Beat (The Beat and The Pulse #1) (17 page)

Chapter 28

Ren

I'd won.

I'd smashed my fist
right into Rogue's temple and it was lights out.

I'd won.

“Ren!” Josie
shrieked. “What happened to your face?

Snapping out of my daydream,
I blinked hard at my friend and shrugged. I'd forgotten my cheek had been split
open. It wasn't that bad...
really
. It had only bled for a minute.

“Ren?” Josie was
staring at me.

“It's just a
scratch,” I said, waving her away. “I covered it best I could with concealer.”

Seth had pretty much
said the same thing when I walked into the cafe an hour earlier. A cut on a
girl’s face and people went ballistic. It was even worse with them knowing I
took MMA classes on a daily basis.

Last night…shit. The
Underground was something else. I let my inner beast free in the cage and it
was like some kind of
drug
. Is that what Ash felt when he let loose? If
it was, then I finally understood his need to fight without boundaries.

I’d been hauled from
the cage into a whirlwind of sudden adoration from the crowd, other fighters
and the referees. Even some of the bookmakers had asked me if I was going to
fight again, and then huddled into discussion about what odds they could put me
up for. Ash had led me to a makeshift office in the back of the warehouse where
money was being flung around like it was nothing. Some guy had shoved a wad of
fifties into my hand and pushed me out the door. I didn't realize I'd win that
much money for beating Rogue, I thought that was reserved for the fighters on
top of the leaderboard. Fighters like Ash. I was a newbie, but they'd given me
two thousand dollars.

Two
thousand dollars
.

I could move out of
Beat and get my own place, but the only way I'd be able to pay rent was if I
got more hours at the cafe or...

Ash would never allow
it. He was proud that I'd actually won, but I was smart enough to know he was
pissed. He didn't want me to go but I'd forced the subject and to top it all
off...I'd gotten into the ring, right into harm's way.

We both left with a
wad of cash, his was a lot bigger than mine, and came back to Beat. Needless to
say, after a fight like that and seeing him all sweaty and in raging fighter
mode, we fucked like rabbits until we passed out in my storage closet. No
questions, no arguments, but that was coming and when it did, it was going to
hurt more than any punch Rogue had landed on me.

“What’s going on with
you and Ash?”

I stared at Josie,
blinking hard. “Oh, shit,” I exclaimed. “No, he didn’t do this. I was in a
fight.”

“A fight?” She looked
me up and down. “You’re in a proper competition, I hope. You better be or I’ll
have your ass, Ren Miller.”

I wondered if The
Underground really fell underneath the banner of ‘proper’.

“I won,” I said,
still riding high. “I actually won and I’ve never won anything in my entire
life.”

Josie started to
laugh. “How the hell did we become friends?” she asked gesturing between us.
She stood there in her tailored business suit and sculpted blonde hair and I
was this disheveled fighter that worked in a coffee shop. Light and dark.

Realizing that was
the first time I described myself as a fighter, I smiled.

“I have no idea,” I
replied. “But I’m going with it.”

“Can I come watch?”
she asked.

“I’m not sure if I’m going
to fight again,” I said with a frown. I didn’t know if The Underground was the
kind of place for someone like Josie. She’d be too easily led astray, or then
again, she might be the one doing the leading.

Josie rose her
eyebrows at me. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” she declared.
“From that stupid look on your face, I know you will.”

I couldn’t help
grinning. Yeah, I’d totally do it again, with or without Ash’s permission.

That night, Ash
didn’t leave with the Twins and Dean gave me a look as they walked out the
door. When I came back from my shift at the coffee shop, Ash kept glancing at
me, while I watched their training session with much more interest than usual.
Now that I didn’t have to hide the fact that I was staring at his ass all day,
I was free to listen more closely than usual.

It turned out to be
extremely beneficial and when Dad saw me sitting in the wings he looked rather
pleased with himself. When I started taking classes, he was all over the fact
that I was showing an interest, but it had dropped off into a steady stream of
nothing. Now that I was sitting here, not ashamed of my attraction to Ash, he
was all fucking ears. Typical.

“I liked you watching
me today,” Ash declared, prowling over the mats toward me.

The studio had
emptied out pretty quick for once. There was no class tonight and for the first
time I was bloody glad. I could have Beat and Golden Boy to myself. Train for a
few hours, or go upstairs and fuck my hot beefcake of a man? Sex counted as
exercise didn’t it? The way Ash liked to screw, it sure was.

“I liked watching
you,” I echoed. “Especially your ass.”

“I know you like my
ass.”

I cocked my head to
the side.

“I saw you lookin’ at
me all those times, darlin’,” he drawled, running his big paws over my waist and
cupping my ass. The motion sent me straight into his body and I felt his cock
against my stomach.

“Fuck. Really?” I
joked.

“You knew I caught
you. I also knew you stuck your ass in the air any chance you got.”

“I did not,” I
exclaimed. I really didn’t, but trust a guy to go straight for the dirt.

“Ren,” Ash started,
all the playfulness dropping from his voice.

“Yeah?”

“Can you make me a
promise?”

I pulled back
slightly so I could read his expression. I wasn’t going to like this. “No.”

“You haven’t even heard
what it is.”

