one ear.

I press my lips to her ear, “Dream of us.” Then I pat her butt again and stand. I bounce in place a few seconds to bring the blood from my cock back to my limbs and brain, then I head out to the kitchen to find Diane already on breakfast.

Pete is already in the living room, dressed and with the car keys.

I grab a green bar and a protein shake, tell Diane to feed my girl, and then we’re off.

We’re not a block away when Pete’s phone beeps. He answers, “Yeah,” and starts listening, his smile vanishing and his face paling by the second. My instincts shift into overdrive. My heart starts kicking harder and deeper.

BROOKE.

BROOKE.

BROOKE.

Pete swerves the car around and tosses me the phone as he speeds back into the hotel driveway. Diane’s voice screeches out of the receiver before I even place it on my ear, “Get back here! Get back here please!” she begs.

I see red.

Before the car screeches to a halt, I yank open the door and charge out and into the elevator, my reflexes lightning fast. Pete slides in behind me, and neither of us says a word as I press the floor button over and over as we head up.

“REMINGTON!” Diane screams from the door when I charge out the elevator with Pete running after me. I charge past Diane and slam the door wide open only to see Brooke motionless on the floor, a puddle of water surrounding her, and soft crying sounds trembling out of her.

And there are . . . scorpions! All over her! Lightning fast, I charge over, grabbing and crushing them in my hands one by one. Stingers sink into my palms, but there’s no pain. All my senses are honed in on Brooke. The way she’s crying, the way she’s trembling, everything I see making me half mad. I toss the last scorpion aside and pull her like a man clinging to life into my arms, and she’s shaking and whimpering while I struggle to breathe through my nose, my body trembling with the need to fight and protect her, my system overloaded with adrenaline as a rage unlike any other starts bubbling in my veins.

“I got you,” I passionately hiss as I wipe her tears, squeezing her to me. “I got you. I got you.”

If I lose her, it’s over for me. I’m done.

“A woman just came and knocked! She said Remy had ordered the box for her!” Diane cries out between sobs.

I don’t hear the rest of what they’re saying. I squeeze Brooke closer to my body and bend to her little ear. “I’m going to kill him,” I angrily promise her. “I swear to god, I’m going to kill him so slowly.”

Pete is whacking the scorpions with a frying pan, telling me something which runs in through one of my ears, and out the other.

I’m too busy rubbing my hands up Brooke’s arms and run my eyes up and down her body, inspecting her skin for marks. “Where did they bite you? Tell me exactly where, and I’ll suck all the poison out.”

“I . . . e-everywhere . . .” she says, looking helplessly up at me. God, I love her, I love her I love her and I’m sucking every drop of poison out of her.

“You shouldn’t suck on these—let me have a look at her,” Pete says as he comes over.

She’s trembling so hard, I fucking can’t let go, so I shake my head and tighten my arms around her and rock her. “I got you, little firecracker, I got you right here in my arms,” I whisper fiercely. Brooke trustingly clings to me, and it guts me that I just left her, safe and warm in my bed.

Rage and impotence flood me.

“Rem, let me see her,” Pete insists.

“No,” she moans, clutching me. “Don’t let go, don’t let go,” she continues to moan.

“Never,” I promise in her ear, my heart crashing fiercely into my ribs. Never.

I need to protect her. I need to make it better. I need the poison out of her body if it’s the last fucking thing I do.

“According to Google, they’re Arizona bark scorpions. Venomous but not deadly,” Pete says as he searches his phone.

“Hang on to me,” I whisper to Brooke, and when her arms are tight around my neck, I lift her up and cross the room.

“Where the heck are you going with her, Tate?” Pete demands.

“To the fucking hospital, dipshit,” I growl, angrily heading toward the elevator. I’ll walk us to the hospital if I have to, but there’s a familiar buzzing in my body, and I’m starting to believe I might even fly us there.

Pete yells after me, “Dude, Diane just called the EMT. Let’s just take a fucking chill pill and give her some Benadryl.”

“You. Take a chill pill. Pete,” I snap back.

Fucking motherfucker.

Brooke is almost fucking convulsing in my arms. She can’t focus. She’s been stung by these asshole animals and I need her. To be. Tended.

“I’m awright,” she says as she blinks dazedly at me, “I’m awright, Wemy. . . .”

My body temperature plummets. I look at her, and she’s not only talking in a way that makes me want to kill something, but she’s staring at my fucking ear like it’s one of my eyes! “FUUUUUCK ME!”

The elevator doors roll open, and Riley steps off. “All right, what’s going on? Coach is waiting at the gym, Rem. . . .” He sees Brooke in my arms, and his eyes widen.

“Live scorpions,” Pete informs. “Venomous, but fortunately not deadly.”

“I can’t bweathe,” Brooke says, looking at my ear again, as if waiting for my ear to explain this shit to her.

I can’t fucking see anymore, my vision is blurred from my rage and impotence and I want to kill. Kill. KILL.

“The poison spreads through the nervous system, but it doesn’t enter the bloodstream. Try to stay calm, Brooke. These bark scorpions are nasty suckers. Can you feel your legs?” Pete asks.

She shakes her head as she wheezes out air, and Pete leans over to inspect the damage. “Let me see that. . . .” I extend out her arm so that he looks at the stings, and I look directly into Pete’s eyes, “I’m going to kill him,” I tell Pete.

“It’ll be all right, B,” Pete tells her, watching me warily and staring into my eyes with growing alarm as he adds, “I’ve had the experience once. Awful, but you really don’t die from a North American scorpion.”

“There’s a note! I turned the box over and there’s a note!” Diane cries.

“What does it say?” Pete walks back to the suite’s open door, grabs the note, and automatically reads. “ ‘You’ve kissed me. Now you’ve been kissed back by the Scorpion. How does it feel to have my venom in you?’ ”