Steel: (#5 The Beat and the Pulse) (13 page)

T
he Underground was fast becoming
my regular place again.

I didn’t come as often as I used to before my stint in hospital, but I still came. It had become a habit now more than anything. Sparks was working—or in this case, hanging out with Charlie—and I went to fight.

As promised, I’d hooked the two women up so Charlie could help her with her flower problem. Just the thought of some douche trying to take my Sparks from me had my blood boiling. Anger equaled fighting, so I left them to talk it out while I beat on some poor dude in the cage.

Pulling off my T-shit, I stashed it in my bag, perched on the edge of the bench, and began wrapping my hands. I had one fight tonight, and if I won, I’d net about ten grand. That had to amount to an hour of Sparks’s wage, right? I wasn’t sure how much she earned, but it had to be a couple of hundred grand, right? Well above minimum wage for a no-hoper like me.

“Steel.”

Glancing up, I saw it was Rebel, the current reigning king of The Underground, Charlie’s man, and yet another asshole I wasn’t good enough to live up to. Built like a ton of bricks—he could hit like them, too—a severe crew cut and a mean look topped him off.

“What do you want?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “If you want to slum it in the mid-lists, you can just fuck off.” He was lucky the change rooms were mostly empty, or I would’ve taken a bigger bite.

“Charlie’s worried about you, mate,” he said, ignoring my attitude.

“Good for her.” I went on wrapping my left hand, fastening the Velcro around my wrist.

“Why do you keep coming back here?” he asked, leaning against the wall. “Fuck knows you have enough anger in you to do something stupid.”

“I know what I’m risking,” I hissed at him. “I don’t need the likes of you to remind me.”

I’d had enough threats to last a lifetime. Max had already laid the hard word on me, security was watching my ass, and so were the punters. One slip and I’d be back in that hospital…if I didn’t put myself there first. I was a teetering liability. One step in the wrong direction and I was toast.

He raised his eyebrow, kept his mouth shut, and looked at his phone. “Well, you better think about what you’re doing pretty fast.”

“What’s that meant to mean?” I asked, rising to my feet. Anger was boiling through my veins, and if it weren’t for the sight of Charlie walking through the doors into the change rooms followed by Sparks, I would’ve thumped him one.

“What did you do?” I hissed, shoving him to the side.

He held up his hands. “Wasn’t me.”

I scowled at Charlie, who just glared right back in warning. Holly followed her in, visibly shaking. Was it intimidation or anger? Seeing her at The Underground was surreal. She didn’t fit at all. She needed to leave before people realized who she was to me.

“Sparks,” I hissed, my skin crawling. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She ignored me, her gaze full of fire. She just strode right up and slapped me in the face. Her palm connected with my cheek with a crack that echoed through the room. It hardly moved my face, but I felt the power behind her strike. She was pissed…
big time
. Of course she was. I’d lied to her about this place and everything to do with it.

People turned to stare as my hand rose to cover the spot she’d struck.

“
Asshole
,” she exclaimed.

“Sparks—”

“Why would you even consider coming back to a place that left you to rot outside of a hospital?”

“Did she tell you?” I asked, jabbing a finger at Charlie, who stood with Rebel, her arms crossed over her chest.

“No, but it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.” Holly stood there, beautiful and angry, the exact definition of Sparks. “Why, Josh?”

“Because it’s the only place I belong,” I snapped.

Her mouth fell open. “The only place you belong is with the people who put you in hospital? Are you even listening to yourself right now?”

“I’m not like you, Holly,” I said, grabbing her arm and pulling her into a quiet corner. “I have nothing.”

“You have nothing?” she asked, her bottom lip quivering. “Then what am I? A fucking idiot?”

I narrowed my eyes, grinding my teeth together.

“What is wrong with you?” she exclaimed. “Don’t you realize what you’re risking?”

She’d made it pretty fucking clear. My legs and her heart. Two pretty big things that I wasn’t sure I wanted or deserved.

“Too much is wrong with me,” I hissed.

“Isn’t my love enough?” She shook her head, bitter disappointment etched on her pretty face.

My expression crumpled as my heart constricted. I didn’t realize exactly how much she had come to mean to me until that moment. It smacked into my body with more force than another fighter’s body slamming into mine inside that cage.

What was I giving up by fighting here? Maybe it was more than just the use of my legs.

