Husband for Hire - Part 4: The Almost Ending

She hired him to play the part of her perfect husband.

She didn’t expect to want more than the fantasy.

In Part 4 of Husband for Hire, Delaney and Beau are down to their final night. The plan was simple: end the weekend, walk away clean. But nothing feels simple now—not with the way he looks at her, touches her, claims her.

This wasn’t supposed to be real.

And yet… here they are.

Husband for Hire - Part 4: The Almost Ending

It was supposed to be fake until he made her choose.

Delaney

I swipe on lipstick I don’t need and ignore the tremble in my hand. Red. Bold. Like confidence I don’t feel.

The mirror lies beautifully tonight.

Hair curled. Eyes sharp. Smile forced.

I look like a woman who’s in control of the situation. A woman who’s playing the part. A woman who didn’t wake up wrapped around the man she hired and liked it a little too much.

I tuck the lipstick away, press my palms to the counter, and breathe.

We go home tomorrow.

This charade ends tomorrow.

One more night.

When I step into the suite, Beau is already inside—fresh from the shower, barefoot, a dress shirt hanging open over his chest and a black tie draped loosely around his neck. One hand grips the end of it, rolling the fabric between his fingers like he’s debating whether to finish the job or let me come do it for him. His gaze flicks up when he sees me, slow and steady, like he’s taking inventory of every inch of bare skin the dress doesn’t cover.

His jaw tightens. His tongue runs over his bottom lip like he’s trying to taste me from across the room.

I wait for him to say something smug. Make a joke. Flash that crooked smile and knock me off balance like he has been.

But he doesn’t.

He just watches.

Quiet. Still.

And I hate how much it gets to me.

“Last night of the performance,” I say, too brightly. “Might as well go out with a bang.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “That what you’re offering, Delaney’?”

God, that voice.

The way he says my name like it’s permission and promise all at once.

He’s still holding the tie.

Still watching me like he already knows how this ends.

I cross the room slowly, every step louder in my head than it is on the floor. My fingers brush his, taking the silk from his hand. “You don’t know how to tie this, do you?”

He shrugs, lazy. “I know how to untie one. That count?”

I roll my eyes, but my breath’s already shallow. “Come here.”

He steps closer, a little too close.

And I swear he does it on purpose, moving into my personal space like he’s claiming it.

I loop the tie around his neck, fingers brushing the warm skin just beneath his throat. Instead of looking away, he just watches me with those dark eyes, every second dragging out like he wants me to feel it.

I try to focus on the knot, but his hand lands on my hip. Light. Casual. Anchoring.

“You always get this flustered dressing a man?” he murmurs, voice low and lethal.

“I’m not flustered.”

“Your hands are shaking.”

“They are not.”

He leans in. “You’re also clenching your thighs… again.”

I go still.

His grin deepens. “Thought I wouldn’t notice?”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And you’re dripping want all over the floor, baby.”

That’s it.

That’s the line that does it. That snaps the last string holding my composure together.

I walk past him toward the bedroom, hips swaying just a little too much, playing a game I don’t remember starting. “I’m offering one night where we don’t have to think too hard.”

Behind me, the silence is thick.

Then he moves.

His hands are on me before I make it to the bed, hot and sure, pulling me back against him like he’s been waiting all day. My breath catches as his mouth finds my neck, slow and reverent, lips brushing just behind my ear.

“You want me to pretend tonight?” he murmurs.

I shake my head. “No.”

“Good,” he says, hands already skimming under my dress. “’Cause I’m not sure I could.”

We don’t make it to the bed right away.

My dress is pushed up. His pants are tugged down. My back hits the nearest surface, a wall, cool and solid, and he’s between my legs before I can find my footing.

His hand slides up my thigh, fingers digging in just enough to make me gasp. His body tenses, just for a breath.

“I don’t do this,” he says, voice low and rough, almost like he’s trying to talk himself out of it. “I don’t sleep with clients. That’s the rule.”

I don’t move. Don’t breathe.

His eyes lock on mine. “But if I sink into you like this… you’re mine.”

Something catches in my throat.

I nod. Whisper, “Okay.”

And then he’s moving.

It’s slow.

Like every inch he takes is a decision. A claim.

He groans when he finally sinks into me, forehead dropping to mine, both of us breathing hard like we can’t catch up.

“Yours,” I breathe.

His grip tightens, hips flexing just enough to draw another gasp from my lips.

“You feel like sin,” he mutters. “You have NO idea how much I’ve been starving for this.”

My nails dig into his shoulders as he rocks into me, deep and steady. No rush. No games. Just the unbearable rhythm of something that feels too close to real.

I kiss him like I’m drowning.

He kisses me like he wants to save me.

And somewhere in the middle, I forget that this ends.

I forget that I hired him.

That tomorrow, we go back to being strangers who only ever pretended to belong to each other.

But right now, he feels like mine.

His hands gripping my thighs. His name slipping from my lips. His mouth claiming every moan like he earned it.

And maybe he did.

We make it to the bed eventually, tangled and breathless, bodies slick with sweat and want. He pulls me beneath him, thrusts growing deeper, slower, like he’s trying to memorize how I come apart.

Somewhere between kisses and gasps, clothes disappear, torn away by need or tugged off with impatience, I couldn’t say. His hands are everywhere, rough palms on bare skin, lips dragging across places I didn’t know were so sensitive until he found them.

And when I do come apart?

It’s a collapse.

Full-body. Shuddering. Broken open.

I clutch at his shoulders like I’ll drown without him, whispering, “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

He groans, the sound wrecked and reverent.

