Fighting Fate Read online

  ‘If it’s got to be done, then it’s best just to do it.’

  ‘I’ve told her that her place is to kneel at your feet until you give her a command. If you’re not here then I take your place, if you get me.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Dax said, wondering where Bruno came up with these rules.

  ‘You’re a lucky dog,’ Bruno said. ‘Not a tough job you’ve got, is it?’

  ‘I’m still not convinced this will work. I’ll do what I’m told and if this is my assignment then I’ll do it. But keeping her out here and expecting her to—‘

  ‘Trust me,’ Bruno said. ‘It will take time, but that’s what we’ve got. All you’ve got to do is keep it up for a month and a half. We get that time, do the job, and we get back to the city. Then we’re off the hook.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dax said, he and Bruno were off the hook as far as the girl was concerned, but her nightmare would really be just beginning. She had no idea that she was going back to Trystan and was expected to dedicate herself to him.

  ‘Better get up there, you’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Good night,’ Dax said, not addressing the innuendo in Bruno’s tone. He had the space of time between here and his bedroom upstairs to figure out what he was going to do with this girl.

  On the assumption that the bedroom was where he wanted her, Ivy had gone straight there. Getting away from Bruno the Letch was a reprieve, at least the worst thing she’d had to touch was his feet, she wouldn’t have been able to stomach anything more intimate.

  Before closing the bedroom door she’d overheard the men talking downstairs, a month and a half was what Bruno had said. From the sounds of things Dax was no happier about being here than she was, and she wondered now if he was somehow indebted or being coerced into this, which would mean that he too was a prisoner, in some different form than she was. He wasn’t being deliberately cruel through choice, it was a necessity.

  When she realised they weren’t talking anymore and that Dax was on his way upstairs, she closed the door and hurried further into the room so as not to let on what she had eavesdropped on.

  Dax stalked in and slammed the door, she hadn’t expected him to be so tense with anger. ‘Take it off,’ he said, the order didn’t immediately make sense. ‘The bikini, take it off now.’

  Any hope that all they were going to do was sleep went out the window and she stripped off. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to pick up right where we left off,’ he said, closing the space between them and fogging her hair with the heat of his moist breath. ‘You’ve been good today, haven’t you? Following all the rules.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re gonna keep on doing that all night long, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Take that ridiculous shit out of your hair,’ he sneered, but didn’t give her an inch of room to pull the bunches out.

  He stayed there, right on top of her, crowding into her personal space. The musky male scent of him permeated around her and when her hair was down he grabbed the hairbands from her and tossed them away.

  ‘Lose the shoes too.’

  Slipping them off, she kicked them behind her. The knot in her abdomen tangled in a thicker web of adrenaline and hormones when she literally shrank down into his shadow.

  ‘Get on the bed.’

  He didn’t ask questions, with him there was no choice, he only gave commands. Non-compliance didn’t occur to her, not that she planned to make this night easy for him.

  ‘Lie right in the middle,’ he said when she crawled onto his mattress. ‘On your back and look at me.’

  Her heart had never beat so fast. Her guts became so heavy that they seemed to sink out of her and down through the bed. Nausea became speckling anticipation that speared from her waist to her hips and the centre of her femininity began to swell when he took off his tee-shirt, then his boots and socks until all that was left was his jeans.

  She was glad that he’d told her to look at him because she salivated at the vision he offered. Anticipating what would come next, she tried her utmost to remain meek and appear intimidated because it was exactly what he wanted from her, and what he expected.

  Intimidation did come when he dropped his jeans. The weight of his thick erection bobbed to aim straight at her and the well of moisture in her mouth didn’t feel sufficient to accommodate the monster he’d presented for her.

  ‘Open your legs,’ he muttered and she slid them apart. ‘More!’ he demanded and she complied without doubt of his intentions. ‘Get them nice and wide.’

