Fighting Fate

by Scarlett Finn

  ‘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.’

  ‘According to you, I did,’ she said, spitting a section of hair from her mouth when it tumbled from her matted locks above. ‘According to you, I got you all the way down the aisle. I must have some serious skills in the sack. You actually believed that the marriage thing was your idea.’

  Grunting, he thrust her head forward and it landed in the pillow. His body weight disappeared and she tried to see through her hair where he had gone but could not. Thinking that he had left the bed, she tried to move onto her back again and untwist her arms. Except she got barely a quarter turn when he snatched her hips and forced her onto her front again.

  ‘I don’t want to look at you,’ he said, holding her down.

  ‘That’s called guilt, Dax. You know that you’re wrong and you can’t look at me because hurting me hurts you.’

  ‘It’s not going to hurt for long,’ he sneered and opened her thighs again and this time continued from her rear opening to her front one, pushing his fingers through the pleats of her body.

  ‘Fuck my pussy all you like, Dax,’ she said. ‘Maybe some of that frustration will give us both a head start and you’ll be through before I have to think about faking it.’

  She had never faked orgasm with him before, but if they had sex now she couldn’t really see herself being in a place to relax enough to enjoy it properly.

  ‘If you’re so pissed at me, why would you want to have sex?’ he asked.

  And when the truth came to mind before words came out, her heart grew sick. ‘Because if you’re about to get rid of me then this might be the only chance I have to be with you one last time.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ he grumbled.

  Because she couldn’t see him it was a shock when his swollen dick plunged into her. Their conversation thus far hadn’t meant much in the way of foreplay and so her juices were on the sparse side, mostly just residual from when she’d awoken and watched him strip.

  But her hissing curse didn’t stop him from pulling back and sliding back in, on a path much easier to forge this time. She closed her eyes and tried to loosen the clamping tension low in her gut that had to be hindering his path. He slid in and out, gaining pace, but other than the occasional spank he didn’t touch her. There were no fingertips on her spine, no kisses on the back of her neck or smoothing of her thighs.

  He kept going at it and cursed a few times, but his pace slowed then after a few more pumps he withdrew and vanished from his place between her raised thighs.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she panted. ‘You weren’t done. I wasn’t done.’

  He didn’t say anything, just flipped her onto her front and freed her arms from their binds. Anger saturated his expression and she considered what she would do if things got violent because against a man like this she wouldn’t
stand a chance.

  His body lunged for hers and she braced, but it was a kiss he planted on her mouth. A kiss that was so deep and punishing that the sickness in her heart metastasised to all of her cells. With her hands now free she could touch him, so she did.

  Cupping his face, she ran her hands into his hair and to the back of his neck, caressing his shoulders, his arms, and his ribs, all while he kissed her mouth. The severe force of his kiss seemed to be his way of chastising her for everything her mouth had made him believe. Ivy knew that her words and her actions had all been true, but Dax didn’t, he didn’t trust her.

  This time when her legs parted around him they did it by choice. And when he slid his unsated appendage into her now slick channel he pushed all the way into her, as far as he could go. He remained there, still within her, while continuing to kiss her mouth. But other than holding her chin in one hand to direct the kiss, he didn’t touch her.

  His other hand was busy keeping his body above hers. She wanted to believe that he was being considerate and that it was a sign of care, but it wasn’t. If he wouldn’t touch her with his hands then he wouldn’t touch her with the rest of himself, it was too intimate, and he didn’t want to be reminded of a time when he had faith in her.

  Eventually his pelvis rose then came back down and he was making love to her slowly. At almost the same time the description came into her head it must have occurred to him too because he pulled away from the kiss and rose onto his knees, pulling her pelvis up with hers.

  ‘Come,’ he demanded, pushing into her, the angle left her neck awkwardly positioned but it also meant that the blunt head of his fat cock was constantly pounding against the g-spot hidden inside her.

  ‘No,’ she said, unwilling to follow his order just because he gave it.

  Maintaining hold of her hips with one steadying arm, Dax licked the tips of his free fingers and began to rub her clit. ‘Come!’

  ‘No!’ she retorted, her rebellious nature didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but the more he worked her inside and out, the harder it was becoming to resist him. ‘No, geez, Dax, don’t!’

  ‘You want it, don’t you fucking dare deny how hot you are for it.’

  His pants and increased pace made her teeth clench, all she needed to do was hold out longer than he did because once he tipped over the edge, she could relax. ‘You’re a fucking jerk!’

  ‘Squeeze my dick with that tight snatch, Minx, come on, girl. You do it now!’

  ‘No,’ she said, but it was too late. The burst of bliss cascaded throughout and the spasm of her intimate muscles clamped his invader in place.

  He cursed and huffed, and slapped the side of her ass with his hand, but still she couldn’t let him go because the vice of pleasure was wringing every drop of her worth into holding onto him. Letting him go now could mean letting go of him forever and her body didn’t seem to be willing to do that.

  ‘Fuck, babygirl! Fuck! Fuck!’

  She couldn’t tell if his words were of pain or pleasure but the heat of his DNA filling her up from the inside betrayed that he’d gone over the cliff as well. Sparkles on the inside of her eyelids joined the ones pulsing in her head and the ringing in her ears. Lying here on her back, she was dizzy, like her blood pressure had just plummeted through the floor. Just as her muscles loosened, they contracted again and the aftershocks of orgasm left her twitching and squeaking as he tried to retrieve his probably bruised dick from the prison she’d locked it in.