“I want you,” I breathe, forehead pressed to his. “God, I want you…”

Maybe I whisper forever. Maybe I mean it.

He buries his face in my neck, whispering something I can’t hear over the pounding in my chest.

We don’t speak for a long time after.

Eventually, I roll away.

And this time, he doesn’t pull me back.

He just watches me in the dark.

Like he already knows I’m slipping through his fingers.

Like he already knew I would.

…………

I wake up to the soft hush of water running.

The suite is quiet otherwise, dim light creeping in around the heavy curtains, the bed still warm beside me. I press a hand to the sheets where Beau had been, still able to feel him in the cotton and in my chest.

Last night feels like a fever dream. A slow, steady undoing that unraveled more than just clothes.

It unraveled me.

I sit up slowly, the ache between my thighs a reminder of everything I told myself not to want. My body’s sated but my heart’s a goddamn disaster.

By the time I slide out of bed and step into the main room, he’s already there. Dressed in jeans and a soft gray button-down, barefoot but somehow still put together. His hair is damp from the shower. His phone is plugged in beside the couch. And his duffel bag is half-zipped on the armchair.

He looks up when I enter.

There’s no smile. No smirk. Just that unreadable expression that makes me feel like I’m the one being studied.

I tug on a pair of soft jeans and a plain white T-shirt, nothing like what I wore last night. No makeup. No earrings. Just me. Small and aching and trying not to fold.

He doesn’t speak, so I do.

“I think it’s time you go.”

It comes out flat. Colder than I mean. But if I let softness in, I might never get it out.

Beau nods once, slow and steady. “Okay.”

That’s it.

No questions. No protest. Just quiet agreement like he expected this. Like he knew I’d do it the moment things got too real.

I cross my arms. “The trip’s over. You don’t have to play the part anymore.”

He lifts a brow, calm. “Didn’t think I was.”

My throat tightens. “It was never supposed to feel real.”

He moves to zip the rest of his bag. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

I swallow hard. “Don’t do that.”

“What am I doing?”

“Acting like I’m breaking your heart.”

He turns then. Faces me fully. His jaw is tight, but his voice is soft. “You’re not breaking my heart,” he says softly. “That already happened.

God.

I shift my weight, suddenly unsteady. “Beau—”

“I get it,” he says, cutting me off. “You hired me. I was a solution to a problem. I knew the terms. But don’t stand there and pretend last night was nothing.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” He exhales, running a hand through his hair. “But it did. And I’m not gonna be the guy who tries to convince you to want more than you’re ready for.”

He slings his bag over his shoulder. Looks around the room like he’s leaving a life behind, not just a hotel suite.

At the door, he pauses.

“I wasn’t pretending,” he says quietly. “Not with you. Not last night. Not once.”

My heart stutters. “Beau—”

But he’s already gone.

The door clicks softly behind him.

And I stand there in the silence, arms wrapped around my middle, trying to convince myself this is what I wanted. That sending him away is the smart choice.

That my chest doesn’t feel like it’s cracking open from the inside.

That the thing we shared was just part of the package I paid for.

But my skin still smells like him. My lips still burn.

And nothing about this feels fake anymore.

The door clicks shut behind him, and for a second, I just stare at it.

Like maybe it’ll open again.

Like maybe he’ll come back and say it was a mistake. That I misunderstood. That none of it was real.

But it doesn’t. And he doesn’t.

I stand there longer than I should, the silence expanding in the space between us, only now it’s not space, it’s absence. Loud and echoing.

The hotel suite feels bigger without him. Colder. Like everything that happened has already started fading, and I hate how badly I want to pull it back.

I turn slowly, letting my gaze drift across the room. The rumpled sheets that still smell like him, cedar and heat and something I probably won’t ever be able to define. There’s a jacket he didn’t wear draped over the armchair. The glass on the nightstand holds two perfect fingerprints I can’t stop staring at.

I sit at the edge of the bed, fingers lacing tightly in my lap.

This was supposed to be easy.

Hire a husband. Smile for the weekend. Close the deal. Go home.

He wasn’t supposed to look at me like that.

Touch me like that.

Make me feel like maybe I was the one pretending all along.

I try to shake it off. Stand. Walk to the desk. My phone lights up with a message from my client, just a casual check-in about how the deal is going. I read it three times and still can’t remember a single word of it. My thumbs hover over the screen, but I don’t type anything back.

The knot in my chest is spreading. Tight and warm and unfamiliar.

It’s not heartbreak.

It’s something worse.

It’s regret.

I walk back to the bed, slower this time. Sink into the same spot I slept in last night, where his arm had curled around me the other night, like he meant it. Like maybe I wasn’t alone in this.

I glance at the empty pillow beside me. Still creased from where his head had rested.

“I didn’t want it to be real,” I whisper.

And then softer, like it’s a confession I can’t take back—

“…until it was.”

The room doesn’t answer. Just hums with quiet and consequence.

I grab my phone again. Open our messages. Scroll past the flirty texts, the first confirmation, the screenshot of the ridiculous contract.

My finger hovers over the keyboard.

I could say it. I could ask him to come back.

I could tell him I didn’t mean it. That it wasn’t just pretend for me either.

But I don’t.

Not yet.

Instead, I lock the screen and drop the phone beside me.

Then I lie back on the bed, close my eyes, and try not to remember the way his voice had cracked when he said goodbye.

To be Continued. Come back tomorrow for part five

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: September 2025

Cover Design by LS Phoenix