  Her scrutiny was cut short when he leapt forth to join her on the bed. But bracing his forearms on either side of her head he held himself above her in a plank and none of his skin met hers.

  ‘You’re a clever little minx, aren’t you?’ he said and the bubble of desire in his eyes was too knowing for her to be comfortable. ‘You’ve got Bruno fooled.’

  ‘I don’t know what you—‘

  ‘Yeah, you do. You’re not fooling me…’

  His mouth opened over hers, but he didn’t let them touch. Their breath merged in a sensual, invisible kiss that made her lips separate further as though accommodating more of him, but it was all an illusion, an unrealised fantasy.

  ‘I recognise that look in your eye,’ he breathed in a sneer. ‘You’re down there playing “yes sir, no sir”. But you know exactly what you’re doing. What age were you when your mom kicked you out?’

  ‘Why would—‘

  ‘Enough of the innocent princess, what were you? Twelve? Thirteen?’

  Maybe it took one to know one. She hadn’t known it, but she’d never had a chance to fool him though it still pissed her off to know that she’d been made.

  ‘Thirteen,’ she said, loosening out of the scared, tense virgin posture. He was still braced naked above her own naked form without allowing an inch of himself to touch her. ‘My mom didn’t kick me out, my stepdad got too close, I left.’

  ‘Group home?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘Hooker?’

  ‘No, never,’ she said, feeling claustrophobic in this enclosed space. ‘Fuck me or move.’

  ‘Which would you prefer?’ he asked.

  ‘You could go and fuck yourself.’

  ‘I’ll let you play your game for a while, it’s interesting to watch, hot even, but don’t think about delaying our work. Bruno and I are here to do a job and we will complete it no matter how hard you fight me. I’ll enjoy proving that to you, Minx. That no matter how smart you think you are, you’re not fooling me. I am smarter and I am stronger. You’re going to belong to me and more than that, you’re going to want to.’

  ‘What job is it that you’re doing? Is this just about me?’

  ‘You don’t ask me questions, you just concentrate on doing what you’re told.’

  ‘Which I’m guessing is gonna include me doing you and your buddy at some point,’ she said somewhat grateful that she could now display her disgust.

  His face came even closer, filling all of her vision. ‘I will never touch you sexually on the same day another man has,’ he said and from the snarl in his voice she knew the statement was more about propriety than common decency.

  ‘Lucky me.’

  ‘You might think you’re a tough chick, Minx, but you haven’t met a man like me; I guarantee it. By the time I’m done with you I really will own you. You’ll be begging to surrender every inch of that fuckable body to me, asking me to own you and do with you anything I please. But I’m gonna get bored of you and when I do, you won’t be able to pay me enough to ever look at you twice again. To me you’re disposable, but I’m gonna be your whole goddamn world.’

  ‘Keep dreaming, Master,’ she said, spitting out the moniker like it amused her.

  ‘I guarantee it, Minx. I guarantee it.’ He vaulted off of her to one side of the bed. ‘Get on your own half and stay there.’

  The defined muscles of his back might be alluring but she
had no intention of, or interest in, touching him. Dax had seen through the façade she had tried to portray in order to regain her strength and make her escape. She should be annoyed or disappointed; instead she was intrigued about how he’d known she was playing them. To improve her technique of disguise she’d have to find out how Dax had figured it out. It was more than a guess, something in him recognised something in her and when it did, she saw it look right back.

  Chapter Five

  Much later the steady sound of Dax’s rhythmic snore told her that he was sound asleep. Bruno had made a lot of noise going to bed more than an hour ago, and so in this house of unconscious jailors she was presented with an opening. It might not be the safest opportunity, but it was an opportunity that she couldn’t afford to pass up.

  She had no clothes on and the bikini wasn’t a choice at this time of night. So on rolling off the bed she crawled around it to snag Dax’s tee-shirt and boxers from the floor. Still in a crouch, she crossed to the door and with deft fingers she opened it without standing and got out of the room.

