With a moan, he pressed his lips against mine, the tension bleeding from his limbs and into my body. I carried his pain, and I tightened my grip on him, begging for more.

Let me help you, I pleaded silently. Let me bring you back.

My back hit the wall, and he pressed into me, his tongue licking deep against mine. His hands shoved down the front of my shorts, and his fingers found my clit and began stroking. Bucking into his touch, I gasped as my body flared in response. It would always be Ash. Always.

“Spitfire,” he moaned, grinding his erection against my thigh as he worked his fingers deeper until they were inside me.

“Do you need it?” I asked, my hands cupping his face.

He nodded once and pulled his fingers away. Undoing the button on my shorts, he pushed them down and practically tore off my knickers. As I stepped out of them, he discarded his own and stood before me, hard and ready. His eyes were dark with rage and lust, his body covered with sweat and blood from his fight. It should’ve disturbed me, but all I could see was the man underneath it all. I knew this was what he was afraid of. This was the fear he’d tried to hide from me. I didn’t know what had stirred it up, but this was his fear. Rage.

Lifting me up into his arms, he held me against the wall and thrust. His cock slammed into me, and I cried out at the too-full sensation, but Ash didn’t slow. He pulled back and thrust again and again, fucking me hard against the wall. He was chasing the beast, dousing the fire…using his connection with me to bring himself back from the edge.

Our cries mingled together as our bodies joined again and again. His mouth found mine, his tongue twisted and devoured as my orgasm peaked and smashed through my body.

I tightened around his cock, lost in the intensity that was overloading my senses, and then I felt him pulse and erupt. He moaned deep and long into my mouth, circling his hips and driving himself deeper as he spilled everything he had into me. Like a catharsis for his pain, I took it all. I wanted to. I wanted to.

It felt like an age had passed as we held together, him inside me, my legs around his waist, my back against the wall… Our chests heaved in tandem, our breath lost in the wake of our desperate fucking.

Finally, I was able to collect my thoughts. “Ash?”

He let me slide through his arms, and my feet hit the floor.

“Please tell me,” I pleaded, my voice barely a whisper. I felt so empty. The wall was still between us even though his eyes were brighter and his rage had subsided.

He still didn’t reply. All he did was squeeze his eyes closed.

Without a word, I extracted myself from his grasp. I pulled my shorts on and went to find his things in the change rooms. When I got back, he’d put his shorts back on and sat there glassy-eyed as I unwrapped his hands before pulling his T-shirt over his head and tugging his jacket around his bulky frame.

Then, when The Underground had calmed down enough, I led him from the warehouse and took him home to Pulse.

We never uttered a word the entire way there, silence opening a bottomless chasm between us. I had no idea if we could ever come back from all the hurt we’d inflicted on one another. Not this time.

He followed me into the apartment, still silent, and collapsed onto the bed. Instantly, he was asleep. It was the first time I’d seen him so utterly exhausted, and I now knew that there was an end to his energy.

With a sigh, I pulled off his shoes and dragged a blanket over his sleeping body.

For good measure, I went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Taking a packet of ibuprofen from the drawer in the counter, I placed them on the bedside table. I gave him one last look, but he was dead to the world, oblivious that I was even here. He’d terrified me in the moment his gaze had met mine in the cage. I’d seen him break before, but not like that…not because of me.

I brushed my fingers over his cheek, and it felt like goodbye. I willed time to go back, but it was impossible—there was only forward.

I took a deep breath.

Then I left.

Nineteen

Ash

Knocking at the front door woke me.

Light streamed into the apartment, and I rolled over, my head throbbing. My gaze found a glass of water and tablets on the bedside table, and automatically, I reached for them.

Ren.

Groaning, I sat up and downed a couple of pills, washing them and my bruised soul down. What time was it? It must be late.

The knocking began again, and I climbed out of bed, my toes burying into the carpet. Shuffling out of the bedroom and down the hall, I realized she wasn’t here, and I didn’t know what to make of that. This time, I didn’t blame her for not wanting to be within the same four walls as the beast.

Hesitating by the side table, I slid open the drawer, but I already knew the ring was gone. Knowing it didn’t soften the blow when I was greeted with the empty space.

The knocking started again, and this time, it was more persistent. Slamming the drawer closed, I wrenched open the front door with a scowl.

“Shit, man,” Ryan exclaimed, giving me the once over.

“What?” I grumbled.

His brow furrowed. “You’re covered in blood.”

Glancing down at my chest, I raised my eyebrows. So I was.

While I was dazed for a split second, Ryan took the opportunity to step into the apartment. “What the fuck happened in here?”

“I got angry,” I retorted. I was meant to be an example for him and Cole, but here I was being a fuckin’ child and beating men into hospital. I was a real pillar of society.

“You’re late, you know.”

I grunted, not knowing how to answer that. I was never late, and considering I lived upstairs, it was a hard thing to accomplish. If Ash Fuller was late, then something had to be wrong.

“You could’ve said something,” Ryan said, not even easing into the hard questions. No pussyfooting around, just head first into the problem at hand.

“I don’t have anyone here,” I said, bending to retrieve the broken pieces of photo frame.

“Dude,” Ryan said firmly. “You might be my coach, but you can say shit to me. I hope I can say shit to you.”

“I’m meant to be a leader, not a fuckin’ mess.”

“Remember what you said to me the day you came to see me fight out East?” he asked, leaning against the wall.

Dropping the broken frame, I grunted and rubbed my eyes. I really needed a shower. I stunk.

“It’s been six months since I came to Pulse,” he went on. “Cole and I were both on a road to nowhere. We had a foot in the right corner, but nobody was there to help keep it there. Not until you showed up on some crazy recruitment drive.”

“What’s your point?” I asked, my head still throbbing like a motherfucker.

“You said that we had to know our limits. That we had to know when to cut loose and when to fight. Most importantly, how to control it.”

I straightened up. Ryan knew. He had to.

“I know a guy,” he said with a shrug, confirming everything. “Just me.”

I ran my hand over my face. “Fuck.”

“You lost your way for a sec,” Ryan said with a shrug. “You’re human, not God.”

He didn’t seem put off in the slightest that I went out last night and almost beat a man to death. That was messed up.

Since we were laying everything on the line, I joined the party. “I really fucked up. With Ren. With Steel. With you guys.”

Ryan pushed off from the wall and said, “You helped me fix my mistakes before I even made them.” He gave me the once over and wrinkled his nose. “Have a shower, Coach. You stink like shit.”

How a twenty-one-year-old kid was wiser than me, I’d never fuckin’ know.