Husband For Hire

by Caitlin Daire

  I didn’t know exactly what to do now, but I still knew one thing for sure—no one was ever gonna touch Indi.

  They had to get through me first.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Indi

  I sat back on the couch in Amy and Dean’s room, sighing with relief. Blake was right to bring me here. It was stupid of me to think I would feel safe alone in our room, even if I locked myself in the closet. I would’ve been terrified the entire time, jumping at every little creak.

  I still had the iPad in my hand, but Amy didn’t seem to notice or care. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, gazing anxiously at the door.

  “Right back at you,” I replied. “Stuff is so messed up right now. But don’t worry—Dean will be back soon.”

  She nodded. “I know. Hey, would you mind if I took a shower? I’ve been wanting one for ages, but with Dean gone from the room, I haven’t exactly felt safe. I keep thinking I’ll get in the shower only to re-enact a scene from Psycho when someone inevitably breaks in without me noticing.”

  I gave her a wry smile. I understood exactly how she felt. The trauma of the last few days was getting to everyone. Seeing what happened to Yuri made me feel disjointed, ripped from safety and sanity. Sure, I was still alive. Unhurt. But my trust in the universe was gone, and I was constantly scared and tiptoeing around.

  Terror wasn’t always loud. Sometimes it was quiet. Sneaky. Every night I had a nagging fear that my sleep would be anything but restful, and I kept hearing a little whisper in my head that said ‘you will never feel safe again’.

  “Sure. I’ll be right here on the couch,” I said.

  Amy gave me a grateful look, then headed into the bathroom. “I’ll keep the door ajar so I can hear you, just in case,” she called out.

  I unlocked the iPad and spent a few minutes doing some Google and Facebook searches on the crew members whose full names I could remember. Nothing came up that would make me suspect they had secret criminal tendencies, but hell… I wasn’t a cop. I had no idea what to look for.

  I had to face facts—it was dumb of Blake and me to think we could play detective. Whoever the killer was, he or she was going to be caught by the island police when they were able and ready. Not by a couple of reality show contestants who thought a secret iPad made them Sherlock and Watson.

  Sighing, I put the tablet down. Then I wrinkled my forehead as something occurred to me. In all the weeks since I got in contact with Blake back in Seattle, I hadn’t looked him up online. Not once. After our first initial meetup that I organized via Facebook, we chatted over the phone or in person when we ran through our plans to get on the show. Because I was seeing him in person so much (or simply interacting with him via text message) I never felt the need to Google-stalk him.

  I usually loved Google-stalking people. I was losing my touch.

  Maybe doing something this indulgent and silly would make a good distraction from all the shit that was going on on this island right now. I picked up the iPad again, curious as to what I might find as I tapped out the words ‘Blake Marsden Washington’.

  My eyes skated across the results of the first page, and then they widened as I dropped the iPad.

  “Oh my god!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Indi

  A knock at the door suddenly startled me off the sofa. Amy was still in the shower, so I crept over and peeked through the door’s little peephole. Sighing with relief, I saw that it was just Blake and Dean.

  I went back to the couch, picked up the iPad and hid it under my sweater. Then I swung the door open.

  “Look who I found in the hall on my way here,” Blake said with a grin, patting Dean on the back.

  I wanted so badly to bring up what I just found, but that wasn’t a conversation which could be had with anyone else around. “Cool,” I said with a forced grin instead.

  “Is Amy okay?” Dean asked me.

  I nodded. “She’s just in the shower.” I wrinkled my nose as I looked at the front of his pale blue shirt. There were a few small splattered dark red spots on the fabric. “Did you cut yourself shaving, Dean? It looks like there’s a bit of blood on your shirt.”

  He looked down, flustered. “Oh, no, I just had something to eat while I was talking to the crew a few minutes ago. Must’ve spilled some sauce on myself.”

  “Right. Well, we better go,” I said, giving Blake the eye. There was more than one thing I wanted to discuss with him—I wanted to find out what happened with Keenan as well.

