Fighting Fate (7 page)

‘Even if you don’t want them to,’ she said. ‘You’re numb. You just go through the motions, don’t you? Do you actually feel anything? Do you even know what you want?’ Lifting her hand to reach for his jaw, he ducked away to avoid her caress.

‘What I want doesn’t matter,’ he snapped.

‘It does to me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re both the same. Trapped. Doing what we have to even though we don’t want to,’ she said and took her arm from his grip to take his hand.

‘Don’t start thinking that I care about you. I don’t.’

‘God forbid you let yourself care about anything that they might take away.’

‘You don’t know who they are. You do what you’re told and let the men worry about the serious shit.’

‘Just like you do,’ she said. He had meant to insult her, what he didn’t seem to comprehend was that he’d been brainwashed by these people that were now trying to do it to her. Bruno knew what he was doing because he’d obviously been party to this kind of manipulation before. Dax on the other hand did what he was told and failed to see how he’d been manipulated into it. ‘They have your free will, is that why you think that you can take mine? I won’t let you.’

‘I’ll take whatever the fuck I want from you,’ he said. Narrowing her eyes she identified that he was trying to be angry. His show was believable, but it wasn’t there, his fury didn’t burn from his guts like her anger did.

‘You haven’t forced me into anything. They have, but not you.’

‘You think I’m here to look out for you?’

‘I don’t think you even know how to look out for yourself, street rat.’

‘You don’t have the first fucking clue about me,’ he said, but she wasn’t insulted by his attempt to belittle her.

‘How could I?’ she asked. ‘You don’t know anything about yourself either. You keep giving me advice like some subconscious part of you is trying to save me from what you failed to escape from.’

‘Your dad a shrink or something?’

‘Ex-boyfriend,’ she said. ‘He did try to save me, turned out he was more screwed up than I was.’

‘Get around did you, Minx?’

‘I don’t consider my life in the past tense.’

‘Maybe you should,’ he said. ‘You can’t fight fate, right?’

‘You can’t know its plan either. Maybe we’re supposed to fight against being forced into something we don’t want. Life doesn’t always turn out the way we think it’s supposed to.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ he said.

‘If you don’t want him to touch me, tell him.’

Dax shook his head. ‘I can’t save you. If it’s your game to get into my head and have me get you out of here… you’ve got the wrong guy. You’re too important to them.’

‘And what am I to you?’ she asked. ‘Am I important to you?’

Snatching his hand away from hers, he backed off. ‘You’re manipulating me. You think you can use sex to soften me up? That I’ll believe you give a shit about me and fall for your wounded vulnerability act? I’m not gonna set you free.’

‘I haven’t asked you to set me free today, Dax, have I? All I want from you right now is one thing,’ she said, rising to her tiptoes.

Capturing his face in her hands, she joined their lips. He kissed her back and their conversation was abandoned to the oblivion of the hormones that drowned them. Dax took her weight and twisted their twined bodies around, still in their embrace to take them into the shower. Ivy might have a better handle on this man she shared her body with, but she wasn’t so sure that he was any more enlightened about his own situation. Dax was a prisoner in his own life, but she didn’t know how he’d found himself here or why he was ok with being a lackey.

As he pressed her into the slippery tile next to the scalding shower spray and loosened the ties on her briefs Ivy vowed to herself that she would find out why Dax was so detached from his own existence. She was a prisoner and she’d still prioritise herself and her freedom, but if she had the ability to hold a mirror up to Dax before she slipped out of his life, she would use it. Maybe they would both be able to free themselves from their internment.

After screwing her in the shower, Dax had told her to wash and go down to Bruno who was outside, which she did, and that was the last of Dax she saw that day. He made no secret of the fact that he was avoiding her, he didn’t even appear for dinner.

Spraying her with his seed was Dax’s way of showing Bruno how intimate they’d been and giving the guy an unmistakable visual. She doubted that it was anything to do with primal marking, it was more about grossing the older man out. Ivy would guess that Dax wanted to make Bruno think twice about touching her breasts when there was a chance his spunk could be all over her. But the shower had washed away all evidence of their joining.

Bruno didn’t seem to notice or care that Dax wasn’t around, he was more interested in teasing her and the sad truth was that she was getting used to the middle-aged man’s innuendo and advances. Though that didn’t mean she liked it, not for one second. Bruno instructed her in every task then watched as she completed it, salivating and goading her throughout the whole event.

Though she had to admit that Bruno’s fondling was lessening, maybe because she didn’t give him the reaction that he wanted, or because now that he’d had the pleasure of it, it wasn’t as interesting – the novelty had worn off. His biggest thrill seemed to come when he exercised authority in other ways, he was content to demean her with words and actions, such as spilling food on the floor and demanding that she clean it up after he squashed it into the tile with his Croc covered feet.

Her “owner” had appeared when it was dark outside and he’d told her to go to bed. He proceeded to sit with Bruno and drink beer into the night instead of coming upstairs with her for more sex, so she knew that he didn’t want to be in a room with her.

