‘Your body wants it,’ he said, sucking just above her pulse point. ‘My naughty Minx wants me to take control, you want me to force you, to jam my dick up into you. What you want babygirl is a dose of my sweet medicine right deep inside that dripping pussy. That will cure this defiance.’

‘You don’t want me compliant,’ she said, flipping his sentiment back onto him. ‘If I whimpered and whinnied and bowed down to worship you and your dick, you’d get bored, you said it yourself.’

But what he wanted right now was to keep her here, to make her forget her declaration that she was leaving this room and him alone in it. Getting some air, having freedom of movement, was her given right, and until Dax and his colleagues had been in her life it was something she had taken for granted.

Her freewill was the most important thing in the world to her. It sickened her to watch how her mother and sister pandered to the men in their lives just because both were so insecure and so firm in the belief that they needed a man to be a complete person; that somehow they wouldn’t survive without one.

Ivy didn’t need a man to survive; she had been happy working hard and paying her own way. She knew that she could make it on her own, except now she didn’t want to. Since meeting Dax and experiencing what they had together she had learned one vital distinction that separated her from her mother and sister. Ivy didn’t need Dax, she wanted him.

Tilting her chin, she rested her cheek on his, rubbing back and forth as she whispered. ‘You want my mouth all over you, physically and mentally. I challenge you and that’s what turns you on, tough guy.’

‘You’re no challenge,’ he said.

Whipping around, he carted her to the bed, but instead of taking them down onto it as they were, he sat and wrangled her around to lie over his knee. Slinging her dress up out of the way, he took hold of the mono-line of her G-string and with a single pull, he snapped the feeble thread. His large palm covered one cheek, he squeezed her then skimmed it across to the other cheek. If all he was going to do was caress her then there was no need to remove her underwear, but their horns were locked in a battle for superiority and tearing off her panties had been his opening act of dominance.

Straightening her body, Ivy was about to roll away but he brought his thick thigh around and locked her legs between his, so her ass was presented and she could do nothing to release herself.

‘It’s nice owning something as sweet as this,’ he said, pinching her cheek where it met her inner thigh.

‘You married me for my ass?’ she asked. ‘What if I get fat and lazy some day?’

‘Not gonna happen,’ he said, loosening his clamp on her legs enough to grant himself access to her sensitised centre. ‘I’m gonna be part of your work out every day.’

‘We’re married now,’ she said, struggling to prop her head up on her hand because her body hung limp over his leg, ‘I’m allowed to say that I have a headache.’

‘Say it all you want, it’s not going to stop me from doing this.’

She was going to ask what bending her over his knee was supposed to achieve in combatting a headache when his fingertip glided into her. It only went as far as the first knuckle but it was enough to remind her of his occupying force.

‘I said no, Dax, what does that mean to you?’

‘That I’m not trying hard enough.’

Her sarcasm was lost on him, or his distraction was too great for him to appreciate it because when he spoke in that dull murmur a jet of arousal cascaded through her with the force of haphazard shrapnel impaling her body. As much as she hated him for having such an intense power over her, she loved him for it too.

His casual words were enough to send her off-balance enough to forget that they were fighting, to forget everything, and to make her surrender her to him without choice, which was exactly what she didn’t want.

Dax lifted her and shifted their positions, laying her on the very edge of the bed, he pushed her knees up to part her legs wide. When he knelt on the floor between her thighs, Ivy knew it was his plan to eat her before he fucked her. He licked his fingers and ran them through her pussy, up and down a few times then he slapped her vulva and lowered his head. If she let his mouth close over her there was no way that she would ever be able to walk away.

Seeing an opportunity, Ivy pushed her heels into the bed and levered herself backwards, away from him. Crawling the width of the bed, she sought out her shoes and managed to reach their strewn position and pull them on before she chanced looking at him.

‘I have to do this, Dax,’ she said, watching him maintain his position, kneeling where she’d left him.

Still on his knees, he dropped his elbows to the mattress, examining her with his clear expression. ‘Did you come with me just to get away from them?’

‘What?’ she said, pierced by hurt at his implication. ‘No.’

‘If you did then you need to tell me now. An annulment is still possible if we both deny…’

‘Dax,’ she said, moving to the door. ‘I promise you that by the end of tonight you’re going to know what true love is, because by the end of tonight you’re going to trust me.’

‘If you walk out of here then I’ll never see you again.’

Her hand fell to the door handle and a horrifying thought struck her. ‘You would leave me just because I go for a walk?’

‘If you walk out of here, I don’t believe that you’ll come back.’

Warmed and reassured, despite his clear belief in her betrayal, Ivy smiled. ‘I’m going to teach you to trust me, and you’re going to see that love doesn’t come with stipulations, not like those Mauri put on you. You think that you owe him something because he took care of you and yes, that was nice of him. But he wasn’t selfless, he did it for a reason, he did it because he wanted to make you into this man, a man who would do anything for him, no matter how distasteful.’

‘I wouldn’t do anything for him,’ Dax said. ‘There are conditions on my regard for him too.’

‘Such as?’

‘I wouldn’t let him keep the woman I wanted… I wouldn’t let him hurt you.’

‘But he is hurting me,’ she said. ‘Watching him push you, a wounded animal, into these corners and torturing you into doing his bidding, that hurts me. And I won’t stand by and let him tie you into ever tighter knots. I love you and I wouldn’t ask you to do anything which could cause you pain.’

‘Like walking away from the only family I’ve ever known?’ he asked.

‘If you tell me that it’s a deal breaker then I’ll come with you. But they’re going to tear us apart, Dax, and they’ll love watching every minute of it.’

‘I won’t let them do that.’

‘Yeah, you will,’ she said. ‘Today proved it to me. You couldn’t just tell Mauri how you felt and then propose to me like any other guy would. You couldn’t even trust yourself to bust up the wedding to stop Trystan from having me. You brought me here to marry me because that piece of paper that we both signed is the barrier to Trystan marrying me; it is the force that won’t allow Mauri to talk you out of your feelings. No one could talk me out of loving you, I didn’t need a piece of paper to back me up.’

‘So why did you sign it?’ he sneered. ‘If I’m such a weak, pathetic mess—‘

‘Because I love you, Dax, and I couldn’t walk away from you. I’ll always do whatever makes life easier for you, no matter the personal cost. Putting someone ahead of yourself, ahead of your own wants and needs, that’s love. If this was about me having a simple dislike of Mauri then I wouldn’t hesitate in coming back with you. I don’t want to go back there because of what they’ll do to you, not what they’ll do to me.’

‘No one will hurt you.’

‘We’ll see, Dax… There are all kinds of hurt.’

She opened the door and he sprang up to his feet. ‘Ivy,’ he whispered, he so rarely used her name.