Текст книги "Harrow Duet"

Автор книги: Scarlett Finn

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

Chapter Twelve

Ivy didn’t think anything of Dax being a few minutes late to retrieve her. She didn’t even think anything of him being an hour late. Movement upstairs had started again along with the rumble of voices and so she deduced that Dax was having trouble getting rid of some of the party guests.

Hour upon hour went by, night time came and the voices stopped, then the movement ceased, and all she could do was wait. The last time she had heard a car engine was half a day ago, there was no way for her to know who was still here, if anyone, or if she was completely alone.

Pacing was a useless waste of energy that she might need later. Without food or water, she had no way to replace her stores and so she conserved it by remaining static. She told herself that Dax couldn’t have forgotten about her, he wouldn’t have. Except he’d stated that if it came down to a choice, he wouldn’t choose her. She couldn’t believe that had meant leaving her here, indefinitely, forever, to die. So she would have to bide her time and hope that he would be back in the morning.

Except he wasn’t. The only way she could judge time was by the watch that he had left behind. It was the only evidence left of their joining, the only evidence that he had been here with her at all. The fact that Dax hadn’t come back to her was concerning, but the fact that Bruno hadn’t appeared either was downright disturbing.

By the morning of the second day she was beginning to feel the heat – metaphorically speaking because the air conditioner in the gym was still on, so she was getting plenty of fresh air. Unfortunately, there was no water and no food. She had to face the reality that something might have happened to Dax, which prevented him from coming back. If his cohorts had figured out that he had spent the night with her instead of with Fifi, or if Fifi had reneged on her part of the deal and told the others the truth, then maybe Dax had been removed from the equation altogether.

At almost midnight, on her second day alone in this basement cage, she was startled awake by something she didn’t see or hear at first. Fighting the haze of sleep, she identified the noise of footfalls descending on the gym stairs. Those hurried footsteps provided her with the reminder of where she was and what was going on, which brought her to her feet.

Rushing to the bars, she held on as tightly with her hands as she did with her sealed breath. The urge to call out for him was almost overwhelming. As soon as the door opened, she recognised how lucky she had been not to shout, because Dax wasn’t the one coming to her aid, it was Bruno.

‘Don’t worry, we didn’t forget about you,’ he said with a jovial smile and immediately came to unlock the door.

In the past when he had come to retrieve her he had never been in this good of a mood. Even more surprising was the bottle of water that he handed her, without punishment or command. ‘Is everything ok?’ she asked, expecting the other shoe to drop.

‘Worried about us?’ he asked, taking her hand to lead her out of the cell and through the gym.

She let him forge the path because she was too busy downing the water and replenishing her hydration. He took her straight upstairs and into the living room, where she hoped to see Dax. Ivy’s hopes were dashed, Dax wasn’t present, but she wasn’t alone with Bruno either. A blonde woman stood in front of the entertainment centre. She was short and quite flat-chested, which made Ivy wonder if this was Bruno’s pick or Dax’s.

‘This is Rita,’ Bruno said, guiding Ivy down into the place on the couch usually reserved for Dax.

‘Ok,’ Ivy said. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’ But the blonde didn’t speak.

‘Rita is here to look after us. She’ll be doing all of the chores from now on.’

Looking around the abode it was clear that the remnants of the party had been cleared up by someone. Ivy speculated as to how long she had been asleep for tonight because she hadn’t heard anyone moving around. That being said, Rita was so slight that she could probably stomp around using all of her strength and still not draw attention to herself.

‘Is she…?’ Ivy wasn’t sure of her own position in the household now and she had no Dax to guide her. She knew that she was supposed to be compliant but she wasn’t being given orders and so she wasn’t sure on how to carry herself.

‘Ask your question,’ Bruno said, giving her some much needed direction.

‘Is she here against her will?’

Suspicion cast over Bruno. ‘Would that be a problem?’

‘No,’ Ivy said. ‘I mean, it’s not my business at all, but… well…’

‘What?’ Bruno snapped.

‘If she’s here of her own freewill then we know that she’ll follow your instructions. If she’s not, then she’d be a flight risk and will have to be watched at all times. That’s the only reason I was curious.  I wouldn’t want to leave her alone, have her flee, and let you down.’

Bruno’s suspicion waned and eventually became a smile, her answer had pleased him. He still believed that she was the dutiful slave, which was exactly what Ivy wanted him to think.

‘Rita won’t be going anywhere,’ Bruno said. ‘But that was a very good observation. Dax told Mauri that you were smart, he was right.’

So Dax was still around, or at least still alive, and that gave her hope. Her relief was broken when the front door opened and Dax walked in. The sight of him gave her joy, until she saw the bruise around his eye and the cut above his brow.

‘Master,’ she said, pouncing off the couch, but remaining on the spot.

