Rogue

  “My ovaries just exploded,” Pandora mumbles to my left.

  Brooke jumps to her feet as Remington “Riptide” Tate leaps into the ring, draped in a boxing robe that is redder than red—and I’m so excited to be here, to see this, to get my mind out of my own insecurities and that stupid debt that I can’t help it, and my body can’t help it, and my vocal chords can’t help it—so I scream.

  “Remmyyyyy!!!” I’m on my feet with Brooke, where I can’t resist hugging and smacking her simultaneously. “God, you fucking whore, I can’t believe you do that every night!” I say, shoving her.

  She shoves me back, yelling, “Several times a night!”

  And that’s when he winks down at her from the ring.

  She stops goofing around with me and grins back at him—all her attention on only him. Her husband now. And as he waits for his opponent, he keeps his smile and his sparkling blue eyes on her. And that look? It’s a clear You’re Mine look, but it’s so fucking tender I feel it melt over me. Greyson . . . Greyson . . . Greyson . . . suddenly he’s in my head, his own version of this look swimming inside me. His own version is a little less tender, a little more guarded, a lot more raw, a lot more dark, like there is something painful inside that makes him hurt more when his eyes meet mine. My body feels like a huge void just opened inside it at the mere memory of him. Of us.

  “Oooh god, you guys are going to kill me,” I tell Brooke, watching as a big-ass man comes to take the stage. I’m concerned for Remy for a moment as the fight begins, but then, wham! He takes control so thoroughly that I’m not concerned anymore.

  “YOU’RE THE SHIT, REMINGTON!” I squeal, pulling Brooke’s face to mine. “Look at you. Wife and mother, dude, he’s so fucking in love with you, I can’t even take it!”

  “Oh, Mel.” She sighs and sags against me like she can’t take loving this man any more than she already does.

  They bring another man up for Riptide, and I swear these opponents get bigger and bigger as the seasons pass by.

  “Remy!” I scream again as the men start fighting up on the ring.

  Brooke squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back and lift her hand in mine, high in the air as we watch them fight. “Remy! Your wife is hot for you, Remy!” I scream.

  Brooke has always been the reserved one of us two, a little shy about speaking out with conviction, but I know that she loves it when I do the screaming here.

  “Remington, you’re so fucking hot!” I scream on her behalf.

  And then Brooke stuns me when she leaps up to her feet and cups her mouth so her voice carries farther, and she starts screaming with me, “YOU’RE SO FUCKING HOT, REMY, KILL IT, BABY!”

  And he instantly kills it.

  The public goes wild as his opponent falls down with a thud, and I stupidly blink at my best friend. “Omigod, so you scream now? And how well trained is Mr. Riptide to immediately please his sweet little wife?”

  I’d go on, but Brooke is too busy grinning up at Remy because he’s grinning down at her, all sweaty and lickable, and I fall quiet while something squeezes hard in my heart.

  I will never be the first person Brooke turns to now when she wants to cry, or talk something out, or vent, or go out for a run. My best friend is deeply, madly in love with this man who I know would go through hell and back for her—because he already has.

  So, in a way, my best friend has a new best friend now. And he’s a husband too, a father to her baby, a lover to her.

  But me? My guy likes to fuck me. He says he’s bad for me, but I sense he needs me. I sense he misses me. Is it my gut talking to me, or my silly hopes? All I know for certain is that I’m falling in love and I’m so far in deep now that the sheer gravity of it all makes it seem impossible to stop myself from continuing deeper and harder into this dark, unknown, scary plunge.

  God, I’m so fucked.

  Brooke seems to notice I’ve fallen quiet, and I hadn’t realized she’d been watching me intently.

  “Do you want to talk about him?” she asks me softly, surveying me with the keen perception only a best friend could have.

  I nod and I have to lean closer to her in order to be heard through the crowd. “When I don’t have to scream over these assholes!”

  When the fights are over for the night, Pandora and I take a cab to our hotel, which, unfortunately, is not where the Tates are staying—their hotel is much too expensive. Pandora didn’t want to take anyone’s “charity” and I’m a world past broke, so we’re staying at a small three-star hotel a couple of blocks away.

