Single Dad's Hostage: A Fake Marriage Romance

by Penelope Bloom

She glances at the clock. “About a day. They haven’t left except to go to the bathroom,” she says, nodding to Jen and Camille. “You’re a lucky man.”

  I grin. “Yeah, I know.”

  “If he was lucky he wouldn’t have gotten shot,” says Camille.

  I turn my head and see the two of them are waking up, blinking through their sleepiness.

  Jen gets up and comes to my side, hugging me gently as if she’s afraid I’ll break.

  I run my fingers through her hair, hugging her small head to the uninjured side of my chest, telling myself I’ll never come close to taking her for granted again. “I’m so fucking glad you’re safe,” I say.

  “Daddy! Language,” she laughs, pulling back and smiling. “I’m going to give you two some alone time. Ahem!” She adds, looking at the nurse, who purses her lips in disapproval, but moves to leave the room.

  The nurse pauses at the door. “He’s still recovering, mind you,” she says to Camille.

  Camille looks indignant. “What do you think I’m going to do?”

  The nurse gives her a knowing look, closing the door.

  Camille looks down at me, biting her lip and looking absolutely fucking gorgeous. “I think she thought I was going to jump your bones or something.”

  “You aren’t? Damn,” I say.

  She laughs. “You’ve got more wires in you than a computer. And you know, there’s the whole bullet wound thing. I bet you’re going to love milking that story at bars to pick up women,” she says, voice a little strange.

  “There’s only one woman I want to pick up,” I say.

  “Have I met her?” asks Camille. I think she intends it as a joke, but her eyes are so wide and intent on me that it’s funny for entirely different reasons.

  “Camille. I knew I wanted you from the moment I took you out of that shithole motel. Nothing between us has changed that, the way I feel about you has only become more clear to me. You’re the one. I mean that with every fucking fiber of my being. You’re the one.”

  She looks down, wiping at her eyes. “I really like you too.”

  I bark a laugh that hurts my chest. “Damn. You’re not very good at this, are you?”

  She slaps my shoulder playfully, but scowls. “Don’t tease me.”

  “Wouldn’t dare,” I say.

  She bites her lip and then quickly leans down, planting a kiss on me that is sweet, warm, and passionate. When she pulls back her cheeks are beautifully red and she’s smiling shyly. “There. That’s how I feel about you.”

  “If I knew we could let actions speak for themselves, I’d have had my cock in you five minutes ago.”

  “Dean!” she says, laughing and looking toward the door.

  “So, everyone is okay, right? Murph and Tanner? The security contractors? And what happened to Sean?”

  “Murph and Tanner are okay,” she says. “Some of the security guys were killed though, and they said the guys working for Sean--or Barry, I guess--lost even more men.”

  “Fuck,” he says. “I completely forgot about Barry. I’m going to have to find a way to handle that. Did police get involved?”

  “No,” she says. “The security guys said they sent a clean up crew out and made sure no one will think twice about what happened. And Sean…” There’s a strange look on her face. She swallows hard before continuing. “One of the security guys went after him and the big guy with the tire iron. The two of them tried to fight him off and he said he had no choice but to gun them down. They’re dead. Sean’s dead…”

  “I’m sorry, Camille,” I say, not sure if that’s what she needs to hear, but figuring it’s better safe than sorry with something like this.

  “Don’t be. You know I almost killed him myself? In cold blood. I shot him in the leg and he was lying there on the ground trying to tell me how he loved me and always had. I was so close to doing it, to just pulling the trigger and ending his bullshit once and for all. But I didn’t.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “It felt like that would be letting him win. Like all the anger he poured into me since I met him was just to corrupt me and make me into being like him. Shooting him would’ve been like giving in, I think. So don’t be sorry. I wanted to do it, and sparing him was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’m not sad that he’s gone. Not at all.”

