“And before you tell me I wouldn’t have been able to stop it from happening, I know. I’ve thought about it countless times and drove myself fucking crazy. You know what I realized after drinking myself into a fucking stupor over it?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
I took her hand and draped it on my thigh, squeezing it. Maybe a little too tightly, a little too aggressively, but she didn’t pull away. “You wouldn’t have been the person you are today if it hadn’t been for everyone else’s choices. I’m not saying I don’t wish your father would have taken a different path, or that I wouldn’t go back in time and change anything if I could. But you wouldn’t be the amazing woman sitting here beside me if he hadn’t fucked up.” Ignoring her flinch over the blunt statement, I weaved our fingers together. “I don’t how many times you need me to tell you that you’re beautiful, inspiring, and the exact kind of woman I need to ground me, for you to understand, but I’ll tell you over and over again until you get it.
“The truth of the matter is you don’t need me to. You don’t need me to tell you that you’re anything because you already know it. You wouldn’t have gone back to school, painted those paintings, or let your friend convince you to dance if you didn’t know you were a strong woman, worthy of the kind of love I’m going to give you for a long fucking time. Not because I’m obligated to, but because I wouldn’t know what else to do with myself if I couldn’t.”
I didn’t miss the way her lips parted, how that breathy little exhale escaped them, or how her fingers gripped mine like she couldn’t quite believe what I’d said.
I swallowed. “We’re going to have bad days, Della. The both of us. It’s not only you, sweetheart. We’ll have to figure out how to navigate them together.”
She blinked. “Because…”
I raised her hand to my lips and pressed a kiss against her warm skin. “I love you, Della. Plain and simple.” Her eyes closed when I pressed another kiss against her ring finger, making a point. “Think you can stick with me while we figure this out? It’s not going to be easy. There’s a lot between us that people may or may not understand. I don’t want them to dictate what we do, to make their opinions part of the relationship I want to explore with you.”
Every day since the first time Anthony and Elizabeth asked me to watch Della, I’d been wrapped around her finger. Every day was a new adventure—something to learn. Her quirks, the things she hated, the things she liked. When she asked me to dance with her, I danced. When she asked me to hang up her pictures, I hung them up. Shit, how many hours of YouTube tutorials did I watch to learn how to braid hair because she wanted me to braid hers? There was nothing I wasn’t willing to do to keep a smile on her face, and that hadn’t changed. If anything, the need to make her happy grew into something all-consuming.
“You’re an idiot.” I froze at her words, keeping a firm hold on her hand as I watched her eyes flutter closed for a moment before cracking back open to study me carefully. “You’re such an idiot, Theodore West. Do you know how long I’ve loved you? How many times I’ve said it as something more than your friend’s daughter who looked up to you? If you can promise me that you’ll be by my side during my worst days, then how could I not be there for you during yours?”
My throat bobbed as she rose on her knees and swung one leg over my lap, straddling me. Sinking down, she sat there and stared like she was afraid I’d change my mind and leave. If she thought that, then she was the idiot.
She ran a palm across my jaw, thumbing my bottom lip before leaning in, hovering over them with hers. “I know people won’t understand right away, but they’ll see.”
“And what is it they’ll see?”
Her lips brushed mine as she said, “That I love you too much to let you go.”
Pressing her closer into me, I wrapped an arm around her waist as my other hand cupped the back of her head to deepen the kiss. She parted my lips and slipped her tongue inside, but it was me who took it farther. Rolling my hips upward, I listened to her telltale moan before flipping us over, so she was on her back with her bare legs spread for my body to slip between.
When her arms snaked around my neck to pull me closer, my cell rang. Ignoring it, I bit her bottom lip. Trailing my mouth down her neck and nipping it as I moved my hands to the oversized tee she wore to strip it off her, the phone pinged in my pocket.
“Fuck.”
“You should check that.”
“It’s probably Dallas. He’s outside waiting for us.” Momentarily, I’d forgotten about our dinner plans. I liked the thought of spreading her legs and eating her out instead.
Her face reddened like she knew what I was thinking. “He’s waiting for us?”
“I can send him off.”
For a moment, it looked like she was going to nod. Then, in a quiet voice, she admitted, “I am kind of hungry.” My cock throbbed with a need to be inside her, but I ignored it. It wasn’t every day Della admitted something like that. Most people would consider the statement mundane, but I knew better.
Standing up, I offered her my hand, trying to pretend I didn’t see the way her eyes roamed down to the large bulge that was tenting my
