Beat (The Beat and The Pulse #1) (15 page)

My heart started to
beat wildly at the thought of seeing this infamous illegal fighting racket.
Shit, I’d pressured him to tell me about it but I’d never thought he’d cave and
actually take me. Images of blood, sweat and violence pounded into my brain and
I felt my blood begin to thicken.

Ash was right to keep
me from it because I was already itching. I hadn’t even set foot in the place
and I wanted to be a part of it. I desperately wanted to see Ash fighting
without limits and watch the beast inside him dominate in the ring…but what I
wasn’t prepared for was wanting to let mine free, too.

Chapter 26

Ren

The Underground
turned out to be a makeshift arena set up in an abandoned warehouse in the
backstreets of Abbotsford. Right outside Melbourne’s CBD and right in the
middle of an underdeveloped black spot which was nothing short of a property
developers wet dream.

A lot of things
didn’t surprise me these days, but it probably should’ve been one of
them. Ash having a car and driving had me more flabbergasted than anything
else. He parked half up a gutter and hauled me out the front like a sack
of potatoes. He had skills, but they didn’t extend to parallel parking.

Taking my hand, he
led me down the street where a few groups of people were all walking toward a
derelict warehouse covered in graffiti. A few people stopped to gawk at Ash as
we passed and I stared right back. Was he that well known here? They were
acting like he was some kind of celebrity.

When we got inside, I
had to do a double take. The whole place was a hive of activity, music blared
from a sound system rigged to the wall, bleachers had been set up around a cage
where all the action happened, and a bar was at the far end. As Ash led me
through the thickening crowd, people tried to call out or grab his arm to get
his attention, but as he strode through the center of it all, everyone parted
without hesitation to let him by.

I was too stunned to
give him shit about it. My eyes were like saucers as they took everything in.
This 
was
where he was going every night?

Cash was being flung
about the place like it was nothing, some serious bets being put down on the
matches for that night. There were several men, who were probably affiliated
with another kind of underground, standing by large chalkboards with odds drawn
up.

“You’re two to one?”
I exclaimed, seeing Ash’s name at the top.

“Yep.” He seemed
pretty pleased with himself.

“Are you winning?”

He shrugged. “I’m top
at the moment.”

Shit, fuck, ass. In
this place Ash was a god. No wonder all those people had been foaming at the
mouth for a tiny slice of attention. Picnics and whipped cream seemed like
stupid kid stuff compared to this place and I felt like an idiot for making him
go out with me earlier.

“I never told anyone
about this place. About what I do,” Ash murmured into my ear.

I winked up at him.
“So, this means you like me?”

With a moan, he
grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd, ignoring all the people
calling out to him as we passed. Then he was dragging me down a hallway and
into a long change room. It was still early in the night and there weren’t any
fighters back here yet, so we were totally alone, the dull roar of the throng
outside the only sound.

Ash backed me against
the wall, pinning me in place with his hips and my heart started beating
faster.

“I fight to get the
anger out of my system,” he said. “The rules here are that there are no rules.
For a guy like me, it’s a fuckin’ field day, Ren. It’s what I need to sate
this.” He thumped his fist over his heart. “You saw me snap. That wasn’t
fuckin’ pretty, but it was mild. I didn’t want you to see me like that. I don’t
want you to see this. Please let me take you back to Beat.”

I shook my head. I
wasn’t going anywhere. “If I can’t see you at your worst, then who am I really
falling for?” His breath caught and he let his head drop, breaking eye contact.
“If I’m falling for you, Ash, then I want to fall for all of you, not some poor
imitation.”

He hissed and let me
go, turning away and running a hand over his face.

“What’s so bad that
you keep wanting to push me away, Ash?”

He glanced at me, but
couldn’t meet my gaze. “So many things.”

“I haven’t run yet,”
I said. “And you’ve done some pretty assholey things, you know.”

He laughed wryly. “That’s
putting it lightly.”

