Fighting Back (Harrow #2) (9 page)

‘No, tough guy,’ she said, tucking herself under his arm, against his solid form. ‘I’m not talking about your dick. I’m talking about us going to visit my ex.’

‘I’ve got nothing to prove,’ Dax said, swaggering onto The Strip. ‘I know this loser doesn’t compare to me. He’s shit scared of me anyway, just like he should be.’

‘He used to give me foot massages after I’d spent a long day on my feet on a shift,’ she teased.

‘Hmm,’ he sort of grunted. ‘And since we’ve been married, have you been on your feet for a whole day?’

‘No, but—‘

‘Fuck foot massages, I massage the more interesting parts of your body.’ His hand opened over her breast and she nudged her hip into him.

‘I’ll take you over a foot massage any day,’ she said, kissing his arm. ‘Orgasms were hit and miss with Saul.’

Giving him that boost made her feel better because she knew when the men came face to face with each other again that the testosterone would fly. As grateful as she was to Saul for helping her out in her time of need, she wanted Dax to be secure in their marriage because there was no better man as far as she was concerned. Though she wouldn’t tell him that, his ego was already healthy enough.

‘I hit your mark every time, babygirl.’

Often more than once, it helped that their lives together served as constant foreplay. ‘Yes, you’re better in bed, does that make you feel like a stud?’

‘I fuck better than him and I fight better than him,’ Dax said. ‘Fuck yeah, I am the man.’

His arm came up to around her neck when she laughed, and she turned her mouth down to it. ‘Yes, you are.’

‘Now where is this lesser guy?’

‘We need to get a cab,’ she said. ‘And when we get there, I need you to say nothing, not a word.’

‘I do strong and silent better than other dudes as well.’

‘Yes. You’re quite the catch. I’d suggest that we run off together and get married, but…’

‘You’re too late,’ he said, wiggling his occupied ring finger in her face. He moved them off the sidewalk and hailed a cab. ‘Let’s get this over with then I’ll call Mauri.’

Dax was so eager to say goodbye to her past but at the same time he clung fiercely to his own. Letting go wasn’t so difficult for her, perhaps because she’d done it so many times before.

This Saul guy had a nice bungalow with a huge yard fit for entertaining. Dax had propped himself on a railing by the pool with a view into the concrete shed that Saul had opened for Ivy. Her things were in there, and she had gone inside to pick out her bags, so Saul had handed Dax an ice-cold beer and joined him in his wait.

‘You’re a lucky guy,’ Saul said to him.

Dax took a mouthful of the beer and watched Ivy’s ass as she bent into the shadow of the building to look in a bag. ‘Yeah,’ Dax said. Ivy had told him not to say much and that suited him, he had no intention of getting buddy-buddy with this prick who used to fuck his wife.

‘Ivy’s great,’ Saul said.

‘Yeah.’

They kept drinking their beer and Dax maintained his patient demeanour, but he was eager to get Ivy’s shit and get the hell away from here.

‘So… any fights planned while you’re in town?’

‘Nope,’ Dax said.

‘I could… you know, I could hook you up if you wanted…’

Lowering his chin, Dax peered over the top of his shades at this eager puppy. ‘You think I need help from a guy like you?’

‘No! No, I… I was just saying… I know people and I could… I could get you a good deal.’

‘Shit,’ Dax exhaled and didn’t hide his smile as he pushed away from the railing to cross to Ivy’s ass, which was still in the air. That skirt of hers licked the top of her thighs inviting him to whip it out of the way and slide into her real deep.

After all this time together, his dick shouldn’t react to her so impulsively, but it did. When he got there, he smacked her ass, and she immediately righted herself to peek over her shoulder. ‘Don’t do that in front of Saul.’

‘Why?’ Dax asked, happy that her body came to rest against him. ‘The guy’s a loser, what did you see in him? Forget it, I don’t want to know.’ The last thing that he wanted was to hear his wife talk about the positive attributes of her ex.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, bending again, this time she deliberately pushed her ass into him.

‘If you’d told me this needed to be done, I’d have sent guys over here. I don’t want you to be here.’

‘You don’t want to be here,’ she said.

