She pauses at my look of surprise, and as we start down to the cashier and start unloading, she adds, “He doesn’t even have a mother, not a real one, but he knew I cared about mine, and he flew across three states to the funeral for me. He didn’t say a word—he just hugged me in the end—but just him being there . . .”

Her voice cracks unexpectedly, and I understand so much how Remy’s quiet show of affection gets to her that my throat feels tight too.

“We’re so excited about the baby,” she blurts out, changing the subject. “All of us. Pete. Riley. Coach. We’re so excited about this little baby. We think it’s the universe giving back something good and pure to Remy, we really do.”

She comes around my cart as if she wants to make contact with the baby somehow, and then she hesitates before touching me. I reach for her hand and slowly spread it on my flat stomach. I whisper to her, “I never knew how much I wanted this baby until I knew he was coming.”

Her brows quirk up in complete intrigue. “He?”

I just have this feeling in my gut. I don’t know if it’s that sixth sense females are supposed to have. If it’s the way I instinctively envision a little Remy in my head when I think about this baby. I don’t know why, or how I think I know, but it feels so certain to me, as certain as I am right now of his father’s love, that I nod excitedly. “He.”

VEGAS IS COMPLETELY sucked in by Riptide.

Young college students cram the arena, and the girls? The girls are the noisiest, jumpiest group of young women I’ve ever encountered. They’re crushing on him so bad that all my jealousy, which I’ve come to realize is magnified to the tenth power by my pregnancy hormones, has been fully unleashed inside me. Girls scream, and I even hear them talk about him close behind, talking about how big his hands are and what that means.

Pete also seems to hear that, and he chuckles at my side and shakes his curly head.

Across the ring and to the left, a group of friends wear red shirts with each of his letters stamped on one, and they’re all practicing standing up at the same time, so that everyone can see they spell R I P T I D E!

There’s even an exclamation mark for the poor friend who didn’t get a letter.

By the time his fight approaches, I’ve already observed each and every one of these ladies with my jaw clamped, and then, suddenly, I love them because they love him too and he deserves the adoration.

What do I want? For them to cheer for an asshole like Scorpion? Hell no! So there. I think I’ve conquered my jealousy nicely for the evening.

In fact, I conquer it so nicely that I’m feeling as jumpy as the fans when they announce him. “Riiiiiptiiiiiiiide!!” the announcer yells, with all the enthusiasm I swear every announcer I’ve heard reserves for him. “The one and only, people!! The ONE and ONLY!”

He appears like a beautiful red bolt of lightning and then hops up into the ring. The man is strong as an ox but aerodynamic as hell, and as he jerks off his robe and I see it flutter in the air as he passes it to Riley, I can almost feel it on my skin. The satin on me, how I love the way it hugs me, and the way it smells of him.

“And now, Joey ‘the Spider’ MANN! Who has terrified his opponents tonight!”

Before the Spider-Mann can take the ring, Remington looks at me, his blue eyes burning hot. Desire swells between my legs. Last night flashes through my head. I know what he’s thinking of—I can feel it inside me. I don’t know what connects me to him, but something does, and as the testosterone spins through his body I can tell that he’s primed to fight and thinking of me watching him. And it turns him on. And he’s going to fight, like he does, and then fuck me right after. Like he likes to. Oh god, I can’t even wait. I can blame my pregnancy all I want, but the one who is truly to blame for setting me on fire with the merest look is him.

“That motherfucker gets high on you,” Pete says.

“He’s got this,” I answer. Remy tells me that a fight is half head, half body, and maybe he’s right, but when you see Remington fight, I’d bet all of myself on the fact that he fights with his whole heart. My heart whomps harder just now because of him as I watch him tap gloves with his opponent as they both get ready.

The fighting bell sounds with that familiar ting and the public goes quiet. It doesn’t really matter how many times I’ve seen him fight, I’m always mesmerized by the way he moves. They both go to center, warming up. I know Remington’s strategy is different with every opponent. He plays with some. He goes straight to the punch with others. Sometimes he tires them out and saves his swings for the heavy-handed opponents, but today he starts hitting fast, so fast, I hear the popping sounds go poo poo poof?! sending Spider-Mann—the man who’d been terrifying his opponents tonight—stumbling back within the first minute.

“We love you, Riptide!!” the R-I-P-T-I-D-E! girls scream. “Knock him out for us!”

“Although every time you’re here, he fights like a lunatic,” Pete adds.

“Lunatic” is not even the word. He’s a machine.

The fight is in full swing and my tummy’s twisting motions hardly let me pull in a good breath. His muscles ripple as he hooks with his left, then covers. Spider-Mann misses, and Remy counterattacks. He jabs several times with both right and left, then finishes off with a straight punch that slams into Spider-Mann like a fast-moving wall.

Spider-Mann rocks.

Remington bounces back and lets him breathe.

The other man charges.

