We climb into the car over an hour later, and both Riley and Pete seem to be traveling in a separate car with Friday and Debbie, while a hotel chauffeur drives Remington and me in a black Lincoln. I don’t know who arranged this in such a way, but I’m told to wait in the black car and suddenly he slides in next to me into the back seat, and my chest grips in nerves and excitement because he’s showered after the fight, and changed into drool-worthy black denim and a black button shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and the scent of his soap instantly makes my lungs feel achy.

The seat is spacious, but somehow as we wind into traffic, I realize Remington sits close to me. Too close. I can feel the back of his hand against the back of my hand. I should probably move my hand, but I don’t. Instead I gaze out the window at the night lights dotted across the city as we approach the club, but I’m not seriously seeing anything. My body is honed in on the part where our bodies touch.

Why is he touching me?

I think he’s watching me, measuring my reaction, when he moves his thumb and traces it along the top of mine.

I want to shiver. To close my eyes. Just absorb him. I can’t forget what the girls told me, and the little candle of hope they lit up for me is now blazing like a torch inside of me. I need to know. If he wants me. Does he want me?

He looks so impossibly handsome my insides flutter with renewed intensity.

“Did you like the fight?” he asks me, his voice low and rough as he studies my profile in the shadows of the car, his eyes glowing intently.

He always asks me this question after an event in the Underground. As if my opinion is important to him.

“No. I didn’t like it,” I say as I face him, then I grin when he scowls. “You were amazing! I loved it!”

He laughs, the sound rich and male, then he startles me when he grabs my hand in his warm grip and lifts it. My breath freezes when he slowly brushes his lips across my knuckles, and I can feel the plump softness of his mouth down to the delicious scar on his lower lip, which is now almost completely healed. A little buzz travels through my bloodstream as his eyes hold me trapped the entire time he grazes me. The way he stares through those heavy dark lashes makes my nipples throb.

“Good.” His murmur is hot and damp against my skin, and when he lowers my hand back to the seat and slowly untangles his fingers from mine, I have to bring it back to my lap and hold it with its partner, just because it suddenly feels too empty.

The club they chose tonight is packed and bursting outside with lines of people, but the second Remington steps out of the car, he hauls me up to the bouncer, who immediately allows us inside, where Riley and Pete wait for us in a private room in the back.

“Pete is getting a lap dance,” Riley tells Remington. “You don’t mind treating him to one as a birthday present?”

Through the open door, we watch a woman in a glittering silver bikini approach Pete, who sits in a couch near the end, smiling as he watches her. I’m so uncomfortable I think I just squirmed, for suddenly Riley looks at me, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.

“You shy about this, Brooke?” he asks in amusement.

My heart stops when I realize Remington is looking at me too. He peers intently into my eyes, then his gaze flicks to my mouth, then back into my eyes. His hand suddenly envelops mine and he whispers, “Do you want to watch?”

I shake my head no, and he leads me out to the bar and dance floor area. There’s an unreal amount of noise, and the entire dance floor throbs with music and the fiery warmth of dancing bodies.

“Oh, I love this song!” I cry as I spot Debbie jumping in the middle of the stage, and she catches sight of me and comes to haul me into the dance floor.

“Remy!” Friday crushes him into the throng at the same time that Debbie squeals and pulls me tight to her body, then she grabs my hips and starts grinding in some sexy girl move. I laugh and turn around, my arms in the air while Usher’s “Scream” fills the room with music, and then I spot Remington only feet away, towering among the crowd.

He’s not dancing.

In fact, he’s not even moving.

He’s watching me, his smile in place, eyes glinting, and suddenly he grabs me and slams me against his body, ducking to my neck. He brushes my hair to the side and presses his body into my spine, breathing me in so hard—I can feel his deep inhale. My stomach clenches in response, and I feel his mouth part at my nape. He grazes my skin with his teeth, and then his tongue comes out to lick me.

My body electrifies. Reaching up and behind me, I grab his head and pin it down as I follow his hips, people dancing around us, the heat building in the room. His hands catch my hips, squeezing as he pulls me harder against his front, and my buttocks feel how hard he is. He wants me to feel how much he wants me. His tongue trails up my neck to the back of my ear. A shiver runs through me as he splays a hand on my stomach and turns me to face him.

Our eyes meet. Hold. The music throbs within me, desire for him knotting and twisting in my core, and I wrap my arms around him and push my body up to his, tilting my head up for his mouth.

I need to know his taste. The feel of him. He didn’t sleep with those whores. His erection that day had been mine. He hasn’t looked at a woman the entire night. Not in the fight, not here. He hasn’t had eyes for anyone, but me.

And I have eyes for no one, nothing, but this jaw-droppingly gorgeous man before me, who plays me songs and runs and spars with me and puts ice on my injury. Blue eyes glazed with lust, dark eyelashes looking heavy as he stares into my eyes, at my mouth, and then he grabs my face in one hand, ear to ear, and breathes me in again, his eyes drifting shut as he nuzzles my face with his. “Do you know what you’re asking for?” he asks in a hoarse rasp, breathing harsh and fast. “Do you, Brooke?”