Slipping a hand up under her skirt, he pressed the length of his cold bottle against her panties, and she gasped in a breath that reminded him of how she breathed in the throes of passion. ‘You’re not going fast enough,’ he said.

His body blocked hers from the view of the yard, and she was still half-in, half-out the shed, so he fingered aside her panties and touched her core with the condensation covered bottle.

‘Don’t do that,’ she said, but when she tried to stand up, he splayed his other hand on the small of her back and held her down.

‘Take a couple of steps forward, I’ll close this door and fuck you right here.’

‘We are not having sex at my ex-boyfriend’s place,’ she hissed.

‘Why not? Worried about upsetting him?’

‘No, but I am not a trophy,’ she said, groping around she found his wrist and pulled his hand off her back so that she could stand up.

But he took the opportunity to seek out her breast, which he fondled through her dress. Kissing along the scratch Trudi had left on her neck, he flicked her earlobe with his tongue. ‘This fucking heat, doesn’t it turn you on?’

‘No,’ she said, using her body to move his around, she remained flush with him but brought the pool into their view. ‘But I do think that we should get a pool.’

‘At the apartment?’ he asked.

As it stood, they didn’t have a fixed abode. They had been living in North Carolina, then they flew to his apartment in California, but Mauri wanted them to live at the mansion. Right now, they lived in a hotel in Vegas, so putting in a pool wasn’t an option. 

‘Wherever we end up,’ she said.

He didn’t like the way she sighed as she spoke, she had to be fed up with his ties to the Starks, and he could understand that after everything they had put her through. Turning down Mauri should have been his first instinct, but he couldn’t be stupid enough to ignore the chance that Mauri was presenting. If they took over the Stark empire, then Dax would be able to give Ivy anything she wanted.

He had money from the many fights he’d taken part in over the years. But he wasn’t dumb enough to think that he could fight for the rest of his life, he would have to retire eventually, probably sometime soon. His bank account was healthy and would support them if they chose to live a modest life. But he wanted to take care of Ivy and living in the opulence of the Stark mansion would give her the luxury he felt that she deserved.

‘Why don’t you go inside and call Mauri,’ Ivy said. ‘I’ll finish up out here.’

All she was doing was transferring her things from several smaller bags into a larger one and a suitcase that Saul had given her to use. It shouldn’t take her too long, and she didn’t want to be party to his conversation with Mauri anyway.

Leaving her alone, he went inside, passing Saul without speaking to him, and picked up the phone to dial Mauri’s direct number. Few people had direct access to Mauri, Dax was one of the lucky ones.

‘Hello?’ Mauri answered the phone, he wouldn’t have recognised the number calling him so his suspicious voice was understandable.

‘It’s me,’ Dax said. ‘I need something.’

‘Anything.’

‘The guy Ivy worked for in Vegas, who was he?’

‘Darryl Kay,’ Mauri said. ‘He’s on his yacht, sailing in the Pacific now.’

Men like that didn’t own sailboats, they owned ships that were filled with luxuries. Staying in Vegas had no doubt been a step down for the man. ‘He owed you something?’

‘Several somethings,’ Mauri said. He had connections all over the world and kept a running tally of who he’d done favours for over the years. Maurice Stark had no shame in calling in a favour when it suited him. ‘What do you want with him? Did he touch Ivy? Hurt her?’

The concern in Mauri’s voice was no doubt meant to curry favour with Dax, but it hadn’t occurred to him to question what Ivy had gone through in the three days she’d worked for Darryl Kay.

‘He just did you a favour?’ Dax asked.

‘Yes.’

‘When did he leave Vegas?’

‘Not long after we took Ivy,’ Mauri said. ‘The man had a weak stomach.’

‘If Ivy left something in Kay’s place, where would it be now?’ Dax asked.

‘Is there something in particular—‘

‘Do you know the answer to my question?’

‘I can look into it,’ Mauri said.

Standing in Saul’s kitchen, Dax dropped his fist to the countertop. Mauri knew all the details of an operation like that especially one that involved his future daughter-in-law, as Ivy was supposed to be. There was no way that he had to “look into” anything, he already had the answer.