  Pandora, however, decides to opt out of visiting Brooke’s suite for the evening.

  “Why?” I ask her, nudging her in the back of the cab. “Come on, it’ll be fun. I need to see Racer! Last time I saw him he was growing just a little buzz of hair and he smelled like talc and grinned at me with this one lone dimple that’s going to kill a lot of ladies someday. Come on!”

  “Nah, I’m tired. You two should catch up. I’ll order pay per view and wait for you later.”

  “You sure you don’t want to come?” The cabdriver seems to be getting impatient, so I open the door and wait for a second longer.

  “Yeah I’m sure. You know I’d rather pet a dog than a baby.”

  I nod slowly because I think I get it. I get her more than she knows. She thinks because I try to have fun, that I don’t hurt, or want anything, or take anything seriously. I laugh away my hurts, but she uses anger as a barrier. And I know it hurts her too when she sees Brooke sometimes, because Pandora used to be in love.

  All I can guess is that she loved him very much. “Pan,” I say softly, “the guy who hurt you so bad . . . he wasn’t the only guy you’ll ever love.”

  I don’t even know what else to say because I’m no expert on feeling like this—I can barely stand the way I feel for Greyson and I’m afraid to call it love. I feel even more awkward when we stop at Brooke’s hotel and the cabdriver complains, “Ma’am, you either in or out?” so I quickly step out and shout at her, “I’ll see you later. Watch a comedy!”

  She flips me off as the cab takes her away, and I smile and wave. But as I get on the elevator, I just don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore except that a couple of months ago I didn’t know Greyson King. How can I miss him so bad now?

  You’re in my veins, you fuck.

  You’re in me one moment, you’re lost the next. You take me, you leave me, and I still wait, trembling for you to come back and do it again.

  Ugh. When are you coming back?

  Brooke swings the door of her suite open and babbles out, “I want deets and I want them now!” pulling me into the first bedroom, away from the group of guys in the living room.

  She sits me down at the edge of a bed and then plants her hands on her hips like some demanding angel-bitch, her eyes gleeful with excitement. “Tell me. Tell me all about him!”

  I laugh in excitement but then I groan and jab a finger into her chest. “I’m experiencing some déjà vu, except the poor sucker thinking she’d fallen for a guy who may be wrong for her was you.”

  “Omigod, you love him, Mel?”

  I can’t believe how hard it is to talk about him, even with my best friend. Sighing, I drop on the bed and pat the place next to me so she settles down close.

  Love didn’t feel like this when I imagined I’d fall in love. Love was exciting and precious in my mind, not frightening and unexpected.

  Brooke and I lie on our sides facing each other, smiling like we’ve done the thousand times we’ve spilled out secrets and fantasies and more. “Brookey, am I lovable like that? The forever kind? I’m good for fun, but do you think . . . Sometimes I think Greyson just doesn’t want to involve me in other parts of his life. I wonder if I’m just a sex toy to him, like I’ve been to every other man, but then he calls me, or then he gives me this . . .” I touch the diamond necklace hiding under my silky shirt. “He just looks at me in this way . . . I don’t know, there’s not even a word for that look. But Remy give
s it to you too. It’s the BEST look. It gives me heat and heart palpitations and butterflies. And if you saw him with my parents, how he was laughing while we did our stupid Sunday games. I just refuse to believe that I don’t mean something to him, you know? He says I’m his girl.”

  Brooke laughs and sits, hugging me briefly. “Mel, you’re fun and sweet, loyal and honest. You’ve got so much love to give. You love everyone, even strangers. You’re my little love bug. He’s lucky you not only get to love him, but you get to fall in love with him.” Her eyes light with excitement as she squeezes my shoulders. “Melanie, you’ve found your prince. He’s not even a prince, turns out he’s a king. Do you realize you’ve talked about this faceless, nameless guy since you were seven?”

  “Dude, I’ve waited all my life to feel like this and now that I do, I don’t want to. I feel unstable, unsafe, vulnerable, happy, and yet worried it’s not going to last.”

  “No! No, no, no, don’t hold back. Is Pandora poisoning your head? Mel, OWN THIS. Own how you feel. Tell him. Go after him. Go after what you want. You’ve always gone after it—you won’t back down now that you found it!”