Dax was as startled as she was by her proclamation. The desperate word had come out of its own volition because of their audience. Perhaps she had been trained in ways that she hadn’t yet understood, the gesture had been automatic. Right now that was unimportant, what mattered was why her lover was bruised, and why he had abandoned her.

‘Have you fed her?’ Dax asked Bruno, tossing the door closed.

‘Not yet.’

‘Make us food,’ Dax ordered Rita without looking at her, then snapped his fingers and pointed at Ivy. ‘You get upstairs now.’

Nodding, Ivy tried to ignore the tight space in her guts that was filled with butterflies. The fluttering insects were reproducing so prodigiously that there was no more room for the anxiety and anticipation.

Running up the stairs, she tossed off her dress and leapt into the shower to clean off her spell in the cellar. Spending no more than a few minutes there, she wanted Dax to be in the bedroom when she came out. After taking another long drink of water from the faucet, she departed the bathroom to find him on the bed, pulling his tee-shirt off over his head.

‘What happened?’ she asked, hurrying to his side to help him, though he didn’t seem to need help. Bruises on his ribs made her wince, but he was unaffected. He tossed the tee-shirt onto the floor and she caught sight of the cracked blood on his hands. ‘Oh my god, have you been fighting?’

‘Any other girl says that about her man and it’s a bad thing,’ he said. Reaching behind him he tugged something out of his back jeans pocket and brought it around to hold it up in front of her face. ‘Daddy brought home the bacon for you.’

The stack of notes was larger than any she’d ever seen in one place. With wonder and a slack jaw she took the pile and flickered through it. ‘You were in the ring? I was down there in that dingy hole and you were in the ring?’

Twisting, she hit him with the bundle of bills and then dropped them into his lap. ‘There’s ten thousand there, babygirl.’

Stopping before she got off the bed, her jaw fell again. ‘Ten thousand dollars?’ He nodded. ‘US dollars?’

He nodded again, this time with a smile. Taking her hand, he placed the fortune in her palm and curled her fingers around it. ‘Hide it somewhere,’ he said.

‘Where?’

‘I don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘It’s yours.’

‘I’m not taking your money,’ she said, trying to push it back onto him, but he pushed right back.

‘It’s not the full amount of my winnings. I’m not leaving myself broke. But it should be enough to get you by… if anything… if you need it for anything… any time.’

‘Why do I need ten thousand dollars?’ she asked, flicking through the bills again.

‘I’m telling you that it’s an insurance policy, a bailout fund. If you ever want to bolt, take the money and go.’

‘Maybe I should invest it in bottled water and a plumbing system for my cell,’ she said, turning her smile on him, but he didn’t see the funny side.

He cupped her face. ‘You will never spend the night in that cell again. I promise you, ok?’

She nodded, because he was so solemn she had to believe him. ‘You’re giving me ten grand and telling me it’s ok to leave. Did you talk to them…? About us?’

Dax shook his head. ‘I had to take some of the guys home yesterday, that’s why I was delayed. I didn’t want them hanging around and asking questions, or outstaying their welcome. I met Bruno at the mansion and that’s when I realised you were still down there alone. That was last night.’

‘So why didn’t you—‘

‘Mauri needed me to do something for him, and then I was challenged and I couldn’t… you can’t refuse when the gauntlet is down.’

‘This is going to be some macho, convoluted excuse for leaving me down there, isn’t it?’

Leaning back on her hands, she was ready to listen to his excuse. But Dax wasn’t ready to give it, he was preoccupied by her towel-clad body. The temptation proved too much for him and he untucked her towel to reveal her figure for him to devour with famished eyes. His hand landed on her shoulder, and stroked down, over her breast to her hip.

‘Every fighter has a point man, that’s the guy who hooks the fighter up with a gig. We call him our scout, because he does all the work figuring everything out before we get there. My guy got in touch with me ‘cause a rookie wanted to challenge me. I have a rep in that circle and a lot of the younger guys like to try and confront me. If they win the fight then they’d solidify their place in the arena, and their fee would skyrocket.’

‘Do they ever win?’ she asked, already knowing the answer to her question.

‘No,’ he said, lowering himself to suckle on the nipple he plumped first.

‘How do you win? I mean what are the rules as to what qualifies as a win?’ she asked, caressing his shoulder and his bicep. His hand, which had been on her knee, disappeared under her thigh to elevate it and part it from the other. ‘You don’t kill anyone, right?’

‘Either the guy is down for ten, forfeits, or the arbiter calls it.’

‘Is that like the ref?’

‘There isn’t a referee,’ he said, switching to her other breast and sucking harder this time. ‘No one steps in to keep it fair. There are security guys who come in to break things up if a weapon is introduced, but only the arbiter can give them the nod to enter the ring. If he thinks a guy is close to death, but still won’t forfeit or stay down, he can call it.’

