Fighting Fate (19 page)

‘Your body wants it,’ he said, sucking just above her pulse point. ‘My naughty Minx wants me to take control, you want me to force you, to jam my dick up into you. What you want babygirl is a dose of my sweet medicine right deep inside that dripping pussy. That will cure this defiance.’

‘You don’t want me compliant,’ she said, flipping his sentiment back onto him. ‘If I whimpered and whinnied and bowed down to worship you and your dick, you’d get bored, you said it yourself.’

But what he wanted right now was to keep her here, to make her forget her declaration that she was leaving this room and him alone in it. Getting some air, having freedom of movement, was her given right, and until Dax and his colleagues had been in her life it was something she had taken for granted.

Her freewill was the most important thing in the world to her. It sickened her to watch how her mother and sister pandered to the men in their lives just because both were so insecure and so firm in the belief that they needed a man to be a complete person; that somehow they wouldn’t survive without one.

Ivy didn’t need a man to survive; she had been happy working hard and paying her own way. She knew that she could make it on her own, except now she didn’t want to. Since meeting Dax and experiencing what they had together she had learned one vital distinction that separated her from her mother and sister. Ivy didn’t need Dax, she wanted him.

Tilting her chin, she rested her cheek on his, rubbing back and forth as she whispered. ‘You want my mouth all over you, physically and mentally. I challenge you and that’s what turns you on, tough guy.’

‘You’re no challenge,’ he said.

Whipping around, he carted her to the bed, but instead of taking them down onto it as they were, he sat and wrangled her around to lie over his knee. Slinging her dress up out of the way, he took hold of the mono-line of her G-string and with a single pull, he snapped the feeble thread. His large palm covered one cheek, he squeezed her then skimmed it across to the other cheek. If all he was going to do was caress her then there was no need to remove her underwear, but their horns were locked in a battle for superiority and tearing off her panties had been his opening act of dominance.

Straightening her body, Ivy was about to roll away but he brought his thick thigh around and locked her legs between his, so her ass was presented and she could do nothing to release herself.

‘It’s nice owning something as sweet as this,’ he said, pinching her cheek where it met her inner thigh.

‘You married me for my ass?’ she asked. ‘What if I get fat and lazy some day?’

‘Not gonna happen,’ he said, loosening his clamp on her legs enough to grant himself access to her sensitised centre. ‘I’m gonna be part of your work out every day.’

‘We’re married now,’ she said, struggling to prop her head up on her hand because her body hung limp over his leg, ‘I’m allowed to say that I have a headache.’

‘Say it all you want, it’s not going to stop me from doing this.’

She was going to ask what bending her over his knee was supposed to achieve in combatting a headache when his fingertip glided into her. It only went as far as the first knuckle but it was enough to remind her of his occupying force.

‘I said no, Dax, what does that mean to you?’

‘That I’m not trying hard enough.’

Her sarcasm was lost on him, or his distraction was too great for him to appreciate it because when he spoke in that dull murmur a jet of arousal cascaded through her with the force of haphazard shrapnel impaling her body. As much as she hated him for having such an intense power over her, she loved him for it too.

His casual words were enough to send her off-balance enough to forget that they were fighting, to forget everything, and to make her surrender her to him without choice, which was exactly what she didn’t want.

Dax lifted her and shifted their positions, laying her on the very edge of the bed, he pushed her knees up to part her legs wide. When he knelt on the floor between her thighs, Ivy knew it was his plan to eat her before he fucked her. He licked his fingers and ran them through her pussy, up and down a few times then he slapped her vulva and lowered his head. If she let his mouth close over her there was no way that she would ever be able to walk away.

Seeing an opportunity, Ivy pushed her heels into the bed and levered herself backwards, away from him. Crawling the width of the bed, she sought out her shoes and managed to reach their strewn position and pull them on before she chanced looking at him.

‘I have to do this, Dax,’ she said, watching him maintain his position, kneeling where she’d left him.

Still on his knees, he dropped his elbows to the mattress, examining her with his clear expression. ‘Did you come with me just to get away from them?’

‘What?’ she said, pierced by hurt at his implication. ‘No.’

‘If you did then you need to tell me now. An annulment is still possible if we both deny…’

‘Dax,’ she said, moving to the door. ‘I promise you that by the end of tonight you’re going to know what true love is, because by the end of tonight you’re going to trust me.’

‘If you walk out of here then I’ll never see you again.’

Her hand fell to the door handle and a horrifying thought struck her. ‘You would leave me just because I go for a walk?’

‘If you walk out of here, I don’t believe that you’ll come back.’