I can’t reply, and he grabs my ass and hauls me to him, putting his mouth almost, almost, on mine. He’s driving me insane. Insane. I want to have him. I want to let myself have him. I slide my fingers up his chest, into his hair, so silky under my fingers.

“Yes.” My heart pounds in my ears as I push up on tiptoes, drawing his head down, when someone bumps into me from behind. I stumble forward. Remington catches me with one arm and pins me protectively to his side.

“If it isn’t Riptide and his new pussy.”

My head swings around and I realize whoever shoved me, it was not by accident. Four men flock around us, and they’re all enormous. One of them has an icky black scorpion tattooed to his right cheekbone, and he’s even larger than the others.

Remington glances at them like they’re as significant as a bunch of flies, then he puts an arm around me and takes me out of the dance floor.

“What’s your girlfriend’s name? Whose name does she call out when you fuck her, huh?”

Remy is wordless as he leads me toward the bar, but his fingers have clenched into an angry fist at the back of my top as he pushes me forward. The men march behind us, but Remington continues to ignore them. He turns me away and blocks my view of them with the wall of his chest. “Go back with Riley and ask him to take you to the hotel,” he whispers.

Alarm bells clang inside my head as I realize this is mere provocation on the others’ behalf to get Remington in trouble. I’ve been with the team enough to know that a fight out of the ring can land Remy in jail and out of competition. “You can’t get in a fight, Remy,” I warn when suddenly the beefier of the four men speak, raising his voice enough to be heard perfectly above the music.

“We’re talking to you, douche-nozzle.”

“I heard you, asshole, I just don’t give a fuck what you have to say,” Remy shoots back.

His friend tries to land a punch but Remington quickly ducks and shoves him back so hard, he stumbles and falls. Suddenly I realize the tactic. The friends of the scorpion-guy are going to beat Remy so that he has no choice but respond, kick the shit out of them, and get kicked off the league and possibly tossed in jail, while the guy with the scorpion tattoo did “nothing.”

And if this guy is the one Remy needs to beat at the final, then he’s likely thrilled he can get him taken care of before the match. What a loser scumbag!

Remy is getting full-blown angry at my side, grabbing one by the shirt and hissing, “Take a hike or I’ll cut your fucking balls and then feed them to your mother!” He shoves him back, then grabs the other two and shoves them at the same time, one with each arm. He looks so pissed that I’m getting really concerned. Veins pop up his hands, arms, neck, and when the third man approaches him from behind, Remington’s elbow flies out behind him and perfectly slams into the poor man’s face. “Sorry, dude, my bad,” he apologizes, and the man curses under his breath and covers his bloodied nose.

Meanwhile, I see the guy with the scorpion tattoo is happily watching with a grin.

Oh, no you don’t, dipshit!

The flight-or-fight response is full force in my body now. My brain buzzes as the blood shoots hot and urgent through my system. I already feel it feeding my muscles, my heart pumping wildly. I run to the bar, reach over, grab two bottles, and come back to swing them above each of two of the asshole’s heads. They crash down evenly as glass shoots everywhere.

I go grab another bottle and come running back, heading for the third guy, when I see how Remy stares at me with a look of horror and a face that is progressively getting scarlet. He grabs the bottle from my hand, slams it back on the bar, then tosses me up on his back like a potato sack and stalks across the crowd to Pete.

“Remington,” I complain, slamming his back with my fists as I squirm. My hormones skyrocket when I realize one of his hands is on my ass. I hear him whisper something to Pete, and finally the blood goes back in the correct direction when he shoves me back inside the car. Adrenaline pumps through me. I’ve never been in a fight. It feels amazing. Amazing.

Our hotel chauffeur slides behind the wheel and tears into the city traffic, and I notice Remington is breathing hard and fast on the back seat.

Like I am.

Our gazes meet in the shadows across the car, and his eyes are eerily dark, his face etched with red-hot fury. “What in the hell did you think you were doing?” he explodes.

His hands are fists over his thighs, and for a moment I think he’s going to slam them into the back of the bench. The look in his eyes is fiercely raw and strange. Almost animal. Kind of … possessive. And it causes a strange little thrill to rocket up inside me.

I’d been ready to kiss him. My hands are clenched in my lap as I try to keep them still.

But god, I’m so wound up, I’m thoughtless with need as I look at him. Thoughtless and broken inside from the painful longing of wanting to be with him. His fingers are restless and I just want to grab his hand and make it curl around my breasts and beg him to touch me.

“I just saved your ass and it felt amazing,” I say, and a new rush of adrenaline courses through me at the reminder.

Remy seems to be hanging on by a thread as he rubs his face and sets his elbows on his knees, kneeling forward, rubbing the back of his head with hands that I now notice are fiercely trembling. He’s not breathing right either. “For the love of fucking god, don’t ever, ever, do that again. EVER. If one of them sets a hand on you, I’ll fucking kill them, and I won’t give a rat’s fuck who watches me!”