‘You’re forgetting who you’re talking to, Mauri,’ Dax said, lowering the bass of his voice. ‘If you want me to trust you, then you better show me some respect. I can walk any time I want.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Mauri exhaled. ‘I’ll have her things ready when you come to the party. I’ll find out where they are, and I’ll have them brought to your suite.’

Their room, so Mauri was expecting them to move into the mansion after the party. While growing up in the mansion, Dax had resided in the staff quarters, he had never had a suite in the main body of the house like Brad and Trystan did. Mauri was going to great lengths to make him feel special, Dax just hadn’t figured out why this was so important to the old man yet.

‘Good,’ Dax said. ‘You do that.’

After hanging up the phone, Dax remained in the kitchen. Keeping watch out of the back window, he made sure that Saul didn’t go anywhere near Ivy while she sorted through her possessions.

Slugging more beer from his bottle he fixated on her ass again, but knowing that Saul was also enjoying the view of her body irritated him. After this day, his wife wouldn’t go near any man who had touched her in the past, he would make sure that she knew it.

Ivy had her doubts that Maurice Stark would deliver for them, but Dax was confident that he would. Dax had been conditioned from a young age to have utter faith in his mentor, that kind of unshakable trust confounded her.

After witnessing Dax’s turmoil when Mauri failed to accept their relationship, she worried that Dax would crash if he was disappointed again. During their early days, Dax had been convinced that Mauri would embrace their marriage once he knew how much they cared for, and loved, each other. It hadn’t worked out that way at all.

When she requested that they stay in Vegas for the week instead of rushing back to LA, Dax had yielded. It gave them time to relax and enjoy themselves without the watchful eye of the Stark network.

But on the Saturday of Maurice Stark’s party, they flew back to California with Ivy’s possessions in tow. Having her clothes and knick-knacks back was great, but what she really wanted was the bag Mauri had promised would be at the party tonight.

They hadn’t been back at the apartment for very long. Dax had gone straight into the shower, leaving her to deal with the unpacking and laundry. Now in the bedroom closet sorting through their apparel, she heard him come out of their bathroom and move into the bedroom, so she called out to him.

‘Are you ever going to tell me what happened?’ she shouted just loud enough for her voice to carry through the open closet door.

When he came into the doorway, he was already clothed though his hair was still damp. ‘Tell you about what?’ he asked, clipping the metal strap of his watch closed.

‘What happened between you and Mauri at that midnight meeting?’

‘That was months ago,’ Dax said. ‘The meeting when I told them to go to hell then spent seven weeks trying to find you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, folding a clean tee-shirt into a drawer, she closed it then set her sights on him. ‘You saw Mauri alone then you came back here to tell me that he had commanded us to go to a meeting at midnight at his mansion. I told you that Mauri would want you to hand me over to Trystan, so you let me leave here, to escape from them. But you went to the meeting by yourself, and it was something that happened at that meeting which made you walk away from them. You followed me across the country after that. Why did you come after me?’

‘I figured out that I loved you.’

‘You already knew that you loved me,’ she said, hooking her hands onto a shelf behind her. ‘You had already married me.’

‘Yeah, but I hadn’t lost you yet. I only married you so that he couldn’t.’ At least at the time, that was what Dax told himself, Ivy would never have married him if she hadn’t been sure that he reciprocated her feelings.

Dax turned to leave, but she sprang forward to hold him back. ‘You went to that midnight meeting, you told me that you did.’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘What happened?’

‘I told them to go to hell, told them that I wanted to be with you and that I didn’t care about them anymore.’

‘What did they say to you?’ she asked. His countenance betrayed that there was something he didn’t want to share, he got irritated, and his attention went everywhere except to her. ‘Please, tell me, it will sound better coming from you, whatever it is, I’d rather know. Was it about me? Were they disrespectful? Do you think that you’re protecting me?’

‘I am protecting you,’ he said. ‘You know everything that you need to know.’

Removing her hand from his arm, Dax continued out into the bedroom, and she trailed after him. ‘Just like that,’ she said. ‘You expect me to just accept that?’

‘I expect you to keep your mouth shut. I don’t answer to you.’

