Fighting Back (Harrow #2) (7 page)

‘Money, babygirl,’ Dax said.

That he used her pet name was a good sign. ‘I know that she got paid, but I have a feeling it was Carlos, her pimp, who put her up to it. I want to know why. I want to make her look me in the eye and… I just have to see her.’

‘You plan to hurt her? Is that what he was for?’ Dax asked. ‘You called your ex to enforce for you?’

‘No! I didn’t call Saul at all. He just showed up here this morning, just before I texted you, which I did, by the way, to prove to you that I am being completely open and honest. I figured you’d want to know ahead of time, or while it was happening, rather than find it out later.’

‘You still care about him?’

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘Will you please stand down red alert? Go sit on the bed.’

‘You didn’t fuck him?’

Scowling at him, she poked his ribs. ‘No, I did not, and you’re forgiven for asking me such an insulting question.’

Dax went over to sit on the end of the bed, he bent forward to unlace his boots, which she recognised as his preparation for getting comfortable. There was still a lot to talk about, and she trusted him to know that, but she suspected he had sex in his mind’s horizon.

‘Trudi is on her way here,’ she said. ‘You can’t be here when she arrives.’

‘Damn right I’m going to be here,’ he said, kicking off his boots and sliding himself up to sit at the top of the bed against the headboard. ‘I’m going to watch the whole fucking show. You’re never leaving my sight again.’

‘You’re overreacting.’

‘What the hell were you thinking leaving the apartment and coming here?’ he asked, sitting upright. ‘I am so fucking pissed off at you for—‘

‘You’re pissed off? How dare you say that to me! You were the one who brought his old buddy home to lunch then restrained me through the whole ordeal! Were you out all night? Did you think I was just going to sit in the apartment and wait for you? I’d have gone out of my mind with worry!’

‘That what you wanted me to do! What do you think coming home to an empty apartment would’ve done for me? Huh?’

He bounded off the bed with her in his crosshairs, but she rushed to the window. Pulling the table in front of her to act as a barrier, the lamp on it wobbled side to side, walking on its base until she steadied it.

Dax stopped, wearing a frown. ‘What the fuck did you do that for?’

‘Don’t come over here,’ she said with intent. ‘I mean it, Dax Harrow, do not come any closer to me.’

Confusion overcame him again. ‘Did that jerkoff hurt you? That why you’re suddenly so worried for your safety?’

It hadn’t occurred to her that her actions looked like an attempt to shield herself from physical harm. ‘No! I’m concerned for my virtue.’

‘I’m not gonna fuck you while I’m this pissed.’

Though that wasn’t a statement she could put in the bank. ‘I can’t deal with this now, Trudi will be here soon, I have to think about what I’m going to say. I have to be together enough to deal with her. Why don’t you go to the casino? We can argue later.’

‘You know it’s not unusual for a hooker to show up with a pimp, did you think about that?’

‘There are dozens of women who work for this agency, they would never have enough men to—‘

‘Sometimes there’s a guy in the parking lot, or in the bar; sometimes they stand in the room or right outside, have you considered any of that?’

‘If Trudi shows up with a guy I’ll call the cops.’

‘Do you think that you’d be a high priority for the cops? It could take them an hour to get here, the pimp could do a lot of damage to you in that time.’

Dax didn’t want her to get hurt, but his aloof questions were targeted to rile her because she hadn’t considered any of those things and he knew it. ‘Ok,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe you can stay.’

‘Oh no,’ he said, shifting to sit on the end of the bed again. ‘You told me to leave.’ Sticking his feet in his boots, he tugged the laces to tighten them, but he didn’t tie them. ‘I’ll leave you to your righteous confrontation with your old friend who may or may not come with her personal bodyguard.’

‘You do that then,’ she said, edging out from behind the table. There was no way that Dax was going to let anyone hurt her, no matter how mad he was, he was calling her bluff, so she called his right back. ‘Mauri would be disappointed.’

This statement made him stop and peer closer. ‘Why’s that?’

‘You told me once that he always taught you not to bluff in life.’

‘Who’s bluffing?’

With slow strides, she sashayed across to his location. ‘So you’re going to let some big, mean man put his hands on me? Let him hit me and hurt me, take what he wants from me and soil your babygirl?’

When he inhaled through his nose, his lips all but disappeared because he compressed them so tight. ‘You’re still a fucking minx.’

‘If you want to leave then go,’ she said, opening her hands on his pecs. ‘But I know that you don’t want to leave me.’

She didn’t mind playing dirty in the times that it was required, but she was also very grateful for this man. She was grateful that he was hers and that he’d come to her and was now willing to protect her, which she knew that he would do with his life.

