Filthy Desires: A Romantic Suspense Collection

by Parker, Kylie

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  And I could have sworn that as she pushed beside me there were tears glistening in her eyes.

  14

  “And what I want… is you.”

  Those words echoed in my mind as I brushed passed him in the hallway. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart was fluttering and my stomach was churning and my soul felt like it had been set on fire and rolled down a canyon. I felt like life itself had just started. For the first time since the death of that little child, I felt free.

  For the first time since I had started living in basic squalor, I felt like I had an actual purpose.

  Clara was napping, and I needed some space. Mr. Blake and I had developed a good rhythm with one another: I made breakfast, he made lunch, and we would both make dinner. We sidestepped one another as if we had been doing it for years, and taking care of his daughter alongside him made me feel, I don’t know, a part of a family. It wasn’t that I was estranged from my family. They just… didn’t quite understand me. I’ve always been headstrong: independent; fiercely loyal. They couldn’t understand why I would choose a profession that put me as someone’s subordinate. My father saw me as an entrepreneur and my mother saw me as a… well… mother. She saw herself planning my ultimate wedding, and my father saw me winning the bread for that family to whom my mother would marry me off.

  They were always so critical: of my clothes; of my lack of makeup; of the way I talked. I didn’t care if I left the house without a bra. For god’s sake, I was just going to the grocery store to get some ice cream.

  Why does that require lipstick?

  So, when I skipped my own graduation to travel with a family to New York City to become a live-in nanny while doing my graduate studies in Psychology, needless to say, they weren’t very happy. I tried talking with them occasionally, but all they wanted to do was convince me to come back home. My dad would say he could take care of me until I found my own way, and my mom said she could take care of me until I found a man who would.

  Neither of them understood I was capable of taking care of myself.

  We just… stopped talking, I guess: no massive falling out; no bodacious argument; no tensions that wrapped the family too tight. Just two parents who didn’t understand their daughter and didn’t want to.

  I stopped calling, and they never made the effort to call me.

  When I got the call for the job, I saw it as a form of redemption, as a way to prove to myself that the death of that one child wasn’t my fault. Of course it wasn’t, I was just the nanny. I was the one waiting for them to get back from a vacation, so I could continue on with my job of taking care of their little one –

  – Their beautiful, vivacious little one.

  When I got the phone call that their child had died, a part of me died, too. I had raised that child for almost five solid years, and then the child was just… gone.

  To this day, I still can’t say that child’s name. I can’t– can’t even acknowledge its gender.

  It clutches a part of me that threatens to cut off my air supply.

  So, when I heard that same family gave me the referral that sent me here, I took it as their apology. Their apology for cutting me off and not allowing me to come to the funeral and bury a child I had just as much right to bury as they did.

  And it felt like my taking of the job was telling them I accepted.

  But now… with Mr. Blake looking at me the way he did and… and saying what he just said.

  It felt like we were becoming a family.

  And it was just too much.

  I shut my bedroom door behind me quickly and leaned up against its cool strength. My body hummed for him. The natural tune of my body reached out for the harmonization of the chords only his body could provide. It was as if my physical form was intentionally seeking him out. My skin puckered at the sound of his voice and my knees wobbled at the glance of his eyes. My stomach rolled at the sight of him holding his daughter and my lips crooked into a grin whenever we danced around each other in the kitchen.

  But my soul was doused in gasoline when his skin touched mine, and when I was finally able to taste his lips, it threw a match onto the pyre that set my entire body into a roaring flame.

  My body was completely ready to relinquish itself to him, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  I slid my ass to the floor before tears started rolling down my face. My body was trembling and my soul was shrieking for him. It was as if my body was physically upset with my mind for walking away from him.

  “Throw me at his mercy!” my skin shouted.

  “Let him have his way!” my hormones growled.

  “Sink your teeth into those arms,” my mouth craved.

  “You could lose everything…” my mind whispered.

  Just… the faintest whisper that yanked me back into reality. Into the life I’d lived up until this point. Into the loneliest facets of my being did that voice whisper and breathe.

  It tapped into the most fearful parts of me, and I knew I’d made the right decision.

  Right?

  I don’t know how long I sat there, but Clara began to whine and I scrambled to my feet. I brushed the backs of my hands along my dampened cheeks, and I felt a little bit of crust drying where tears I didn’t know I had cried had already dried. God, I must’ve sat there for ages just staring at the damn wall in the dark.

  But before I could get my door open, a low voice rumbled through the door.

  “Hello there, beautiful girl,” Mr. Blake murmured.

  I inched my door open silently and stuck my head out, taking in his body in the dimly lit room. He scooped Clara up from her crib and held her close to his body, and I couldn’t help but feel that I might have been intruding on a very private moment. He bounced her lightly and Clara let out a high-pitched giggle, and I watched as Mr. Blake brought her up to his lips and kissed her forehead lightly.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked her.

