The Beat and The Pulse Box Set 1

by Amity Cross

  The moment he began to come inside me was the moment I knew things were on the up and up. More than a mind blowing orgasm. With each and every hurdle we were becoming more and more solid. We were a team.

  Together to the end.

  32

  Ash

  I was the biggest asshole on the planet.

  I’d ripped Ren a new one for keeping things from me and what the fuck was I doing? Being a hypocritical asshole.

  Being honest with one another held our whole relationship together. Ren had said it first. She wanted us to be a team and so did I, so why was I holding back? Lots of reasons I didn’t want to acknowledge.

  One thing that annoyed me more than it should was Hammer and his absence from our lives. He was there, fighting, hanging around, watching…but he never did anything to outright provoke me. He’d kept his distance so far, but that was until he’d whispered foul things to Ren while she was in the cage.

  She’d been KO’d and her confidence shot then I’d found her in that fuckin’ cafe talking to that hipster dude she’d gone out with before me. Seeing her with him, her fuckin’ hand in his… I blew a fuse. I got that I was protective of her, but I didn’t understand just how jealous I could be. I’d never loved someone before and never half as much as I loved Ren.

  Hammer was still a plague on our lives and the stress was getting to me, to Ren, to everyone. I had to keep reminding myself that it was about the long game.

  I was hardly ever without Ren while we were at The Underground and the one time I wasn’t was tonight. She was off talking shop with some of the other women fighters. I mean, it was great that she was making friends because she needed that, but as long as she understood that those ‘friends’ would take her out without a second thought if they got the chance.

  I was busy thinking about her as I wandered out to the back of the warehouse, so when I rounded a corner and nearly walked into Hammer, I almost snapped in half.

  “So if it isn’t the beast himself,” he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest.

  I wasn’t in the mood to play nice. The stupid fucker just kept sinking the boot in.

  “She told me what you said to her,” I hissed.

  Hammer started to laugh. “Yeah? And what was that?”

  He was just trying to get me to say it, but there was no way I’d give him the satisfaction. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  He raised his hands in mock defense. “Not my fault the bitch fazed out.”

  I stepped forward, shoving him hard. He fell against the wall as I fisted my hand into the front of his shirt. “You’re walking a fine line,” I spat.

  “Oh come on, Fuller,” he said with a smirk. “We all know that you’re all talk. You can’t even follow through.”

  I felt my control slipping big time and I heaved in deep breaths.

  “Pathetic. Just like your whore. She moaned like a slut when I stuck my finger in her cunt.”

  I felt a pathway in my brain snap. It took me back to that dark place, the place where the beast lived inside me, the place where there was nothing but anger, pain and all the bad emotions that drove a man to do the worst things… It felt the same when I saw what he’d done to Violet. It was the same feeling that had smashed into me the moment I’d opened the door to Beat and saw him over Ren. It was the same now.

  With a roar, I pulled back my fist and was about to smash Hammer right in the face when a hand grabbed my wrist.

  “The fuck, Fuller?” Hamish shoved me back and I wondered where the fuck he’d come from.

  Hammer blinked hard, the only indication he gave that he’d shat himself, and pushed off the wall, shoving me away.

  Hamish stepped between us like a human shield as I seethed and I just wanted to have this shit over and done with. How the fuck could he say those things about her? How the fuck could he do those things to a woman? He deserved everything he got.

  “That’s why you’re going to lose, Fuller,” Hammer said with a sneer. Fucking ugly asshole. “You’re a fucking psycho. Animal.”

  “Fuck that’s ironic,” I exclaimed as Hamish placed a hand on my chest to hold me back. “You’re a fucking rapist. Scum. You deserve everything you get. Third time’s a fuckin’ charm, asshole.”

  Hammer started to laugh like I’d told the funniest joke in the entire world. “Yeah? We’ll see about that. You’ve got no follow through, unlike me.” He grasped his cock and anger seared through my veins. “I followed through right into your sister.”

  Rage exploded in my body and I lunged, the only coherent thought in my head was getting my hands on Hammer so I could beat the life out of him.

  Hamish shoved me back and I stumbled into the far wall. “Don’t even think about it,” he murmured so no one else could hear. “You’ll get kicked out if you fight out of the cage.”

  “Faggots,” Hammer hissed.

  Hamish’s eyes blazed and he turned on his heel to face the fucker. “If you even come close to them again, it’ll be an iron bar breaking your legs this time.”

  “Then why don’t you just do it Goblin? You’re all talk.”

  “That’s the difference between scum and decency, Hammer. If you had any of the latter, you’d fuckin’ understand. Too bad you’re dumb as dog shit.”

  Hammer narrowed his eyes and glanced at me. “When we get in that cage Fuller, it will be the last time.”

  I narrowed my eyes right back, understanding his meaning one hundred percent. I wasn’t sure if it worried me, but I was still seeing red, so sense and feeling were a long way off.

  Hammer backed away, his gaze never leaving mine, solidifying his warning…or his promise. It wasn’t until he rounded the corner that I let some of the tension bleed from my limbs.