‘That’s it? Someone has to be close to death before the arbiter calls it?’

‘Sometimes a fight goes on all night,’ he said. Coiling his fingers around her wrists, he removed her weight from them and laid her on her back. ‘If the audience are getting bored and the bookies want it called then the arbiter can declare a winner, but that’s rare.’

‘It is?’

‘Sure, he doesn’t want to vote against a guy who could beat him to a pulp the next time he goes to his mailbox.’

‘He’s not a fighter?’

‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘But most fighters have too many connections to be a fair judge. An arbiter is picked by the fighters’ scout before final agreement is made.’

Learning about the world he was so ensconced in did fascinate her, but she didn’t like to see him hurt by it. The more she thought about what underground fighting involved, the more her questions grew. A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts, and her lover.

‘Food,’ he said, leaving the bed to head for the door. ‘I’m giving you time to eat because you haven’t had anything for two days.’

‘Because you left me down there,’ she whispered just before he opened the door. Rita was carrying a tray and she started to come in, but Dax blocked her and took the tray away, closing the door in her face.

There were sandwiches and fruits laid out on the tray that he brought over to the bed. ‘Eat quickly,’ he said, hooking her hair away from her neck so he could sample it. ‘I can’t eat until you’re finished.’

‘I thought it was the most dominant in a partnership who ate first,’ she said, popping a cherry into his mouth.

‘What I’m eating isn’t on that tray,’ he said, sliding the tray away from between them and edging in to run a hand up between her thighs. ‘But if eating first will prove my superiority over you…’

Scooping up her legs, he rotated her in the bed and lay on his front, curving her legs over his shoulders. In that cell downstairs she had dreamt of food, but that had come second to this. So closing her eyes she savoured the gratification he bestowed upon her with that talented mouth of his and while he swilled from her core she fumbled toward the tray to seek out the bowl of berries.

The press of something warm and smooth made her pause and it took her a few seconds to realise he was rolling the cherry she’d put in his mouth up and down, around her clit. Dax was good at improvising and she found herself fantasising about what else they could do if they took this to other rooms of the house, like the kitchen.

The cherry moved south and she sighed out her pleasure. She’d be happy for Dax to always be dominant over her, and their relationship, if it meant more of this and more of him. He said that she would never spend another night in that cell and she believed him. As for the future of their relationship, or even what would happen tomorrow, she didn’t know. So all she could do was live in the now, which at the moment was an especially blissful one.

Ivy’s morning started out particularly strange.

By now she was used to hearing Dax snore. She was used to having her breasts squashed into his back and her arm stretched around him. The unusual thing about this morning was the woman standing at the foot of the bed when Ivy opened her eyes. Blinking a few times, she made sure that the view wasn’t part of a dream. Yes, Rita really was there at the end of the bed wearing nothing but a leopard print bikini, leaning over, massaging Dax’s calf.

Feeling like she could be in the way, Ivy shifted her own legs away from Dax’s, which drew Rita’s attention up to her. The new roommate smiled and Ivy reciprocated.

‘Good morning,’ Rita said. She massaged higher, reaching the back of his knee and Dax moaned, but remained sleeping.

‘You… did Bruno send you up here?’ Ivy asked.

Rita shook her head and leaned closer to Dax as she massaged higher. ‘No. But after a fight Dax needs to work out the kinks in his muscles.’

She hadn’t considered that there might be a history between these two people. Asking Rita about that subject didn’t guarantee Ivy that she would get the truth; but Dax was still unconscious so she couldn’t ask him. Loosening her limbs from him she rolled away, managing to take the sheet with her, which left Dax naked, but Rita had already uncovered all of the good stuff to have a good look for herself.

‘I’m going to shower,’ Ivy said. She was still supposed to be dutiful to Dax and to Bruno, so she couldn’t give any orders to Rita and she couldn’t shoo her away. If Rita said that she did this for Dax as part of her duties then by the reckoning of everyone else, Ivy had no right to change that or tell Rita otherwise.

‘Take your time,’ Rita said, climbing up to kneel on either side of Dax’s feet when he rolled onto his front, burrowing the pillow under his chin against his chest.

Almost unable to take her eyes off the sight, Ivy watched for as long as she could but eventually had to go into the bathroom and take her shower.

Although she wasn’t keen on witnessing the possible progression of the activities, she also didn’t want to walk in on Dax being violated in his sleep, so she got showered and dried her hair, then went back into the bedroom.

Rita was now topless and straddling Dax’s ass, but he appeared to be in much the same position he had been and just as content in his sleep. ‘Did he wake up?’ Ivy asked.

‘Dax?’ Rita laughed. ‘No, he sleeps like the dead.’

‘I’ve noticed.’

