“I’m sorry about your knee.” I’m not good with words, but as I slam-dunk the packet into the nearest trash can, I wish I were. I wish I could tell her how I feel thinking about her crying and helpless. I’m going to fucking protect her from now on if it’s the last thing I do on this planet.

“It’s not about my knee,” she counters. “It’s about you not taking your body for granted. Don’t ever let anyone hurt you, don’t ever allow it, Remy.”

I shake my head to appease her but scowl when I think of not ever getting hit again. She will never understand how much I crave her to touch me. Not only sexually. Her touch does crazy shit to me. I’m sick for it. I’m . . . sick.

Fuck me. She’s so beautiful and I’m so broken.

“I’m not, Brooke,” I gruffly tell her. “I just let them get close enough I can fuck them over. Little sacrifices in search of the win. It gives them confidence to get a couple of punches in, then it starts getting to their head, that I’m easy—that I’m not like they’ve heard I am—and when they get drunk on how easy they’re pounding Remington Tate, I go in.”

Her eyes brighten beautifully. “All right. I like that so much better.”

We keep running, our feet hitting the dirt, our breathing equal. Right here and right now, I’m just a guy running with a girl and, holy mother, how I want her.

“I think I quit. I’m going to be so sore tomorrow, I’d rather hit the sack now than require you to carry me to the hotel later,” she tells me.

“I wouldn’t mind.”

In the hotel elevator, several other people board with us, and instinctively I pull my hoodie lower over my head.

“Hold the elevator!” a couple shouts, and Brooke presses the button until they hop in. I grip her hips and pull her close to me once they board. Then I drop my head, close my eyes, and smell her. My body heats instantly, and I get so worked up, I imagine peeling off her top and scraping my palms over her skin until I’ve got her breasts nestled in my hands. . . .

“You feel any better?” she asks, her voice somehow different from usual.

“Yeah.” I duck my head even closer, and I want to kiss the back of her ear. Edging closer, willing her not to pull away, I put my mouth a hairbreadth away from her skin. “You?”

The scent she wears right now makes my mouth water. Sweat is the best fucking accessory on her. She’s sweaty and delicious and I want my tongue on her neck. My hand clenches on her hip, and I have to force myself to release her as we stop at our floor and step off the elevator. She steps into her room, then I head to mine, and soon I stand under my showerhead, making the water as cold as it can get and opening my mouth so the water hits my tongue, which still fucking tingles after tasting the electrolyte packet she did. I curl my hand around myself and close my eyes. Fuck, I want her. I want this in her. In her and on her.

I squeeze my length and then angle back so that the cold water runs over my body and cools me down. It doesn’t. So I have to think of my parents. The final. Scorpion. And finally I’m cool enough to soap up myself.

When I step out to dry, I hear female voices outside. Easing into a T-shirt and sweatpants, I head down the hall to the kitchen. “Hey, Rem, look what we got for you,” Pete says from the living room, and he spreads his arms out.

Two girls stand there.

“Remy,” the blonde gasps.

“Riptide,” the redhead says.

Clamping my jaw, I shake my head and go grab my headphones from where I’d left them this morning on the dining table. “Come on, dude, they’re putting up a show just for you.” Riley follows me to the kitchen, where I pull out a coconut water from the small fridge.

“I’m not in the fucking mood tonight.”

“Fine. You crave something else. That’s okay. Just chill out with us, man.”

Sighing, I drop down and sip my drink as the girls start some sort of dance. One sits on my lap. The other dances on top of the coffee table. She’s got all the right things, and she’s readily displaying them for me. But what I want to see is Brooke in her exercise clothes, with her brace, her little boobs jumping up and down as she runs. No. What I want to see is Brooke bare-butt naked for me. I want her eyes to shine with desire. I want to know the size, shape, texture, and taste of her nipples, and I want to goddamn sink every part of myself, my cock, my tongue, my fucking fingers, inside her pussy and I want it to be wet.

Fuck me, I want it to be so wet, I want to hear it.

There’s a knock on the door.

“What’s the matter?” the girl on my lap pouts. “A little birdie told us you wanted to play with us, Remy.”

“Yeah?” Riley asks to whoever is on the other side of the door.

I stiffen when I hear a muffled voice, and my cock shoots up like steel when I realize it’s Brooke.

“Who is it?” I ask as Riley shuts the door. I shove the chick off my lap and stalk over.

“Brooke seemed to lose something.”

