Date of Publication: November 25, 2013
Publisher: Gallery Books
Synopsis
Underground fighter Remington Tate is a mystery, even to himself.
His mind is dark and light, complex and enlightening. At times his actions and
moods are carefully measured, and at others, they spin out of control.
Through it all, there's been one constant:
wanting, needing, loving, and protecting Brooke Dumas. This is his story; from
the first moment he laid eyes on her and knew, without a doubt, she would be
the realest thing he's ever had to fight for.
“REMY!
REMY! REMY! REMY!” people yell.
Their chants grow in intensity while
her startled golden eyes devour me like I’m devouring her.
“You want more Remy?” the announcer
happily asks the crowd. “All right then, people! Let’s bring out a worthier
opponent for Remington Riptide Tate tonight!”
Hell, they can bring out anything they
want, man or monster.
I’m so primed, I could take a couple at
once.
In my peripherals, I’ve got her pinned
down, nice and tight. In that frilly shirt. Those body-hugging pants. I’ve
already cataloged her at about a 120 pounds and five feet seven, at least a
head shorter than me. In my head, I’m already measuring her breasts in my hands
and tasting her skin with my tongue. Suddenly, I notice she whispers something
to her friend, rises to her feet, and takes off down the aisle.
“And now, to challenge our reigning
champion, ladies and gentlemen, is Parker ‘the Terror’ Drake!”
I stare in disbelief as she walks off,
and a knot coils tight around my gut as the rest of my body tightens in
preparation to chase.
The crowd comes alive as Parker takes
the ring, and all I can do is watch her leave my arena while every molecule in
my body screams at me to go get her.
The bell rings, and I don’t play the
little feinting and waiting game that me and my opponents always do. I stare
into Parker’s face and give him a look that says, Sorry, dude, and go straight for the slam and knock him down.
He falls splat and doesn’t move.
The crowd is stunned into silence. The
announcer takes a moment to speak as I wait, frustrated as fuck, my heart
pounding in anticipation as I wait for Parker to stay down and the counting to
begin.
Come on, motherfuckers . . .
I’m fucking winning the championship
this year and I won’t be disqualified . . .
Just call it a knockout and let her
hear . . .
“Holy cow, that was fast! We have a KO!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen! A KO! And in record time, our victor once again, I
give you, Riptide! Riptide, who’s now jumping off the ring and—where the hell are you going?”
The crowd goes crazy as I land on my
feet on the aisle and their screams follow me all the way to the lobby. They
are screaming for me while my body is screaming for me to catch her. “Riptide! Riptide!”
My heart pumps like crazy. She’s
walking fast, but I’m fucking running. Every one of my senses demand I chase,
capture, and have this girl. I grab her wrist and spin her around.
“What the—” she gasps, her eyes wide in
shock.
She’s so beautiful my lungs freeze.
Smooth forehead, long lashes with spiky tips—those gold eyes, that dainty nose,
and those marshmallow lips. I need to taste that like yesterday. My mouth
waters as a wild, primitive hunger opens up inside me.
“Your name,” I growl. Her wrist is tiny
in my hand, fragile, but I’m not about to let go. Oh, no.
“Brooke what?” I snap, tightening my
hold.
Her scent works me into a lather. I
need to find the source of that scent. The back of her ears? Her hair? Her
neck?
She tries to pry her hand free but I
tighten my hold because she’s not going anywhere but my bedroom.
“It’s Brooke Dumas,” a voice behind me
says, and then the crazy friend who was with her throws off a number, which my idiot
brain doesn’t grasp, for I’m still hung up on her name.
My lips curl as I meet that pretty gold
gaze. “Brooke Dumas,” I say gruffly out loud, slow and deep, my tongue twisting
around the name as I savor it. Such a strong, classy fucking name.
Her eyes widen in shock—and she gives
me a hungry, doe-eyed look that lets me see she’s a little excited but a little
afraid.
It makes me crazed. I need to touch,
smell, taste, claim. I burn with the need to tell her she should be afraid of
me, and at the same time, all I want is to pet my hand down her long hair and
promise her I’ll be her protector.