  Once I’ve had a chance to catch up with my brothers and Jen came by one more time, I have the room to myself. I pull out my cell and call Barry. While it rings, I open a recording app that one of my lawyers suggested I get a few years back. The app records every word of the call, and I just have to hope Barry is dumb and cocky enough to incriminate himself.

  “Dean?” he asks. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Don’t bullshit me. I know this was all your doing. You paid off my security. You brought in Sean and his deadbeat friends. You kidnapped my daughter and tried to have me killed. Just tell me one thing. Why?”

  He laughs. “Come on, Dean. This is pathetic. Where are you right now, licking your wounds in a hospital bed?”

  “How would you know that?” I ask.

  “That’s beside the point. I think you should just focus on reflecting. Maybe think about what a fool you were to pass the company on to Peterson. You might even consider if these unfortunate events you’re referring to would go away if Peterson was to sell me his majority shares.”

  “You did all this to get the company from me?”

  “I didn’t say that,” says Barry, but I can hear in his voice he’s not being secretive out of paranoia, it’s out of a gloating kind of satisfaction. He thinks he’s toying with me.

  “And what happens if I don’t say shit to Peterson? What if I think the company should never fall into your hands?”

  “Then you’ll fucking regret it,” snaps Barry, losing all pretense of calm. “You think this is a game, Sharp?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “From the sounds of it, I’ve just had a terrible streak of bad luck. Why would helping you benefit me at all?”

  “Because what I did to your daughter and that little girlfriend of yours will look like a slap on the wrist if you test me. I got to her once. I can do it again.”

  “You’d kidnap my daughter?” I ask.

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do. I deserve to run this company. I fucking deserve it.”

  “Great. It was good to catch up, Barry. Maybe we’ll talk again.”

  I hang up the phone, pull the app up, and forward the recorded conversation to my lawyer with a brief message: Bury him.

  Epilogue

  The bar is packed with people holding drinks and looking toward the stage where Jen and Camille wait, both looking nervous as hell. Jen holds her glossy black guitar like a lifeline, and Camille is gripping the microphone stand like she’s trying to choke it to death. Her eyes find me in the crowd and I smile, raising my glass of bourbon toward her and winking.

  The lights dim and Jen strums her guitar, hushing the crowd.

  Camille bites her lip, eyes searching the faces watching her, and then she squeezes them shut, humming out the first note of the song. It starts slow, and she rasps a few quiet, controlled verses into the microphone as Jen strums out a slow tune.

  The song Jen plays gets louder and faster, faltering for a beat before breaking into a more full, rich sound. At the same moment, Camille belts out one of the most pure vocal notes I’ve ever heard, giving me chills and probably everyone else in the crowd. There’s a brief delay and then everyone claps and starts to whoop.

  Camille’s eyes open slightly and she smiles as she sings now, carrying through the rest of the song with even more power than before.

  When she drags out the last note, the crowd erupts in applause and cheering. Jen and Camille beam from ear to ear and continue their set with more confidence than before, looking like they are enjoying themselves now instead of fearing for their lives.

  I look to Selene, Tanner, and Murph, who
stand beside me clapping along. Selene looks like a proud mother, Tanner is busier watching Selene than anything else, and Murph just looks constipated.

  “You okay, Murph?” I ask him.

  He looks over to me, face strained. “I’m good. Just tacos.”

  “Nice,” I say dryly.

  “Taco Tuesday, man. I’d have to be an animal to pass that up.”

  Camille

  Dean leads me in through the back of a brick building in the middle of town. The door we step through is heavy and it slams behind us, closing us off from almost every last shred of light. I feel around for a light switch, but Dean takes my hand in his. He’s almost fully healed now that the shootout is weeks behind us, and he has been acting suspicious all week about this surprise.

  “Was the surprise that you’re going to murder me?” I joke.

  His deep voice comes to me in the near pitch black building we’re now inside. I can hardly even see my hand in front of my own face. “There are two parts to the surprise. Part one is that I got clearance from the doctors to ‘engage in sexual activity’ again.”