“What did she lose?” I’m sure as fuck she must have seen the dancer, and I’m sure as fuck I don’t want her thinking I’m putting my hands on anyone but her.

“I don’t know, dude! She made a mistake!” he cries.

I charge to the door, and when there’s no sign of her outside, I start down the hall to her room. I reach the doorknob and engulf it in my palm, and I swear it’s still warm. I lean my forehead against the door and my heart pounds as I strain to hear something inside, but there’s no noise.

I stand there like a fool. Thinking about her breath as she ran with me. The way her ponytail bounced when her shoes hit the dirt. The sight of those pink lips around the electrolyte packet in the way I want them around me.

I don’t know how long I stand there, but I’m there when an old couple walk past and stare at me in pity, like I’m some poor fuck kicked out of his own room. Hell, I wish that was my room. I head back to the suite, rescue my headphones from the blonde’s butt, then I head to my room. The guys keep partying outside. They’re disappointed, and I know, but I don’t care. I slip on my headphones and stare up at the ceiling as the music starts. I got banged up today. I put my body under immense strain; I don’t feel it. All I feel is this fucking ache inside me that I somehow want her to magically fill. I’m hard and throbbing and wondering if she wants me, if she gets wet when she thinks about me.

The guys think I’m obsessed with her, that I’m going to get manic any second now and once again fuck up my entire life like I always do.

They’re so right, I don’t even laugh anymore when they warn me.

* * *

I HAD A wet dream.

I woke up in the middle of the night, thrusting the mattress, growling her name. I didn’t let myself come. I snapped awake, punched the pillow, roared in frustration, and filled the tub with cold water, then sank myself in and stayed there until the sun rose.

I’ve never been a merry dandelion in the morning, but today my bad mood and my sexual frustrations hang over me like a cloud with fucking thunderbolts in my head.

My sparring partners? These guys have tits and a vagina. They can’t take a good sparring session, and Coach? He’s in a snit when I knock them both down.

“These are sparring partners, Tate! If you’d only stop knocking them down and just have fun and work on your moves, you’d still have someone to train with today. . . . Now we’ve run out and you have no one to practice against anymore.”

“Then stop giving me little pussies, Coach,” I angrily spit. “Send Riley up here.”

“Ha. Not even if he were suicidal. I need him conscious tomorrow.”

“All right, Rem, I’ve got a little something for you,” the man in question suddenly calls, clapping on the side. “I know for sure he’s not going to knock this one out, Coach,” Riley says, and then he signals happily at Brooke.

I notice Brooke—Brooke Dumas, of all people—is climbing into the ring with me. I want to laugh. It’s like matching a kitten to a lion, but I don’t laugh because she’s wearing a black Lycra sort of outfit that molds to her every fucking curve. My eyes sweep over her and my entire body seizes. She starts to approach, swinging her hips and looking fierce, like she plans to inflict some damage on me.

I like her so much, my fucking chest hurts looking at her.

I like her eyes, her mouth, her smile, the things she says. I like her white, little teeth, her slim, small, strong hands. Her lean runner’s legs. The shade of her skin, sun-kissed and lovely. I like the ways she wears her hair. I’m attracted to every inch of this woman and every day is a challenge to keep my hands to myself when my gut screams at me to Take. Her.

“Don’t smile like that. I can knock you down with my feet,” she warns me.

She’s so cute, I can’t stop smiling. “It’s not kickboxing. Or are you going to bite too?”

She swings her leg out and I deflect it easily with one arm, lifting one eyebrow. Well, well, well, now. She’s pissed at me?

She kicks again, and I deflect, then watch her circle me and jump up and down as she warms up. Clearly, she’s attempting to weave, and she’s not only pretty good—she looks so damned good doing it. I want to stand here all day and let her weave around me and even punch me if she wants. She tries a test punch. I’m too well trained. My body moves on automatic. My arm flies out to catch her full fist in my palm.

“No,” I softly admonish, and curl my fingers over hers and tell her how to make a good fist. She tries, and I nod. “Now use your other arm to guard.”

Pretty soon she’s playfully attacking, flushed and excited, her eyes sparkling. Brooke can attack all she wants—and in the meantime, I’m watching her perky little breasts bounce up and down. She wants me to show her a new move? All right then. I do, taking advantage to touch her as much as possible. She’s a fast learner, but something dark and bloodthirsty is in her eyes. They glitter murder as she looks at me. I don’t know what she’s in a twist about, but I know that if she were mine already, I’d kiss her so hard she’d forget about everything but the way I fuck my tongue into her mouth.