‘Oh, so you’re going to get defensive and start snapping at me? Yeah, that really tells me that nothing happened. Dax, we’re going over there tonight, and I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get there.’

‘It’s a party,’ Dax said, taking his phone and his wallet from the nightstand to stuff them into his jeans pockets. ‘There will be music and dancing and food, it’s a fucking party.’

‘This might be easy for you, but I am going back to a place that… the last time I was there they were fitting me for a wedding dress, remember? I was locked in a room and told that I was expected to be part of the family, to be Trystan’s wife. Has all of that slipped your mind?’

‘You’re not in danger when I’m around,’ he said.

‘Really? Because I seem to remember you telling me that you’d take care of everything and we ended up hightailing it out of there on your motorcycle, hoping that no one would catch us. You took me to Vegas and married me because you were too scared to stand up to Mauri.’

‘Except I’ve done it now,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘I’m going out.’

‘What about the party?’

‘It’s not for a few hours. I’m going to the bar to talk to Serg. I’ll pick you up at nine.’

‘Nine,’ she muttered because he was already storming out, slamming the front door behind him in the process.

Going back to the Stark mansion did set her on edge. This wasn’t easy for either of them, but being married to a man as masculine as Dax meant he wasn’t the type to sit and talk about his feelings. She didn’t need his reassurances, what Ivy needed were the facts. Something had happened at that midnight meeting, and it was something he’d always hidden from her.

Dax was a straightforward guy under normal circumstances. When he wanted something, he took it or found a way to get it. Ivy had been living the easy life with him back east, they went to work, came home, enjoyed each other, and then did it all over again the next day.

When it came to his upbringing, or their day-to-day lives, Dax had no trouble sharing with her. What had happened at the midnight meeting was the only thing he refused to talk to her about.

The meeting must have been difficult for him, Dax went into the mansion to explain her conspicuous absence and he must have assumed that Mauri would accept his explanations. Except Mauri was a master manipulator, he’d managed once to convince Dax that the relationship was a sham and that Ivy had used Dax to ensure her own safety.

Regardless of that, Dax had let her walk away alone, so he hadn’t gone to the midnight meeting expecting to cut ties with the Starks. If he had, then they could have arranged to meet up somewhere safe after it instead of going their separate ways.

Something went on that night and she was completely in the dark as to what it was.

Right on time, Dax came back to the apartment at nine o’clock, and although she smelled liquor on him, Ivy didn’t begrudge him needing the courage. He took a shower and she was ready by the time he emerged, dressed, from the bathroom.

Seeing him in a suit made her smile. ‘What are you smiling at?’ he asked as she put in his cufflinks for him.

‘You’re not usually so put together,’ she said. ‘Seeing you like this reminds me of Vegas.’

‘When we got married I was wearing jeans.’

‘Not then; the night we met,’ she said, finding his eyes. ‘You were dressed up that night, sitting in the corner of that couch, you kept looking at me.’

‘You were the one who couldn’t take your eyes off me, babygirl,’ he said, resting his fingers around her hips.

‘You weren’t like any of them,’ she murmured, stroking down his arms. ‘They were all drunk idiots, but you… I could tell that you didn’t want to be there. That your purpose wasn’t to get drunk and laid like Trystan’s.’

‘I used to babysit him all the time, parties like that were a normal affair for him.’

‘And how many other hotel employees did he violate?’

His intense gaze exuded a pain when she asked that question. ‘I was in deep. You were right when you said I was desensitised to what they had me doing. Trystan’s a jerk, and I promise you that you’ll never be in that position again. I won’t let any man harm you, I promise you, babygirl.’

‘I know,’ she said, levering up to kiss him then wiping the gloss residue from his lips.

At nine fifteen, a limo, sent by Mauri, pulled up outside their apartment. It remained parked outside until they went down about twenty minutes later. Neither said much in the back of the car, Dax poured her a flute of champagne, but he didn’t have anything to drink himself. He probably assumed she’d need some courage too, but she didn’t really want any alcohol, still, she sipped it throughout the trip.

By the time they drove through the open Stark gates, Ivy had finished about half of her drink, but she didn’t mind putting it aside when Dax took her hand and helped her out of the limo.