I glanced across the change rooms where fighters were getting ready for their bouts—and at Charlie and Rebel, who were trying not to stare at our exchange—indecision driving me to hesitate a moment too long.

“Fine,” Sparks said, her beautiful eyes brimming with tears. “I get it.” She began to back away. “You were never one hundred percent truthful with me from the beginning, anyway.”

“Neither were you.”

She scoffed and gestured to the warehouse. “Like this is any comparison to a bad relationship.”

When I didn’t reply, she spun on her heel and walked away. All I did was stand there and stare after her like an idiot. I thought about all the women I’d been out with over the last few years—the one-nighters and the one-monthers—and realized I’d never felt anything for them. It’d been fine and all, but I hadn’t cared to continue or build anything with them. Not like Sparks. Despite all my insecurities, I still didn’t want to see her walk away from me.

I knew I had a good thing. She was settling for me, and after seeing all of this—this fucking shithole—she still stuck around to fight for me. What had I done to repay her? Lie about my entire life and let her walk away.

Striding forward, I grabbed my bag, pushed past Charlie and Rebel, and went out into the warehouse. I shoved through the crowd looking for her, but she was fast…just like the spark and boom that went with a lit firecracker. Ignoring the protests and name callers around me, I carved a path through The Underground, trying to find the red hair that distinguished my Sparks from the scourge of humanity.

Shoving through another wall of people coming in from outside, I paused and let my gaze rake the entrance. She couldn’t have gotten that far… Just when I was about to lose hope, I saw a flash of red hair I’d recognize anywhere.

“
Sparks
,” I exclaimed, darting forward and grabbing her arm. Wrenching her around, she smacked into my bare chest, her palm coming to rest over my heart.

“
Don’t
,” she practically wailed. “Don’t come after me if you don’t mean it. I can’t handle another broken heart. You’re already smashing it.
Just let me go
.”

“
No
,” I snarled.

“You said…” She swallowed hard, her honey eyes locked to mine. “You said that I didn’t matter.”

“You mattered the moment I woke up in that stupid fucking hospital,” I hissed, aware that people were beginning to stop and watch our argument.

“Then why—”

“Because I can never be worthy of you, Holly.”

She shook her head, tearing from my grasp. “Are you really that fucking stupid?”

“Looks like it.”

“This isn’t about
worth
.”

Reaching out, I grasped her wrist and yanked her body against mine again. “Then tell me what it’s about, Sparks. Tell me why I should leave this place and never come back, because right now, I can’t see a way to go on with life and not have you walk away from me when you realize what a huge mistake this was.”

A single tear spilled from her eye and trailed down her flushed cheek.

“It’s about love conquering all,” she said firmly. “
True love
. Not some pale imitation.”

My grasp on her wrist slackened, and I began to wonder if that’s really what she saw in me. I hadn’t dared to love since the night my Mum died. It hadn’t been enough then, so I’d stopped believing. Now here was Sparks, a woman who was all that and then some, offering a chance to feel it again to a pathetic asshole like me.

“I won’t come back after this,” she said. “I just can’t keep playing this game.”

Tightening my grip on her wrist once more, I pulled her through the crowd and out into the night air. Once we were outside, she yanked her arm away.

“What are you doing leading me around like a caveman?” she hissed.

“I’m taking you home,” I said, unlocking my car.

“And that’s it?”

“No,” I said, firmly. “
I’m taking you home
.”

Sparks scoffed. “To break my fucking heart a little more, you mean.”

Dumping my bag inside the car, I turned around and fisted my hands into her hair, holding her in place. Lowering my lips, I brushed them against hers, feeling her body shiver against mine.

“You want me to stop fighting?”

“You
need
to stop,” she whispered, the want clear in her voice.

I caressed her cheeks with my thumbs, already imagining how I was going to let her know how I felt. I wasn’t ready to tell her, and I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to, but at least I could show her that there was a chance.

“Then I’m taking you home.”

“Please, Josh. I need something,” she pleaded. “Anything… I can’t take this on faith.”

Earlier, she said she’d had a bad relationship, and I began to realize that was the real reason she’d moved here from New York. Her secret paled in comparison to mine, so could I really hold it against her?

“I can’t,” I murmured, my heart twisting. “That’s the honest truth. I want to take you home. When I’m inside you, it’s the only time I can see…”

She swallowed hard, her eyes wet with tears that were falling freely. “See what?”

“A future.”