Warmed and reassured, despite his clear belief in her betrayal, Ivy smiled. ‘I’m going to teach you to trust me, and you’re going to see that love doesn’t come with stipulations, not like those Mauri put on you. You think that you owe him something because he took care of you and yes, that was nice of him. But he wasn’t selfless, he did it for a reason, he did it because he wanted to make you into this man, a man who would do anything for him, no matter how distasteful.’

‘I wouldn’t do anything for him,’ Dax said. ‘There are conditions on my regard for him too.’

‘Such as?’

‘I wouldn’t let him keep the woman I wanted… I wouldn’t let him hurt you.’

‘But he is hurting me,’ she said. ‘Watching him push you, a wounded animal, into these corners and torturing you into doing his bidding, that hurts me. And I won’t stand by and let him tie you into ever tighter knots. I love you and I wouldn’t ask you to do anything which could cause you pain.’

‘Like walking away from the only family I’ve ever known?’ he asked.

‘If you tell me that it’s a deal breaker then I’ll come with you. But they’re going to tear us apart, Dax, and they’ll love watching every minute of it.’

‘I won’t let them do that.’

‘Yeah, you will,’ she said. ‘Today proved it to me. You couldn’t just tell Mauri how you felt and then propose to me like any other guy would. You couldn’t even trust yourself to bust up the wedding to stop Trystan from having me. You brought me here to marry me because that piece of paper that we both signed is the barrier to Trystan marrying me; it is the force that won’t allow Mauri to talk you out of your feelings. No one could talk me out of loving you, I didn’t need a piece of paper to back me up.’

‘So why did you sign it?’ he sneered. ‘If I’m such a weak, pathetic mess—‘

‘Because I love you, Dax, and I couldn’t walk away from you. I’ll always do whatever makes life easier for you, no matter the personal cost. Putting someone ahead of yourself, ahead of your own wants and needs, that’s love. If this was about me having a simple dislike of Mauri then I wouldn’t hesitate in coming back with you. I don’t want to go back there because of what they’ll do to you, not what they’ll do to me.’

‘No one will hurt you.’

‘We’ll see, Dax… There are all kinds of hurt.’

She opened the door and he sprang up to his feet. ‘Ivy,’ he whispered, he so rarely used her name.

‘I will come back to you, Dax. You’re going to know love and trust because I’m going to keep giving you both until you recognise them. I will come back.’

This discussion could go on all night, but she knew actions would teach Dax what he needed to know about her and so she walked out of the door before he could say anything else. Striding down the corridor she half expected to hear him following her, but he didn’t. She got down the stairs and out onto the Strip, then she took a long breath of the sticky air.

Until she was out there she hadn’t had a destination in mind. This was her old town and there were old haunts that she could visit. In the meantime, she had one person she very desperately wanted to see. Knowing that there may never be another opportunity, Ivy turned away from the hotel containing her husband and marched on with determination in her gait.

Her expedition took her longer than she had anticipated, partly because she had no money and therefore couldn’t use a cab, and also because it took her longer to locate the person that she was looking for than she had hoped.

After all of her reassurances to Dax that she would come back to him, she didn’t want to be gone for too long. Playing games with his insecurities would be cruel, Ivy would never consider being so malicious to the man she loved. Proving to him that she was true to her word and coming back to him of her own volition, without coercion, was going to go a long way towards showing him that he was secure with her.

When she got back to the hotel she couldn’t get into the room because she had no key. Knocking didn’t rouse Dax, but she knew how deep a sleeper he was, so she wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t awoken by her rapping. Giving the receptionist a song and dance story, Ivy was granted access by another key card and eventually got into the room. Anticipating that she would be able to wake Dax up with an intimate act, she stripped down and crawled into what turned out to be an empty bed.

Clambering out of bed and turning on all of the lights, she explored every corner of their room and found that Dax had indeed left her here. The sports bag was gone from the closet, but there were clothes on the bathroom floor so she guessed that he hadn’t checked out; the receptionist certainly hadn’t implied that he had. That left Ivy with the possibility that Dax had simply split, leaving her to pay the room tab with her non-existent cash.

Now that the shoe was on the other foot, she didn’t like being the insecure party, unaware of her love’s location or if he was coming back; she had new clarity as to Dax’s objections. Not sure if he would come back, Ivy considered the idea of going out to look for him, but quickly dismissed it. Vegas wasn’t a place where you could easily find anyone, often locating an exit or an elevator to get to your room was hard enough let alone trying to locate someone in a melee of noise and constantly moving bodies.

Taking the tee-shirt from the bathroom floor, she pulled it on, surrounding herself in his scent, then she crawled onto the bed. All she could do was wait and hope, because she had no way to get in touch with him. On leaving this place she had asked him to trust her that she would come back, and now she had to do the same.