“Then tell me
something,” I pleaded.

Ash was confused for
a moment and he parted his lips and sighed. “I’m winning, Ren,” he murmured.
“I’m winning all this money and I didn’t know what to do with it anymore. I
gave it to Beat…I-”

“You’ve been giving
my Dad money?” Was he worried that I’d push him away if I found out he was
financing Beat? After everything my Dad did to Mum and I, and everything since,
he thought it would be a deal breaker between us?

“I’m not angry with you,”
I said. “Why would I be?”

“He fucked you over
your entire life, Ren. He left you and your Mum, he didn’t tell his family, he
put you in a closet, he-”

I placed my fingers
over his lips. “Shut the fuck up, Ash.”

“But-” Since he
didn’t get the hint, I stifled his words with my entire palm.

“No, it’s not a good
situation, but I’ve made the most of it. I’ll probably never get along with
Monica, I might not ever reconcile completely with Dad and I might not ever be
a part of their family, but I’m beyond caring. If it wasn’t for my Mum wanting
me to find him, I would never have found Beat, I would never have found
fighting and I would never have found
you
. So, what’s a bad situation? I
don’t feel like I’m in one anymore.”

Ash tore my hand away
from his mouth and crashed his lips into mine. He pushed his tongue against
mine greedily, fisting his hand into my hair and tugging. I sagged against him,
moaning softly into his mouth. He sure knew how to make a woman weak at the
knees.

A wolf whistle split
the air around us and Ash pulled back with an annoyed hiss. A group of beefcake
men had walked into the change room, interrupting our little interlude. They
must be some of the guys on the board for that night’s bouts and I looked them
over. They were all built and mean looking, but none of them looked as toned
and focused as Ash.

“Do you want to see
some of the fights?” Ash murmured into my ear. “I’m not scheduled for a little
while.”

I nodded. Watching
the fights spoke to all the wild parts inside me.

His big hand closed
around mine and he led me from the change room, away from all the eyes that
were trained on us, and out into the arena. People had started to sit in the
bleachers, the din becoming borderline obnoxious. There was a section near the
front that seemed to be left open for special popular types, and a guy who
looked like security nodded as Ash pulled me into the front row. Sitting on the
bench and kicking my feet onto the railing, I cast my gaze around the cage.
There were quite a few spots on the mat that looked suspiciously like blood
stains…all brown and splattered.

A group of scantily
clad women passed below us, puffing up their chests and flipping their hair as
they caught sight of Ash, but he was too busy looking right over the top of
them. Still pissed me off, though.

“They really like you
here,” I drawled, eyeing a woman with fake looking tits that had lagged behind
her friends and was licking her lips, eyes plastered on
my
man.

“They let me fight
every night,” Ash said, oblivious to the extra attention he was getting.
“People keep wanting to see if they can take me out.”

I glared at the woman
with the big tits and Ash glanced up to see what I was staring at. The woman
puffed her chest out and smiled, grasping at her chance to steal him from me. I
went to step forward and give her a piece of my fist, but a thick arm wound
around my waist before I could even stand.

“You're sexy when
you're jealous,” Ash whispered in my ear.

“I don't like the way
she’s looking at you.”

“I don't like fake
tits and fake personalities, Ren.”

I snorted.

“Need I remind you
that I'm here with you? Or should I just take you out back and fuck you stupid
instead?”

“Sure,” I said, my
lady bits beginning to constrict in excitement. “I feel the need to mark my
territory.”

He pulled me into his
side, the crowd pressing around us as the bleachers began to fill to capacity.
“Every night, I come back to train with you. Before I had the guts to show up
that first time, I never stuck around. I was always alone.”

“Why?” I whispered.

“Because I wanted to
own you, Ren. I wanted your fuckin’ pussy, not theirs.”

I didn't know if I
liked the sound of him owning me, but I wanted to own him, so I guess we were
even.

