‘Next time you will,’ he said. ‘Bruno wants you by the pool.’

‘And you didn’t tell me that when you came in?’

‘I wanted you first,’ he said, opening the shower door again and testing the temperature of the water with his hand. ‘I’m your owner, I make the rules about where you go and what you do. Getting your face fucked was more important than running his errands.’

‘I can’t go down there looking like this,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘He’ll see that you’re… all over me.’

‘That was the point,’ he said.

‘I need to shower,’ she said. When she tried to pass him to enter the cubicle he grabbed her and pulled her back to prevent her from reaching it.

‘No! You go down there, exactly like that!’

‘But, I—‘

‘He’ll think twice about touching you now, won’t he?’

Her indignation waned and for the first time when their eyes locked neither of them contained anger.

‘You do what you need to do, to get the job done,’ she muttered.

‘Yeah. Which includes letting any of the rest of them touch you in any way they want to.’

‘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.

Chapter Seven

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.