I could see she didn’t understand it, and I didn’t really know either, but she closed her eyes for a moment like she was thinking about it. When she opened them, it was as if she’d made her decision, for better or for worse. She pressed forward and kissed me softly, her lips parting. I could taste the salty tang of her tears on my tongue as I took over, and I began to hate myself for causing them. I held her face tightly, deepening our embrace, trying to tell her everything I couldn’t vocalize.

Pulling away, she fell against my chest, her arms circling my waist. Stroking my hand through her hair, I breathed deeply, not giving a shit that we were standing on a dark street outside The Underground—the foul place that had brought us together. It was like a cruel twist of fate when I really drilled down and thought about it. Now it was the one thing that threatened to tear us apart.

Sparks was right about everything. It infuriated me beyond belief, but she was that smart. She was my fucking goddess, and I couldn’t lose her. Not because of this place.

“I won’t go back there,” I whispered, letting her know she’d won. “I promise.”

W
e were
silent all the way back to my place.

While Josh drove and I allowed myself to calm down, I pulled out my phone and Googled the word that had been playing on my mind since Charlie had let it slip. Pulse. The gym she said he’d started going to a couple of weeks ago.

It turned out to be a fighter gym in Abbotsford, not far from the warehouse we’d just left. Scrolling through the website, I stilled as I came across a photograph of the owners. A husband and wife team by the name of Ash and Ren Fuller. I didn’t recognize his name, but I remembered his face. How could I forget the man who came into the hospital with a rather large check in hand the day after I found Josh out on the footpath?I couldn’t.

This Ash guy was a fighter, and he had to be the guy Josh was fighting that night. He was the guy who put Josh in hospital. I’d put my life on it.

As the car pulled into the parking garage under my apartment building, I turned off my phone and slid it into my bag. Why would he want to go to a gym owned by the guy who beat him into hospital? Was it revenge? I wasn’t sure if I should be worried or not.

I’d have to ask him about it, but not yet. Not after the night we’d already had.

Josh held my hand from the car to the elevator. His fingers tightened around mine as we rose, the silence stretching into infinity. I wasn’t sure how to take it, the weight of all the emotions I’d let out still whirling around in my mind.

When we finally stepped into my dark apartment, it was like a switch flipped inside him. Turning, he walked me back until I hit the front door, his body pressing into mine. His gaze burned into mine as he clicked the deadbolt into place.

“Sparks.” His lips brushed against mine. “
Let me show you
.”

I nodded, completely caught in his thrall. “Show me.”

His lips caught mine and we kissed. We’d stood like this many times over the past few months, and every single one of those times had been infused with passion, but this… There were no words to explain how this one kiss made those other moments feel like nothing. They were the sparks lit by tiny matches, and the fire that Josh ignited right now…it was the sun.

We moved through the apartment, Josh guiding our path toward the bedroom. He undressed me as we ventured, kissing every inch of skin that was revealed as each item was removed and flung somewhere off into the darkness. He wove a trail of emotions everywhere his lips touched, a secret story he told only for me, and it was intoxicating.

It wasn’t long before I was completely naked and pushing down his shorts to reveal his hard cock, but he caught my wrists in his hands before I could take him in mine.

Shaking his head, he lowered me gently onto the bed, cradling my back with his arm as he climbed over me.

His lips burned a trail along my skin. His tongue lavished attention to my nipples as his teeth tugged gently against the sensitive buds until I moaned in pleasure. Heat spiked between my legs, an ache rising, begging to be relieved.

“
Josh
.” It came out as a gasp, a desperate plea to keep going and never stop.

His hand cupped my sex, a finger dipping just inside my wetness, and I bucked against his touch, rubbing my clit against his palm.

“Do you understand now, Sparks?” he asked, his lips against my ear. His breath was hot on my skin as his finger rubbed circles around my opening. “How the fuck do you describe this?”

He pulled his hand away and fisted his cock, stroking himself a few times before positioning the head where his finger had just been. Just inside, not nearly deep enough to satisfy the craving he’d ignited in my body.

“Josh,” I moaned. “I need you.” I clawed at his back, my hands settling on his ass. I tried to force him inside, but he was too strong. “I. Need. 
You
.”

“
Fuck
,” he muttered, his body quivering. He’d just given away how much strength it was taking him to hold back, to prolong this moment and say everything he needed to in the wake of our argument.

