Seizing his hand, I squeeze it in between our bodies so he can feel all of what he smeared me with across my abdomen. “It means I’m going French this week and not showering so I can smell you on me.”

He groans and shifts us so that my side hits the bed, and then he reaches between my legs to where I’m drenched in what he just gave me. His eyes glow in the shadows as he slides the soft liquid semen dripping down my thigh in a path leading back into my swollen entry, as if he doesn’t want to come out of my body. “Sticky?” he asks in a gruff murmur, bending his head and licking my shoulder as he pushes his semen back inside with one finger. “Do you want to wash me off you?”

The thought of him pushing his semen back inside me makes me so hot, I grip his head and come closer to him. “No. I want you to give me more.”

He brings his damp fingers to my face and pushes his middle finger into my lips, as though asking me to taste. “I wanted you since the first night I saw you.” His voice comes out gruff as he watches me suck his finger into my mouth.

His taste does crazy things to me and my sex ripples with the need to feel him inside me again. “So did I.” I’m breathless and straining for a decent breath as I lick every drop.

He shoves a second damp finger into my mouth, and his salty ocean taste invigorates me. My eyes drift shut as I drag my tongue all down the length of his fingers. I’m so eager I think I moan. “Do you like my taste?” he thickly murmurs.

“Hmm. That’s all I want from now on.” Mischievously I take a little bite of his fingertips, and suddenly, I can feel his erection coming back up against me. Something I said … excited him?

“I’ll always want my Remy fix after dinner,” I continue, and I’m the one getting super thrilled when he continues thickening. “And maybe before breakfast. And after lunch. And at tea time.”

He groans, then drags himself between my parted legs and bends his head downward to taste me. His tongue flashes between my sex lips. My eyes flutter closed as my spine arches, the heat of his mouth shattering me. He grabs my buttocks in his hands and squeezes my flesh as his wet tongue slides over and over across my clit.

“I … want to … come … on every part of your body…” he murmurs into my sex, his eyes closed as he surges up and shoves his erection against the outer slit of my entry.

I’m on fire with want. I need him inside me again, in my mouth, in my sex, in all my being. I grip the back of his head and rock my hips restlessly in silent plea as I push my tongue into his mouth. “Come wherever you want, inside me, outside me, in my hand, in my mouth.”

When I grab his hardness in my fist, he instantly goes off, hot and liquid spilling on my wrist. The convulsions are as powerful as he is, and my sex creams up hotly when I watch, and he’s so magnificent and raw, that suddenly I roll him onto his back and jump down on his erection, taking him in me with a whimper of surprise over his size again. He barks out in pleasure and throws his head back, gripping my hips and pulling me up, then lowering me again as he rams back up and his hardness keeps jerking inside me. A scream of ecstasy tears through me as I convulse with him, feeling his warmth burst deep inside me.

I’m totally limp and near comatose when I fall back on him.

“The night they sedated you…” I ask him, hours later, as I buzz the tip of my nose against his nipple again, still breathless over a long petting session. We can’t get enough. We’re like teenagers. Making up for weeks and weeks of wanting. “That was an episode?”

The pillow rustles as he nods, and I slide my hand over his speed bump abs and rub him gently as I peer up at him, unsure whether he wants to do this right now. “Can we even talk about it?”

My touch seems to make him close his eyes, his voice velvety smooth as he cups the back of my head in one big hand, and he presses me down against his neck, cuddling me to him. “You might like talking to Pete about it.”

I’m sticky with our desire and I like it, run my hands through him and know that he’s sticky too. The thought of taking a bath with him, washing “him” off, and then getting sticky all over again makes me want to moan. “Why don’t you talk to me about it, Remington?” I ask, softly.

He sits up and twists his feet off the bed, then he drags his hands down his face. “Because a lot of episodes I don’t remember what I do.”

Shit. I made him pace now.

“All right, I’ll talk to Pete about it, but come back to bed,” I say, quickly relenting when I notice the tension in his stance.

He stares out the window, his body perfect. So perfect. Legs braced apart, arms crossed, his muscles perfectly fed, formed, and taut. “I remember you.” His voice roughens. “In my last episode. The tequila shots. The way you looked. The little top you were wearing. The nights you slept in my bed.”

To think he notices what I wear does something tingly to me. I’m almost sure when he turns around I’ll be a pool of lava on the bed, already waiting for him to come fuck me.

He seemed so happy that day, with the shots, his energy was like that of a sun.

And then it flipped into night within hours.

“I wanted us to happen so bad,” I painfully admit.

He turns. “You think I didn’t? I’ve wanted us to happen since…” He comes back to bed and drags me to him, kissing my lips fiercely. “Every second I want us to happen.”

I touch his jaw. “Have you ever hurt someone?”