Remington feints and his hapless opponent swings and swings, missing every time as Remy ducks and comes back up to punch him in the gut, the ribs, then the jaw. By the time he uses his most powerful punch and hooks with his right, Spider-Mann is sweaty, bloody, and dead tired. He stumbles.

I watch Remy wait for him to get back up, and I’m sure that all the females in the stadium are screaming and ogling the same thing I am. How drops of sweat slide down Remington’s muscled torso. How the vine tattoos on his arms glisten with a thin sheen of perspiration, and they look as inky black as his hair. How those sexy dimples flash as he smiles to himself every time he rocks his victim’s center.

The R-I-P-T-I-D-E! girls talk to each other in between their screaming, like Mel and I do when we see him fight. Two of them, the P and the T, are jumping together, hugging each other because I’ll bet the lust is just too much.

Oh, god, it’s even too much for me. And supposedly, he’s mine. But I just can’t believe it. I see him, I touch him, I kiss him, I love him, and ninety-nine point nine percent of me can’t believe someone as elusive, complex, and male as him could belong to anyone—even if he loves me.

One right hook and a noisy splat on the canvas later, Remington’s arm is being held up in the air by the ringmaster. Chest heaving, hungry blue eyes see me, eyes that singe me down to my very bones. He doesn’t smile. His nostrils flare. My heart pounds and my entire body prepares for what I see coming in his eyes.

“Do you all want more?” I hear yelled through the speakers. “Are you ready for MORE?”

The public screams, the R-I-P-T-I-D-E! girls scream, and Remington keeps looking at me as he catches his breath, his eyes brilliant blue and stripping me in my seat, and I’d bet everything that I own on the fact that he’s fucking me in his head. My sensitized breasts grow even heavier, and when he takes on his next opponent, my sex floods and grips as I see his muscles flex, the way he strategizes with that brain of his.

I’m dying to have him all to myself tonight, his tongue in my mouth, doing the things it does, him inside me, riding me hard and fast or slow and deep. . . . I just want to cuddle with my lion and give him all the love nobody in the world ever has given him but me.

The crowd shrieks, “Gooooo, Riptide!!!!!”

They want the excitement he always delivers, and I’m certain Remington wants to deliver. He glances at me, and I don’t know what he’s expecting to see in my gaze, but whatever it is, he seems to get it. He glances at his next opponent, a young fighter whom I’ve never seen before, and before I know it, with the speed of light, he delivers three fast blows, to the side, the center, and finishes with a hook up his jaw—and he falls splat.

“YES!” Pete hisses, pumping his arm into the air. “YESYES YESSSSS!”

The entire room is screaming, “Riptide!!!” while I sit motionless in my chair.

The pain starts like a throb, and it progresses into a cramp. I put my arms around my stomach and shift uncomfortably.

“Riiiiptiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide, folks! Once again, I give you, Riiiiiptide!!!!!!”

His arm is yanked up in victory, and I notice the open gash in the center of his plump bottom lip. He flashes his dimples at me, his eyes twinkling, and I’m dying to lick up that drop of blood and put salve on it. Then the cramp feels like a pinch and I fold over a little, and when they bring out his next opponent, I’m not even watching. I feel more than a little sick.

My lungs constrict as I glance up and see every possible muscle in existence working as he fights, his arms corded and flexing. I see him, but I keep retreating into my head. Worried sick. Wondering what’s happening to me.

“Pete, I need to go to the bathroom right now,” I say in a voice I’ve never heard before. It sounds scared, truly scared, and it trembles. But he stands with his eyes on the ring and distractedly follows me to the filthy makeshift bathrooms.

There, I wait in line, standing there for a couple of minutes, and when it’s my turn to go into the little plastic house, I pull down my panties—which feel gooey—and I see they’re soaked in red, as if I’m having a bad period. “Oh, god,” I say.

I drag in a thousand calming breaths, but they do nothing to actually calm me, and instead a nauseating, sinking feeling of despair takes over. For minutes, I try to settle down, then I come out and at least try to appear put together until after the fight. Pete grins at me. “Dude, I’ve never seen someone puke as much as you do. How many pounds have you lost?”

“Let’s just go sit,” I say. I walk slowly and slightly hunched over, because standing hurts even worse, and instinctively my body seems to want me to curl into myself. I lower myself to my seat with extreme caution, while Remington is still up there, his name being screamed. “Remy!!” they call.

He seems to be waiting for another opponent, his head turned in Pete’s and my direction as if he’d been waiting for us to return to our seats. He winks when he sees me. Then his sleek eyebrows pull low over his eyes and he looks at me more closely.

Suddenly he grabs the ring ropes and jumps down, and the public comes alive when they realize he is up to his usual mischief, like he always is when he climbs out of the ring. “Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton!” the crowd chants, and when they realize he’s headed toward me—and that all that tower of brawn and strength and testosterone is coming my way—they change their tune to “Kiss, kiss, kiss!”

He swings me up in his arms.

The public goes crazy and my heart does too.