Sliding into me, he pushed my legs up, opening me up further to him, and his cock buried deeper than he’d ever been. So deep it was almost painful.
A good kind of pain
.

Swirling his hips, he massaged my clit as his mouth came down on mine, stifling my moans. As his tongue dove greedily against mine, he pulled his cock back and thrust. We joined hard, and I cried out, his chest rumbling with pleasure as he took me again and again.

Pulling his mouth from mine, he kissed a trail down my neck and wrenched my arms over my head. Pinning my wrists in his strong hands, he pounded into me, his cock stroking every inch as he slammed into my clit.

As the building orgasm began to swell higher inside of me, I began to understand what Josh had said outside of the warehouse. He couldn’t tell me how he felt, but when he was inside of me, he didn’t need words. I didn’t know if it was love he felt, but it was something more than a simple flirtation. It was more than just an incredible fuck. This was more.
I could feel it
.

He increased his pace, thrusting into me with a recklessness that drove me wild, and I rose to meet him again and again until I couldn’t hold on any more. I erupted around his cock, my orgasm slamming into me with a force I’d never felt before.

When he finally settled, holding deep inside me as he spilled everything he had, his body trembled against mine, his arms clutching my body underneath his. He was heavy, his muscles rippling against my stomach, but I didn’t mind one bit. I liked the feeling of his weight over me and between my legs. I could stay like this forever, his cock inside me, my skin zinging with the aftereffects of our lovemaking. I wanted this with him forever.

Finally, he pulled out of me body and collapsed on the bed beside me. “
Fuck
.”

He pulled me against his body, our skin tacky with sweat, and kissed me hard, our tongues entwining. It was a kiss that punctuated his declaration like an exclamation mark, encompassing and full of passion.

Tearing away, he took a few deep breaths and lay back on the pillow, closing his eyes.

“
Sparks
,” he muttered as I folded myself around him.

“Shh,” I soothed, rubbing my palm over his heart. “Sleep.”

And that’s what we did, wrapped around one another, feeling more complete than we’d ever felt before.

J
osh had made
love to me last night.

His lips had woven a trail across my skin, telling a story of passion I could hardly believe he felt for me. Then his cock had pulsed inside my body, raising me to dizzying new heights of pleasure. He couldn’t find the words, but he could show me what he didn’t understand.

My emotions had been running so high I hardly remember half the things I’d said to him in the heat of the moment. I’m sure they were horrible, but I had an inkling I’d let slip how much my feelings for him had grown.

Did I tell Josh I loved him? I wasn’t even sure if that was true…yet. What I did know was that I cared deeply for him. More than I’d ever felt for any man in my entire life and that was something to fight for.

Rolling over, I checked the time on my phone and groaned when I saw it was just past six a.m. Josh’s hand tightened on my waist as he stirred, and he tugged me back against his chest.

“Sparks,” he muttered, his voice heavy with sleep. “Where you going?”

“Just checking the time,” I replied, turning so I could see his face.

His eye opened a crack, peering at me from under his lashes.

“You wanted to know why I left New York,” I said, knowing it was time he knew everything.

“Sparks…”

“I had a fiancé,” I blurted, just to get it out there, but it hung heavy in the air like a giant fucking elephant.

Josh was well and truly awake now. “You were getting married?”

“Was, being the choice word in that sentence,” I retorted dryly. ”I walked in on him screwing a nurse from behind.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“I was working at New York-Presbyterian in Lower Manhattan. I got an internship straight out of Columbia and residency right after. It’s a busy hospital. Always a surgery or an emergency to deal with. I guess he found a way to deal with the pressure without me.”

Dr. Craig Hunter was the playboy of Columbia University med school, and I’d hated him at first. He was always top of the class despite his partying and womanizing ways. It totally infuriated me no end, and when we were both accepted into the same internship program, I’d thought of him as a bad smell I couldn’t get rid of. I wasn’t sure when things had changed between us, but we’d dated for four years and were engaged for a year when I found out that he hadn’t quite managed to put his wandering cock on a leash. For six years, three weeks, and two days, he’d been fucking women behind my back all over Manhattan.

“He was cheating on you?”

“At first, I thought it’d been going on for months. While I was in surgeries, he’d been fucking his way through most of the nursing staff. It turned out it had been happening for the entire time we were together. Like six years. 
I can’t believe I was so blind
.”

“He didn’t deserve you, Sparks. He doesn’t deserve shit.” He slid his hand over my waist.