Unbuckling his belt, she glanced past him at the time on the clock then locked her eyes on his, keeping them in place while she pushed his jeans and underwear from his hips and sank to her knees. The point of the argument wasn’t to win, she never wanted to belittle him. So licking her lips, she opened her mouth wide and took him into her throat. She could be a bitch, but she would always be his bitch.

Lifting her tongue, she pressed it to the underside of his shaft as she moved her head back. Still watching him, she circled her tongue around his head then pushed it into her cheek, using her hand to squeeze it from the outside. Pulling back again, she sucked him deep and withdrew. Repeating the motion with her mouth, she used her fingers to squeeze his base then closed them one by one around his engorged dick. Forcing her mouth away from him, she worked him with her hand and smiled, letting the head of his cock bounce against her lips.

‘I love you, Master’ she murmured, exhaling a long breath to coat him with her heated breath while her hand kept on pumping. ‘You came all this way for me, dropped everything and came right here.’

‘Yeah, I’m about to come right here,’ he said. ‘So quit talking.’

Gripping her hair at the crown of her head, he pushed her mouth back onto his penis and began to work her just as he wanted her to move. The quick rhythmic motion of her mouth and hand sped up until she brought him to the brink, and when he shot his semen into her throat, he held her right there to swallow it down. Even after he was done, he didn’t let her move away, so when he spoke her mouth was still full – occupied by his cock.

‘You never get on a plane or leave the state I’m in without talking to me first,’ he said. She tried to nod, but he compelled her to stay still. ‘I’m gonna punish you later, after your friend is gone. But for now you better understand, I have to know where you are at all times. All times, Minx, no exceptions. I protect my property, and you are prime real estate that I plan to inhabit for a long time. Nothing takes you away from me, nothing, not even yourself.’

She still couldn’t speak, and he enjoyed her silence. She could tell that he did from the way his cock hardened in her mouth when her only response to his speech was to blink her innocent eyes at him. His hips surged forward, blocking her windpipe for a moment, then he let her go and bent to pull his jeans back up.

Giving him that pleasure and being owned by him had awakened her sexual need. Wriggling on the floor, she parted her legs to let her damp core meet the carpet. ‘I love being married,’ she grinned up at him.

He obviously hadn’t expected her to be so happy after what he’d said, but she couldn’t help it. Dax might be a jerk, but he was her jerk, and he knew how to push on every one of her buttons.

Waiting for Trudi was agonising for Ivy but Dax seemed to have all the patience in the world. He just flicked on the TV and sat beside her on the bed, watching some mind-numbing sports results and replays that just went round and round. Ivy was getting twitchier as the seconds passed.

‘Could you keep a hard-on for this long?’ she asked, glancing at his groin.

‘How long?’ he mumbled, still transfixed by the television.

‘An hour, do you think you could stay hard for a whole hour?’

‘Do I win a prize at the end or…?’

‘No, I’m saying that if you were a guy who had called up for some female company, would you be satisfied that it took this long for her to get here?’

‘You didn’t just call up looking for female company, you wanted a specific girl, and if she was already occupied, then you have to wait. Did they offer you other girls instead?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t make the call, Saul did. He was on the phone for a few minutes though, so I guess they probably did.’

‘If it was an urgent situation then a guy wouldn’t care which girl came over.’

‘So when your cock is hard it doesn’t matter who rides it, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Dax,’ she cried and snatched the remote control from his hand to switch off the TV.

‘What?’

Clambering to her knees, she tilted her head to glare. ‘Think about what you just said, then think about why your wife might be mad about it.’

He actually did seem to take a few seconds to replay the conversation. ‘We weren’t talking about my cock, we were talking about an abstract cock. The cock of some loser who would call up a service to have a random tramp come and suck it for him. I don’t need a random tramp,’ he said, stroking her arm. ‘I have my own specific one.’

‘You don’t think I’m a tramp.’

‘No, I don’t, but you like it when I talk dirty,’ he said. Plucking the remote from her hand, he put an arm around her to move her away from blocking his view of the TV. He pulled her down to lie on his chest, but the embrace wasn’t one of love, he just wanted a clear view of the screen. ‘Do I need to remind you that you were the one who was locked up in a bedroom with another guy less than an hour ago?’

‘Saul was here for ten minutes,’ she mumbled. ‘Check the hotel security tapes if you want to.’ If Dax wanted to do that, he would find a way to get hold of them.

‘You’re way too addicted to my spunk to go tasting someone else’s. And now that I know he knows who I am, I’m not worried,’ he said, turning on the TV.

‘I had no idea that Saul went to watch underground fights. He must have known you before I did.’

‘I don’t know him,’ Dax said. ‘I couldn’t pick him out of a line-up, but yeah, he’s clearly a fan of the circuit. Guys don’t advertise that, keeping it quiet is one of the ways it stays underground and keeps guys like me outta jail.’