  “I told ya I’d have your back,” Hamish said, clapping me on the shoulder. “I’m a man of me word.”

  Another person who was a man of their word was Hammer.

  I knew that this time would be the last. Once we got in that cage Hammer wouldn’t stop until he’d taken my life, so I better be ready to do the same. It just sucked that I’d have to give up the last part of myself that was good to be able to do it.

  Spitfire. By avenging her, the woman I loved, I might lose her too.

  I was keeping secrets again and I was considering committing the ultimate crime in her name. It didn’t get any worse than this.

  If there was another way out, I wasn’t sure what it was and the more I thought about it, I knew there wasn’t.

  This was how it was meant to go down.

  Someone had to die.

  I was still seething by the time Ren and I got back to Beat that night.

  It was past midnight, pushing one am, as we showered together. Usually the hot water, her wet mouth and her pussy were enough to calm me down, but tonight I was still strung out.

  Hammer and I had come to an understanding about how this would end between us and I didn’t like it one bit.

  I toweled my Spitfire dry and she dressed as my body hummed with the quick fuck we’d just had. God, fucking her, burying my cock into the woman I loved…even that couldn’t take the edge off.

  I watched as she brushed her fingers through her damp hair, combing out the tangles. She was beautiful, strong, everything I wasn’t and fuck I loved her. I didn’t understand my feelings, even though they now had a name, and the ache that spread in my chest didn’t seem connected. Love was meant to make you feel good, right? Then why did I feel like crap?

  “What’s wrong?” Ren asked after a moment.

  “Nothing,” I bit out.

  “Like fuck,” she hissed and I instantly felt like crap. “I’m not stupid; I can feel you pushing me away without you even lifting a finger.” She sighed, hanging up her towel. “I can feel it in the way you fucked me.”

  “I didn’t fuck you,” I replied, my voice coming out a little angrier than I would’ve liked.

  “There’s two kinds of fucking with you, Maverick,” she said, narr
owing her pretty brown eyes. “The consuming kind where I know it’s from your heart and the kind we just had in the shower.”

  “And what kind is that?”

  “The kind where you fuck to forget.”

  She had me there.

  “I’ll only ask you one more time, then you can either come upstairs with me or you can fuck off home. What’s. Wrong?”

  Fuck, she was a hard-ass. If she knew something was off, did she know about…? No, if she knew about the scout and this thing with Hammer, she would’ve just come out and said it. That’s the kind of woman she was. Feisty…there was a reason I called her Spitfire.

  “I’m cracking, Ren. I can’t…” I shoved a hand through my hair. “I can’t…” I couldn’t say the words ‘hold on’. Because I was breaking, I kept telling myself that I had to hold on, I had to keep my control, but it was easier said than done. The things he’d done to them… How could I have let him go…twice?

  “Ash, please talk to me,” Ren said. She didn’t step forward or even try to touch me and I began to wonder if she was afraid of me. Afraid of the beast that could lash out at her at any second. I was stupid to think I could do this my way. Maybe I should be locked up.

  “I can’t control it Ren,” I said beating my fist over my heart. I couldn’t tell her the real reason, so I decided being a dick was better than smashing her heart. “I see other men... I saw him touch you and I almost lost it.”

  “Seth?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t trust them!”

  “There’s gotta be a point where you let go Ash. We can’t keep going on like this.”

  “I keep hurting you,” I exclaimed. “I keep hurting you by trying to do the right thing.”

  “We knew it would be tough,” she said. “We knew…”

  “You can go and I can finish it and…” I trailed off, the ending of that sentence too terrible to even comprehend.

  She stared at me in shock, her eyes sparkling. Shit, I’d made her cry…again.

  “And you’ll leave me again?” she exclaimed. “You’ll destroy your own life? Completely this time?”

  Thinking about all the crap we’d been through, I wondered if the kindest thing I’d ever done was to leave her. When I was gone she’d hurt, but she’d also made pro, built a better relationship with her father and she had friends to help her through. Ever since I’d come back, her life had been nothing short of hard.

  “No Ash,” she said, reading my expression. “I love you, you love me. You promised me and I sure as fuck promised you. I’m not letting you leave me again. Ever.”

  Even as she said the words, I knew I wouldn’t go through with it. I loved her with everything I had, but I didn’t love her enough to let her go. I was such a selfish fuck. What would it do to her when I finally got in that cage with Hammer and only one of us walked away? What would it do to her then?

  “This is exactly what they want,” she whispered.

  I stared at her and began putting the pieces together.

  “Psychological warfare,” she said, staring right back. “Rogue warned us that they’d try something different.”

  “Fucking…” I ran my hand over my face.

  “You need to let it go and trust me. I. Trust. You. Don’t let them win. You told me that. You—”

  This unbelievable burst of feeling spread through me and I pulled her roughly against my chest and crashed my lips to hers, winding my arms around her waist.

  She pulled away, tears dampening her cheeks and her breathing ragged.

  “We’re a team,” she gasped, clinging to me like I was her lifeline. Little did she know that she was mine.

  “I love you Spitfire. Always.”

  She sniffed and buried her face against my chest, her arms winding around my neck.