“It was meant to be me and him against the world. Our future was all set. My father had my career all mapped out.”

“Is that why you chose to come here?” he asked, running his fingers up and down my back. “To defy your father and get away from your asshole ex?”

“Yeah…but it wasn’t just because of all that. Everything I said about not wanting to get caught up in the trappings of the big high-flying career was true. I just wanted to do my thing and help people. I was good at ortho, but my Dad always turned his nose up at it.”

“Not the hottest kind of doctor to be, huh?”

“It’s blue collar to some, getting your hands dirty. Sometimes, I have to climb all over patients to snap their bones back into place, wrench arms back into sockets… It’s real hands-on. Grunt work, he says. He wanted me to specialize in neuro or cardio… Something dignified.”

“What about Dr. Dickwad?”

“Dr. Dickwad?” I asked, my lip quirking.

“Your ex.”

“He’s in cardio.” I sighed. I actually thought he would’ve gone into plastics when we were interns. Craig was an arrogant asshole like that. Boob jobs, liposuction…big money in the private sector.
I didn’t want to talk about him anymore.

“Why didn’t you just say something?” Josh asked.

“It hurt too much,” I replied. “It still does. Not because I miss him, because I don’t anymore. I haven’t for a long time. It hurts because I’m ashamed I didn’t see what he was doing.”

“It’s not your fault, Sparks.”

I grunted. “So that was the big secret. I didn’t want to talk about it because it doesn’t have any bearing on how I feel about you. In the beginning, I was worried about letting go, but that night you took me to that concert…”

Josh’s eyes sparkled, and he smiled.

He didn’t move to follow my lead and reveal something about himself. He just lay there, his gaze studying my features. 

“Josh?” I whispered

“Yeah?”

“Charlie said you started going to a new gym,” I murmured. “Pulse.”

“I didn’t know she went there,” he replied. “I ran into her there.”

She was a detective, but so was I in a way. A patient’s diagnosis was a carefully laid foundation of tests and questions designed to pinpoint symptoms that could eventually be treated. Part of that process was asking invasive questions that some people never wanted to be truthful about. Questions that were awkward and embarrassing.

Through all of our arguments and revelations, he hadn’t once talked about the man who put him in hospital. The man who came to see his doctor the day after he was dumped outside the ER.

“It’s his gym, isn’t it?” I asked and promptly held my breath.

He frowned. “Who’s?”

“The guy you fought the night I found you outside the hospital.”

He sighed sharply and rolled onto his back. Running his hand over his face, he scowled. I propped myself up on my elbow and reached for him, tracing the scars on his face with my fingertips. They weren’t huge or anything, just tiny white lines that were evidence of the many fights he must’ve had in that place. I’d never noticed before, but his eyebrow had been split, the hair growing strong over the mark. A few stitches had gone into that one, and whoever had sewn it up had done a fine job of it.

Finally, I dropped my hand and slid it over his waist, lying against his chest.

“He came to see me the day after I found you,” I went on. “He was the one who paid for your care.”

He grunted. “I figured.”

At least he wasn’t denying what had happened to him anymore. At least that was laid out in the open, and we could work through it.

“I don’t know why I went there, to be honest,” Josh said, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve never tried to approach him or anything. I’ve never seen him there.”

I didn’t want to ask the next question, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. “Did you want revenge on him?”

He sighed sharply, his jaw tightening. “I knew what I was getting into when I got into that cage,” he said. “I knew it might end the way it did that night. I’d be a fool to seek revenge on anyone when I was a willing participant.”

“Then why do you think you went to his gym?”

“I don’t know,” he replied sharply. “Maybe because he got out. He had a shit life, and now he’s got it all. I thought… I thought if I saw the place, then maybe…” He let his thought evaporate on the air.

Propping myself up again, I cupped his face and stroked my thumb across his stubble. “You might find your own way?”

As if he was ashamed, he cast his gaze away from mine and grimaced.

“I’ll help you, Josh,” I said firmly. “We’ll figure it out.”

Reluctantly, he pulled his gaze back to mine.
Time, it’d just take time.

I kissed him softly before he said, “We better get up so I can get you to work.”

Knowing my declaration had been pushed away for now, I nodded. We’d come a long way since last night. Last thing we needed was for me to push a little too far. A lot of faith went into relationships like ours, and I just had to keep on keeping on or die trying.