Unleashed: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance Part 56

"Tell me about it."

I shrug, hold Penny a little tighter against me. I can smell the vodka orange on her breath, and all it makes me want to do is lean in and kiss her. She holds her lips apart just slightly, and I can see the tops of her teeth.

"Jesus Christ, pen, you're turning me on."

"I'm not doing anything."

"I can't explain it."

"Don't dodge my question," she says. "Tell me about your first fight."

"Why?"

"It's important to me."

"I don't see how."

"Pierce, if I can't understand you, then I can't be with you. Would you just tell me?"

I sigh. "Fine. But I wasn't as good as I am now."

Penny laughs. "I really don't care."

Chapter Twenty Eight.

It's like a drug.

I know, cliche as f.u.c.k, right? But it's the truth, and I'm not going to f.u.c.k around trying to find a better metaphor.

At first, it's the adrenaline. My first fight, the crowd wasn't wild when I stepped into that cage. My first fight, n.o.body knew who the f.u.c.k I was.

But my opponent, Crazy Carl, they knew him. They called him that for a reason...

Dude was built like a freight train, the kind that carries coal. His thighs were thicker than my waist. I knew then and there, even if I'd never seen him fight before, that he was a leg-lock man. He had a heavy base, low to the ground, and he was no doubt going to try and get me on the floor, try and lock me up, pull my shoulder from its socket, make me tap out.

Well, I knew then and there I wasn't going to be the one tapping out. But that didn't mean I wasn't nervous. That didn't mean I didn't feel that adrenaline surge, born of a little bit of fear and a lot of concern. Concern not just that I was likely going to sustain an injury during this fight, but for how the h.e.l.l I was going to even beat this guy.

I knew I wasn't going to lose, I just didn't quite know how to win.

My thing's always been a combination of power, speed, and endurance. I hit hard, but not the hardest. I'm fast, but not the fastest. I can go for long, but not the longest. I'm a bit of everything, and that makes me a nightmare matchup. No strategy works against me. If some d.i.c.k thinks he can out-dance me, then I can out-hit him. If some brick of a man can out-hit me, I can out-quick him.

It's just a big battle of rock-paper-scissors. Except I have all three.

And the adrenaline... that adrenaline just feels so f.u.c.king good. Time slows down. I react faster, want to draw blood. Fight or flight, and in the cage, n.o.body runs.

For some people, that adrenal buzz, that heightened plane of senses, it never comes back. Sure, the first few fights you get it, but then it becomes routine. You know what you're going to do, what your opponent is going to do to you.

You know it's going to hurt, and it doesn't worry you anymore. But not me. I always felt that adrenaline. I trained myself to, learned to psyche myself up, learned to trick my brain into releasing the necessary neurotransmitters, firing the necessary synapses, so that my adrenal glands would kick into overdrive, and I'd get that edge.

That glorious, sparkling, blood-thirsty, win-at-all-costs edge.

I fight like my f.u.c.king life depends on it. I fight like the devil.

I've hurt my opponents in bad, bad ways. I've heard blood-curdling screams of pain erupt from my opponent's mouths, and I still didn't stop. I pushed, and pushed, and pushed... until I won.

I beat Crazy Carl. I beat him in twenty-two minutes, sixteen seconds. To this day it is the longest fight I've ever fought.

He got tired, I didn't. He got me onto the mat a couple of times, but I wormed out. He almost tore the ligaments in my knee at one stage, but I slipped it out with just a bit of bruising, just a bit of swelling.

He was heavy, stomped like an elephant. It's not like I could knock him off his base. I tried to kick him out from behind but he just swung me around and threw me at the cage. The pattern of the steel wire was printed in blood on my back.

But I danced, skipped, hit him when I could. He lunged for me, tried to take me down to the mat again. I feinted with a right hook, hit him with a left cross right in the jaw. I thought he was lights out the way his body went limp and fell.

But he got back up. If there was one thing about Crazy Carl, it was that he was persistent.

So we did the dance. I got him again, and again. He was huffing, ga.s.sed. I'm not saying it was f.u.c.king poetry or anything. I'm not saying it was a pretty fight.

But in the end I f.u.c.king won, so who gives a s.h.i.+t how it looks? All I care about is winning. I ain't out to humiliate a guy. I know my strengths and my weaknesses.

