Fighting Back (Harrow #2) (17 page)

She ducked into the kitchen for a drink of rehydrating juice and washed her glass then went into the living room with ideas of going upstairs to the bedroom. When she was halfway across the room the front door opened, and she froze. Wearing nothing but a towel she wasn’t in much of a position to defend herself against danger.

But when Dax came in, her hackles fell, and her shoulders went down as her smile rose. ‘You have never in the history of the world been early in coming back to me,’ she said. With outstretched arms, she altered her path to aim for him.

‘You’ve been in the pool all this time?’ he asked, scrutinising her body.

‘I was in the tub,’ she said, opening her towel to flash him. Tucking it back in, he blinked his eyes and smiled when she wrapped her hands around the back of his neck. ‘Does this mean that you’ve found what you were looking for?’

He kissed her and brushed some damp tendrils of hair from her forehead. ‘You naked is actually exactly what I’m looking for.’

Tossing his keys into his opposite palm, Dax twined their fingers and led her up to the bedroom at such a pace that she had to hold onto her towel to prevent herself from losing it. He closed the bedroom door, dropped his keys then pulled her towel out of her grasp to whip it away across the room.

‘Hey!’ Ivy objected, but he was already taking her to the bed.

‘Take that stuff out of your hair,’ he said, lifting one foot and then the other to pull off his boots.

She had her hair up so that it wouldn’t get wet in the bath because she’d already washed it after being in the pool. Doing as he asked, Ivy flipped her head forward to shake her locks loose, and when she flipped back, he was shirking his jeans.

‘I thought you had work to do today,’ she said. Taking appearances as they were he’d come home to have sex with her only a few hours after leaving her with promises he would return that night. Either he’d deciphered the threat already or something else was going on.

Dax enveloped her waist and walked her backward. Taking her weight off her feet, he laid her on the bed and lay on his side beside her. Scooping her hair up, away from her face, he began to kiss her neck. The attention of his hand went to her breast, massaging her, he kept on kissing, bringing his mouth over her jaw to her mouth, he opened to tease her tongue, but her eyes hadn’t closed yet.

‘Dax,’ she said, turning her head to the side to break their kiss. That didn’t put him off, he slipped one of his legs between hers and began to nudge her ankles apart then drove his thigh higher to press into her simmering centre. ‘Dax, what’s going on?’

‘Hush,’ he said. Removing his mouth from her breast, he forced a hand around the base of her skull, holding her in place to receive his kiss.

The press of his erection progressed inward from her outer thigh, trailing its path with beads of his passion, he seated his pelvis between her thighs and kept on kissing her. Sometimes Dax just needed to be active, and if he was frustrated, then this action might help to bring him clarity.

So opening her arms and closing her eyes, she gave him his kiss back, surrendering to the want of her husband because explanations would come after. His hips rose then he was sliding into her, the occupying length of him took its time to reach its hilt. But he drew back and plunged in, the easy entry wasn’t a prelude to soft love making, now that Dax had softened her to his will, he found her wrists and took them in his hands.

Forcing them high above her head, he kept hold of her and elevated his torso. The fast pace of his hips matched the ferocity of fever in his focus which drilled into her. Ivy might have touched his face or tried to soothe him if she had the use of her hands, but his fingers remained locked around her wrists. Exerting dominance over her body was something that her husband did well, when he needed something from her he took it, and that was what he was doing now.

He pushed in and began to bob himself in her, keeping the oscillating movements short he edged no more than in inch of himself in and out of her meaning he remained deep. But the fountain within her gushed around him, easing his motion and aching for him to move with the same speed as he had before.

She was close to the climax he always delivered. She didn’t want to lose this brimming swell of pleasure aching to burst and send her surging into bliss.

‘Get to it, big boy,’ she breathed, wheezing out the oxygen occupying her lungs. ‘Come on, give me what I want.’