  Keeping moving was key, there was no time for relief. She managed to get the clothes on while descending the stairs and got as far as the front door. The damn thing was locked and there was no sign of a key.

  Spinning around with the intention of seeking out the key, she gasped and staggered back against the door when Dax’s looming form materialised from the surrounding gloom. He kept on coming until she was unable to move, pinned between his body and the door.

  For half a minute he said nothing then he got hold of her neck and yanked her along. He didn’t speak and she didn’t want to wake Bruno, so she stumbled along without a peep. Relief and gratitude filled her when he took her upstairs and not to the basement.

  She hit the bedroom door when Dax threw her against it, then he turned the handle and thrust her forward onto the bedroom floor. Slamming the door, Dax came to her before she could regain her footing and hoisted her up to catapult her over the wooden spindle footboard. She bounced on the mattress and tried to stabilise herself enough to get up, except there was no time, Dax was upon her.

  ‘Think you could sneak away?’ he growled.

  She tried to kick, but his pelvis locked down on hers. ‘Get off me?’ she said, punching out but failing to make substantial contact. Dax got hold of her flailing wrists and locked them on the bed, with her bent elbows locked against her ribcage. ‘Get off!’

  ‘Oh you don’t want me to yell, Minx. You wake Bruno and you’re going back to the pit.’

  ‘Let go,’ she snarled through gritted teeth. The glow in his eyes was so intense now that it illuminated the humid space between them.

  ‘You don’t want me to let go.’

  ‘I want you off of me. Get off!’

  ‘I give out the orders, did you forget?’

  ‘I’ll never give in,’ she panted. ‘I’ll never stop fighting.’

  ‘You want to die? You’ll fight your way into a coffin.’ She kept trying to wriggle and struggle, never willing to surrender. He elevated her arms and slammed them down again trying to shock her into desisting. ‘Listen!’ Huffing out, she kept on panting but loosened. ‘Be smart. You want to survive. You have to survive, nothing else matters.’

  ‘I don’t know your story, street rat, but it’s not the same as mine,’ she spat. ‘I don’t want to just survive. I want more than that.’

  ‘More? There is no more, you breathe in, you breathe out, that’s it.’ His tone of anger spilled out and still in his iron grip he slammed her wrists again.

  ‘You don’t fight hard enough,’ she said. ‘You’re a hypocrite. You tell me to fight, but it’s you who has given up. Why are you here, Dax? Why are you doing this to me?’

  His response wasn’t immediate, the lowering of his brows dimmed his glittering eyes. ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes, why are you doing this to me? You, why are you here? Not them, not why they’re doing this. You. Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Because I was told to.’

  Just as she absorbed how ridiculous that answer was, he did too. His grip lessened and she released her resistance to it, so they were left lying together panting through this revelation. Now that she was upstairs she didn’t want to go back down. Gaining an ally above ground could aid her escape. Dax had proven he could bend the rules by not immediately revealing her deception to Bruno.

  If she could gain Dax’s favour, maybe she could convince him that she should be let go sooner than the deadline she’d heard the men talking about downstairs. Ivy wanted out of here as quickly as possible and maybe manipulating Dax into caring for her was a way to make that happen. Sex might not have been his ultimate goal, but he was attracted to her. Using her body to create a connection between them might save her life.

  ‘You’re a lapdog. I thought you were a big shot,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to fear you, Master? I don’t think so.’

  Her attempt to shove him off failed and his fingers constricted, crushing into her bones, making her wince.

  ‘Get off me,’ she cried, her own anger was branded into her diaphragm. This guy was a lackey, the cool, intimidating exterior was a farce and maybe she could use that to her advantage.

  ‘You’re here to learn your place,’ he said, ‘to learn respect. You’re gonna do what I tell you because I’m in control.’

  Her laugh was ironic, belittling him was a bonus to making her point. ‘You’re not in control of anything.’

