‘Take it off.’

Inhaling what could be her last breath, she spun around so quickly that the dress whooshed around with a swooshing sound. Lurking in the shadows of the far corner was a figure; if he hadn’t come into the light just then she might have considered that his motives were sinister.

‘Dax.’

‘You heard me,’ he said, sounding far from pleased. ‘Take the damn thing off.’

Marching toward her, he got hold of her arms and tussled her to the side of the room until she was flat against a tall dresser the height of which reached her shoulder blades. The hard wood bit into her, but Dax kept hold of her, kept forcing her back.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I told you to take it off!’

Forcing her to turn, he began to tug at the lace holding her corset together, but he wasn’t the most delicate of men and the rip of material was a foregone conclusion. He freed the lace and yanked at the corset, but it stayed on its sleeves.

Holding the garment to her chest, she wrestled around to try and look at the damage, but it didn’t matter, the dress was already ruined. ‘What have you done?’

Bringing her all the way around, he shook her. ‘You were right, goddamn it, Minx, ok? You were right!’

He didn’t sound happy about that at all. ‘Right about what?’ she asked, trying to reach for his face, but his agitation made him recoil from her touch.

‘I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell him. He’ll never accept this, Mauri will never accept us, not like this. He’ll never understand.’

‘You came here to tell me that it’s over? Or you came here to let me go free?’ Hope budded, but she couldn’t let it flower, not until she knew for sure what his intentions are.

‘There is no free,’ he said, looming closer, his eyes became slits. ‘You will never be free.’

‘You want me to marry him?’ she asked, trying to fight his grip. ‘You actually want me to walk down that aisle, just to make your life easier? So that you don’t disappoint your surrogate daddy?’

‘I’m here to take you with me,’ he said, bringing his hand to her cheek causing her breathing to stop. ‘I’m here to take the chance of walking away from everything I’ve ever had.’

‘Oh, Dax—‘

‘But make no mistake,’ he said, dropping his hand away to take hold of her again with a more ferocious grip. ‘You will never be free. If you walk out of here with me today, then you belong to me, forever. I will never allow you to leave me. You will be my female, mine. I will not let you marry him. I will not watch you do that. We leave here, now, and you will do as I say because while you’re in my custody, while I claim you, you are wholly mine, every part of you, every single breath that you take will belong to me. You are bound to be at my side. You’ve gotta accept that I will never let you go free.’

‘Dax,’ she sighed, allowing herself to smile.

‘It’s their prison or mine, your pick, Minx.’

‘Yours,’ she said. ‘But being with you is no prison. I want to be with you too.’

Encouraging him to move backward, she let the corset fall and went to work loosening the skirt. When it collapsed to the floor like a sunken soufflé, she used his arm to balance herself and step out of it. Her own clothes were on a chair, just a few feet away, but when she tried to go to them Dax wouldn’t let her go.

Glimpsing at him, to find out what the delay was, Ivy noticed that he was examining her figure, and her own attention fell to the prominent bulge in his jeans.

‘You’re going to have me forever,’ she said. ‘There’s time for that later. But the dress women—‘

‘Right,’ he said, letting her go and making a show of averting his eyes.

Flattery kept her smile in place, but she knew that there was no time to waste. Tugging up her strapless dress, she shoved her feet into her shoes and was back at his side.

‘How do we get out of here?’ she asked.

‘The same way I got in,’ he said and seized her hand.

In the corner he had materialised from was a smaller door that took them to a short corridor with a stairway at the end. But they didn’t go as far as the stairs, he took her through a narrow door, which couldn’t be any kind of official entrance, and there in front of her was a motorbike.

‘You’re kidding,’ she said when he handed her a helmet.

‘Do you want to leave here or do you want to debate mode of transportation?’ he asked, throwing a leg over the bike. ‘If I showed up here on anything other than my bike it would raise suspicions. Come on, Minx…’

Her apprehension evaporated because he was right, if the choice was getting on that bike with him or going back inside… well that wasn’t a choice.

‘Take that shit out your hair,’ he said and she was reminded of the tiara, which probably cost a small fortune.

She didn’t delay in grabbing it out of her locks and tossing it to the pebbles at her feet. Pulling on the helmet, she got on the back of the bike and wrapped her arms around him. In the hot, humid air of the day the seat was hot under her ass, but she tucked her skirt under her thighs and hung onto him again.

The bike roared to life and the deep vibrations of it racked through her body, warming and arousing her in ways that she hadn’t expected, but there wasn’t time to explore that now. Holding herself even closer to him, she closed her eyes as they sped away from the mansion toward a back gate that she didn’t know existed.

Her closed eyes weren’t a sign of fear, it was relief that poured itself through her now. Not just relief that she was free from her prison, but relief that Dax had come to understand the depth of his feelings for her because now they could be together and make what they had real.

They rode for less than an hour then Dax pulled off the highway and took them through residential streets to a storage area. He parked the bike and unlocked a garage while she stood eagerly anticipating what might be inside.

‘Are you ok?’ he asked her before he opened the door.

Her grin burst wider. ‘Yes, Dax, I’m… God, I’ve never felt like this.’

Straightening up, he frowned. ‘Felt like what?’

‘So… exhilarated and high and… it’s like… to finally be free and to be with you—‘

‘I told you that you’re not free,’ he said, approaching to take hold of her and spin her around so that she was flat to the outer wall of the storage unit.

‘Oh all that stuff about being your prisoner, it’s just foreplay, tough guy. I want to be with you and I don’t feel like a hostage with you. This is what I wanted all along. I wanted us to be together, and now we can be.’ Sliding her hands up his chest, she was about to beckon a kiss when he spoke again.

‘You haven’t asked about the rest of my plan.’

‘Plan?’ she asked, loosening from her projected action. ‘I thought the plan was to get out of there and we did that.’

‘It’s not that easy,’ he said. ‘We have to…’

‘Have to what?’

He backed off and opened the garage door to show that there was a car inside, among other things. Wheeling his bike past the car he stowed it at the back of the garage, covering it with a tarp then retrieving a backpack and a sports bag from a metal cabinet not too far from the bike. He tossed both into the trunk of the car, then got in and drove the car out of the garage, where he stopped.

‘Get in,’ he said, leaving the car to lock up the garage again.

‘Do you have a plan?’ she asked, having assumed that they would just leave the state and the Starks behind.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My plan is to make sure that they can’t follow through with their plan.’

‘Ok,’ she said, sliding into the car, grateful to see that there was a bag of food and water on the seat and shades on the dashboard. ‘I thought that we already did that by leaving that house?’

‘No,’ he said as he got back into the car and showed her a key.

‘What’s that?’ she asked, retrieving a sandwich from the bag and unwrapping it. She hadn’t eaten anything since this morning and she hadn’t been particularly hungry then, now she was famished.