Yielding to the impulse, I slide my
fingers into the nape of her neck, fighting to be gentle so that she won’t run,
while only one thought remains in my head: Take.
Her.
My gaze never leaving hers, I set a dry
kiss on her lips, slowly, trying not to scare her, but just so she knows who I
am, and who I will be for her.
“Brooke,” I say against her soft lips,
then I draw back with a smile. “I’m Remington.”
Her eyes meet mine, and they’re
metallic gold and liquid with something I recognize as wanting. My smile fades
as I look down at her mouth again. It’s so pink and soft I bend my head to take
it even more deeply. My blood rushes through my veins as her scent drowns me. I
want this woman. I can’t wait one more second without tasting her, taking her.
One second she’s warm and trembling in
my arms, quietly tipping her head back for more, and the next, the crowd
engulfs us and some fucking lunatic is screaming in my ear.
“Remy!
I FUCKING LOVE YOU! Remy!”
Brooke Dumas seems to snap into motion
and quickly squirms free.
“No.” I reach out to snatch up a piece
of her white shirt. But she and her friend wind through the throng like wiggly,
little bunnies, and I’m in the crowd stuck with two fans who—
“Riptide,
my god, please let me touch your cock.”
“Riptide,
you can take us both together!”
As they rub their hands down my abs, I
think, FUCK! and pry their arms away,
then I charge after her. When I reach the elevator, the gate is shut and I hear
her noisily ascending up to street level.
Growling in anger, I slam my palm to
the closed door, then dodge an incoming group of fans and bulldoze my way back
into the locker room.
I don’t know if I’m angry, frustrated,
or . . . I don’t know. Where the fuck is she going? She was looking up at me
like she wanted me to eat her; I don’t even understand fucking females and
never fucking will. Scowling as I charge to get my stuff, I slam my fist into a
locker.
“Take care of your knuckles, Tate!”
Coach snaps as he gathers all my things into a red duffel.
I loathe being told what to do. So I
slam my other fist into another locker and dent it like I did the first, then I
glare at the old man and grab my headset, my iPod, and a sports drink.
Following my crew out to our Escalade, I’m pissed as fuck at myself for letting
her go. I try saving her number on my phone, at least the few numbers I
remember.
“That KO was unbelievable, dude, you
knocked him down within three seconds!” Riley says, laughing.
I stare out the window at the lights of
Seattle and tap my fingers on my knee.
“All right, so what was that all about?
Are we going to discuss the elephant in the car?” asks Pete from up front. “The
one with the long hair? You seemed hell-bent in chasing, Rem?”
“I want her watching my next fight.”
The car falls silent when they realize I’m fiercely hung up on her.
Pete sighs. “All right, I’ll see what I
can do. We also got you a couple of girls.”
“A good assortment,” Riley adds. “A
blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.”
And as soon as we get up to the suite,
there they are. They’re waiting for me. Three girls with different-colored
hair, waiting in next-to-nothing clothes, ready to fuck the Riptide.
“Pete, you think I need a sports rehab
specialist?” I ask.
“You’re an asshole, dude. You hardly
let the masseuses massage you for more than twenty minutes.”
“I need one now.” Pushing my iPad over
to him, I tap the screen and signal to the name below her image. “I need that
one.”
Pete lifts an interested eyebrow. “You
do. Do you?”
“I need a sports rehab specialist on my
payroll. I want her to tend to me every day. In whatever ways they do.”
He smirks. “They don’t do blow jobs,
I’ll tell you that.”
“If I wanted a blow job, I could have
had three just now. What I want . . .” Once again, my finger taps over her
name. “Is this sports rehab
specialist.”
Pete’s eyebrows fly up to his hairline,
and he leans back and crosses his arms. “What exactly do you want her for?”
I chomp down the rest of my food, then
take a long gulp of water so I can speak. “I want her for me.”
“Rem . . .” he says in warning.
“Offer her a salary she can’t decline.”
Pete answers me with a puzzled silence.
He seems taken aback and is trying to make sense of me. He’s looking into my
eyes, and I can tell he’s observing whether they are black or blue.
I’m not black. So I wait quietly. He
sighs, slowly jots down her name, and speaks cautiously. “All right, Remington,
but let me say, this has Bad Idea
written all over it.”
