‘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.’