Ivy was happy to go to bed because it gave her a reprieve, massaging Bruno’s feet was starting to give her fingers blisters. Any hope that sending her up to bed was a sign of care or trust on Dax’s part was obliterated when he did come up to bed about an hour later. He used another plastic tie to fasten her to the foot-post while grumbling something about not being bothered with her anymore. Then he went to sleep without gratification.

When she awoke the next day Dax was already gone from the bed and Bruno was there with his list of daily tasks, and that day played out much as it had the previous day.

Now the sun was high in the sky and the blazing heat was making her sweat, so when Bruno drifted off to sleep in his lounge chair by the pool, she went back into the house. With a quick check around the lower floor she found no sign of a key for the front door, or one for the drawer of knives.

Making a break for it now might be her only chance, but she did wish she’d had some more time to prepare and regain her strength. Upstairs, Bruno’s bedroom door was locked as was the other bedroom and Dax’s room held no sign of exit either; the walk-in closet was locked too. One of the men had to be carrying the key on them or they were hidden somewhere that she would never find them.

If she couldn’t get out of the house then she’d never be able to get into the car that stood outside, not without finding the keys. Without transport of her own, her captors would catch up to her pretty quickly. In her time undressing Dax and tidying up she had never seen keys. Finding out where they were kept became her next goal, and for that she’d have to get closer to the man who shared her bed.

Finding Dax was a piece of cake, he was where he always was, downstairs. Admitting to herself that the concept of going back into that basement voluntarily was distasteful, she bolstered her gumption and headed for the door. She would never be able to win Dax’s sympathy or assistance if she allowed him to maintain distance, so she had to step into his world, into his personal space, which she knew would be out of his comfort zone.

But if she could show him that she was human, and that this detached behaviour was unacceptable, there was a chance that Dax would be willing to set her free or help her escape. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Bruno wasn’t ever going to be a man who might consider doing that for her.

Descending the stairs into the basement, she could hear the thump of fists hitting leather and the occasional sniff or breath coming from a man. When she went lower, she paused at the vision he made. Wearing nothing but black shorts and black straps on his hands, she watched Dax throw one punch and then another, he stayed loose, keeping his hands near his face and his elbows in close to his body. The sheen of sweat across his back and arms made her think about how his skin had felt under her fingertips in the shower when water cascaded over both of their naked bodies.

His fist flew out and made contact with the black punching bag that hung from the ceiling at the head of the basement gym, then he slid back in an expert manoeuvre and threw another two punches, one with each hand in quick succession. The rough callouses and intersecting scars on his knuckles and hands made sense now. She’d noticed them when they were together in bed, but hadn’t asked about their origin, now she didn’t need to.

He sensed her and stopped his training to straighten up. Tensing to turn, he glared over his shoulder at her figure on the darkened stairway. Still, the blue of those eyes shot agony into her, because such a pure colour wasn’t meant to be so impersonal, yet in him it was.

His eyes were like icebergs on the sea, powerful and formidable, but also lonely, isolated out on the ocean without a place to connect with or to call home. Drifting out on the open water epitomised Dax, and she realised then her own life had been much the same way – out there and alone. She wondered if she was as hard as he was, or if she wasn’t, what he’d been through to make him so disconnected.

‘Where’s Bruno?’ he asked.

‘Sleeping,’ she replied, continuing down the stairs and toward him.

He began to unfasten the hand straps from his hands. ‘And you’re still here?’

‘I couldn’t get out. The door is locked.’

‘No one ever taught you how to pick a lock?’

She shook her head. ‘But I’m up for a lesson if you want to give me one.’

‘I don’t have the patience to be a teacher,’ he said, tossing the straps to the bench beside him then stretching out his fingers.

‘Did you used to be a boxer?’ she asked him, taking one of his hands. She held it open in front of her chest and began to massage his knuckles.

‘Boxing is too disciplined,’ he mumbled, watching her fingers working on his. ‘My sport is less regimented.’

‘What is your sport?’

‘I’m an underground fighter,’ he said, fascinated, or perhaps perplexed, by what she was doing.

‘Like in basements and cellars?’ she teased.

‘Like on the underground circuit,’ he said, and withdrew his hand from hers. ‘I’ve been doing it since I was eight. I don’t need to be pampered through it.’

‘Maybe I want to pamper,’ she said, taking his other hand to give it equal treatment. ‘How does it work? Underground fighting?’

‘Two guys in the ring and no weapons,’ he said.

‘There’s a ring?’

‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘It depends on the venue. Some places make a business out of it, sometimes it’s a barn with a wooden fence, or just a line drawn in the sand.’

‘Fitting,’ she said. ‘So what are the rules?’

‘I told you. Two guys, no weapons, and you don’t hit a guy when he’s down.’

‘That’s it?’ Her massaging stalled. ‘Anything goes?’

He nodded. ‘Anything at all.’

‘So they could gouge out your eyes or bite off an ear or something?’

