Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

“I want it all with you,” he whispered into my neck, sucking my skin. My eyes watered from the sensation, from his words, from the sincerity in his tone as he entered me. Each thrust became harder, but slower, like he didn’t want it to end. I could feel the brink of my orgasm as he rested a palm against my chest and laid me down so my back was flat against his desk. I grabbed onto anything, accidently knocking over files stacked on the side of his desk. The loud crash of them against the floor should have made me embarrassed but it didn’t. All it made me was crazier for the man who listened to my whimpered pleas and started fucking me until I bit the side of my arm and came harder than I ever had before.

“You’re fucking clenching me so tight,” he grunted, slamming into me twice more before grabbing my hips and sliding me to him so there was no space at all between our bottom halves as he came inside of me. The feeling of him spilling into my sated body had me hotter than ever, but not as much as when he caressed my inner thigh, kissed my exposed scar from where my shirt rode up, and pulled out letting his cum drip out of me and onto his desk.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, still trying to catch my breath as I stared up at the light brown ceiling.

Theo must have grabbed something because his hand was between my legs cleaning me up with something soft, making me moan when he brushed the tender bundle of nerves that were still firing.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before letting him help me sit up. When we were eye level, I leaned forward and kissed him softly, which he returned with fervor. Our lips and tongue and teeth played off one another in slow strokes before he pulled away and rested his forehead against mine.

“You’d do anything for me, Della?” he asked again, his breath caressing my lips.

“Yes.”

I’d barely pulled away, my lips grazing his again briefly, when he said, “You need to get help, sweetheart. I’ll be here for you whenever you need me, but I think you should see Ripley more often.”

I tensed, feeling my face pinken for an entirely new reason other than overexertion. I’d expected a lot of things coming from his mouth, but… “You think I need help?”

“Della, I don’t mean that in a bad way. You said she helped before, right? What just happened shouldn’t have, even if seeing me leaking out of you makes me want to do it again. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks. You’re skinnier. I’m worried about you.”

All I could do was stare, still feeling his cum inside of me, still reeling in the delicious ache he’d gifted me with just moments ago.

“Whether you want to admit it or not, you’ve lost weight. You can tell me it’s because you’re dancing again and going to yoga with Tiffany, but it’s more than that. I’m not stupid, Della, and I know you know that. What did I tell you before?”

Before. What he was referencing was before my father had been arrested. They’d had an intervention for me when I’d gotten home from a walk. I was embarrassed and silent the entire time they spoke to me until Theo followed me into my bedroom where I’d stalked off when I’d had enough. I’d been in skimpy pajamas heading toward the bathroom, unaware that Theo was going to follow me there too. He’d grabbed the sheet that covered the mirror and gestured at it. Making a point. Making me see what I refused to while I shriveled into nothing the months prior.

My father had told me he didn’t know what else to do. He was a lot of things, but a quitter wasn’t usually one. I should have known then that something was up with him. He’d been withdrawn, tired, easily worn out and unwilling to put in the effort it took to handle what I was going through, and I hadn’t made it easy for him to understand.

He’d already been in too deep at that point, which made sense. It was only a month or so later when the feds came knocking on our front door. A door that I had answered in confusion, which morphed into more when they explained why they were there. And my father? He let them read him his rights without assuring me anything. Maybe he couldn’t.

The day they had an intervention had to have been Theo’s idea. My father wasn’t the same man who promised my mother to be better. He was a shell. Lost. Scared. Waiting for the inevitable. It was Theo who had been there, who had demanded I admit what I wouldn’t.

“All I’m saying,” he continued without me even trying to cut in, “is that you should reach out to Ripley and try making another appointment sometime soon. It’ll be good for you, Della.”

To that, he got a muffled scoff. “Good?” It was a win for him, I wasn’t telling him no right away. Realistically, he was right. Part of me was crying for help, for something. Someone. Not an escape. A cure. But I knew even after talking to Ripley, it would always be the same because there was no cure for self-hate that the anorexia and body dysmorphia had left me with.

“What did I tell you before, Della?” he repeated, voice firmer and giving me no other choice but to answer.

With a shaky breath, I looked up at him and whispered, “You told me I’d fall and fail and break but that I wouldn’t give up…”

“But you will also rise, succeed, and put yourself back together because only you can.”

I remembered every word he said to me over the years, but those especially. I knew there’d be a day I needed to hear them again because what I battled wasn’t a one-time thing. It was lifelong and that meant there would be fights to face when the time came. I saw my skin, my eyes, the way I held myself right now, and knew, just knew, I was falling. Theo knew too.

This was his second intervention.

It was the one thing he told me that day that stuck with me most. Right next to what my mother had told my father on her deathbed. I murmured, “Only I can put myself back together.” I spoke it so softly, I wondered if he heard. But it hadn’t been for him to hear. It was for me. Like when I said the two little words be better under my breath in no more than a broken whisper, like I’d been summoning the determination to honor that.

Theo didn’t ask about it though because those words gave me the strength I needed. It was probably easy to see in the way I straightened my shoulders and glanced up at him like I was going to agree. I didn’t though. Not verbally.

Before I could, Abigail knocked on the door again, before hesitantly calling out, “Mr. West?” There was an awkward pause, a moment where Theo and I stared at each other. “I’m sorry, Mr. West, but there’s a gentleman here to see you who insists it’s important. I’ve never seen him before or…”

Theo nodded once, his eyes not leaving mine. “Thank you, Abigail.”

When she left, all I did was look up to him and say, “She prefers being called Abbie.”

Chapter Seventeen

Theo