The mansion was as imposing as it had been the last time she was here. But with the glittering white lights around the driveway and marking the entrance, it did seem warmer than it had when she was imprisoned here. During that time, she hadn’t seen very much of the interior.

Once they were inside, she was given another glass of champagne in the entrance foyer, while Dax refused a drink. There were plenty of people milling around, but Dax didn’t wait to speak to anyone. Instead of being taken up the stairs, as she was the last time she was here, Dax took her down a corridor and into a grand double-storey space filled with people.

Women wore beautiful gowns and glittering jewels that drew her eye. These people wanted to be admired, they wanted to be respected and revered, but Ivy felt no sense of wonder.

Ensconcing themselves in a far corner, they separated themselves from everyone else. Ivy tightened her grip on Dax’s hand to get his attention. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘I want to go home.’

She wasn’t even sure where home was, she had started to think of her home as the man as opposed to any specific location. Dax had told her that they belonged next to each other, and that was right, but this was the enemy lair, so relaxing here was nigh on impossible.

‘We just have to stay long enough to be seen,’ Dax said.

Turning to observe the room behind them, his frown remained static. He kept her back to the wall to shelter her from the false smiles and handshakes which accompanied the string quartet in the opposite corner.

This was a crazy scenario, the Starks were crime bosses, meaning that everyone else in the room was either a criminal or turned a blind eye to the glaring fact that everything here was bought with dirty money. Did these people know how Maurice Stark made his fortune? Or did they believe that the companies built in the Stark name to launder drug money were legitimate?

Dax certainly didn’t seem interested in talking to anyone, and his permanent scowl didn’t speak of a comfortable man who was happy to be here. When his expression got even harder, she peeked around him to see that Trystan was striding over to them.

‘Shit,’ she said and gulped at the champagne.

‘You don’t have to say a word,’ Dax muttered into her hair and kissed her temple as he turned to face Trystan while placing a hand on the small of her back.

‘Well, hello!’ Trystan declared loud enough to draw attention to them. ‘It’s the happy couple, fancy that!’

‘What do you want?’ Dax hissed.

‘I came to offer my congratulations,’ Trystan said, snatching Dax’s hand from his side to shake it.

Dropping Dax’s hand, Trystan leaned in as if to kiss her cheek. Threatened by his proximity Ivy recoiled and gasped. Her reaction prompted Dax to grab Trystan’s lapels and pin him to the perpendicular wall.

Pressing his forearm across the width of Trystan’s chest, Dax got in his face. ‘You stay the fuck away from her,’ Dax hissed.

‘Oh, the jealous type,’ Trystan said. ‘I thought it worked out that we shared everything. Isn’t that how you ended up stealing her from me?’

Ivy didn’t budge from the wall where Dax had put her, but murmurs from around them caused her to peek beyond her husband. The mumbling party guests were catching glimpses of this unfolding display.

‘Dax,’ she whispered, stroking his upper arm.

‘Yeah,’ Trystan said. ‘Listen to your little woman, you’re causing a scene, you know how my father feels about that.’

Attention was what Trystan craved, so ignoring the others in the room, she gripped Dax’s elbow. ‘Why don’t you knock him out, maybe crack a few of those veneers, then we can go home?’ she said.

‘With pleasure,’ Dax said. But his fist didn’t have the chance to rise more than a couple of inches before Maurice materialised with a beautiful woman on his arm.

‘You boys will need to learn to get along,’ Mauri said. ‘Trystan go away from here, I have business with Dax and his wife.’

Dax twisted to shove Trystan back toward the party guests, but once he’d recovered from his stumble, Trystan walked backwards smoothing out his suit. ‘Guess you can’t teach class,’ Trystan said then widened his grin again to disappear into the throng.

‘I’m sorry about him,’ Mauri said to her. Being addressed directly caught Ivy off-guard and she wasn’t quite sure where to look. The only time they had spoken in the past, she had lied to him and pretended to be something that she wasn’t.

Dax returned to her side and flopped an arm around her to haul her body into his. No, he wasn’t particularly refined, but he did know how to put his mark on her, and Ivy loved that about him.