  I felt the familiar rolling of my stomach as I watched the scene unfold. This man – this brute of a human being, with the shoulders of granite rock and the muscles of chiseled sandstone; this man, who single-handedly ran one of the most profitable businesses in all of New York City; this man, who made women sink to their knees and made even the strongest of businessmen tremble, who stared fierce men in the face every single day and simply grinned his cockiest smile –

  – this man was smiling down at his daughter as her hand reached up and grabbed for his nose.

  “Did’ja get my nose?” he teased. “Did’ja get it?”

  I heaved a silent sigh before I leaned my frame against the doorframe. In that moment, watching him with his daughter, I saw his eyes light up. I saw true, unadulterated love etch itself across his face, and it brought tears to my eyes as he slowly swayed his body side to side. He was singing something lowly to her. Something I couldn’t quite place.

  But then, he started to talk.

  And as I listened to what he had to say, I knew I was doomed –

  – Doomed to be yet another woman that fell at the feet of Derek Blake.

  “I don’t know what’s happened to your mother, and I don’t know if she will come back for you. I don’t know if you like it here or if you miss her, and I don’t even know if you can understand me. What I do know, though, is this: you will never want for anything. If you’re cold, I’ll give you my jacket. If you’re hungry, I’ll give you my food. If you’re sick, I’ll cancel whatever I need to in order to take care of you, and I’ll sacrifice whatever I have to in order to make you happy. I sure as hell don’t know what comes next, and I have no idea what I need to do from here on out. But what I have is yours, and it will always be yours.

  And no matter what… you will always come first, Clara Blake.”

  “I don’t even know if that’s your name,” I heard him snicker. “But you’re my daughter, and I love you.”

  I sniffled as I watched him bring her forehead back up to
his lips, and I guess I must have sniffled again a bit too loudly. He turned around and his eyes flickered up to mine, and I couldn't help but allow the tears to cascade down my cheeks. I had just spied on one of the most intimate moments a new father will ever have with his child, and part of me felt guilty…

  … And dirty…

  … And like I had ruined the moment.

  But it had been such a beautiful moment, and it showed me a side of Derek I had never seen before that. It showed a compassionate side capable of empathizing with the plight of another human being.

  It didn’t matter if that human being was only a few months old.

  It was then I realized he was walking towards me: slowly; surely; with his daughter cradled protectively against the body into which I wanted to sink mine. His eyes locked with mine and the tears continued to pour, and for once I didn’t care if anyone saw me weak.

  Saw me vulnerable.

  I didn’t care of the most powerful man in New York City watched me crumble at his feet.

  He stopped and smiled lightly down at me before he handed me his beautiful little girl, and for the first time since I had lost that precious little child soon after first coming to this city, I felt invited…

  … Included …

  … Like I belonged somewhere.

  “I don’t know where to go from here,” Derek said lowly.

  To be honest, I didn’t either. There were still so many things to do: we had to find her a pediatrician and try to figure out if she needed shots. We needed to start researching schools in the area, or maybe trying to track down what happened to her mother. We needed to figure out how to socialize her around the city without compromising her safety, and surely Derek would start running a new work schedule now that he had a child at home.

  A child he had wholly and completely bonded with during these last three weeks.

  But when I cradled Clara’s giggling body into my bosom and slowly craned my neck to look up at him, I smiled kindly as I drank in his body. I took in his dominant eyes and his protective stance. I took in the sinewy muscle that draped his shoulders and the veins that ricocheted down his neck.

  I gulped down the man I would no longer be able to resist, no matter how that compromised my job.

  “We’ll figure it out,” I said lightly.

  And for the second time that day, I watched his eyes light up with joy.

  15

  I fastened the buttons on my shirt before I grabbed my suit jacket. It was 5 AM and, for once, both Clara and Madeline were sleeping. I was due back at work, the household needed to settle into a routine, and I needed to get out of this penthouse. It smelled of her musk and screamed of her presence, and my head was swimming with filthy thoughts of all the places I wanted to put my tongue.

  I didn’t bother waking them up, but I did scribble a note and leave it for her on the door. I thought of a few items that needed to get done, like finding Clara a doctor and possibly looking into some genetic testing. For all I knew, she could be going blind and I’d have no idea. None of those types of medical records came with the frivolous basket she was dumped in before someone ran off without her, and thinking about it again made me clench my fists as I stood at the doors of the elevator.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Blake,” Franz smiled when the doors parted.

  “Franz,” I nodded.

  “How’s fatherhood comin’ along?” he asked before he hit the button for the main floor of the building.

  “It was rough at first,” I said with a sly grin on my face.

  “They grow on ya, that’s for sure,” he chuckled. “How’s the nanny workin’ out?”

  “Oh, she’s wonderful; been a real life saver.”

  “Uh huh.”

  I slowly turned my head to face him while the elevator slowed to a stop.

  “What does ‘uh huh’ mean?” I asked.

  “Nothin’.”

  “That didn’t sound like ‘nothin’’.”