‘If they ever got close enough to do that then yeah,’ he said with a flippant, yet smug, smile. Leaving her side, he retrieved his hand wraps to tuck them into the back of his shorts.

‘Since you were eight, huh?’ she asked.

‘Yep.’

Crossing to the punching bag, she smoothed her hands over the leather. ‘Is this how you keep yourself so calm?’ she asked. ‘You take out all of your emotions on the punching bag?’

When he didn’t respond, she twisted around to rest her back on the punching bag, spreading her hands against it at her sides after her arms curled against it. ‘I guess,’ he said, and took one step toward her.

‘Is that why my anger turns you on? Because you don’t know how to be open like that, to experience that kind of emotion?’

‘I know anger,’ he said, coming closer still. ‘I know hurt and isolation. I know revenge and retribution.’ He came so close that his body made contact with hers. ‘I know fear and misery. I know respect and I know loyalty.’

‘What about compassion?’

He shook his head. ‘Weakness.’

‘And forgiveness? Do you know that?’ He shook his head, but brought up his hands to pull the ties from her hair, tugging on her locks in the process, sending a hiss through her teeth. ‘Do you know leniency? Or pity?’

‘No. But I know shame and rage.’

‘What about love? Do you know that?’

‘Never heard of it,’ he said, taking a fistful of her hair he yanked back her head and planted his mouth down on hers.

The squeal of her refusal was lost in the grip of her hands on his neck, and if this bag had been able to support their weight she may have leapt into his arms here. As it was, her fingertips skimmed down the bulge of his shoulders to his elbows, but when she tried to urge him away he took her waist and lifted her off the floor, holding her body to his.

‘Dax,’ she whispered. His mouth trailed to her neck and the press of his lips to the artery pulsing beneath them made her weak legs wobble. For stability she locked her ankles at the small of his back. ‘I came down here to talk.’

‘Talk isn’t what I need from you.’

The word “need” sent a sluice of ice through her torso. It was possibly just a slip of the tongue, but in the second she heard it she wanted him to mean it and that scared her. No man had ever needed her and she’d never needed them. Her role in seducing Dax was meant to be manipulation, she was meant to make friends, to make him want her freedom. Bringing need into the equation was a totally different thing.

‘Take my cock out of my shorts,’ he said. In a show of strength, he locked one arm around her waist, holding her up with only that arm so he could free his other hand to unwrap her breasts from her bikini, and untie the strings on her hips.

‘I am not a part of your work out, stranger.’

‘You are today, or I’m a part of yours.’

Seating himself on the inclined weight bench, he leaned back and nodded downwards. ‘If you make me do it you’ll get yourself a spanking when we’re through, and I’ve got weapons down here.’

Coiling her arms around his neck, she pulled herself close enough to press her face to his. ‘I thought weapons were against the rules.’

‘You wouldn’t stand a chance in the ring with me, Minx.’

‘Throw in some jello, take away the clothes and the audience and I think I might be able to pin you down.’

His smile creased his cheeks and the reverberation of his laugh made her recoil, it was the first time she had heard it. ‘You’ve got me pinned now.’

That wasn’t really true, his arms were still around her waist and although she was on top, he was definitely in control. Her parted thighs gave her premium position to undulate against the thick organ protruding from his shorts.

‘You didn’t fuck me last night.’

‘I’m not gonna to fuck you now,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna do it all by yourself.’

‘How do you manage to stay in control even when you’re underneath me?’

‘You want to please me, don’t you?’

And she nodded, realising that his pleasure was important. Seeing how she could control and influence this monolith of a man made her feel powerful in a set of circumstances where she was otherwise powerless and that heightened her own enjoyment. ‘I do, Dax… Master.’

‘I hate that word,’ he admitted, much to her surprise, but she tried to quell it.

‘Ok. What would you rather I called you?’ spreading her hands on his bare chest, she kept moving her hips against him. ‘Chief? Major? Guru?’

‘Stranger will do just fine.’ Taking a breast in hand, he squeezed then tensed his arm to arch her back giving him leave to suck her nipple into his mouth. ‘They do taste good, damn good.’

That was something close to an apology for what he’d said in front of Bruno. Every day more of the males’ dynamic was revealed, and every day she was more perplexed by it. In front of Bruno, Dax acted like she was nothing and he tried to maintain that indifference when he was alone with her.

Yet, he was far more honest than she’d have believed he would be and thought nothing of revealing the truth in these rare moments of intimacy. As far as she knew he had never lied to her. When they were alone he battled to maintain his disinterest but often failed. Sex made him honest and he seemed to demand that same honesty in return.

It was like he was only willing to have sex with her if he could be himself while he did it and he’d only have sex with the true her. He didn’t want her scared and pitiful, he wanted her fire, the truth of her personality in his bed. Outside the bedroom, and in company, he didn’t care who she was but he wasn’t going to play games in bed. Maybe he was supposed to and he just sucked at this game, or maybe lulling her into his confidence was a game all in itself.