Shoving my plate aside, I lean back and
cross my arms.
My head betrays me half the time. One
day, it tells me I am god. The other, it tells me that I not only rule hell,
but I invented it. Does Pete think I give one fuck about what his own head thinks about my idea? I don’t listen to my head
anymore. I listen only to my gut.
“I want her watching me fight
Saturday,” I remind him as I get up and shove my chair back under the table.
And I want her watching from the bet seats in the house.”
“Just do it, Pete,” I say as I cross the
living room back to the master.
“I already have the tickets ready to
go, dude, but it’s hard enough keeping Diane from knowing of your . . . er,
issues . . . It’s going to be even harder to keep it from someone like this
sports rehab specialist.”
I prop my shoulder at the threshold of
my bedroom and think about that. I lower my voice. “Make her sign a contract,
so I have guaranteed time with her. And stabilize me the instant I start losing
my shit.”
“Remington, just let me get some other
girls—”
“No, Pete. No other girls.”
I shut myself in my room and grab my
headphones, then just lie there with my iPod in my hand, staring at it.
What will it be like if I make her
mine?
I don’t delude myself into thinking
that she will accept me, but what if she does? What if she can understand me?
The way I am? The two parts of me? No. Not two parts. Every. Single. Fucking.
Part. Of me.
My gut tightens as I remember the way
her eyes shone when she looked at me. The way they softened after I kissed her
and she looked into my eyes, wanting more of me.
I have never seen a look quite like
that before. I have been wanted by thousands of women. Nobody has ever looked
at me with such open, frightened longing as her.
She was not frightened of me. She was
frightened of “it.” This same thing clenching my gut that has me all tangled
up. Every cell in my body is buzzing with awareness. Every inch of my skin is
awake. My muscles feel primed like they do when I’m ready to fight. Except I’m
not ready to fight now. I’m ready to go get my mate.
The Seattle crowd is wild tonight. Backstage, the noise reverberates between the walls, bounces off
the metal lockers in the room where I prepare with some of the other fighters.
I watch Coach bandage the fingers of one hand, and all I can think
of is how Brooke Dumas is out there among the spectators, sitting in one of the
seats I bought for her.
I’m so jacked up I feel like I’m
plugged into a fucking electrical outlet. Blood pumps heady through my veins.
My muscles are loose and warm and ready to contract and strike anything in my
path. I’m ready to put on a fucking show and there’s one girl, one lovely girl,
that’s got me tied up in knots, that I want to see me fight.
I hand Coach my other
hand and stare at my bare knuckles as he shoots off the same instructions he
always says.
My guard . . . patience .
. . balance . . .
I zone out, letting his
words slip through me and into my subconscious, where they belong. Right before
a fight, I find a calm. I can hear all the noise but listen to nothing. A
clarity comes with fighting. Every detail sharpening in your mind.
This sharpness and
awareness makes me lift my head to the doorway. She stands there like out of
some childhood dream, looking at nobody but me.
She wears a pair of white
jeans and a pink top that makes her skin look even tanner than it is and so
damn lickable my tongue hurts inside my mouth. Neither of us so much as
twitches as we stare.
Hammer steps into my
peripherals, and when I see him head straight for her, my anger ignites.
With deadly calm, I grab
the tape from Coach and throw it aside as I stalk over to her. Then, I position
myself directly behind her and to her right, taking my spot in a way that lets
the dipshit Hammer know I was born to
be here. Beside, behind, and by her.
“Just walk off,” I warn
him, my voice low but lethal.
He doesn’t seem inclined
to listen, instead narrows his eyes in contest. “She yours?” he asks with
narrowed eyes.
Nodding, I narrow my eyes
and let my gaze burn into him. “I can guarantee you, she’s not yours.”
The asshole leaves, and I
notice Brooke doesn’t move for a long second, as if she doesn’t want to step
away from me in the same way I don’t want her to go anywhere. Holy god, she
smells good.
I drag her scent to my
lungs like a junkie, and suddenly every inch of my body wants to cup her hips
and draw her into me so I can scent her more. She turns her head to mine and
softly murmurs, “Thank you,” but quickly leaves. I duck my head and haul in as
much as I can before she walks away.