The knock on the door killed the questions she was about to ask, and she sprang up out of his arms.

‘Answer the door,’ she whispered, taking the remote control from him.

‘Ok,’ he said. It was unlike her to ask him for protection, which was how he’d taken her request, but that wasn’t her reasoning at all. She turned off the TV and began to head for the bathroom. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Invite her in, you know,’ Ivy said, eying him and gesturing at the bed.

‘Whoa,’ he said, rounding the bed to get hold of her. ‘I’m not fucking around with her, I don’t even know this girl.’

‘If I answer the door, she might get spooked and run. Invite her in and once we know it’s her and that she’s alone, I’ll come out and you can wait in the bathroom.’

‘How much does she charge for the hour?’ he muttered.

‘I don’t know. What does that matter?’

‘I didn’t stop at an ATM,’ he snarked. ‘They always want to be paid first.’

Though she glared to convey that she didn’t appreciate him being snide, she also kissed him before spinning around to dash into the bathroom. Without closing the bathroom door all the way, Ivy plastered herself to the wall beside it so that she could eavesdrop on Dax and Trudi’s exchange.

Listening to his footsteps on the carpet, she heard the room door open then Trudi’s voice rang out. Ivy would never mistake that keen yet sultry intonation.

‘I… oh my God, hell-oh.’

‘Hey,’ Dax grumbled. ‘Trudi?’

‘Even if I wasn’t I would say hell yeah right now, wow, you walked right out of every woman’s sex fantasy.’

Dax would be a hooker’s dream client. His sculpted body and skill in the bedroom would delight every female, if Ivy ever chose to share him, which she never would.

‘I’ll do you for free,’ Trudi said.

On top of everything else that Dax had done for her since they’d gotten together, he’d just proven that he would go so far as to humiliate himself for her as well; she would have to be generous when she doled out her gratitude later.

‘Thanks,’ Dax said. ‘Come in.’

‘Any time you need a ride, you can call me direct. I can’t believe that you waited. You requested me personally, but I’ve never worked you before, I would remember that for sure. How do you know me?’ Trudi asked.

The room door closed and Ivy hadn’t heard another voice, so she assumed that meant Trudi was alone. ‘You were recommended,’ Dax mumbled. ‘You work alone?’

‘I can call a friend,’ Trudi flirted. ‘How many of us do you want? After they hear how hot you are, I guarantee there will be a waiting list.’

Before this could get any more irritating for Dax and now that he had confirmed that she was alone, Ivy came out of the bathroom. Trudi had her arms around Dax, hanging off his neck, but he was motionless with his head tipped back trying to avoid Trudi’s kiss.

‘I think you know my wife,’ he said when he saw her.

Trudi turned and Dax took the opportunity to duck out of her embrace.

‘Ivy,’ Trudi said, and her desire cleared. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here to see you,’ Ivy said. ‘You heard that I got married, right? This is Dax.’

‘That’s your husband?’ Trudi said, taking another good look at Dax. ‘How did you nab him?’

‘Actually, I have you to thank for that, in part.’

Dax came to her and paused only long enough to kiss her and smack her ass, then he went into the bathroom to leave the women alone.

‘I heard that you were asking around about me last night,’ Trudi said, sliding one foot forward to bear her weight on the rear one, she exuded attitude. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to know if it was worth it? How much did you get for setting me up?’

‘You still pissed about that? Look, it wasn’t my idea. Carlos told me to give you that address. I didn’t know what was going to happen.’

‘You knew that it wasn’t going to be anything good,’ Ivy said. Going to the bedroom door, she locked it and kept her hand on the cool metal when she turned to press her spine against it.

‘What are you doing?’ Trudi asked, glancing at the bathroom door. ‘You better not think about hurting me, I have a guy downstairs who—‘

Ivy laughed. ‘You got a good look at Dax, didn’t you? Do you think I’m afraid of whatever sissy bodyguard you have sitting in the hotel bar? I don’t think so, honey. Besides, we have you for a full hour. Think about all the damage we could do to that pretty face in an hour.’

Trudi prickled, Ivy had to give the woman some credit for not wilting, except she knew Trudi would resort to feminine pleading before she would think of standing up for herself. ‘You’re not going to hurt me,’ Trudi said as Ivy came closer. ‘I know you, there’s no way that you—‘

Swinging her arm around, Ivy backhanded Trudi with enough force to make the woman squeal and twist away. Trudi cradled her cheek with an expression of shock swathed all over her face. Her pouting lips, still glistening with gloss, parted to take in another breath.

Behind Trudi, Dax materialised in the bathroom doorway. He didn’t make a sound, he just folded his arms and leaned on the doorframe to keep an eye on proceedings.