  Proving this to him, she lifted her head and grabbed his mouth with hers. The pounding in her crotch had built until the spasm of her gut made it impossible to ignore the fizz of attraction between them.

  If they were going to get physical anyway then it was going to start on her terms, not his. Their power play wouldn’t end tonight with this kiss and the snarling war of their tongues proved it. Writhing for physical control made him exert his superior strength. Her grumbling into his mouth in frustration only made him laugh and snatch his mouth away.

  ‘Horny, Minx,’ he said, forcing his already probing erection down on her pubis. ‘What’s your game?’

  ‘This is what you want, Master,’ she said, returning his gesture by grinding her clenched pelvic muscles up to meet him.

  ‘You take my direction, Minx. You will learn your place.’

  ‘Oh yeah, which is where?’ The beat of his unyielding chest made her breasts grow, the compressed weight of them fuelled the spill of hormones that sensitised her core. Her arousal had begun in the Vegas suite when the laser precision of his vision had met hers and awareness between them recognised the uncontrollable attraction.

  ‘Right where you are, under me.’

  The pressure of his mouth pushed her head into the mattress and he slid her captive wrists up the bed until they were far above them and their bodies were flush. The weight of him crushed her but she met the full force of the ferocious kiss.

  The inferno in her numbed all but the parts of her connected to him. Her wrists, her chest, those broad concrete thighs fixing her in place for him to rub his naked dick into the cotton between them that her own juices were dampening.

  His grip left its post and instead of pounding his shoulders this time she stroked them. Investigating the width and definition of his tattooed arms she maintained the momentum of their starving mouths. When his head went this way, hers went that. She countered each of his confident manoeuvres with her own.

  It turned out that what he wanted was to remove her tee-shirt, but that would mean she would have to retreat from her exploration of his body, so she resisted. He wouldn’t tolerate this defiance, and forced the tee-shirt up, taking her objecting arms with it. Getting it to her wrists, he twined it around locking her limbs out of his way. Flouting her grousing at his insulting behaviour, he descended, moving from her mouth to her exposed breasts, which he fondled with blatant entitlement.

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t touch me on the same day another guy had,’ she seethed.

  ‘It’s afte
r midnight,’ he said, continuing his molestation. ‘I can claim you today.’

  ‘No. Get off me,’ she tried to argue, because it fit the role, but his deep, exhaling kisses penetrated through the mounds of perceptive flesh making her body rebel and rise into his mouth.

  Words so quiet she couldn’t decipher them spilled from his mouth and the motion of his lips came to her nipple. He swirled and sucked on her, tasting the receptive peak until it seared with the over-attention. But the pain became pleasure and her body lost rigidity in the ecstasy he delivered.

  Then he bit into her so harshly a yelp of agony escaped, but he didn’t react to it. He kissed down the centre of her abdomen then sealed his mouth around her belly button and sucked, dipping his tongue into the groove and tantalising her with ideas of how such an act would feel if he practiced it on her further south.

  Except she didn’t get that pleasure, he flipped onto his back and took himself in hand.

  ‘Get on,’ he murmured before she had the time to wonder what was going on.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re gonna ride yourself dry tonight.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she spat, turning her face away from the sight of him stroking himself.

  ‘I know what you want,’ he said and she didn’t appreciate the wry amusement in his tone. ‘I know what you want and I’ve got it right here.’

  ‘You’re kidding yourself,’ she said, but in truth her whole body was alive with the fantasy of doing exactly what he asked.

  Although she didn’t look back to see what he did, she heard him roll to his side and the head of his erection poked her outer thigh before his arm came under that leg and he lifted it between his own to lock it in place.

  ‘You’ve soaked right through your underwear, Minx. That doesn’t lie.’

  The underwear she wore right now was actually his, but that didn’t affect his point. Her arousal was in such overdrive that she knew there was an obvious damp stain at her core. Still, her defiant eyes remained on his mocking ones.

  ‘I can keep control of myself,’ she said.