They go at it again. Swinging and slamming.
Remington feints to the side and Butcher throws his fist into the space where Remy used to be. Remington comes back with an uppercut to the face that connects so hard Butcher rocks sideways.
It takes a few moments for Butcher to recover his footing. He swings out his arm, but Remy ducks and comes back with a punch to the ribs, the gut, and the face, all landing with perfect speed and precision. Pow, pow, pow!
Butcher throws a fist out once again, aiming for Remy’s face, but Remy blocks the punch and once again returns with a hit of his own—slamming his knuckles straight into Butcher’s ugly fat face. Butcher falls to his knees.
At my side, Pete’s excitement keeps building, and I hear him mumble, “Come on, Rem. Why are you letting him get in? You’ve got this.” He turns to me and whispers, “You can teach speed and agility, but you can’t ever teach a man to be a heavy puncher like Rem is. Soon as he starts hitting like he wants to, it’s over.” I see he’s grinning, but I am not.
Remy is still bleeding, and as the fight progresses, he keeps catching a couple of punches with his body.
I loathe, loathe, loathe when he gets injured, even though it’s my job to help him recover. He laughs and spits, almost like he’s enjoying it.
Last season’s nightmare of a fight did something to me, and watching this—this—kills me all over again.
My fear has grown and festered, and tonight, it is overwhelming. For a moment, my head spins faintly—but at the same time, I’m sure my adrenaline is keeping me awake, keeping my body fed and ready to defend him.
Butcher stands up again and whacks out another punch to the face, and Remington’s head swings, but his body stays firmly planted. My tree is always so firmly planted. He swings, and hits back even harder. The two men clinch, then shove away from each other, and Remington charges again, the blood on his face pouring in streams now as, once again, he goes pow pow pow!
His rapid, consecutive punches cause Butcher to start backing off. The fat man bounces on the ropes behind him but refuses to fall. Remy corners him, his chest glistening with sweat and his muscles rippling as he smashes Butcher’s gut and then his face.
My breath has left me. Fear chafes my insides along with other, colliding, sensations, like this incredible arousal that always seizes me as I watch him battle. He’s so spectacular. The power in his body, the ripple of his muscles, the perfect flex when each muscle hardens and lets go. Remington uses both intellect and gut instinct to fight. He seems to plan, plot, then just roll with it, but more than anything, he seems to live in the moment. To love it.
His face is concentrated now as he pummels Butcher until the man has crashed down in a red pool at his feet. Literally, at his feet. His face splat on Remy’s boots.
Remy’s lips curl in pleasure by the sight, and he steps aside, turning his body in my direction.
“RIPTIDE!” the announcer yells, and as his arm is yanked up high in the air, his gaze finally targets me.
My pulse stops inside me. The noise is gone. Even my heartbeat feels nonexistent. It’s stupid how much I need this, but when he finally lifts his arm and swings his head to me and his desperate, angry, blue eyes land on me, I shudder in my seat.
His gaze is vividly possessive and furious, a drop of blood sliding to his eyelid from his cut eyebrow, blood dripping from his nose and lips.
And when the ringmaster asks him something, he nods, and they call up another fighter for him.
“Yeah, now he’s gonna need to work off that rage,” Pete mumbles to himself.
A new tornado of nerves sweeps through me when I hear this. I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was doing this just to torture and punish me. The endorphins will keep him from feeling any pain. In fact, he’s so proud and driven that he’s relentlessly taught his body to embrace it. He constantly pushes it to the limits, and I think his threshold for pain might be higher than that of any other athlete I’ve ever met, but my own limits have been way beyond met for the evening.
Remington scores several hits on the new guy, using great combinations of punches, but although Riley tried curing him at his corner, blood continues pouring down his face.
Both fighters exchange hard jabs and suddenly the ring is a swirling maelstrom of flesh moving and muscles hardening. I keep track of Remy through the ink bracelets on his biceps as he throws what I’ve heard Riley call “punches in bunches.” He scores one in the ribs, one in the jaw, and then he throws in a right hook, his most powerful punch.
His opponent rocks, stumbles, and falls, flattened out.
The crowd screams.
“RRRRRRRIPTIIIIIDE! Ladies and gentlemen, your victor, once again! Riiiiptiiiiiiide!”
I’m so worn out. I’ve turned to jelly, Jell-O, everything soft and stupid.