I touch her hand. “Sweetie, please—”

“Don’t call me that, you jerk!” She yanks her hand away. “You lost the right to call me that when you dumped me. Did you really expect me to forgive you just because you asked nicely?”

“No,” I say. “I didn’t expect to you to forgive me straightaway. I expected you to call me names—which I deserve—and get all steamed up until this part—”

I grip her nape and press my lips to hers.

Damn, how I missed this!

How I need this.

Noemi’s scent and the feel of her soft lips beneath mine wreak havoc on my senses. They make me tremble with desire. I suck on her bottom lip, nip lightly, and pull it into my mouth.

Her lids flutter shut, and she moans softly.

I jerk her closer.

She opens her eyes, plants her palms on my chest, and pushes.

In response, I tighten my grip on her nape and stroke, massaging the back of her head with the pads of my fingers. She loves it when I do this. Noemi’s lids fall again, and she stops pushing me away.

That’s it, sweetie, don’t fight it. Let your body decide. Let me give it what it craves.

I sweep my tongue over her lips, coaxing her to open her mouth. When she does, I push my tongue inside.

Yesss.

As I reacquaint myself with the sweet depths of her mouth, she begins to kiss me back. Her body melts into mine just the way it used to. Emboldened, I slide my other hand down her side and over to her ass. Cupping her buttock, I squeeze lightly, and she moans again, telling me what I hope to hear. What I know in my heart.

She’s starving for me just as much as I’m starving for her.

“Noemi,” I breathe into her mouth.

She catches my tongue and suckles it, an expression of bliss and abandon on her beautiful face. My sweetheart! Tearing my mouth from hers for a moment, I take in her deliciously flushed cheeks and her swollen lips. I lean in and grind my hard-on against her tummy, making her remember it, nudging her to hunger for it as she used to.

She’s mine.

I relax my hold, my mind aflame with all the exquisitely intimate, hot things I will do to her—and she to me—once I shut the door.

But I don’t get a chance.

She draws back, stomps in frustration, and jabs my chest with her finger. “Get out of my room!”

“Noemi, please don’t—”

Jean-Michel’s voice comes from the doorway. “Do it.”

I turn toward him, moving deliberately, slowly. “Or else?”

“Or else I’ll crack your skull open,” he says. “I’ve been burning to do that ever since you joined the club.”

Jean-Michel is a former MMA fighter and the biggest guy on the team—bigger even than Zach. He always arrives early to work out so he can spend twice as much time as everyone else lifting weights. Which he never reracks when he’s done, by the way.

Jean-Michel stretches his neck and balls his hands into fists.

Seriously?

In two big strides, I’m in the doorway, shoving his shoulder.

If he has an ounce of sense in his bird-sized brain, he’ll step back. A fight between two teammates, so close to the finals, isn’t something Lucas will appreciate.

But Jean-Michel doesn’t budge. “What do you think you’re doing here, huh?”

“Talking with Noemi,” I say as calmly as I can.

He glares at me. “You piece of shit, just because they chanted your name in the arena today, you think you can do anything now?”

Ah.

This isn’t so much about Noemi as about him being a substitute hole-set, while I’m the main hole-D. That’s why he’s hated my guts since the day I joined the club.

“Listen,” I say. “Why don’t you let me finish my conversation with Noemi, and then you and I can go have a beer and a chat?”

If we end up fighting, at least it will be in an alley outside a bar and not in the hotel where the entire team can witness our lack of discipline.

Something flashes in Jean-Michel’s eyes.

Could it be hesitation? I hope it is. And I hope Noemi approves of the restraint and moderation that I’m using with her fake boyfriend.

I glance at her.

She’s chewing on her bottom lip as she always does when she’s nervous. Suddenly, her eyes widen, and she yells, “No!”

Jean-Michel’s fist slams into my face before I have time to dodge it.

Sharp pain zings through my head. All goes dark.

When it clears, I feel blood trickling from my nose and on my lips. It tastes of metal and rage.

I square my shoulders. “You, fucker!”

Lunging forward, I ram a fist into Jean-Michel’s stomach.

He growls, shooting me a hateful look. A right jab lands on my midsection. He swings again, but I catch his fist in my hand.

For the next few minutes we punch, block, sidestep, kick and grapple—two massive brutes stripped of civility and common sense.

“Stop it, you morons!” Noemi screams at the top of her lungs.

Zach and Lucas and a couple of other guys rush in and throw themselves at Jean-Michel and me, prying us apart.