Page 80 of Pulse
Chapter 24
Ash
Training with Ren in the dead of night at Beat was fast becoming myfavoritetime of day.
I mean, we trained during the day with the Twins as they went through their final prep for the AUFC season in Sydney, but when we came back from The Underground our training consisted of a few repetitions on the bags before hands wandered.
I used to think sinking my fist into my opponent in the cage was the best feeling ever, but I’d found something much more satisfying. Sex with Ren Miller. Sinking my cock into her three, maybe four times a night. You’d think we’d be worn out by the time the day was done, but no fucking way.
She’d awakened another kind of beast.
I’d never been in a proper relationship before. Before everything that happened with Violet, I’d been the kinda guy who’d slept around because I could. Fuck, I was a kid with a raging libido and it didn’t hurt that I had the looks. I wanted to fuck around and women loved the muscles and tattoo. That was until the day I walked into Beat and saw Ren Miller brandishing a cricket bat in nothing but a tank top and knickers.
She’d turned my world even more upside down than it already was and sometimes I still didn’t know which way was up.
I didn’t like her speaking for me, even though I knew she was just trying to do the right thing, and I sure as fuck didn’t like anyone messing with her.
It was just another thing I had to get a grip on.
Just because I said I loved her didn’t mean that things were wrapped up in a nice little package, right?
Didn’t people say ‘I love you’ and then it was happily ever after?
Who fuckin’ knew. Maybe now was when the hard part began.
The Underground was always pumping on the first night of a new Championship.
Bookies were drawing up new odds, punters were clogged around the bars, women paraded around with their tits hanging out looking to score with a cashed up fighter… The whole place was alive with the promise of fresh meat. The early rounds were the easiest. They cut the boys from the men and were an absolute blood bath.
The crowd fuckin’ loved it.
I sat in the back change room and stared at my hands. I didn’t know where Ren had disappeared to, but I was kinda glad for the peace and quiet. My first fight in over a year…fuck, my first fight since I almost killed a guy in the cage and pathetically I was worried. The Underground had saved me once, but I wasn’t so sure it could make a repeat performance.
I’d never tell Ren, but the first time I heard about this place was when I was on the inside. What better place to find out about illegal fighting than from prison? The fucks that thought they ran the place tried to pull me into line straight up. Day fuckin’ one they tried to threaten me with an iron bar. The crooks that thought they ruled the roost, paying off guards and smuggling in smokes and mobile phones like currency, they didn’t expect that my currency was my fists. They never tried shit with me again, but it gained more interest from people on the outside.
To them I was a crook, behind bars for assault and primed for life in the cage. An ex-UFC fighter with a grudge and the anger to match.
I remembered the first night I’d come here. It was a few days after getting out of the slammer and some dude, that I now knew was one of the bookies, hooked me up and brought me in. I saw one bout and I signed up without hesitation. Raw, bloody and brutal. It was what I wanted. Fuck that. It was what I needed.
Then I went back to Beat and laid eyes on Ren Miller and things didn’t seem so simple anymore.
“Ash Fuller.” A loud, obnoxious Irish accent broke through my thoughts and I scowled, glancing up to find Hamish, aka The Goblin, standing in front of me.
“Hamish,” I said curtly. “I see they still haven’t revoked your visa and sent you back to your pot of gold.”
He laughed, not pissed in the slightest. He was used to the Irish jokes by now, but he always seemed moreeasygoingthan most Aussies so they just rolled off his back.
“Maverick?” he asked, sitting beside me. “What kind of name is that?”
“A fuckin’ awesome one,” I retorted.