  A pulsing heat spreads between my legs when I follow his not-so-subtle implication. “And the second surprise?” I breathe.

  “No need to rush now,” he says. “You’re going to have to trust me. Take two steps back and sit down.”

  “Dean,” I say, laughing. “I can’t see anything. I’ll fall on my ass.”

  “Trust me,” he says.

  I sigh, doing as he says, and I’m a little surprised when something hard catches my fall before I collapse to the ground. “This is so disorienting,” I say.

  “Good. That’ll make it more fun.”

  “Make what more fun?” I ask.

  The only response I get is the sound of his zipper. “You don’t need light to get undressed, do you?”

  “No,” I say, grinning into the darkness and reaching to strip out of my dress.

  “Did I tell you to undress yet?” he asks.

  “How did you even know? And--”

  He shushes me with a finger to my lips. “You’re mine right now. You probably couldn’t even find your way out of here if you tried, could you?”

  I look to my right in the vague direction I remember the door being in, but realize he might be right. I really am trapped in here with him, not that being trapped in the dark with Dean Sharp is an altogether terrible thing.

  “If I’m yours, like you say, what do you plan to do with me?”

  “Use you,” he says breathily in my ear. “I’m going to use that perfect body of yours the way it was meant to be used. And you’re going to let me do things my way.”

  “Is that right?” I ask, heart thudding.

  Instead of responding, he reaches to the hem of my dress, somehow finding it in the near blackness of the room, and lifts it over my head roughly. I expect him to fumble for the clasp on my bra, but he instead grips between my breasts with both hands and pulls away, snapping the front of the bra in half and letting the tatters fall off me to the unseen surface I’m sitting on.

  I shiver. To be in the dark like this, to be handled so brutally is scary, but in a strange, thrilling way that has my whole body on alert, nerves tingling and core throbbing with need. I reach for him but he slaps my hand away.

  “Naughty kitten,” he says teasingly. “As I say, when I say, remember?”

  I lean back, glaring through the dark at him. “How did you even see my hand?”

  Again, he doesn’t answer me. Instead, he pushes me back, gently enough not to hurt, but hard enough to startle me. I’m lying down, knees bent over the edge of whatever he’s got me on while the rest of my body is flat. I know what to expect this time and don’t even flinch when he grips my black cotton panties and tears them away in a single pull.

  His breathing is heavy--passionate--and his hands are hungry. His wide palms roam my bare skin, lingering when he wishes to and gliding near my mound but never across it. He’s teasing me, ramping up my desire for him until I can hardly take it.

  His lips find mine now and he kisses me deeply, fingers spearing my hair and pulling me into the kiss closer and harder like he’s drowning and I’m the only thing in the world that can save him. The intensity of the need I feel both from him and toward him is almost too much. There’s so much pent up sexual tension between us it feels like the sparks should be bathing the entire room in a red, fiery glow, but when I open my eyes I see only darkness and the barest hint of his shape on top of me, moving as he tortures me with touches full of promise.

  “Take off my clothes,” he says. “But,” he says quickly when I sit up and reach for his suit jacket. “You only have ten seconds. Anything you can’t get off in ten seconds stays on.”

  “That’s not fair!” I say. “You had as long as--”

  “Begin.”

  I leap to my feet, pushing him back slightly in my haste to get after his clothes. If I should feel embarrassed for how badly I want to get him completely naked, I don’t have time. I strip his jacket first, and don’t bother with his buttons. Instead, I grip the inside flap of his dress shirt and yank it open, sending a shower of buttons clinking to the ground. I try to rip it free, but it catches at his neck where I realize his tie is still tight. I fumble with the tie, loosening it just enough to get the shirt free, even though I lose a precious second yanking the sleeves over his powerful biceps where they get stuck.

  My hands blur down to his belt, which I rip free in a fraction of a second. I hook my thumbs in the waistband of his pants and under the elastic of his briefs and kneel, taking the pants down with me. I manage to get them to his ankles before he stops me.