Grief flicks into his eyes again, and he looks haunted, dropping his arm from me. “I hurt everything I touch. I destroy things! That’s the only thing I’m good at. I’ve found whores in my bed I can’t remember bringing back with me, and I’ve tossed them naked out of my hotel room, pissed like hell because I don’t remember what I did. I’ve stolen shit, vandalized shit, woken up in places I don’t even remember getting to…” He drags a breath and sighs. “Look, since Pete and Riley alternate days off, there’s always someone to knock me out for a day or two when I get out of hand. I hit a low, and then I’m back. Nobody gets hurt.”

“But you. Nobody gets hurt but you,” I sadly whisper, and I reach out and snatch his closest hand within mine merely because I’m afraid he’ll get out of bed, and I don’t want him to. It feels like it took me a lifetime to get him here with me in the first place.

“Remy, do they have to knock you out like that?” I lace my fingers through him as I ask the question.

“Yes,” he says, emphatic. “Especially if I want … this…” He signals to me, and to him, with his free hand, and clenches me with the other. “I want this. Very badly.” He nuzzles my nose with his. “I’m trying not to fuck it up, all right?”

“All right.”

He kisses the back of the hand that is holding his, his eyes sparkling once more. “All right.”

My internal clock just won’t let me sleep past six a.m., even after a night such as the one I spent with him. Tickles of delight rush across my skin as I remember all the ways we made love to each other last night. My gaze lands on his big body on the bed, and the immense proprietary sensation that overcomes me is so powerful, it’s all I can do not to attach myself permanently to his big body of sin.

Quietly and with a dopey smile that won’t leave my face, I slip out of bed, knowing Riley and Pete will not let him oversleep much, and definitely not beyond ten a.m.

Pete is already in the kitchen, pouring himself some coffee, and since there are a thousand things I want to ask him, I join him. Curling my legs under my body on a chair in the small breakfast table, I watch him view the morning paper as I take a few sips of my coffee, then I clear my raspy throat and say, “He told me.”

For a moment, the only emotion on Pete’s face is shock. “He told you what?” Now he looks dubious.

“You know what.” I set my coffee down and arch an eyebrow.

Pete lowers the paper, not smiling. “He never tells anyone.”

His words make me frown. “Don’t look so alarmed. He told you once. Didn’t he?”

“He didn’t tell me, Brooke, I was his nurse. At the ward. At least for his last year.”

My mind spins in confusion as I try to envision Pete in scrubs and taking care of my big bad fighter in a ward. I just didn’t see this one coming. At all. The image is so incongruent I have trouble holding it in my head. “You were with him at the ward?” Okay, I know I sound stupid, but that’s all I seem to be able to ask.

Pete’s lips clench tightly as he nods. “It pissed me off.” He scowls darkly at his coffee, then shakes his head. “He’s a good dude. A little reckless but it’s Not. His. Fault! He never picked on anyone. He was as closed off as a damned wall, that kid. He just ran like hell out in the yard and did his pull-ups on a tree outside, all day wearing his headphones and blocking everything out. They had him all drugged ever since one time he got speedy and told everyone they should escape. They all followed, and there was a big mess, and from then on, no one would even give him a chance to get speedy again, they just kept shooting shit up his veins and sparing themselves the trouble.”

“My god.” The shock, horror, and anger I feel sweep over me like a sickness, and I can barely swallow the sip of coffee I have in my mouth.

“Remy’s not crazy, Brooke,” Pete emphasizes, “but they treated him like he was. Even his parents. All he had in terms of comfort those years was his damn headphones. Which is why the guy rarely expresses himself. He just can’t. He’s been too closed off for years.”

With a heart that’s just melting for him, I realize that since the beginning, Remy has opened up to me through music, which is something that seems familiar and comforting to him, and suddenly, vividly, I want to hear each one of the songs he’s played me all over again.

My eyes sting a little, and I lower my head so Pete doesn’t see that I’m touched beyond words. Remy is a quiet man. He’s a physical man and yields to his physical instincts, but I don’t think he even knows how to verbalize his emotions very well.

I wonder if I’m a little closed off, like Remy too?

In my life, I’ve frequently counted on Melanie to say things that I want to but feel shy or embarrassed to admit out in the open. I never even told anyone after my ACL tore that it sucked.

Remy’s so different from me, and yet we’re so alike I swear I can understand this man in my soul.

Suddenly I have to fight the impulse to get on my feet, go back to bed, and curl up with him.

“Was the night at the hotel … when you shot him with something … what was that?”

“An episode. It’s not really another personality like people think. Well, it is, in part, but it’s more like a mood. It’s an alternate gene expression, conflicting with his previous one. Some external trigger usually shuts down a gene expression, and another becomes expressed, which shifts his mood dramatically.” Pete meets my gaze with his warm, worried brown eyes, his features twisting in pain. “He suffers greatly, Brooke. Because he doesn’t remember what he does when he goes manic.”