‘What you want,’ he hummed and sucked in a breath before plastering his mouth over hers. His tongue drove into her mouth, the penetrating suction matched the mire of their joining and when he retracted his mouth she gasped for breath. ‘You want cock, you just lay there and took it, no questions, no permission, you just want it.’

Rocking his hips high, Dax shoved the head of his dick into her cervix, and she winced. ‘I’ve got to let a guy like you get his rocks off,’ she murmured. ‘No lies here, the way you fuck me tells me everything about you.’

‘Yeah?’ he snarled.

‘Yeah.’

‘Or you’re just a horny minx.’

‘Yeah, or that,’ she said, trying to wrench her hands free, but he didn’t give her any wiggle room. ‘What do you want, stranger? Come on, give it to me!’

Her burst of volume made him grin, and she tried to free herself again. ‘Oh, she’s getting testy, doesn’t like it when she’s not being satisfied.’

‘Don’t bait me, you asshole, just fuck me!’

‘Warm in here and tight, feels good, Minx. Squeeze me, go on,’ he said, grinding himself down into her, massaging her insides with his invader, increasing the need of her release.

Sucking her lips in around her teeth, Ivy closed her eyes and began to writhe up to match his provocative squirm. Giving him what he wanted, she clamped her pelvic muscles, and he groaned. Movement began again and the more she clenched the harder he tried to force his way into the passage she was closing around him.

Yeah, her orgasm was coming now, it was coming again and still with her eyes closed Ivy pushed out to try and expel him only to have him slam in with such potency that she screamed. Her climax followed and with a satisfied grin she opened her eyes to witness his reaction to the clamp that sucked his dick into her so deep that he swore down at her.

Her release prompted his and from how he gnashed his teeth she knew that his ejaculation was involuntary, he’d wanted to torment her some more, but her body had bled from his what it wanted, and while her cervix consumed his offering she loosened to smile up at him.

‘That was unexpected,’ she said.

‘I always come in you,’ he replied, letting her go and climbing off the bed.

‘Not that, your arrival, the fact that you’re here at all. I thought you were going to be gone all day.’

‘Change of plans,’ he said, taking his phone from his pocket to check it. When he didn’t see what he was looking for, he tossed the handset onto the nightstand.

‘What’s going on? You don’t seem like a guy who located his man,’ she said, switching position so that she was lying the correct way on the bed. ‘Did you find out who put the bounty out or why?’

‘No,’ Dax said, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘But I did find out that whoever is behind this knows me from the circuit.’

‘The fighting circuit?’ Ivy scooted over in the bed to stroke his back. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘It doesn’t matter, it’s a step closer to where we want to go.’

‘Progress isn’t enough for you. You want results.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, tipping his head down to peer at her. ‘This is important, babygirl, probably the most important job I’ll ever do. If I fail…’

‘You won’t fail,’ she said, sitting up to kiss his shoulders. ‘You don’t know how to fail. You won’t stop trying until you get what you want, and that’s all you can do is try your best.’

Dax exhaled a laugh and twisted to take a handful of her hair so he could join their mouths. ‘Thanks for the pep talk, mom.’

Disregarding his mocking, Ivy referred to the real parental situation. ‘I asked your mother about Bruno this morning, but she clammed up. Whatever is going on, or whatever went on, it affected her deeply. Just the mention of his name was enough to make her blanch. I haven’t seen a reaction that visceral since… well, for a long time.’

‘Don’t get involved,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask questions.’

‘I have to ask questions. I’m stuck here anyway, I might as well find out what happened. Did Mauri ever tell you why Bruno and your mom split?’

‘No, but I never asked because I don’t care.’

‘I care,’ she said. ‘What else am I supposed to do here all day?’

‘Sleep, swim, work out, read, I don’t care, just don’t delve into my bullshit.’

‘Your bullshit is my bullshit now,’ she said, looping her arms around him when he tried to get up. ‘She’s nice, you know, kind of classy, which surprises me.’

‘That right?’ he smiled.

‘Yeah, ‘cause you’re just a knucklehead. I guess you didn’t inherit the refined gene.’