I got him with a spinning back fist, hit him right in the temple. This time he went down hard, a sack of bricks, and I clambered on top of him. I was going to make sure he stayed down.

I had to stay on top of him. No way was I letting myself get under that hulk of a man. I was a buck-ninety and five-percent body fat, and he made me look tiny.

I got him into a rear choke hold, and he tried to roll me, so I used a little trick I learned watching the old underground guys back when I was a kid.

I kicked his kneecap with my heel over, and over again. Finally I felt it dislocate. It just popped out. His whole body jolted with pain.

I knew he'd never walk without pain again.

f.u.c.k it. Whatever it takes to win the fight.

He couldn't roll me anymore. He had no leverage. I choked him out. He didn't tap out, the tough f.u.c.ker... He pa.s.sed out.

Like I said, f.u.c.king persistent. A real dog. When I think back to him, I can't help but smile. I... I admire him. Knee ruined, and I'm there choking the motherf.u.c.king life out of him, and he kept going. He just kept going.

That stocky f.u.c.ker taught me something that day.

I got to my feet, blood streaming down my face, missing a tooth, and a lump the size of a tennis ball on the back of my head.

My left ankle was sprained; I had a torn ligament that would take weeks to mend. I would ache and hurt all over my f.u.c.king body for equally as long, if not longer.

But I f.u.c.king won.

The ref came and held my hand up, and I winced. The bruise on my rib cage was already a deep purple.

But I f.u.c.king won.

The crowd loved it. I was the underdog, and I'd taken down Crazy Carl.

The doc came into the cage. He was a wiry man, white-maned, beak-nosed. He knelt down and examined Crazy Carl, gave him a smelling salt. Carl came to, saw that he had lost. The expression on his ruddy face...

He knew he had lost to me. Just some n.o.body. Just some newbie. Just some f.u.c.king out-of-town punk.

The doc walked over to me. He said, "What's your name, son?"

I spat out my mouth guard, along with a long stream of sticky blood. "Pierce Fletcher."

He said, "Well, s.h.i.+t, son, that might just be the best debut I've ever seen."

I glared at the doc. "Don't f.u.c.king call me 'son'."

Chapter Twenty Nine.

"Do you like it? Fighting, I mean."

He doesn't reply immediately. Instead he eyes me like he thinks I've got some hidden motive for asking the question.

Mostly, I'm just curious. But then again, maybe I do. I don't know where this is going to go, yet.

"Yes," he eventually says. "I like the thrill."

"Do you like beating people? Winning?"

"Yes."

I nod, suck on my lower lip. "Have you ever sent anybody to hospital?"

This time his expression changes. The corners of his lips curl down. "Yes. Of course. It's part of fighting."

"Did you like that?"

"I didn't force him to get into the cage."

"You ever nearly kill someone?"

Now his face darkens. I can tell I'm wading into sensitive territory, but for some reason, I just want to keep going. Keep pus.h.i.+ng. Like he does to me.

"Yes."

"Who was he?"

"Just some guy."

"What happened to him?"

"I crushed his windpipe. I wasn't trying to hit him in the neck, but his dodge was too slow. I got him right on his Adam's apple. He couldn't breathe. The doc had to perform a tracheotomy right there. Cut his throat right open and shoved a f.u.c.king straw down it."

"But he lived?"

"Yes."

"Does he still fight?"

"Yes. He's in Brisbane now."

"Did that make you feel good?"

Pierce now flashes angry eyes at me. "What do you think?"

"Did you ever wonder about what if it happens to you? Something similar? Some fluke, some accident?"

"Even in pro regulated fighting people have died before," he says. "I don't think about it."

"Never?"

"You think race car drivers think about cras.h.i.+ng?"

I nod my head. "I would bet all my money that they think about it all the time."

"Pen, you're not going to make me second-guess myself."

"I'm not trying to," I tell him truthfully. "I'm just trying to understand you."

"What's so hard to understand? I'm good at fighting. I like fighting. I like underground fighting. I do what I like. It's simple."

"You like risking your life?"

"That's an exaggeration."

"Fine, but what about permanent injury? Brain damage?"

"Like I said," he says, looking away. "I don't think about it. I've got a fight to prepare for. If you came here to bulls.h.i.+t me, you can leave."