  “Thanks for hanging out with Amy while I was gone,” Dean said. “See you at dinner tonight? The crew promised they wouldn’t try to film us again today.”

  Blake and I both nodded and said our goodbyes, and then we headed down the hall toward our room. “So the Keenan thing was a bust,” Blake said. “Guy couldn’t be more innocent if he tried.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okay,” I said stiffly.

  He frowned as he fumbled in his pocket for our room key. “Is everything all right? I mean, aside from all the obvious shit.”

  “I think we need to talk,” I replied, averting my eyes from his.

  He nodded. “I agree. I wanted to talk to you a few days ago, actually, but then… well, you know what happened with Yuri. Guess we kinda got distracted.”

  We entered our room, and I dropped the iPad on the bed. Blake looked at it, then back up at me. “Find anything on that while I was gone?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I did a few searches on the crew. And then I decided to do a search for you, Blake.”

  He didn’t look ruffled at all. He simply nodded. “I see.”

  “So you own Marsden Shipping, huh? You’re one of those Marsdens?”

  Blake nodded. “I am.”

  He was being so annoyingly secretive, making me draw the answers out of him slowly and painfully. It was about as easy as getting teeth from a chicken.

  “So you’re in charge of a company with thousands of employees and billions of dollars in turnover per year. And somehow I never knew that, and you never felt the need to tell me.”

  He didn’t even blink. “Yes. I suppose that’s right.”

  “How could I not know?” I practically screeched. I wasn’t angry at him. I was mad at myself for being so clueless. Everyone in Seattle knew about Marsden Shipping. It just never occurred to me to think about who might own it. I guess I always just assumed every big company in the States was owned by some wrinkled old man with a last name like Rothschild or Vanderbilt.

  “Not many people do. How many super-rich people can you actually name, Indi? You can probably name some like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Donald Trump… but how many others? There are thousands, but most stay under the radar as much as they can, for obvious reasons.”

  “I see your point,” I said with a sigh. Then I frowned even deeper. “But I still don’t get it!” I went on. “You made yourself out to be so broke. Like when we met up to discuss the show—just the way you were dressed, and that dodgy restaurant made you look… well, not exactly rich. Not to mention how you said you could really use the money if we won the show and split the profits. Why say that at all if you didn’t really need the prize money?”

  Blake smiled. “Sometimes not everything that is said means exactly what you think it means. And as for my clothes... well, I just finished a workout before I met up with you. Hadn’t changed yet. And that barbeque ribs joint? Best damn food in the city. I don’t care where it is.”

  I hesitated. Okay, sure, I’d been super-judgmental about those things. That was very wrong of me. But he’d still led me to believe he had barely any money, right? Even just by omission of basic facts about himself. Or being incredibly vague about stuff. After all, every time he mentioned work, he said he ‘worked at the port’.

  But no, he practically owned the freaking port!

  “What about when we arrived here, and we were arguing over who was going to sleep on the floor?” I sa
id. “You literally said, ‘I’m used to sleeping rough’. How else am I supposed to interpret that?”

  Blake began to chuckle. “Oh, Christ,” he said, shaking his head in mirth. “Indi, Indi, Indi… you thought I meant I was homeless at some point?”

  I narrowed my eyes and folded my arms. I felt like such an idiot, and his mocking laughter wasn’t helping. “I’ve heard that term used to describe being homeless, yes.”

  “We live in the Pacific Northwest, Indi. Great camping spots everywhere. And I love camping. On the rare few occasions I have some time off from the company, that’s what I do. I camp. That’s all I meant by being used to sleeping rough. As in, I’m used to sleeping in a tent on the ground.”

  My face was on fire. I’d made so many assumptions about Blake. Stupid, judgmental assumptions. All because he hadn’t grown up in a particularly wealthy family back in Lakewater, and I stupidly assumed nothing had changed.

  I was literally the biggest idiot on the face of the planet.

  “Oh,” I finally said, looking at my feet.