Grateful to hear the click of the lock less than an hour after she lay down Ivy flew out of the bed and raced to the door. The slice of light from the corridor that accompanied his entrance illuminated his battered features. Her shocked gasp startled him around and before the door had clunked back into its frame, her body was plastered to his.

‘What happened?’ she asked, cradling one side of his face while soothing her fingers over a bruise above his cheek bone and sliding her fingertips down to his bloodied lip.

‘You’re here?’ he said, ignoring the concern in her voice. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I told you I’d come back,’ she said, slipping the strap of his bag off his arm and letting it fall to the floor. ‘Come here.’

Holding his hands on her hips, she walked forward, guiding him to follow until she seated him on the bed. Leaving him there, she dashed over to turn on a lamp then retrieved ice and a napkin from the minibar. Climbing onto the bed at his side, she rested her knees on his thigh and wrapped the ice inside the cloth then rubbed it with her hand before pressing it to his cheek.

‘Tell me what happened,’ she said, aching at the sight of her man bruised and in pain.

‘You came back.’

Lowering the ice pack from his face she was amazed at the incredulity he exuded. It seemed that he was oblivious to the bruises, he was transfixed on her as though she were an apparition that he was imagining.

‘You don’t have concussion,’ she said, threading her fingers through his hair. ‘You’re not hallucinating, I really am here, Dax. I came back, just like I told you I would. I don’t want to be free from you. I’m always going to find my way back to you.’

Swiping her nursing hand aside, he seized the back of her head and clamped their mouths together. The metallic taste of his kiss reminded her of his injuries, but none of them bothered him. He wrapped his arms around her and tried to rotate their joined forms. If he got her onto her back then she would have to let him follow through. As much as Ivy wanted him to take things all the way, she had to find out where he’d been. Communication was so important in building trust, she wanted them to be open with each other; he had to learn to trust her. Tonight had been a leap of progress in proving to him that she could be trusted physically. Now she had to build on that.

‘Tell me where you were, tough guy,’ she said, climbing into his lap to prevent him from getting her onto her back.

‘I went out looking for a fight,’ he said, brushing his blood away from her lip.

‘If any other man said that to me I’d think he was crazy,’ she said. ‘But you mean a fight, a real fight.’ He nodded. ‘You didn’t kill anyone, did you?’

‘It’s against the rules,’ he said.

She knew that and so did he, but guessing how tumultuous his thunderous mood would have been, she could have forgiven him for forgetting sense.

‘It’s how you vent your emotions,’ she said. ‘What state did you leave the other guy in?’

‘I was sloppy with the first guy and he went down too quick. The second took more time, I played with him a bit; it clears my mind. But the third, he was a big fucker, no style but enough substance to knock me to the deck a couple of times.’

‘Three,’ she said, leaning away from him, but he grasped her pelvis and pulled it against his. ‘You fought three different guys? How many guys will they let you—‘

‘One,’ he said. ‘You’re only allowed to fight once a night in the ring when you’re headlining.’

‘So how did you manage—‘

‘This is Vegas, babygirl, there’s always a fight going on somewhere, there are big bucks to be made by the bookies.’

‘People actually bet money on you getting hurt?’ she said with a shudder of nausea. ‘They’re actually hoping that you’ll be hurt and—‘

‘Few people who know anything about the sport bet against me,’ he said, scooping her hair back over her shoulders. ‘My name means guaranteed income.’

‘Which is why they’ll let you fight more than once?’

‘I went to three different joints.’

‘And they didn’t see your bruises?’

‘These came from the last guy,’ he said. ‘That’s why I came back. I figured I couldn’t talk my way into another fight.’

‘And if he hadn’t beaten the crap out of you, would you have kept fighting all night?’

‘Maybe,’ he shrugged. ‘I figured you’d be long gone. And he didn’t beat the crap out of me; I still won for you, babygirl.’

‘You didn’t win for me,’ she said, slamming both hands into his shoulders. ‘You go out there and get yourself hurt because you believe that you deserve it.’

‘If that was true I’d lose. I go out there to fight because I’m good at it.’

‘And because it’s something you can control,’ she said.

‘And for the green,’ he said with a backwards nod. ‘You should see how much is stuffed into that bag. I can rake in a fortune for you.’

‘I don’t want money,’ she said. ‘I want you to see forty.’

‘Murder is against the rules.’

‘So it’s never happened? No one has ever died as a result of these fights?’ His silence said it all. ‘See, that’s what I’m worried about. What if you fall and hit your head?’

‘I’m not gonna fall and hit my head,’ he said with a smirk that made her want to give him a smack.

‘You think it’s funny,’ she said, tossing the ice down to his groin between them, then digging her nails into his wrists to yank them away from her so that she could get off him and the bed. ‘You know, the best way to make me feel better is to take me with you and show me what it’s all about.’

