“I wish I wasn’t me,” she confessed. “I mostly like you being you.”

“Mostly, huh?” He couldn’t help but smile just a little.

She leaned into his arm, resting her face on his sleeve. “You are really good-looking. Do you know that, Brick? I mean. You just have the whole big, bearded lumberjack deal going on.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s only the best kind of thing. I bet women fall in love with you left and right.”

He decided it was wiser not to answer her and was relieved when she lapsed into silence next to him.

He’d known the second she walked into the bar. The atmosphere changed on a dime. The air electrified as if a storm had rolled in. He’d come out from the back and seen her in that green thermal shirt with the right sleeve cut off just above the cast. The denim that hugged her curves in a way that made his palms itch, his fingers curl in on themselves.

She’d been wrapped in Darius’s arms. And despite the fact that he knew Darius was in love and that Remi had nothing but sisterly feelings for his partner, Brick had still gotten sucker punched in the gut.

He despised the fact that others could be so free, so easy with her. That Darius could hug her and not have it send his world flying apart. That other men could touch her and not realize how fucking precious that contact was.

Remi stumbled over a seam in the sidewalk. He stopped to steady her. “You okay?” he asked.

“Fine and dandy,” she hiccuped, right before she fell off the curb.

“You asked for it,” he warned her. Bending down, he tossed her over his shoulder.

“Hey! Everything’s upside down! Wow. Are you always this far away from the ground?”

He rolled his eyes and plodded on up the street.

“Brick?”

“What?”

“Did you know your hand is on my ass?”

“I am aware,” he said dryly. As if there were anything else in the world he could think about except for the way her denim-clad curves felt under the palm of his hand.

“Is that on purpose or an accident?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Well, since you’re grabbing my ass, it’s only fair I get to grab yours.” Drunk Remi had her own logic, and it was always, always flawed.

Pondering this flaw, he nearly took a header into a picket fence when she grabbed his ass with both hands and squeezed. Hard.

“Remi, if you don’t behave yourself, I’m going to leave you in Sam Earl’s trash can.”

“No, you won’t,” she said, alternating squeezes. “You’re very muscular back here. And tense. I think you carry a lot of tension in this area. Have you ever had a massage?”

He was starting to sweat and he still had two blocks to go before he could lock her in her house and run like hell.

“Uh-oh,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I dropped your glove.”