  “Look, this isn’t your fault. I wasn’t exactly honest with you about a lot of things. I was intentionally very vague. That’s on me,” Blake said. “I don’t like to admit the truth upfront about what I do and how much I’m worth. Self-preservation kinda thing.”

  I jerked my head back up. “Okay, I get that, but I still don’t understand the rest. You’re the head of all this stuff, and you just… you just take off for several weeks to go on a reality show with me? It doesn’t make any sense! Don’t you have like… a board of directors to answer to?”

  I was so confused I could barely speak properly, fumbling over my words as if I were drunk off an entire barrel of wine.

  Blake smiled. “Sure. They all think I’m on an exclusive corporate retreat in Brazil. A much-needed one, too. I work all the time, and I was getting burned out. I needed a break, and well… what’s the point of having all this stuff if you can’t even enjoy some time off occasionally?”

  I scoffed. “You really think they won’t find out that you’re on a nationally-syndicated reality show where a freaking murder just occurred?”

  He shrugged. “Eh…even if they do, it doesn’t matter. I still own the place. I’ll just be a little less below the radar from now on, that’s all, and they’ll have to roll with it. Not a big deal.”

  “That’s the thing. It is a big deal. How can you drop such important stuff to do something like this?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “In the end, it’s a job, Indi. There are more important things in life.”

  I looked down at the floor for a moment. I still had a lot of questions, but one was particularly pressing at the moment.

  “Why, Blake?” I said softly. “If you already have all this money, why did you agree to come here with me? You don’t need the prize money. You had no reason to come here. No motive. So why?”

  He arched an eyebrow and took a step toward me. “I did have a motive. Have I not made it incredibly fucking obvious?” he asked. His voice was lower now, even sexier.

  I gulped. “Um. Not really.”

  “Then allow me to rectify that. This is why.” He took another slow step toward me. “As soon as you breezed back into my life, the most beautiful girl I never had, I couldn’t say no. Your plan was crazy. I even thought you were a little bit crazy. But I couldn’t say no. Because why the hell would I say no? Why would I pass up the chance to spend weeks and weeks alone with you? You were the girl of my dreams back in our hometown, and fuck… it turns out you still are.”

  My eyes widened, and he took another two steps toward me. He was so close now.

  “As soon as you came back into my life, I fell a little,” he went on. “And every time I saw you or spoke to you, I fell a little more. I came here for you, Indi. For you. No, I don’t need the money. But I need you.”

  “I—”

  Before I could reply, he pressed a finger to my lips, silencing me. “Let me finish. Seeing as I’m apparently so good at accidentally misleading you, I want to clarify. When I say I started to fall for you, I meant it in the romantic sense. I’ve been falling for you since the second I saw you outside that dodgy rib joint seven weeks ago. I should’ve told you sooner, and I fucking regret that I didn’t. I’m an idiot. But there it is. That’s why I came here, Indi.”

  I was stunned into silence for a moment. Everything he just said… that was how he felt? This whole time, I’d been falling for him and trying to push it aside because I thought he couldn’t possibly feel the same way, but he did.

  I could barely believe it.

  Finally I was able to speak, just as Blake opened his mouth to say something else. “Shut up, Blake,” I said, pressing a finger to his mouth.

  He frowned, obviously not expecting that to be my first response. “Er… what?” he mumbled around my finger.

  “Shut up and kiss me!”

  He grinned. My breath actually caught as he leaned down, and I closed my eyes as a dizzying feeling washed over me. Blake’s lips crushed mine, and I moaned into the kiss, letting him claim my mouth as his tongue slipped inside. One hand gripped me tightly as it wrapped around my back, and the other moved down, sliding to the front of my thighs. His fingertips teased the waistband of my pants in a filthy promise before pushing them down.

  I gasped as his thumb hooked into my panties, fingers rubbing up and down my slit. His lips were on my neck now, kissing, nibbling, sucking. I whimpered, and he slid a finger inside me, feeling how wet I was for him after just one passionate kiss. The pad of his thumb brushed over my clit, and my body arched toward him even more. I could feel his thick manhood pulsing at my hips; his need straining against me.