‘You weren’t here,’ he said.

‘I’m here now.’

‘Give a guy a minute to get over the last bout,’ he said, dropping onto his back on the bed, his feet remaining on the floor.

‘Not tonight,’ she said, flitting back to the bedside. ‘The next time.’ Crawling back onto the bed, she climbed up him and laid her cheek on his heart. ‘I want to be there.’

‘You’re not going to feel better,’ he said, curling a hand around her head to drum his fingers on her temple while his other clamped around her shoulders to keep her tight against him. ‘Watching me in there will only piss you off.’

‘I thought you were good,’ she said. ‘I’ll only be pissed if you’re a wimp, are you a wimp who can’t handle himself?’

‘No,’ he said with a scoff of a laugh. ‘But how will you feel when I let a guy twice my size hit me?’

‘Why would you let him hit you?’ she asked, with a hand on each pec she pushed up to look down at him, but his eyes were closed. The resistance in his chest grew as he braced to take her weight. Even now when he was tired and hurting he didn’t complain at her. ‘Is that what you did tonight? You let him hit you because you wanted to be hurt? You think it’s easier to deal with physical pain than emotional.’ Knowing that she had caused that pain in him made her heart break. ‘I told you that I would come back.’ Her whispered words made his eyes open, maybe he’d heard some of her hurt too.

‘I’m still amazed that you did.’

But she had and when her smile slinked up it was eventually joined by his. He was grateful that she had come back, and maybe just as grateful that she had left in the first place because now he got her point. Trusting her was not going to be easy for him, tonight had given him more peace of mind and she’d have a long time to keep proving her loyalty to him.

‘Suck me off,’ he said, the mischief in his tired, smiling eyes brought relief to her and she wanted to climb inside of him and stay here, in this place, safe tonight forever.

‘How is me taking my medicine going to make you feel better?’ she teased, lowering enough to kiss the stubble on his jaw and chin.

‘I’ve been saving the good stuff.’

‘We had sex earlier,’ she said, brushing her lips over his. ‘And after all of your exertion, you probably have a headache.’

The fact that they could laugh together despite the horror they were surrounded by boded well for them, she was sure of it. Getting married had been impulsive and there were so many questions about their future. He’d done it to protect her and she was awed that he would make such a sacrifice. Trystan wanted to marry her because he wanted to punish her for the rest of her life. Dax wanted to marry her because he didn’t want anyone else to. After that decision had been made a guy only had one course of action: to prevent a woman from marrying another man, a guy had to marry her himself.

‘I’ll work through it,’ he said, closing his arm around her and flipping them around so she was underneath him. ‘You’re wearing my tee-shirt.’

‘Is that a problem?’ she asked, accepting his kiss.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You’re supposed to be naked when you’re in my bed.’

His jesting ceased when he inhaled and parted his lips on hers, she had no room to breathe let alone talk so he wasn’t expecting any kind of response. His gratified groan was joined by increased grinding of his hips down on hers. The pace of the dry riding increased and there was something so satisfying about taking their time to learn each other’s moans and manoeuvres without time or people hanging overhead.

Bruno wasn’t downstairs listening in or expecting a blow by blow after the fact. Tonight they even had the gift of freedom, no one was keeping them here against their will; no one knew that they were here.

Her hand had just slipped into his jeans when noise in the hallway broke their kiss. Dax didn’t look at her for explanation, but his lowered brow betrayed his curiosity about what was going on.

‘Wait here,’ he mumbled and was going to leave her, but she snatched his tee-shirt in her fists.

‘No, you’re not going out there, it’s just some drunk guy or something. Stay right here.’ Levering up she kissed his chin and raised her knees to angle her core around the length she’d just freed from denim.

‘There’s no reason for a drunk guy to be right outside our door,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back and fuck you when I’ve chased away whoever it is.’

No one had actually knocked, but given their circumstances, she wasn’t happy to just let him stroll out there unprotected. ‘Don’t you at least have a gun or something, just in case you need it?’

‘I don’t carry a gun,’ he said, leaving his shielding spot over her body and standing up to straighten his jeans.

‘What kind of a thug doesn’t carry a gun?’

Muttering, he buttoned his jeans, then just as he was about to head for the door he stopped to scrutinise her, she was mad enough not to notice that his focus was on the apex of her thighs. ‘What?’

‘If some dude is about to burst in here with trouble on his mind I’d rather that your gash wasn’t on show.’ Jerking her thighs closed, he nodded once. ‘Better.’

‘Why don’t you have a gun?’ she asked, scrambling up to kneel on the bottom corner of the bed, closest to the door.

‘I know how to use one and I’ve carried them before. I just don’t do it regularly.’