“I know what it is
and my answer is no.”

“I can’t stand it,”
he moaned, cupping my face in his hands. His forehead came to rest against
mine. “Don’t go back.”

Reaching up, I ran a
finger over his lips, just like I’d done the other night…right before I turned
around and beat the shit out of Rogue.

Suddenly, I was in
Ash’s arms and he was carrying me up the stairs two at a time. He kicked open
the door to my storage closet and dumped me onto the mattress, eliciting an
exasperated cry from between my lips.

He climbed on top of
me, kissing a trail from my cleavage to my mouth, biting on my bottom lip. He
was hard again. There was definitely no off switch on his dick.

“What do you win if
you take the whole thing?” I asked as he moved to my neck. If I got two grand,
then he must be raking it in week after week. No wonder he was able to finance
Beat like he’d been doing. He must be rolling in a bed of fifties every night.

Ash shrugged, not
seeming interested and bit into my skin softly.

“You don’t care about
winning?”

His expression
tightened and he rolled off me, sitting up. “Oh, I fuckin’ care about winning
Ren. I just don’t care about what I win.”

Typical male. Though
I wondered why he didn’t care about the money. It was a normal human response
to get excited about a little extra cash. I knew I did.

I sat up behind him,
resting against his back. “Do you fight every night?”

“No, not every
night.” His fingers tightened around the blankets.

“Then…”

“Sometimes I just go
to watch,” he murmured. “What? Did you think I was going some place to pick up,
then coming back here to you?”

I felt a flush
rising. I always turned bloody red.

“I’m not an asshole.
Not where women are concerned. If I was fucking somebody else, I wouldn’t have
come back here.”

“Oh,” I squeaked. The
bad ass fighter from the night before had totally vacated the building.

He shifted on the
bed, so his body was pressed against mine. “How could I fuck some other woman
when all I can think about is you?”

“Good,” I declared,
running a hand over his thigh.

“It’s you and me now
Ren. There’s no going back.”

The notion should’ve
scared me a little, knowing that I still had deep rooted abandonment issues,
but I didn’t care. I was totally in lust with Ash Fuller and if he said we were
solid, then it must be true.

“What about
tomorrow?” I murmured, leaning into him, so I could press my lips against his
neck.

“You want to go back
for more?” Ash didn’t seem to thrilled with the idea.

“Why not? I mightn’t
win the championship, but I can win a few fights.”

The idea seemed to
piss Ash off and he shook his head. “Why? If you want money, I can give it to
you.”

“I don’t want your
money,” I exclaimed, beginning to get annoyed. “I want to make my own way, Ash.
My fists, my money.”

“It's illegal, Ren. If
anyone finds out...”

“Nobody will find
out.”

“I don't want to ruin
your life after-”

“Oh, shut the fuck
up, Ash.” I shoved his shoulder. “It was my decision and my decision alone to
get into that cage. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I should've stopped
you.” He started to grind his jaw, eyes darkening into a storm.

“And I would've
fought you.” I turned, so I could wrap my arms around his waist. “You can't
protect me all the time, Ash. I can take care of myself when you're not there,
you know.”

“I won’t allow it,”
he snarled.

“Fuck you, Ash
Fuller,” I hissed at him, my hackles rising. “Don’t you go alpha male on me. I
won’t be told what I can and cannot do.”

His eyes were a
whirlwind of fury. “You know there aren’t any rules, Ren. You pissed off a lot
of people by putting Rogue down like you did. Next time won’t be so easy.”

My heart twisted. “I
wasn’t born yesterday, Ash. I know they’ll be out for blood.”

“Once you step into
that cage, I can’t protect you.”

“I don’t want you to protect
me,” I exclaimed. “Get it through your thick skull.”

“Fuck, Ren,” he
hissed. “Why do you have to fight me on everything?”

“Not everything,” I
replied, taking a deep breath. “Just this.”

He grasped my
shoulders, his expression falling into something closer to pain. “Why? Why do
you have to fight? You could join a legitimate league. One with rules and
fuckin’ paramedics on call.”

“Probably for the
same reasons that you need to fight,” I whispered. “It’s the only way it can
come out.”

“What?”

“The anger.” I stared
into his eyes and he didn’t have to ask what I was angry about. He was witness
to it every day. A dead mother, a lost childhood….a family that didn’t want me,
a half-sister that despised my existence and a life that had been shoved into a
storage closet. I had plenty to be angry about.

“You can’t stop me,
Ash.”

“I know,” he
whispered. “It doesn't mean I won't try.”

“Just don't beat
yourself up over it, okay? This one’s on me.”

The sparkle began to
come back into his eyes. “You’re fuckin’ trouble Ren Miller.”

“So you keep saying.”
I smiled up at him. Fuck, he just kept…
dazzling
me. He just
dazzled
.

“Stop lookin’ at me
like that,” he grumbled. Trust him to be a typical man and ruin my moment.

“Why me?” I asked.

Ash cocked his head
to the side. “Why?”

“Yeah. Why? You were
always…Monica…”

His eyes narrowed in
displeasure. “Ren, I was always like that with her to keep her away from you.
She was always looking for a way to bring you down.” He shrugged, pressing his
lips against the top of my head. “I distracted her.”