‘I will come back to you, Dax. You’re going to know love and trust because I’m going to keep giving you both until you recognise them. I will come back.’

This discussion could go on all night, but she knew actions would teach Dax what he needed to know about her and so she walked out of the door before he could say anything else. Striding down the corridor she half expected to hear him following her, but he didn’t. She got down the stairs and out onto the Strip, then she took a long breath of the sticky air.

Until she was out there she hadn’t had a destination in mind. This was her old town and there were old haunts that she could visit. In the meantime, she had one person she very desperately wanted to see. Knowing that there may never be another opportunity, Ivy turned away from the hotel containing her husband and marched on with determination in her gait.

Chapter Nineteen

Her expedition took her longer than she had anticipated, partly because she had no money and therefore couldn’t use a cab, and also because it took her longer to locate the person that she was looking for than she had hoped.

After all of her reassurances to Dax that she would come back to him, she didn’t want to be gone for too long. Playing games with his insecurities would be cruel, Ivy would never consider being so malicious to the man she loved. Proving to him that she was true to her word and coming back to him of her own volition, without coercion, was going to go a long way towards showing him that he was secure with her.

When she got back to the hotel she couldn’t get into the room because she had no key. Knocking didn’t rouse Dax, but she knew how deep a sleeper he was, so she wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t awoken by her rapping. Giving the receptionist a song and dance story, Ivy was granted access by another key card and eventually got into the room. Anticipating that she would be able to wake Dax up with an intimate act, she stripped down and crawled into what turned out to be an empty bed.

Clambering out of bed and turning on all of the lights, she explored every corner of their room and found that Dax had indeed left her here. The sports bag was gone from the closet, but there were clothes on the bathroom floor so she guessed that he hadn’t checked out; the receptionist certainly hadn’t implied that he had. That left Ivy with the possibility that Dax had simply split, leaving her to pay the room tab with her non-existent cash.

Now that the shoe was on the other foot, she didn’t like being the insecure party, unaware of her love’s location or if he was coming back; she had new clarity as to Dax’s objections. Not sure if he would come back, Ivy considered the idea of going out to look for him, but quickly dismissed it. Vegas wasn’t a place where you could easily find anyone, often locating an exit or an elevator to get to your room was hard enough let alone trying to locate someone in a melee of noise and constantly moving bodies.

Taking the tee-shirt from the bathroom floor, she pulled it on, surrounding herself in his scent, then she crawled onto the bed. All she could do was wait and hope, because she had no way to get in touch with him. On leaving this place she had asked him to trust her that she would come back, and now she had to do the same.

Grateful to hear the click of the lock less than an hour after she lay down Ivy flew out of the bed and raced to the door. The slice of light from the corridor that accompanied his entrance illuminated his battered features. Her shocked gasp startled him around and before the door had clunked back into its frame, her body was plastered to his.

‘What happened?’ she asked, cradling one side of his face while soothing her fingers over a bruise above his cheek bone and sliding her fingertips down to his bloodied lip.

‘You’re here?’ he said, ignoring the concern in her voice. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I told you I’d come back,’ she said, slipping the strap of his bag off his arm and letting it fall to the floor. ‘Come here.’

Holding his hands on her hips, she walked forward, guiding him to follow until she seated him on the bed. Leaving him there, she dashed over to turn on a lamp then retrieved ice and a napkin from the minibar. Climbing onto the bed at his side, she rested her knees on his thigh and wrapped the ice inside the cloth then rubbed it with her hand before pressing it to his cheek.

‘Tell me what happened,’ she said, aching at the sight of her man bruised and in pain.

‘You came back.’

Lowering the ice pack from his face she was amazed at the incredulity he exuded. It seemed that he was oblivious to the bruises, he was transfixed on her as though she were an apparition that he was imagining.

‘You don’t have concussion,’ she said, threading her fingers through his hair. ‘You’re not hallucinating, I really am here, Dax. I came back, just like I told you I would. I don’t want to be free from you. I’m always going to find my way back to you.’

Swiping her nursing hand aside, he seized the back of her head and clamped their mouths together. The metallic taste of his kiss reminded her of his injuries, but none of them bothered him. He wrapped his arms around her and tried to rotate their joined forms. If he got her onto her back then she would have to let him follow through. As much as Ivy wanted him to take things all the way, she had to find out where he’d been. Communication was so important in building trust, she wanted them to be open with each other; he had to learn to trust her. Tonight had been a leap of progress in proving to him that she could be trusted physically. Now she had to build on that.

‘Tell me where you were, tough guy,’ she said, climbing into his lap to prevent him from getting her onto her back.

‘I went out looking for a fight,’ he said, brushing his blood away from her lip.

‘If any other man said that to me I’d think he was crazy,’ she said. ‘But you mean a fight, a real fight.’ He nodded. ‘You didn’t kill anyone, did you?’

‘It’s against the rules,’ he said.

She knew that and so did he, but guessing how tumultuous his thunderous mood would have been, she could have forgiven him for forgetting sense.

‘It’s how you vent your emotions,’ she said. ‘What state did you leave the other guy in?’

‘I was sloppy with the first guy and he went down too quick. The second took more time, I played with him a bit; it clears my mind. But the third, he was a big fucker, no style but enough substance to knock me to the deck a couple of times.’

‘Three,’ she said, leaning away from him, but he grasped her pelvis and pulled it against his. ‘You fought three different guys? How many guys will they let you—‘

‘One,’ he said. ‘You’re only allowed to fight once a night in the ring when you’re headlining.’

‘So how did you manage—‘

‘This is Vegas, babygirl, there’s always a fight going on somewhere, there are big bucks to be made by the bookies.’

‘People actually bet money on you getting hurt?’ she said with a shudder of nausea. ‘They’re actually hoping that you’ll be hurt and—‘

‘Few people who know anything about the sport bet against me,’ he said, scooping her hair back over her shoulders. ‘My name means guaranteed income.’

‘Which is why they’ll let you fight more than once?’

‘I went to three different joints.’

‘And they didn’t see your bruises?’

‘These came from the last guy,’ he said. ‘That’s why I came back. I figured I couldn’t talk my way into another fight.’

‘And if he hadn’t beaten the crap out of you, would you have kept fighting all night?’

‘Maybe,’ he shrugged. ‘I figured you’d be long gone. And he didn’t beat the crap out of me; I still won for you, babygirl.’

‘You didn’t win for me,’ she said, slamming both hands into his shoulders. ‘You go out there and get yourself hurt because you believe that you deserve it.’