“What about that
douche from the cafe?” he growled. “Did you fuck him?”

“
Ash
.”

“That thing you’re
feeling in here,” he said sliding a hand over my breast and resting his palm
over my heart. “I’m feeling the same thing, Spitfire.”

I sucked in a sharp
breath as an announcement boomed over the speakers.

“That’s Hamish,” Ash said,
nodding at a huge redheaded man who was walking toward the cage. “He goes by
Goblin and the other guy is Fox.”

“What do you go by?”
I asked, knowing that he didn’t have a silly fighter name.

Ash snorted. “It
doesn’t suit me.”

Smiling, I turned my
attention back to the cage where the two men wearing nothing but shorts and
colored bandages on their hands prowled into the center. They were all ripped
abs and everything, but I didn’t stare at them because I found it attractive…I
stared with a more specific appreciation. Getting into that kind of shape took
a will and dedication that not many people had the balls to follow through
with. I wanted to see how they approached each other, how they countered, how
they attacked. With minimal rules, all the things I knew about MMA would be
useless.

“They fight until
someone taps out or is KO’d,” Ash explained. “Those are the only rules.”

“The only rules?” I
exclaimed.

He nodded and my
stomach twisted, knowing that he did this pretty much every night.

The referee lifted
his hand and yelled something, and I turned back to the cage. Then the referee
was backing away quickly as the two men faced off.

What followed could
only be described as brutal. They grappled one another, fists pounded into
flesh, bodies were hurled against the cage and the crowd was screaming for
blood the entire time.

I stood to get a
better view as the guy Ash had called Goblin was knocked onto his back, Fox
zeroing in for the win. Ash curled his arm around my legs, trying to make me
sit down again. I knew he was using this as a deterrent, that he didn’t want me
to see this, but all it had done was spike my curiosity.

Goblin was punched
square in the face, blood erupting from his nose and I couldn’t look away. The
next punch landed on his jaw and he turned his head away, spitting blood.
Before another punch could connect, he bashed his fist against the mat
repeatedly until Fox backed off. He’d tapped out, ending the bout.

Shit. I got that this
would be brutal, but…shit.

I sat back down and
Ash leaned over and said, “I’ve got time to take you back to Beat, if you want
to go.”

I glared at him. “I’m
not leaving.”

He shrugged. “I’ve
gotta go get ready then.” He held out his hand and I took it without
hesitation.

The moment we walked
out back into the change rooms, a bevy of women began to circle like predators
and I dropped Ash’s hand, feeling one hundred percent inadequate. He’d told me
time and time again that he only wanted me, but I couldn’t help the jealousy at
seeing another woman’s hand paw at his arm.

The room was full of
other fighters in various stages of undress, male and female, along with
groupies looking for a quickie with a beefy cashed up fighter. A referee was
wandering around talking to various people, a clipboard in his hands and a
reckless idea began forming in my mind. A very dangerous idea.

While Ash was
distracted with all the silicone, I approached the referee with the biggest
death wish I’d ever had in my entire life.

“Are there any
openings tonight?” I asked, making the referee look up in surprise.

He looked me up and
down and seemed pleased with what he saw. “Yeah, we’ve got an over.”

“I want in. What do I
have to do?”

“Are you sure?” he
asked. “Season’s almost to finals. You’ll never get enough points to win.”

“But if I win some
fights, I’ll get some money, right?”

“Yeah-”

“Then count me in.”

He snorted, shaking
his head. “Oh, so you’re one of those fighters, eh?”

“What does that
mean?” I scowled.

“You like to fight
for the sake of fighting.” I eyed him warily. “You like the thrill,” he added.
“The adrenalin and the blood. Can’t say I picked you for one of them.” He
nodded toward the group of fighters at the back of the change rooms. “Usually
it's the guys who go for that stuff.”

“There’s a first for
everything.”

He eyed me again and shrugged.
“What’s your name?”