The familiarity with which the blonde spoke of Dax made Ivy’s lip curl. Feelings of jealousy and resentment garnered in her a need to lash out. But if she did that then she took the chance that Rita would tell Bruno that Ivy wasn’t quite the happy camper she was supposed to be portraying. Dax had already implied that he didn’t trust her to keep going with the act in the event that something happened, which made her unhappy – Ivy wasn’t about to prove him right.

‘You should get dressed,’ Rita said. ‘Bruno is on the back deck if you’re looking for company.’

There wasn’t a chance that Ivy was going to leave this woman up here alone with Dax, not while Rita was massaging him in the way that she was. If Dax hadn’t woken up yet, then that meant Rita had removed her bikini top of her own accord, which told Ivy that his muscles weren’t the only stiff thing of Dax’s that Rita wanted to be massaging.

‘I’ll wait until he’s awake,’ Ivy said.

Rita laughed again. ‘He probably won’t be for a while.’ Leaning forward, Rita pressed her naked torso to Dax’s back and began to tongue his ear.

Staying in place at the bathroom door, Ivy didn’t have to wait too long for Dax’s eyes to open and when they did, they fixed on her. His sleepy lids didn’t remain droopy for long, Ivy folded her arms and he must have read the question in her before he established his own… if she was in his line of vision, far from the bed, then she wasn’t the one with her tongue in his ear.

To his credit, Dax flipped over in that instant and pushed his assaulter away without asking any questions. Rita just laughed and reached for him, but Dax was already halfway out of the bed.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

‘Having fun,’ Rita said.

Ivy was content that Dax was awake and would deal with this situation how he saw fit. There was no need for an audience, so she slipped into the closet. Putting her towel in the hamper she pondered the issue of choosing her own clothes because Dax hadn’t selected anything for her.

Except Dax’s entry into the closet came not too long after hers. He came in and slammed the door at his back, signposting his rage.

‘What the fuck was that?’ he demanded of her.

‘You tell me. I woke up to find her climbing all over you,’ Ivy said, abandoning her task. ‘How well do you know each other?’

‘Rita’s been at the mansion for a while.’

‘She’s a hooker?’

‘Sort of,’ he shrugged. ‘She works for Mauri, does whatever is asked of her, but she’s freelance, so she can walk away at any time.’

‘Why would she walk away when she has prime specimens like you to mount whenever the mood takes her?’

‘I’ve never had sex with Rita.’

‘That’s not what she implied.’

‘You’re gonna believe her over me?’ he asked. ‘You might have woken me up, how long did you leave her alone with me?’

‘I don’t have the authority to say anything.’

‘So you’d be happy if I jumped into the shower and left you alone with a guy sliming all over you while you were naked in bed?’

‘If I’d said anything then she would know that I wasn’t the obedient slave, wouldn’t she? You can fuck whoever you want, remember, Master?’

While he thought about this, she took a dress down from her side of the closet and laid it on a chair beside her. His hand on her hip was her first warning that he was in proximity to her, and she quickly slapped it away.

‘No,’ she said, taking note of his plump hard-on pointing at her. ‘You are not using that on me. Is that for her?’

‘No! You’re naked,’ he said, though of this she was already aware.

When he took another step toward her, Ivy backed away again. ‘Uh-uh, no way, you are not bringing that thing near me. You can’t get massaged by another woman and then bring the arousal she caused and—‘

‘Shut the fuck up,’ he said, snatching her throat and forcing her back against the drawers. ‘You’re waving that fucking hot body around in front of me and my dick can’t handle that without reacting.’

Dipping down, he scooped up one of her legs, leaving the other foot on the floor. He lifted her leg high until her heel was on the top of the drawers then he angled himself between her thighs.

‘If you want to keep fighting after your pussy has taken her medicine then we will. But claiming you is the only way I can cleanse myself of that tramp out there.’

‘You feel violated?’ Ivy asked, pleased that he had no interest in the woman who had put herself on blatant offer for him.

‘Yeah, so shut the fuck up and give me and my dick a break this morning.’

Sighing, she tilted her head. ‘Ok, I suppose just this once—‘

Plummeting forward, he slammed himself into her, expelling all the air from her body because he took her so off-guard she had no time to brace for his incursion. She inhaled a sharp breath in preparation to shout at him, but the clenching of her body made him groan.

‘That’s right, babygirl,’ he said, plunging back in after a lazy back slide. ‘Pull me in deep, all the way.’

And the ecstasy in his intonation made it impossible for Ivy to argue with him. He could’ve had Rita this morning, just as he could have had Fifi the other night, and he had screwed neither woman.

Whatever was between them was growing and taking on a life of its own. The progression was instinctual and felt entirely natural. Now as he slid in and out of her, taking her into a daze of rapture again, she could only wonder where they would end up.