Ivy hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but when she heard the clatter of a door close, her eyes popped open and she realised that sleeping was exactly what she’d been doing. Rolling onto her back, she stretched and kept her eyes closed, anticipating that Dax would join her. Except he didn’t and there were no more sounds to indicate what he was doing so curling up to sit in the middle of the vast bed she was confused to see him in the doorway of the closet, doing nothing.
‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Did you fix it? Did everything get worked out?’
‘I think it did.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said awash with relief that made her sigh out a smile. ‘Do you want me to cook you something and you can tell me what happened?’
‘No,’ he murmured.
She wasn’t sure if she should laugh or get up and run away, because his static form wasn’t giving much away. ‘Are you ok? Was it rough? Was he pissed?’
‘Brad was pissed, so was Bruno.’
‘And Mauri?’
‘I knew I could count on Mauri.’
Their relationship must be stronger than Ivy had given it credit for because she hadn’t expected Mauri to be understanding. Dax wasn’t upset or angry, at least she didn’t think that he was, he was still just standing there.
‘What are you thinking about, tough guy?’ she asked, resisting the urge to exhale a nervous laugh.
Reaching for the back of his tee-shirt, he grabbed the neck of it and pulled it off then bent down to unlace his boots enough to pull them off. Ivy didn’t have to wonder what he was thinking after he shirked his jeans.
Giving her a full frontal view of his healthy form, her own smile slipped into the understanding range. ‘Never mind,’ she said, tossing aside the sheet she’d managed to twine herself in while she was sleeping. Ready to get to her knees and close the space between them, he held up his hands and she paused.
Dax made the journey on his own, bringing that bodacious body onto the bed where she waited, her arms open wide. As he ascended the length of her body he snagged the sheet and held it. He slid his open hands up her arms, tickling the delicate flesh and almost making her laugh. But the laugh faded when he clamped her wrists around the headboard and used the sheet to tie them both in place.
Lying naked, stretched out on this warm bed made her shift with discomfort. She didn’t mind being naked, and was even used to being restrained by Dax, though he tended to tether her leg rather than her arms.
‘You randy?’ she teased trying to kiss his mouth, but he took it away from her and pressed his face into her throat instead.
Clasping her breasts, he skimmed downward and with one punishing jerk he opened her thighs and pushed the head of his dick into her. Wincing into the unexpected intrusion, she wished that her hands were free, because this man on top of her didn’t touch her with the same respect he had last night.
‘Dax—‘ His mumbles cut her off and she strained to hear his words. Often he mumbled when he was buried in her, but she never figured out what message he was trying to convey to her.
His head left her neck and he licked down to one nipple, which he took in his teeth and pulled upward, stretching her skin and making her yelp. She was all for rough play, but the frown on his face didn’t seem to be having fun and after that incident she wasn’t either.
‘Dax—‘
‘Shut the fuck up!’
Pulling out, he flipped her body over, crossing her arms in the binds causing more pain to build in her. The position was uncomfortable and would make her stiff, but she quickly got over that when his hands landed on her ass. A gentle finger slap was followed by a full hand smack, then he squeezed.
‘What the hell is going on, Dax?’
‘If I’ve gotta get rid of you then I’m getting the most I can out of you first.’
‘Rid of me,’ she repeated me, trying to see him over her shoulder, but her awkward position meant twisting was almost impossible.
Dax’s shins pressed into the back of her thighs, holding her in place with her legs still spread wide. Parting her ass cheeks, he drew a finger down between them and pressured his thumb on her rear opening.
‘No,’ she said, trying to infer just how serious she was about him pushing the limits of their intimacy, especially in a moment as tense as this.
‘We’re married now,’ he said, but there was no love in him. ‘I get to have all of you.’
‘I’ve said no, if you force the issue it’s still rape. I don’t care if we’ve known each other ten minutes or ten years.’
‘Making me happy in bed has been your priority since the start of this.’
‘I care about making all of you happy, at all times,’ she said. ‘And you should care about the same thing, and it will not make me happy if you violate me. You’re supposed to love me.’
‘Supposed to,’ he said. ‘Is that what you’re supposed to do too? Supposed to make me believe that you did?’
‘Please talk to me,’ she said with rising panic. ‘What went on with Mauri?’
‘We’re going over there tonight,’ he muttered, brushing her hair away from her back. ‘You’re going to be introduced to the family.’
‘I’ve met them all,’ she said, almost growling through the teeth gnashing she was doing to try and calm her frustrations. ‘Why did you say you were getting rid of me? How can you get rid of me and take me over there?’
‘Never mind,’ he said and his body came down atop hers. The burning rod of his erection emblazoned itself on her soft butt cheek.
Grabbing her hair at the back of her head, he twisted it in his fist to force her head up and back, but she still couldn’t see him.
Pouring disgust into the mist of his poisoned breath he snarled at her. ‘Disrespect is the greatest of enemies,’ he exhaled into the shell of her ear. ‘You are disrespect, Minx.’
‘I’m your enemy?’ she asked, wondering how he could ever have reached such a conclusion in such a short time. When he had left her here in his apartment she had been worried for his safety, not for their relationship. Now it became clear to her that she should never have let him go back to that place alone; he wasn’t as secure in their relationship as she was. Though that security, she now realised, may have been misplaced. ‘What did he say to you?’
‘Forget that, don’t talk about my family or even think about them.’
‘Dax, this isn’t you. I love you and you know that I do.’ He yanked her head back causing her to gasp for air.
‘How can I believe that? How could I think that’s true? You wanted freedom and it’s what you got. That’s why you needed me.’
‘Is that what he told you?’ she spat, angry that Dax was being manipulated to turn against the one true bout of happiness he’d had in his life. ‘That bastard told you that I had seduced my way out of Trystan’s bed and into yours?’
‘Yeah, it’s pretty damn clear when somebody says it to you like that.’
‘Fine, believe that if you want to, because you know what? It kind of did start that way, I thought about it, thought about how I needed an ally because I was in fear for my life. When you come from the streets you’re used to doing whatever it takes to get by.’
‘So you turned to turning tricks? Fucking me for liberty instead of green?’
‘You had an ulterior motive too,’ she said, being squashed under his body with his hand still twined in her hair and her arms stretched to the headboard. Ivy wasn’t in the most civilised of positions to argue, but he needed this dominance over her and right now she resented the hell out of him for that.
‘My ulterior motive was to fuck you, and you knew that.’
‘Your ulterior motive was to groom me for your buddy. It’s sick, Dax. I didn’t know that when we started sleeping together. Hell, I thought you were being coerced too, I actually thought that there was a chance you were being blackmailed or bribed to be so cruel to me. I see now that it’s just the way you have to be in order to fit into your family.’
‘Damn right, and we’re proud of it. No one disrespects us and gets away with it.’