‘No, I guess not,’ he said, pinching her waist.

Ivy could keep on teasing him, but she didn’t know how much time they had. ‘So are you here for the rest of the day or is this like a lunch break? Did you leave Serg in the car?’

‘I got wheels from Mauri,’ Dax said, leaning over her to rest his fist on the bed on the other side of her hip. ‘I’ve got some time here, but I’m waiting for a call to tell me where to be tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ Ivy collapsed back onto the bed. ‘That’s why you’re here? Because you have to go away tonight, where are you going?’

‘Nowhere I haven’t been before.’

‘Are you going to fight?’

It wasn’t her keen detective skills that made her suspect he was going into the ring, it just made sense, and she didn’t want to consider the alternative. At least a fight on the underground circuit was observed and had rules. If he went into some dark alley to beat up a lowlife for information, then there were no rules and no witnesses. Losing Dax was the worst thing that she could imagine, and it made her take his knuckles from the bed and bring them to her lips for her to kiss his wedding band.

‘I’ll stay at the apartment tonight. I don’t know what time the fight will be over, and I might want to hang around and ask some questions.’

‘Do you want me to come?’ she asked. ‘We could draw this bastard out.’

‘No,’ Dax said, shoving her over on the bed so that he could lie down beside her. ‘The people who will harm you aren’t the ones who have ponied up the cash, they’re the ones looking to claim it. So getting you hurt, or using you as bait, is out. We want to go after the disease, not the symptom.’

‘It seems unfair that you have to get beat up just to keep me safe.’

‘Beat up? Nah, I’ll keep it brief. Have you ever known me to lose in the ring?’

That was why he had the notoriety in those circles that he did, he’d been doing this for most of his life. She’d seen him after fights and most of the time his injuries were minimal; he was quick and practised. He could take his pick of opponents, and if this fight was a means to an end, then it stood to reason that he’d pick an easy opponent.

‘I won’t be there to nurse you back to health,’ she said, climbing up onto him. ‘Who’ll take care of you when you get home?’

‘I’ll just pick up a piece of ass while I’m there,’ he said, and she dug her teeth into his nipple until he twisted her hair around his fist to pull her off. ‘Maybe we should send you into the ring.’

‘You think you could stand by and watch while I wrestled with a woman intent on killing me?’

‘I think you held your own with Trudi in Vegas in that hotel room,’ he said. ‘Every guy’s wet dream to be locked in a hotel with two scrapping hotties.’

‘A pillow fight maybe,’ she said. ‘But blood doesn’t get every guy going, only you. It’s a moot point anyway if you won’t let me watch you fight then I doubt you’ll let me fight on my own.’

‘True,’ he said. ‘We don’t need it anyway, I prefer you to take your frustrations out on me.’

With her hands on his shoulders and her knees on his thighs, she rose onto all fours and growled down at him. ‘I’ve told you I can take you.’ His smile faded away to a more serious expression. ‘What?’

‘The guy we went to see today, has a history of beating on women.’

‘That upset you?’

‘Got me thinking about my… heritage. Bruno has a similar history, as far as I know he didn’t have any women that he didn’t end up beating into submission.’

‘And you’re worried that he did the same to your mother?’ Her knees slid off his legs and onto the bed on either side of him. ‘I suppose the fact that you’ve seen her, that she’s a real person now, it would give you a different perspective.’

‘Her?’ Dax said and quietened.

‘What?’ Ivy asked, nudging his shoulder to prompt him on.

‘I was thinking about you,’ he admitted, and this revelation subdued her want to talk.

‘About me?’

‘Yeah. In a couple of years, I’ll have to retire for good. I don’t fight half as much now as I used to… but when I stop… where will all that energy go?’

Pushing away, she crawled backwards until she was on her knees between his legs. ‘You think that… that you’ll be like him? That because he’s a bastard who beats women that you’re going to be the same when you can’t vent your emotions in the ring?’