  “Time. Not bad,” he says. “Everything but pants around my ankles, a tie, and shoes.”

  I greedily reach for his chest, wanting to feel the smooth muscle and the ridges of his abs below. He grips my wrists, walking me backward and easing me down into position again, not letting me have the fun I want yet.

  “You’re so bossy,” I say.

  He growls, actually growls and flips me over so my ass is in the air.

  “Oh god,” I gasp.

  “You’re starting to make me wish I had the lights on.”

  “I’m not stopping you.”

  “No. It’d ruin the second surprise.”

  He grips me by the hips, pulling me toward him until I feel the warm head of his cock pressing against my entrance. I’m so wet for him that he slides in effortlessly, stretching the walls of my core as he works in thick inch after thick inch, filling me with his length until it feels like it can’t possibly go any further, but it does.

  “God,” he groans. “You’re so tight.”

  “And you’re so big,” I say breathlessly.

  He pumps himself into me, leaning over and kissing a hot path up my back, around my neck, and to the bottom of my ear, where he tugs at my earlobe with his teeth before soothing away the sting with the warmth of his lips.

  I reach back to grip his firm legs and this time he doesn’t stop me. I feel him responding to my touch as I lean to the side so I can reach more of him, gripping the hard muscles of his leg as they flex and relax with each thrust. I can’t quite reach his ass, but I make a valiant effort of it and manage to wrap my fingers around most of it, loving the way it tenses every time he plows into me.

  I can’t reach everything I want to touch, but I try, at least until he pins me down by my back, smooshing my face to the box with how forcefully he’s fucking me now. He ruts into me like an animal with no restraint, gripping me tight and slamming his hips against mine so that his skin slaps loudly against my ass.

  I’m moaning now, even though I don’t think I’ve ever been this noisy in bed before in my life. The sounds escape my lungs unbidden, and I don’t try to stop them, even if I could. He’s groaning now too in rhythm with his thrusts, the sounds of his pleasure intensifying every time he pumps himself into me. I slide my hand down my stomach, reaching beneath myself to grip his base and feel his bo
dy slamming against me. I gasp with pleasure, knowing I’m close, that my climax is only moments away.

  I stretch to reach farther down until I can cup his balls, and the way he responds to me nearly pushes me over the edge. He gasps, slamming his cock harder into me than he before, nearly knocking me over with the force of it. I feel his balls tense at my touch, pulling up toward his body even as his cock pulses and fills me with the warmth of his cum. My orgasm comes at the same time like an explosion of white heat, ripping through every fiber of my being and filling my mind with blinding light until nothing matters, nothing at all matters except where his skin meets mine--where our bodies touch and our hearts connect.

  Some time later, he pulls out of me, and I instantly miss the closeness of having him inside me. I know it’s not the last time we’ll make love--no, fuck. It’s not the last time by a long shot. My heart rate spikes when I think about the warm flood of his cum filling me and what it means that we are both willing to take that step. There isn’t a single part of me that regrets it. I didn’t realize how much I actually meant it when I asked him to cum inside me that first time, but I did. I want him in every way imaginable. I never want to be without him and Jen. I want everything with them.

  “So,” I say, when I’ve finally caught my breath and I lay languidly, knees bent over the edge of the box again, breasts heaving. “What’s the second surprise?”

  I hear him stand and slip on his pants. I take that as my cue to throw my dress back on, even though my underwear is shredded somewhere on the floor, I can at least give myself that dignity. Then again, I feel his cum starting to drip down the inside of my thigh as I stand, and I’m almost ashamed to admit how much it turns me on. Almost.

  Light floods the room, and I have to squint at first against the sudden brightness. I take in a hundred small details at once--the music notes painted on the walls, the show room full of instruments gleaming like they are brand-new, the back hallway with small rooms that look exactly the right size to be rooms for music lessons, and the letters above the register that read “Cammy’s Corner”.