  “You say that now ’cause you’re no longer a chicken! You know Remington loves you. You know he loves you so much he’s never letting you go. If something happens, you’ll work it out and you both know it. He’ll fight for you and you will for him. But me? I don’t know what Greyson feels. He wants to be with me and then he’s gone for days. Whatever we have, it could be real or it could be something passing like—”

  “Lust,” a low voice by the door says.

  I lift my head to spot Riley Cole at the threshold, Remington’s coach’s second, looking cute as ever. Riley and I are great friends. We’ve gotten into a lot of mischief in the few times we’ve met after a Riptide fight, and not just sexually.

  He’s a guy used to guarding secrets. I know, because when I tried to dig out all of Remington Tate’s secrets when he was pursuing Brooke like a battering ram, all Riley said to me was that he’d never seen Remington go after a woman the way he went after Brooke.

  So Riley’s definitely a man who knows how to keep a secret. Including, thank god, mine.

  Brooke has always said he looks like a sad surfer boy, and she’s right, he does. Which works for him. But tonight he looks more like Pandora’s angry blond twin brother, scowling at me with the same scowl he wore the day he first met me.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask him, returning his scowl with one of my own.

  “If this boyfriend of yours ever hurts you, we’ll take care of it.” He cracks his knuckles, and instead of making me scared on Greyson’s behalf, the sound makes me laugh.

  “You mean you’ll take care of it, or Remy?” I say as I stand, hearing his quiet, familiar chuckle.

  “Okay, you got me. Maybe I’ll bring Rem along just for intimidation purposes,” he says jokingly, but his smirk fades into a flat line of displeasure. “No one hurts you, Melanie. Or I punch him. I don’t care how many times I need to punch him to make him bleed, but I’ll make him bleed.”

  I laugh as Brooke pulls me out to the living room so I can see her precious baby.

  “Barbies don’t hurt, remember. Don’t worry,” I toss past my shoulder at Riley, kicking him playfully as we pass. He’d called me Barbie when we met, and not in a nice way, so flinging it back at him makes him simmer a bit.

  Then I hear a baby sound and am filled with glee. I spot Racer proudly sitting on the curled arm of the bodyguard-nanny, Josephine. But he doesn’t want to stay there. Racer throws himself at his father, who was chugging down a blue sports drink, but when he sees his son coming, Remington catches him in one arm and slam dunks the empty sports drink into the kitchen sink.

  Lifting Racer up high, he makes a growling sound, then carries him in a football hold, which makes Brooke groan at my side.

  “Remington, he’s going to puke up all his dinner,” she chides.

  “Ahhhhh,” he says, the sound incredibly cocky as he twists his son into a sitting position and avoids the catastrophe. Looking at Brooke, his smile flashes two sexy dimples at her, making her forgive the transgression, and I swear I’m almost dead.

  And then Racer grins and flashes his mom one dimple too.

  “Urgh! You’re both killing me!” I tell them. “Remington, I need to touch this baby or else!” I go and grab Racer and as I hold him to me, I make cute baby sounds as I nuzzle his little tummy.

  He protests like he’s not exactly thrilled about it, and he looks at his mother, then at his father, then at Pete, with a new, sad dimple in his chin.

  “What? He doesn’t like me?” Racer looks at his mother and his father again and makes a face that deepens that dimple on his chin. “OMG, I’m making him cry!”

  I pass him to Brooke. “What a failure!” I laugh.

  “You’re fine,” Remington says as he drops on a chair and pulls Brooke to his lap with one arm while he passes a nearby squeaky toy to Racer with the other.

  Racer looks at the toy and his Melanie-induced cry morphs into a squeal of delight. Remy smiles down at him and then his eyes slide to Brooke, and what I see there truly, deeply kills me as he kisses the top of her head.

  It’s that true, real I’d-die-for-you love that I’ve always dreamed about.

  “Mel,” I hear from behind me, and when I turn to the sound, I realize Riley has been watching me all this time. He steps closer to me and whispers ominously, “Can I talk to you?”