  “Y’jus’ look happy, Mr. Blake; and we all deserve a bit of happiness.”

  He was right… yet again. I was happy. For the first time since I left home, I felt like I had a place: a purpose. My family and I, we didn’t get along well. I don’t call, and they don’t come knocking. See, I didn’t go and get a college degree like my lawyer father, and I didn’t settle down with any of the “nice and quiet” women my mother thought I should choose. The arranged random dinner dates on nights I wanted to go out with my friends, left many women sitting silently at a table with my parents while I snuck out the back to go joy cruising with my buddies. I got my kicks underneath the bleachers like every other boy and kept on going: straight C student with no prospects of going anywhere.

  It’s actually the reason why I started my company.

  I wanted to do the laziest thing possible. I didn’t want to study for years like my dad or take on some woman, like my mom, that just wanted me to shell out all my money for a designer house. I had no issues calling her exactly what she was – a gold digger – and I had no issues telling my father he had no backbone. I watched my mom bleed him dry over the years while he worked himself to death, and he took his anger out on me by saying I’d amount to nothing if I didn’t go to college the same way he did.

  Now here I stand with $6 billion in assets that says otherwise.

  The easiest way to describe my business is a one-stop shop for investment. People come here when they are desperate for loans, want to grow their retirement accounts, or simply try the waters for their first time in investing. In the beginning, I wanted to make as much money as I could while doing a miniscule amount of work. Some teacher at my high school went on a tirade one day about retiring early, and I thought it was odd.

  I mean, the man was only forty years old.

  So, I got curious one day. Ditched another date my parents had set up for me in order to track him down at his favorite diner and ask him how he was going do it. I wanted to know how he was a teacher and going to retire at forty.

  So he told me about investing.

  He told me about compound interest and showed me how far twenty dollars could go in something called the stock market. Every day after school I showed up in his classroom with more questions and hypothetical scenarios in order to help me navigate what the hell I was supposed to be doing. He taught me the basic mathematics and talked to me about the S&P 500 Index, and he continued to drill into my head that compound interest was “where it was at.”

  So, I got a job at the local grocery store my last year of high school and put everything I made into the stock market.

  I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just opening up random accounts with compound interest rates that were through the roof and I was just doing my thing. I lost a lot of money and I made a lot of money, and I kept a journal of notes and lessons I learned as I watched my money skyrocket and swirl down the drain. I looked at the market every chance I got: I bargained with students to get their computer time and turned on the news and watched the scroll at the bottom of the screen. Hell, I would even sit with that damn teacher who was teaching me stuff and he would talk me through all the damn numbers in the first place!

  But the money I was getting from the grocery store wasn’t enough, and soon I found ways to make more. I started doing yard work and helping out at my dad’s firm. He kept pressing law school and I kept shrugging him off, and eventually I had three different side businesses going.

  And all of my cash flow went into the stock market.

  I made my first million by the time I was 22, and my parents finally thought I should settle down. “You’ve made your money, now spoil a nice girl with it” my mom would say.

  Of course she would. She probably wished I’d spoil her with it.

  “Now you can pay for law school, son!” my dad would shout. “You know how many kids will pay for their school the rest of their life!?”

  But I wanted more. I didn’t want a desk life like my dad or a gold-digger wife like my mom had become. I
wanted all the money I could get and I wanted all the women I could muster. I wanted to spoil them rotten, fill them to the brim, and then send them packing so they couldn’t take anything else from me.

  They had my dinners and they had my seed, what more could they have wanted?

  “Have a good day, Mr. Blake,” Franz smirked at me.

  I buttoned my coat and made my way to my car, and a random driver I didn’t recognize got out and opened the door for me. I wasn’t due in the office until 8 AM, but I figured if I could get an early start then I could get home early and be with Clara.

  I had a feeling I’d miss her today, and I wanted to see if I could get back early.

  Anyway, I took half of my first million and started my main holding company, D. B. Enterprise. I made a business around trading stocks, and eventually brought on partners to invest money into me trading stocks. I bought companies that were going under and revamped them before taking 40% of what they owned, and I flipped companies the way people flip houses. I grew my portfolio and before I turned 30, I had over 40 companies I had fixed and over just shy of $1 billion in revenue.

  My 30th birthday present to myself became the place I currently spend most of my time. Blake & Associates Financial Center was a venture I took on with two other trusted investors in my holding company. Through B & A, I continued to buy out run-down companies, flip them, and then take 40% of everything they would ever make from there on out. I also started opening some offices to hire financial experts. Through Blake & Associates, I now offered fiduciary services as well as a wealth of low, medium, and high-risk accounts dealing in everything from IRAs to basic savings accounts, and I implemented loans specializing in those who needed business loans, but were turned down by traditional banks.

  I didn’t charge them any interest, but what I did charge them was 30% of their entire business from inception to divorce, and if they went under, I usurped all the rights to the business in case I wanted to flip it.

  And yes, they had the option to purchase it from me at a much higher price once I did flip it.