  If I was going to die, then I wanted to take whatever time I had left with her and make the most of it. I wanted to love her, fuck her, make her feel special…but I had to be strong. I had to hold on for a little while longer.

  Ren could never know what we intended to let happen at that fight. If she knew, then she’d try to stop it. If it didn’t happen in the cage, then it would happen elsewhere and that would be so much worse. In the cage, if I won, I had an escape. Outside, I was looking at life in the slammer.

  Ren could never know that this was how things would end.

  There wasn’t any other way.

  33

  Ren

  I’d been enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks from a young age.

  Lesson number one was…the only way to get over fear was to face it head-on.

  It was just another way of saying ‘fighting’ and that’s what I did best in all senses of the word. I fought when my mum was sick, I fought against my opponents in the cage and I fought against the fear of being attacked again.

  I never understood what it was like to have that constant sensation prickling at the back of my neck, not until Ash and I had come back to The Underground. Hammer lurked, he taunted from a distance, but it was a coward’s game on his side. He’d only win if I lost another fight because of his words. So, the solution was easy.

  Get back in the cage and fight through it.

  Ash…Ash was just another roller coaster. The fact that he’d even thought about leaving me again, even for a second, hurt. It more than hurt, it cut deep into my heart. If he left again, it’d destroy me. Totally and utterly. There would be no coming back from that heartache.

  Everything that I’d been through, it’d been for us because life without Ash Fuller would be bleak and desolate. In the months after my mum had died, it’d been much the same. I’d rebelled against her dying wish to find my dad, but deep down I knew something had to change. I’d fallen onto a path of self-destruction and it hadn’t been until I’d stepped over the threshold of Beat that I’d felt something change.

  Mum had brought me to Dad and inevitably to Ash. Nobody could replace her, not by a long shot, but I knew one thing. She’d want me to fight for him. For us. She was my mum and she wanted me to be happy and if Ash made me happy, then so be it.

  I walked through The Underground in a daze, my body zinging with the built up tension of the past few days.

  I ignored the looks and snide comments as I walked through the change room and opened my locker. Bitch has been brought down from her pedestal now. I pulled out my gear and stripped off my T-shirt. She thinks she’s all that. I kicked off my boots and dumped them into the locker. Look at her parading around this place like she owns it.

  I didn’t think I was any of those things. Were they just trying to get into my head? Was it jealousy? No, it couldn’t be jealousy; I didn’t think I was that great.

  Maybe it pissed them off that I’d gotten into pro and had dumped it to come back here. They couldn’t know the circumstances, but that had to be a kick in the guts. Maybe it was jealousy, but maybe it was just about the money. Money did crazy shit to some people.

  I felt a looming sensation behind me and my heart began to thump in my chest.

  “Spitfire,” Ash murmured before reaching out for my hand.

  I was glad he’d announced himself before touching me, otherwise I would’ve decked him one and kneed him in the balls for good measure.

  I curled my fingers around his as he tugged me toward him. “Hey.”

  “All good?”

  The answer to that was ‘somewhat’, but I couldn’t get the words past my throat.

  Instead, I said, “I need to know you’re with me.”

  Ash sucked in a breath before saying, “Of course I’m with you.”

  I tightened my fingers around his hand.

  “I’ll be watching you from the side of the cage,” he said. “I won’t take my eyes off of you.”

  I smiled, trying to push down all the doubts I had weighing on my chest. “You better not.”

  The only way through this was one step at a time. Then the next and the next until there was nowhere
else to go. When we got to the end, then we could look up and wonder about the future. Getting back in the cage tonight after my epic KO was just another of those steps. A bite sized chunk of the prize.

  Ash walked hand in hand with me out into the arena and I strode into the cage, shoving my fear to the back of my mind. I came face to face with Fury and rolled my shoulders. I was ready.

  She held out her hand and shook as I grasped it. She was a class act if I ever saw one. No matter how brutal this place got, she always had her hand out to shake before and after a fight…no matter who her opponent was.

  She was no nonsense, told it like it was and got straight down to business. No games, no maliciousness. She was like me…there to fight.

  The bout began and we instantly grappled, both of us struggling to get the upper hand. We broke and tried again, this time I went on the defensive as she attempted to dominate with a flurry of blows. High, low, high again, as she forced me back toward the edge of the cage.

  “Reign!”

  I stiffened as I heard Hammer’s voice, his slimy, disgusting voice but this time I didn’t turn to find his gaze. Hammer was at it again, trying to rattle me, trying to break the thing that made me me. He was trying to take my strength and I wasn’t having it.

  I continued to fight Fury, dodging a kick that flew high and counter attacking.

  “Did you dream about my finger in your cunt when you were out, Reign?”

  I let his barb roll off my back as I sunk my fist into Fury’s ribs, driving the air from her lungs. Perfect move.

  “I’m going to make you suck my cock Reign. And I’m going to make you swallow.”

  My gaze brushed by Hammer’s and I felt his words roll off my back and disappear into oblivion. Then he was just a blip on my radar until even that faded. He only had power while I let him.