  I nod. There’s no mistaking the look of lust in his eyes. I sense that he wants me, aside from the fact that he also wants to talk to me. The old me would’ve wanted nothing more than another night with a fuck buddy. I can rarely say no to an attractive guy who wants me, but every pore in my body wants just one man now.

  But I still nod at Riley, because he’s the only one I can talk to about the one thing that’s been plaguing my thoughts other than Greyson King.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  “HERE.” RILEY SETS a check atop the white linen of a small round table by the bar of a chic little restaurant just blocks from the hotel. “I’ve been saving up,” he explains.

  “No!” I gasp. “Riley, don’t be ridiculous! I couldn’t!” I push the check back, feeling flustered as the waitress sets down our drinks. I wait for her to leave before hissing out, in a whisper, “It was my decision. I chose to do it, okay?”

  “But I’m the idiot who suggested it in the first place,” he counters on another hiss, and he seems so genuinely mortified, he won’t stop shaking his head. “Remington never loses, Melanie. Never. If I’d known he’d throw the fight for—”

  “Urgh, to save stupid Nora because he just loves Brooke too much not to do anything. But even if you’d told me he would lose, I’d never put my money on Scorpion. NEVER.”

  “Then let me help you pay this debt off.” I ignore his pleading look and push the check back to him yet again, shaking my head too. “At least let me tell Rem,” he urges. “He’d pay on your behalf if he knew. If I hadn’t given you my word I wouldn’t tell anyone . . .”

  “Riley, I’ll kill you if you tell anyone. We were drunk, out in town, you were making a bet, I was nosy and asked about it, thought it was such a great idea to make a bet of my own, especially when it seemed like such a sure thing! Then we went to your room and celebrated by thinking it cool to get in bed together. I feel stupid as it is. I don’t know what I was thinking!” An image flashes across my mind of a beautiful apartment—the apartment of my dreams—and my car debt paid off, and I add, “Well, I do know. I could’ve made a handsome down payment on my very own apartment and maybe even have the balls to start my own design firm.”

  “Then let me help, Mel.”

  I look at the check and a part of me screams Take it! Take it, Melanie! Please just save yourself from those monsters!

  But what will Riley expect in return? How can I take money from a man when I’m in love with another? “This is very sweet of you, but no. Really.”

&n
bsp; He cocks one blond eyebrow. “What about your new boyfriend? Will you at least let him help?”

  My chest aches as I think about him and all the reasons why I can’t bear for Greyson to know. I gulp down the rest of my drink and admit, “I think that . . . if I ask for help from anyone . . . he’d be the last.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want him to know I’m this stupid! He knows I’m a mess already. Riley, he met me out with my convertible parked on a rainy night without the top—enough said. It’s a miracle he stuck around long enough to get to know me. I don’t want him to . . . lose respect for me. Think less of me.”

  Riley’s scowl is getting darker by the second. “I can see he’s tossing diamonds at you already?” He nods to the necklace half-dipping into my top. “You know men do that to buy the women they sleep with? It has nothing to do with caring about you.”

  “Yes, it does,” I counter. “It means he took the time to go and look for something pretty he thinks will make me happy.”

  “You can use that necklace to pay, Melanie. Just tell him you lost it or something and get rid of this debt. Those men kill for five bucks—they’re fucking gangsters! Even the guy Pete deals with, Eric, looks sharp and polished in that suit, but they don’t trust that guy for shit. He just kisses Rem’s ass ’cause he’s their prime moneymaker, but everyone knows his boss Slaughter makes Scorpion look like a teddy bear. They say he’s got an enforcer that’s like some demon straight from hell, and he’ll come collecting whether you want him to or not!”

  He looks around warily, then leans closer, across the table, lowering his voice. “Pete heard rumors the only guy with a lick of sense was Slaughter’s eldest, but he didn’t want shit to do with the dad and apparently dropped off the Underground years ago. Not even his son wants anything to do with a man like Slaughter. I swear I don’t sleep thinking you still owe them.”

  My heart starts stampeding in my chest with renewed fear, and I hold my hands up, palms out, to pacify him. “Riley, I asked for more time, okay? We have to just . . . breathe here.”