‘You fucking bitch!’ Trudi exclaimed and lunged at Ivy grabbing a handful of her hair.

Ivy was pulled to one side, and the bite of Trudi’s nails cut into the side of her neck. But Ivy wasn’t the bitch fight type, she bypassed the hair-pulling and scratching to slap Trudi again. Trudi screamed and tried to kick, but she was pulled back by Dax, who neither woman had seen coming.

Ivy wrenched her hair out of her ex-friend’s grasp, and while shaking it back from her face, she braced for another hit. But Dax was still there, holding Trudi back with little effort. He kept Trudi’s arms locked behind her back.

When Trudi tried to kick again, Dax’s powerful leg swept around, taking the hooker’s feet from under her and sending her to her knees. Dax went down with her to maintain his grip on Trudi’s arms; one of his shins clamped Trudi’s calves to the floor. There was nowhere for Trudi to go, no way for her to fight for herself.

The women could have finished their fight, and Ivy was confident that she would’ve come out on top. But Dax had intervened either because he hadn’t wanted to see his wife get hurt, or because watching such a pathetic excuse for a fight irked him.

While still holding Trudi, he looked up at Ivy, wearing his cool, aloof expression. One of the rules of Dax’s fighting circuit was that he couldn’t hit a man while he was down. Ivy understood that it was not sportsman-like. So as much as she might like to knock a few more lumps out of Trudi for betraying her, she got down to business.

‘Do you know Darryl?’ she asked Trudi.

‘What? Darryl? No, who is he?’ Trudi asked, giving up her squirming.

‘You only dealt with Carlos?’ Ivy asked. ‘Did Carlos ever mention anyone else?’

‘No, I didn’t ask questions. You don’t question Carlos, you follow his orders, and that’s it. Girls who question him don’t last very long.’

‘So how did you get away? You’re not working for him anymore,’ Ivy said.

‘He sold me off to his cousin when they started this venture. Carlos still gets a cut because he ponied up a heap of cash to get it moving.’

‘Yeah,’ Ivy said, bending to get into Trudi’s face. ‘Money he got for setting me up.’

‘Seemed to work out pretty well for you from where I’m standing.’

Except it could have so easily gone the other way. Making eye contact with Dax, she was reminded of how lucky she was to have him. If it hadn’t been for his love, then she would be living in the Stark mansion right now, married to Trystan and living her version of hell.

‘You’re useless to me,’ Ivy said, backing off. ‘This is quite the life you have for yourself, Trud. Did you ever think about having a bit of self-respect?’

‘Oh, yeah, ‘cause it’s just so easy,’ Trudi said. ‘You always thought that you were better than the other girls on our block. Always saying you wouldn’t make a living on your back.’

‘Like you said, it worked out for me, didn’t it?’

Trudi’s eyes slid in their sockets in Dax’s direction. ‘Looks to me like that’s exactly what you’re doing. How many times did you open your legs for him before he gave you access to his bank accounts?’

Dax’s grip shifted so that one of his arms came around Trudi’s throat, he yanked her head back to whisper in her ear. ‘Ivy’s my jackpot, a cheap ‘ho like you doesn’t measure up.’

Funny that Ivy had once thought about Dax being her jackpot, and now he was making the same comparison about her. She went to the door and unlocked it, then opened it an inch.

‘You can get out of here now. If your little buddy downstairs wants to discuss any issues, Dax will be happy to talk to him in private.’

Ivy opened the door fully, and Dax stood up to lug Trudi across the room, then he threw her out into the hall. Trudi rubbed her throat and carried on down the corridor without looking back. She didn’t run, but her quickstep wasn’t far from a jog.

Slamming the door, Ivy exhaled, Trudi didn’t have the information that she wanted, which meant that she would have to approach Carlos, and doing that was her nightmare come to life.

‘I make ten grand in the ring on a poor night,’ Dax said. ‘You’ve got me beating on women in hotel rooms.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ivy said, going to sit on the bed. Doubling over, she retrieved her purse from the bedside unit. ‘You could’ve stayed in the bathroom, you didn’t have to come out and—‘

‘The couple who threatens together, stays together, I guess,’ he said.

Pulling a black diary from her purse, she began to flick through the pages. Dax came over, grabbed the book, tossed it onto the bed, then he hauled her onto her feet.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

Planning her next step would have to wait. ‘I just… I was going to take care of all of this myself. I meant to take off for a couple of days and be back before you noticed that I was gone.’

‘I noticed,’ he said. ‘And I came here to take you back.’

‘Not yet,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Please, we still have time before Mauri’s party. If you want to go back and work with Serg, I understand, but… I have to do this. I don’t know if I’ll get the time to do it again.’