  The bed bounced when he collapsed onto it beside her, but he didn’t touch her. Ivy’s eyes were still closed so she didn’t even know if he looked at her. Lost in their own ecstasy of what had happened between them it took Ivy a while to come around to replaying how they had ended up locked in that mess, or rather what had proceeded the pleasure she’d tried to deny herself.

  Opening her eyes, she let her head flop to the side. Dax was staring up at the ceiling without expression on his face. ‘What now?’

  ‘Get some sleep,’ he said, without moving. ‘You’re gonna need it.’ Reassured that meant he wanted to rekindle their intimacy she was going to liberate her smile, and then he spoke again. ‘Trystan will probably want to play with you for most of the night.’

  Her smile evaporated as did all feelings of goodwill. Endorphins retreated and the weight of pounding panic returned. Bucking up, he got off the bed and she watched him stalk out of the bedroom without giving her another thought, or worrying about how his words might affect her.

  She had lost him. He was going to turn her over to them; at least that was what she understood from what had transpired. She wasn’t going to go quietly, Ivy had no intention of going at all. Leaving the bed she headed for the shower, determined to figure out the steps that she would have to take next.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ivy got washed and changed into the only clothes that she had. She didn’t have any money, so she went hunting for Dax’s wallet. Seeking out his jacket, she found it hanging in the closet. It was when she stuck her hand in his pocket that Dax walked into the closet.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked. He must have used the other shower while she was in the ensuite because his hair was still damp and she could smell his soap. His clothes were clean too, so he must have dried off and changed as well.

  ‘I need some money,’ she said with no intention of hiding what she was doing. ‘We’re married, right? What’s mine is yours?’

  ‘What do you need money for?’

  ‘I need a change of clothes and transport.’

  ‘For what?’

  Unimpressed by his lack of expression, she tried to match it with her own. ‘Did you think I was going to hang around and let you hand me over to them?’

  ‘I didn’t ask what you wanted. I told you what was happening.’

  ‘That Trystan wants me in his bed? Thanks but no thanks, you know?’

  His wallet wasn’t in his jacket and so she went to what looked like a laundry hamper in the corner to see if she could find his jeans from earlier in the day, sure enough they were there, so she began to search in them.

  ‘You’re not walking out of here,’ he said.

  ‘What are you going to do, Dax? Hmm?’ Throwing the jeans back in the hamper she moved to him and reached around to pat his back pocket. ‘Bingo,’ she said, snagging the wallet to tug it out of its confines. He didn’t stop her from taking it and when she opened it she figured out why. ‘Twenty bucks, that’s all you’ve got?’

  ‘It’s enough to buy you some condoms and get you to the street corner.’

  ‘Funny joke,’ she said, taking the money anyway. ‘Yeah, I’ll start whoring myself, ‘cause after being with you what’s the difference, right?’

  ‘You used me to get what you wanted, why not do it to some other poor schmucks out there?’

  ‘You know, I can’t figure out if you actually mean this bullshit you’re spouting or if you really are going to let your daddy issues wreck our relationship.’

  ‘What relationship?’ he asked.

  She wasn’t going to let him blame her for things taking this turn. He’d been fine before he saw Mauri and now things were all fucked up again. ‘I’m getting out of here, this is all some sick, twisted bullshit.’

  If his head was so fogged by the Starks then he would comply with Mauri’s demands and take her there tonight. Eventually he would realise his mistake, she hoped, but by then it could be too late. If Trystan had laid so much as a pinkie finger on her, Ivy knew that she would never forgive Dax for throwing her to the wolves. It just wasn’t in her. Ivy knew that she could hold a grudge, it wasn’t always healthy, but it was the truth.

  Managing to swan past him, she kept the twenty flat in her palm. ‘Where are the car keys?’

  ‘You’re gonna steal my ride too?’ he asked, coming out of the closet to trail her through the bedroom.

  ‘Consider it division of marital property,’ she said, holding open her other hand. ‘Where are the ke
ys? Come on, hand them over.’

  ‘I switched it out for the bike after I left the mansion,’ he said. ‘Do you know how to ride one of those?’

  She never had, though she could figure it out if she had to. Her hand fell to her side and she matched his look of angry satisfaction with her own. ‘Maybe I’ll find myself a pimp who gives out perks with the job.’ Dax had accused her of using sex for her own gain, thus branding her a hooker when she had done nothing to deserve the moniker.

  ‘Like a company car?’

  ‘Or a private jet,’ she said, bobbing her brows.

  ‘You’re not that good, honey.’

  ‘And Mr. Smart Ass Tough Guy is back, I think I’ll take a pass on spending time with him. You know how he can be,’ she said, spinning to make a beeline for the door.

  ‘He tends to be right,’ he said, his voice following her into the entryway. ‘You’re gonna learn when to keep that mouth shut, Minx!’

  ‘Unlikely,’ she said and turned the handle to open the door, but it only got an inch. His hand came over her head and thrust it back into its frame.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he said and she rotated to glare up at him, trapped in the confines he set her in again. One of his hands was above her head, his forearm resting downward, then his other hand touched the door by her hip and his body came in closer.

  ‘What are you gonna do?’ she smirked. ‘Are you going to hurt me, Dax? Are you going to use your mad skills to beat me? Pummel me with your fists until I’m drowning in my own blood.’

  His chin moved and she saw fury mate with disgust and his eyes grew narrower. ‘If I have to,’ he whispered like the words tasted foul on his tongue.

  Closing the last inch between them she pushed onto her tiptoes to get as close to him as she could and sear her own disgust into him. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she whispered. ‘You wouldn’t lay a finger on me in anger, you never have.’