“I trained with Caleb last night.” I don’t know why I said it because it was like slapping him in the face, but it came out and hung there like an elephant in the room.

I sensed Ash’s body stiffen as the words hit him, and I cast my gaze to the floor. Training at Beat in the dark was our thing. It brought us together when nothing else could’ve made a difference. It was our thing.

His fist hit the wall, and I jumped, my gaze finding his. His shoulders were tense, jealousy clearly written all over his face.

“Did he touch you?” he asked, his eyes smoldering with a mixture of rage and lust.

I shook my head. “No.”

His eyes narrowed, and he pressed forward, backing me against the wall. His caveman was out, and his hands raised to grasp any part of me he could. My back hit the plaster, and he was on me, shoving his thigh between my legs, his mouth covering mine. He showed no mercy as he told me with his touch what he couldn’t seem to vocalize. He was sorry, but what for?

The kiss deepened to unbearable levels, as I knew it inevitably would, and I wrapped my arms round his neck, tangling my fingers into his hair. As his tongue claimed mine in slow swirls, my nipples tightened against his chest. This was how he told me that he wanted me forever. No stupid ceremony could give us this unbelievable passion. We totally clicked in the physical sense, but we still had emotional things we needed to work through and solving those would only come with time.

“I want you,” Ash murmured, holding me tight against his chest. “I want you even though now I’m the one pissed at you.”

Feeling his erection against my leg, my body flared hotter in response.

“That time is ours,” he went on. “No one else’s.”

“When else am I going to learn from him?”

“In a class,” he shot back immediately.

“Ash, you’re blowing it out of proportion.”

His eyes darkened, and he raised his hands to cup my face. His thumbs stroked back and forth across my skin, his touch gentle even though his eyes betrayed his annoyance. “Now you know how I feel, Spitfire.”

“Can we forget we ever fought about…” I trailed off, not knowing exactly what I was getting pissed about anymore. I guess that’s what being aroused ninety percent of the time did to a woman. Scrambled her bloody brain beyond comprehension.

“We belong to one another, Ren,” he whispered, his gaze flickering to my lips. “I’d die without you.”

I swallowed hard and allowed his nearness to overwhelm me. Darting forward, I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth and shoved my hands up the back of his T-shirt. His muscles tensed as he took control of the kiss, his hands tightening around my face as he pinned me against the wall.

My body flared in response, and I rolled my hips forward, moaning as pleasure spiked through my clit and jackknifed through every nerve ending I possessed. He responded in kind by grinding harder against me, his hands running up and down my body like they didn’t know which part of me to pleasure first.

“Please,” I cried breathlessly, all of the pent up anger I’d had toward him well and truly gone.

His hands wrapped around my waist, moving upward before hitching my bra and T-shirt up over my breasts. The cool air of the office tickled on my exposed skin, but then the warmth of Ash’s mouth clamped over them, sending bolts of heat to where it mattered most…right between the legs.

He bit my nipple softly as his hands pushed my shorts and knickers down, his palms coming to rest on my ass as I kicked out of my bottoms. Then he was lifting me up into his arms, shoving me back against the wall, his crotch grinding against my exposed sex.

Wrapping my legs around him, I pulled his mouth to mine and we kissed desperately as he freed his cock from his shorts. My insides ached to be fucked hard, to be released from the pressure that had been sparked by our furious groping. I wanted to feel good, and Ash was the only one who could give me what I wanted…and what I needed. Release, completion, forever.

He thrust into me with a grunt, driving his cock into me possessively. Tightening my legs around him, I urged him to keep going, my hands holding his face to mine. His eyes were wild with desire as he fucked me against the wall because this was far from making love. If this was how it felt to have him after one night apart, I couldn’t even imagine the cataclysm two would do.

He pounded into me relentlessly, and all I could feel was the rising tsunami that was my orgasm. It would splinter everything in its path the moment it broke. I held onto Ash for dear life.

“Spitfire,” he muttered, his breathing sharp.

“Watch me,” I gasped, forcing his gaze to mine once more. “Watch me. I’m yours…always yours.”

I came hard, his onslaught only spurring me on further, and he wasn’t far behind me. He thrust, burying deep, and held, his eyes never leaving mine. I didn’t know how long we clutched one another before his lips came to rest on mine. We kissed softly, our breath mingling as our heartbeats began to slow.

“I don’t want to fight,” I murmured, running my hands through his hair.

Ash didn’t answer. He just brushed his lips against mine before setting me back onto my feet. Pulling my top into place, he sank to his knees and tugged my shorts and underwear back up before attending to his own state of disarray. I guessed we’d just well and truly christened the office. I wondered what surface was next?

“Why are you dressing me?” I muttered, leaning back against the wall. My legs were just about ready to give out on me.

“There’s still some stragglers downstairs,” he muttered. “All of this”—he rubbed his hands over my breasts—“is mine and not for other eyes. I’m not risking the dash down the hall, Spitfire.”

I rolled my eyes even as I felt a surge of ownership over him. “Ape.”

Not rising to the occasion, Ash scooped me up into his arms and just carried me from the office, down the hall and into our apartment. He didn’t let me go until we’d reached the bedroom, where he set me gently on top of the covers.

Lying beside me, he pulled my body flush against his, laying his arm down so I could curl around him.

“Are you ready to talk yet?” I murmured.

“I just want to lie with you a minute,” he replied. “I missed you last night.”

It was code for let me catch my breath so I can strip you naked and screw you again, but I was still wound up.

“I don’t like the thought of you keeping something from me.” I screwed my eyes shut, my fingers tightening around his waist.

“Ren, I told you…” He sighed, his chest rising and falling with his breath.

“Is that why you asked?” I murmured, resting my head against his shoulder. “Because you’re afraid I might leave?”

“No,” he whispered. He hesitated, his jaw grinding a moment before he added, “Because someone might take you.”

“Ash,” I said through a heavy sigh.

He’d stayed away from me for so long because he believed he would hurt me beyond repair, and he held on so tight because he was afraid he’d screw up so bad that I’d leave him. It wasn’t until Hammer had almost taken me from him that a new fear had come to the surface. The fear of someone taking me from him.

He’d survive without me, but he’d never be the same. I could sympathize with that because it was exactly the same for me—different circumstances with the same outcome.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” I murmured, clutching onto him for dear life. “No one’s gunna take me. You think I’d let them?”

His body tensed, but I didn’t dare say anything else. I just raised my head and let my lips find his. Brushing the hair from his forehead, I closed my eyes tightly as we kissed. I poured all the reassurance and love I could muster into my touch and hoped to hell that it got through to him.

We’d been solid ever since the night of the Championship at The Underground. Nothing had stood in our way, not even during the crazy months it took to build Pulse from a shell to its current glory. Not even through the bullshit that was thrown at us both for turning down the contracts from the AUFC. We were solid…until something had gotten underneath his skin. Was it just the marriage thing that had been blown out of proportion? I wasn’t so sure anymore.