I remain standing there,
feeling dizzy, my shorts ridiculously tented.
“Riptide! Hammer! You’re up next!”
Exhaling as I hear my name, I glance
narrowly at Hammer across the room, who seems amused as fuck that I am clearly
in deep shit with this girl.
He’s in even deeper shit with me.
“Remington . . . are you listening to
me?”
I whip around to Coach, who’s fixing
that last bandage he couldn’t secure. I keep glaring at Hammer as Riley extends
my satin robe, and as I ram my arms into the sleeves, I decide Hammer better be prepared to vacation in a coma for a
while.
“I said don’t let that bastard get to
your head.” Coach knocks his knuckles to my temples. “And that girl neither.”
“That girl’s been in his head since the
first fight here,” Riley tells him with a smirk. “Hell, he wants to carry that
girl around with him like an accessory on tour. Pete is drafting the contract
as we speak.”
Coach pokes a finger into my chest and
I feel it almost bending. “I don’t give a shit what you’re planning to do
tonight with the girl. You keep your head in the fight going on right now. You got that?”
I don’t answer, but obviously I get it.
I don’t need to be told these things. Half a fight is in your head. But Coach
likes feeling useful, so I just roll with it and trot out. I’ve fought all my
life to stay sane. To keep focused, driven, and centered. But tonight, I fight
to show one woman my worth.
We go toe-to-toe. I feint and Hammer
swings, opening his side. So I jab his ribs, feel the satisfying punch race up
my arm, and we bounce apart. Hammer is stupid in the head. He falls for all my
feints and never covers right. I ram him hard enough to make him bounce on the
ropes and drop to his knees. He shakes his head and hops to his feet after a
moment. I love this. My heart pumps
slowly. My every muscle knows where to move, what to do, where to send my
power—right from my center, up my chest, shoulder, down the length of my arms,
to the tips of my fucking knuckles that hit with the force of a charging bull.
I take him down, and then I do the same
with the next foe. And the next.
A powerful energy takes over me as I
fight, and I fight knowing that Brooke Dumas watches me. If there’s anything in
my head other than winning, it’s that I want her to think inside that lovely
round head of hers that she has never, ever,
seen a man like me.
By the time the tenth guy falls, sweat
coats my chest, and as the ringmaster raises my arm, I’m anxious to see the
look in her eyes. I want to see that she liked it, that she—like everyone else
in this room—thinks I’m the shit. Our eyes lock, my gut goes hard and twisted
and wild with desire, and I smile at her as I try to catch my breath.
When the ringmaster releases my arm, I
cross the ring, jump over the cord, and land in the aisle, watching her part her
lips in shock as I come over.
People go crazy when I go outside the
ring, and they’re losing their shit right now.
The whole room screams with their
applause and cheers. And I know they all can see where my gaze rests and where
I’m headed.
“Kiss
his heart out, woman!”
“You
don’t deserve him, you bitch!”
I smile down at this woman who has
stolen my thoughts, and as I wonder if she wants me to, she looks pleadingly up
at me, almost begging me not to kiss
her here. My blood simmers as I remember her lips on mine, but it won’t be
happening again.
Not until you’re ready, Brooke Dumas.
I bend to her and scent her hair,
whispering at her temple, “Sit tight. I’ll send someone over for you.”
I back off before I lose it, and
climbing up into the ring, I steal one last look at her. My chest does all
kinds of strange things when our eyes lock.
“Riptide,
people!” the announcer screams.
The yells feed me. I suck them in with
a smile, full of pride and satisfaction. I can see in every one of these
people’s eyes that I’m the man. But I want to see it in her eyes. That. I’m.
The Man.
The man who wants to be hers.
About Katy Evans
Hey! I’m Katy Evans
and I love family, books, life, and love. I’m married with two children and
three dogs and spend my time baking, walking, writing, reading, and taking care
of my family. Thank you for spending your time with me and picking up my story.
I hope you had an amazing time with it, like I did. If you’d like to know more
about books in progress, look me up on the Internet, I’d love to hear from you!
