AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, they found it a few weeks later, totally burned out. Apparently, some homeless guys had been living in it and started a fire to keep warm. Guess it got out of control.”
“That sucks!” contributed Raven.
“Oh, I don’t know. By that point, burning it was probably the best thing to do,” he admitted, chuckling at the memory. He got a good laugh from the others and they clinked beers to reliable old clunkers.
Maggie and Raven were introduced to some of the MMA guys’ partners, and Ridge did a quick patrol of the party, receiving congratulations from everyone and catching up with a few people. His ‘groupies,’ of whom there were perhaps seven or eight, followed him either physically or with their eyes, ready to warn off other potential suitors, positioning themselves both to elicit maximum attention and to show as much thigh or cleavage as social niceties permitted.
Raven watched the show. “It’s a bit like freakin’Animal Planetin here. Did Ridge invite them all here?”
“Friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends...” Maggie replied.
Raven took the point, but found their wanton sexuality a little trashy, not to mention almost certainly fruitless; none of them seemed remotely to be the type that Ridge would want to bring into his bed. There were several pairs of very obviously fake boobs, some very heavily applied makeup, and jewelry that tended toward the flashy and conspicuously inexpensive. Although she couldn’t yet claim to know him well, she felt sure he would be a man who valued quality, even in a girl he planned to sleep with only once. The way he was ignoring them gave strength to this argument, Raven saw. Watching him work the room, she found her tummy aflutter once again as she recalled the incredible form of his unclothed torso during the fight.
Wes and Jake had started the traditional get-to-know-you chat, which, around here, could consist only of sports, so Maggie escorted Raven to find either Ridge or someone almost as hot for her to talk to. “You know what makes you different to these wannabes?”
Raven glanced around and found a group of three, all clustered around the same tall fighter, who she had seen submit in the second non-GI round. “I have my own boobs?”
“And they’re fabulous,” Maggie confirmed. “Also, you’re not just here to get laid. The guys’ll see that in you, and the ones you want will respect it. The others, you can forget about.” A young hanger-on, barely old enough to hold a beer, tried to spark up a conversation with Maggie, but she sent him away, firmly but politely. “OK, there he is. Wander on over, all cool like, and find out if he needs a post-fight massage.” Maggie slapped Raven’s ass and sent her across the room to where Ridge was leaning against the wall by the kitchen, more relaxed and laughing now.
“Oh, hey, everybody? This is Raven Samuelson, a recent arrival in Pendale,” Ridge introduced her to the little circle. Jake she already knew, but the two women who fawned over him and a tall ex-fighter named Mark were new to her.
“You sure you’ve headed in the right direction?” asked Mark in an almost impossibly deep baritone. “Most people are making their wayoutof Pendale, just as you decide to comein.”
“This place has plenty going for it still,” argued Ridge.
“Like what?” asked Jake. “Everyone I know is unemployed or part-time or on some kinda benefits.”
“Excepting Ridge here. He’soldmoney,” Mark commented.
Ridge pulled a face. “You’re out of your mind, dude. My mom left me this house, that was about it. If you call three generations who happened to live and die in Pendale ‘old money,’ then I’m guilty.”
“You sure have it looking nice,” said Raven, nervous as hell but keeping her eyes fixed on Ridge’s, her back straight, hoping to exude the confidence of which she felt none.
“Thank you. And it’s nice to see you again. Cheers.” They clinked bottles while the others watched with curiosity, or with naked envy, depending on their gender. “What did you think of the event?”
Raven smiled prettily and nodded in surprised appreciation of such a combative evening. “The skills on display were amazing,” she said. “It seemed like a mix of ballet and boxing.”
Mark laughed the hardest, replying, “You won’t get far comparing these guys to ballet dancers, but I guess you have a point,” he conceded, receiving a fresh beer from Ridge. “I think of it as an exercise in controlled brutality.”
Jake snorted. “There ain’t much that’s controlled about Ridge here, now is there? Damn near beat me into the ground.”
“But Jake won, right?” asked the curly blond, who was clearly on a mission to explore Jake’s pants.
“Ridge withdrew,” explained Mark.
“So is that really awin?” she persisted.
“Little lady,” began Mark, “do you know what happens when a large explosion goes off a few meters from you?” She shook her head, cowed by this giant who had perhaps eighteen inches on her. “There’s this very awkward piece of physics called a pressure wave,” he explained, his hands mimicking the expanding shock wave of hot, high-pressure air that radiated from the blast site. “It’ll knock you straight off your feet, maybe throw you through the air.”
“Like in the movies,” the brunette confirmed.
All three men laughed. “Something like that,” agreed Mark, unwilling to be rude to two women at once. “Well, it forces this high-pressure air into your lungs, and they really don’t like that.”
“Is it like what scuba divers get when they come up too fast?” Jake asked.
Ridge took over. “Similar, but that’s more of an over-expansion problem. This was just like the inside of my lungs got hit with a whole bag of hammers.”
“Causes contusions,” Mark added.
