The ring announcer was working himself into a frenzy to announce the next fighters to the Pit. Chaos handed me a beer and we made our way over to it.
“...and making her in ring return, the brutal Right-Hook R—”
“Oh fuck,” I heard Chaos say, dragging my attention to him. He looked down at the woman warming up on the other side of the ring. My heart sank when I recognised Rowan, in a croptop and tight shorts, showing off that skin I loved to squeeze and kiss. She had her fists, wrapped in black tape and in the defensive stance, protecting her face as she and her opponent faced off. Her hair was tied back in twin french braids, keeping it off her face, and she looked…mean.
Fuck..
I was hard just looking at her down there, but my heart was racing while my brain was trying to figure out just what the fuck was happening.
“Didn’t know about this, huh?” I heard Trey say from beside me. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s mad. She wants to hit shit.”
“Explain,” I said, my teeth grinding hard against each other. My hands were gripping onto the rail so I didn’t do something stupid. “Now.”
“Right-Hook Rowie,” Trey said. “She needed a way to get all her anger out, at her mum, at her life, at the bullies who tortured her. She also tried to lose weight the conventional way, and it never worked. This was the only thing that helped all of those things. She’s good. I wouldn’t worry about her.”
“She can’t fight that bitch down there.”
“Trust me, Reaper, she knows what she’s doing.”
I could only watch as the only woman I had ever loved took punch after punch from a woman almost twice her size. Then, the woman said something. Rowan stopped what she was doing, her head snapping up, and a look passed over her eyes that had my balls seizing up, in memory of what she’d done to them in that alley.
“Oh shit,” Chaos choked back a laugh. “Look at her go.”
Rowan’s punches landed in the other woman’s side, then the other side, then an uppercut. Blood sprayed from her mouth, but it didn’t stop Rowan. She continued laying into the other womanuntil she had fallen, and then she jumped on her, straddling her, punching into her. Blood was spraying everywhere.
Trey made a motion to someone down in the Pit and they ended the fight. Turning to him, confused, I wondered just what the fuck was going on. I’d never felt so out of sorts before, but Trey could wait. Rowan couldn’t.
“She’ll be in her change room, you can go talk to her but if you upset her, we’ll be having a problem.”
“Trey…what the hell? You stopped the fight. How?”
He sighed. “Go talk to Rowan, Reaper.”
He walked off, leaving me with Chaos and Shadow, both looking at me with wide eyes. Both were as confused as I was, but Chaos’ signature grin was enough to make me want to get in the ring with him.
“Go talk to your woman,” Shadow said. “We’ll find out about Raf.”
I nodded, heading in the direction of the change rooms, my mind on Rowan. When I opened the door, she looked up, a bruise forming on her jaw already and blood all over her arms and chest.
“What are you doing here, Reaper?”
I hated hearing her call me by my road name, but I understood why she was doing it. She was distancing herself.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling at the tape off her hands. “Why are you here?”
She was yanking at the tape, making it pull tighter on her skin. I moved into the room, and took her hand in mine, pulling it off slowly. My chest squeezed when she didn’t pull away from me.
That was a good sign.
“I didn’t know you did this.”
“You don’t really know anything about me.”
I hated it, but she was right. We’d fucked and that was about it. Yet, I knew I wanted her. I wanted her in my bed every single night, and in the morning. Once her hands were free of the tape, I kissed her knuckles, rubbing my fingers over them.
“Why are you here?”
