His wife’s cans could get a guy hard from twenty feet away, he’d caught glimpses of it happening. Only he was allowed this close to her, and possessing her was more of a turn on than the actual taste of her. This was his, she was his, and he wouldn’t let any guy threaten that again.

‘Dax,’ she whispered, tightening her legs, she tried to wriggle.

With his hands under her thighs, he backed off enough to let her body slide down the glass, which strained the flimsy curtain at her back.

‘You want something, Minx?’

‘Only you.’

This time, she kissed him, and the plunge of her tongue on his gave him the impetus to ease his hips away. With a guiding hand, he surged forward and pushed his dick into her. Her kiss froze to release a breathy squeak, which made him smile.

Taking over the kiss, he fucked his way into her. Grabbing her hips, he tilted them to slam himself in deeper, working her clit at the same time. She was holding onto him for her life now, her circled arms around his neck got tighter, crushing her breasts into him.

When he withdrew, she eased back but they never let the head of his cock leave her opening, then she pitched forward matching his fervour with her own.

The closer she came to orgasm, the faster her breathing became. Her head thumped back against the window, the kiss forgotten, her lips only moved to utter words of her impending bliss. Driving on, he sped up and locked her pelvis on the glass.

Pounding into the slippery passageway she offered to only him, he drove in, smacking the head of his dick deep. That sweet meeting spot where their bodies dovetailed together gave him his life’s purpose, he had never wanted a woman with the same need she cloaked him in. Every time he slid into her was a gift, and he wasn’t going to give it up.

Gasping his name, she cursed and began to quake around him, squeezing his dick so tight that he couldn’t move. To prevent himself from calling out, he locked his jaw while she milked the burst of his seed for every last drop, wringing him dry.

This was an interlude, and he planned to continue fucking her for the rest of the day and into the night until she’d forgotten all about what happened the last time they occupied this apartment.

‘Stranger,’ she said, still panting. With her open palms, she lifted his head from where it rested on hers so that she could look him in the eye.

‘What?’ he asked.

She smoothed his hair away from his forehead. ‘I won’t let them have you. I won’t let them take you away from this, I promise.’

Here he was worried about her feeling like she was losing control of their relationship; while all the time she was formulating ways to hold onto him.

‘I’m going nowhere, babygirl.’

Sliding out of her body, he carried her to the couch and laid her down, then he stood up to examine her flushed skin. Her neck was reddened where his stubble had abraded her and the rest of her form was still in the midst of a fever from their union.

His eye caught on the diamond she wore on her hand, which rested on her abdomen. Kneeling beside her, he picked up her hand and kissed the stone. He’d never considered marriage before Ivy. The women in his past were never around long enough for him to develop any kind of feelings. His dedication was to the Starks back then and that had been enough for him.

‘You’re not with me,’ she said, sitting up to run her fingers into his hair again. ‘You get that glare on your face, and I know that you’re thinking about Mauri. Are you worried about losing him?’

‘I worry about what he’ll take with him,’ Dax said, sticking an arm under her legs, he lifted them to sit on the couch underneath her stems. Dropping onto his side, he laid his spine along the back of the couch and kept Ivy angled against him. ‘And about what will happen to the organisation when he’s not around.’

‘You still care about that? About the Stark name?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘It’s instinct I guess.’

‘So what will happen? Brad is going to take over, right?’

‘That should be what happens, least that’s what Brad’s always thought,’ he said, fondling her breast.

‘But you don’t think that it will?’

Dax shrugged and slid lower to suck her nipple into a tight pebble. ‘Bruno won’t just roll over, Brad won’t give him the same respect that Mauri does.’

‘What about Trystan?’

‘He’s already pissed,’ Dax said. ‘After we left, he apparently went off on a crazy bender. Mauri’s had him locked up in the mansion.’

‘Do you think they’ve…? Is there another woman for him? Has someone been abducted to take my place?’

‘Maybe,’ Dax said, having not considered that. ‘It’s a possibility, but…’

‘But?’

‘It didn’t work with you and maybe Mauri re-thought their approach. I don’t know. I’ll find out when I go over there.’

‘Which will be when?’ she asked. In time with her question, his cell phone rang.

The post-coital intimacy was shattered and her expression cooled. ‘It could be nothing,’ he said.

Extricating himself from their snug position, he climbed off the couch to snag his jeans, which he’d kicked off in the middle of the room. Removing his phone from his pocket, he recognised the number that came up.

‘Hello?’

‘Come over to the house,’ Brad said down the phone line. ‘Mauri wants you to join him for dinner.’

‘I’m having dinner with my wife, thanks.’

‘Bring her,’ Brad said. ‘Mauri’s invited you both.’

‘No, I’m not bringing her over there. Sitting around the table as a happy family is a crock of shit. If Mauri wants to see me then I’ll come over, just me, for a sit down with him. I think we have a lot to talk about and we don’t need you bastards listening in.’

‘Ok,’ Brad said.

He hadn’t gone away to check anything with Mauri, and the old man wasn’t dead yet, so he wouldn’t like Brad speaking for him. That meant that either Dax was on speakerphone and Mauri was right there, or that Mauri knew Dax would tell him where to stick his dinner invitation. Dax would put his money on the latter, Mauri wasn’t the type to skulk.

‘I’ll be over in less than an hour.’

‘You’re eager,’ Brad said. ‘For a guy who didn’t want to come at all.’

‘Eager to get it over with,’ Dax said. ‘Tell Mauri to be ready.’

Hanging up, he put his phone on the dining table, which stood between the entry way and the open plan kitchen, then he turned around to see Ivy was now sitting up on the couch.

‘You’re going over there?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. Mauri wants to talk.’

‘I have to shower,’ she said, rising from the couch to head for the bedroom.

‘You’re not coming,’ he said, getting between her and the living room door.

‘Why did I come all of this way then? I’m not going to sit here twiddling my thumbs. I remember all too well what happened the last time you left me here and went over to that house.’

She expected this to play out as it had before. He had been a dick to her then. He had left this apartment secure in their relationship, in a playful mood after leaving her aroused and unsated. But by the time he’d gotten back, to find her asleep in his bed, he’d been convinced that she had played him just to ensure her freedom.

‘Babygirl, things are different now. They’re not going to convince me that you don’t love me now, are they?’

‘I’m not afraid of them,’ she said, her defiant eyes narrowing on his. ‘If they want a fight—‘

‘You go in there looking for a fight and you’ll create one. You need to be cool.’

‘Act natural?’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘After all they’ve done? I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘If they hadn’t caught you in Vegas, this wouldn’t have happened. We wouldn’t have happened,’ he said, dropping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her in close to kiss her.

‘I know,’ she exhaled onto him when he lifted his lips. ‘But that doesn’t mean that they should just get away with their bullshit, does it?’