  I felt like I was falling. My mind was melting. Blake’s fingers were dancing over my clit, making me cry out and shudder, and then I really was falling, right back onto the bed as Blake guided my body.

  I sighed as I settled back onto the sheets, watching as Blake stripped off his shirt and pants. His right hand dropped between his legs as his left one pulled his boxer shorts down, and my eyes widened as he wrapped his fingers around his cock, stroking it as he climbed onto the bed and hovered over me.

  I was so wet that I was sure I was leaving a puddle on the sheets below me, and Blake grinned, obviously seeing the fiery desire in my eyes. He moved one hand between my legs, teasing my clit slowly again. Then he spread my legs wider and moved down the bed, closer and closer to the apex of my thighs. His warm breath teased my thighs, making me shudder, and I whimpered as his tongue slid between my folds, tasting me as it slid up and down.

  I gasped and weaved my fingers through his thick hair, watching as his tongue snaked up to my clit and set my core on fire. Then I was panting and moaning, bucking my hips against his face. I was so close to the edge. So fucking close already.

  Blake pulled away, seemingly knowing that my climax was approaching. “I need to be inside you,” he growled, moving back up and settling his weight on me again. His hands roamed my body as his lips found mine again, grabbing my hips, my thighs, my ass. Then his fingertips tore at my top, which still hadn’t come off yet. He tossed it aside and palmed my breasts, groaning at the sight of them as my nipples stiffened into peaks.

  Somehow he was able to tear himself away for a few seconds to get a condom, and his eyes didn’t leave me as he tore the wrapper off and sheathed himself. I swallowed hard. He was so thick. I couldn’t wait to feel him inside me.

  He came back onto the bed, roughly moving my legs apart again. He ran the head of his cock up and down my slit, making me bite my lip to stop myself from crying out in desperation. “How bad do you want this, Indi?” he asked.

  “Enough for you to know you were right all along,” I gasped out. My hands slid over his hips, pulling him against me. “I always wanted you. Even back then.”

  He knew what I meant by ‘back then’. He groaned and moved even closer, the tip of his cock easing right up to my slick entrance.

  “P
lease,” I whimpered.

  Blake reached under me and grabbed my ass, kissing me hard as he did so. Then he thrust forward and slid deep inside me, burying himself to the hilt. A low moan rumbled in my throat as he pulled back before driving deep inside again, and we began to move in a steady rhythm together, as if we’d already done this with each other a thousand times in the past.

  It was just right. So, so right. There was no ‘first time with a new partner’ awkwardness. None of that fumbling and trying to figure out what the other wanted and needed.

  We both simply knew.

  My fingertips slid around and over his back, clawing and digging my nails into his skin, and I wrapped my legs around his hips as we rocked together, back and forth, again and again. He slipped his right hand between us, rolling the pad of one finger over my clit in slow movements as he slammed in all the way. I gasped and clung to him.

  I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut as a means of coping with all the pleasure, the massive and wonderful assault on my senses. But I couldn’t. I had to watch. Had to stare, because I was having sex with Blake Marsden.

  Either I’d lost my mind, or he was right for me all along. I had a feeling it was the latter.

  I wished I did this years ago. Wished I let him seduce me back in Lakewater before I left for college. This experience was the first sex I should’ve had. Raw, primal, the two of us completely stripped back. But maybe it was better this way, better that we waited so long. Maybe we weren’t right for each other back then—I was still too young, too innocent, and Blake was still in his player phase.

  So maybe we had to wait till now. Had to wait till the moment was perfect and we could finally give in to what we both secretly wanted all along.

  I cried out as Blake thrust into me, his muscles rippling as his powerful body moved against me. I urged him on, my nails still digging into him, raking down his back as my moans and screams filled the room. His lips found mine again, drowning me in another rough kiss.