by Layla Frost
“See?” Rosa said, looking proud. “Told you so.”
“This is amazing. You should do this professionally.”
She looked horrified, shaking her head. “I love doing it, but I would not do well if I knew someone was paying me. I’d choke and they’d end up looking like The Joker.” She began packing everything up. “Which is probably not making you feel too comfortable about me doing it on Friday, huh?”
I closed the mirror. “You’d do that?”
“Of course. Can you take the day off?”
“I’ll ask.”
“Good. It’ll be fun.”
I tried not to smile like a loser weirdo who’d made her first friend. “Definitely.”
Carefully walking across the room, going slow so I could adjust to the heels and not twist my ankle, I put the dresses back in the garment bags.
“Ben will be right up to grab those,” Rosa said. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She lifted one of the shoe boxes and grabbed a large pink and cream lace clutch. Adding the mascara, compact, and matte lipstick, she handed it to me. “ID and cell?”
I transferred them from my other bag, texting Wendy about the day off in the process. “I haven’t heard from Theo.”
“Him and Luc are out. They should be getting back right around the same time we get there.”
“I’m riding with you?”
“And Ben. The cocktail bar is over near Amaric, and you and Theo would be way late if he made the trip over.” She looked at me with a raised brow. “Plus, if Theo was picking you up here, there’s no way in hell you two would make it out the door. I’m not totally sure you’ll make it out of the office, which is why I’m leaving as soon as he gets there.”
Our laughter was interrupted by the buzzer. I let Ben up and started packing up the shoes and makeup on the bed.
“What’re you doing?” Rosa asked.
“Getting this all ready to go.”
“No, no, that stuff stays. I’ll take the dresses back because they don’t work, but all of the rest is for you to keep.”
I looked at the shoes, including a white and blue pair that would be perfect with the watercolor outfit. Still, I opened my mouth.
Rosa beat me to it. “Nope. Boss’ orders.” When there was a knock at the door, she opened it to Ben.
“Rosa. Miss Kincaid.” He picked up the garment bags. “Ready?”
Grabbing my bag, I locked up. We looked out of place in my worn and faded apartment building, and the glances we got told me I wasn’t the only one to think so. Rosa and I followed Ben down to a waiting SUV.
My nerves about the night built, so I tried to focus on Rosa and Ben’s chatter. It was mostly work related, which meant I was lost.
Pulling in front of Amaric, Ben put the SUV into park and got out.
“Is Theo back?” Rosa asked him.
He nodded. “They got in about five minutes ago.”
She made a squeal of excitement. “Perfect.”
My heels clicked at a quick tempo across the floor as I hurried to keep up with Rosa’s long legged pace. When we got into the elevator, she grinned, looking more and more like Luc.
“I just want to see the look on his face when he sees you, then I’ll leave. It’s nice to see him so happy.”
“Was he not happy before?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
She shrugged. “He’s got the business and family. That’s his life. Well, that was his life.”
The ball of nerves that’d formed in my chest loosened at that. I liked that I made him happy, and that other people saw it, too.
When the elevator doors slid open, Rosa kept her arm in place so they didn’t close. She whistled loudly.
Theo came out of his office, his head dipped to look at the folder he carried. “What’re you…” His words trailed off as his eyes hit me.
“And that’s my cue. It was so much fun, Dahlia. I can’t wait to do it again on Friday.”
I heard the doors close behind me, but my focus was on Theo.
He closed the distance between us in record time, his mouth hitting mine as he backed me into a wall.
“You ready to… Never mind,” I heard Luc say before the door closed. A moment later, though, it opened again. “Actually, sorry, we do have to go. If we want the exclusive rights, we’ve got to catch him when he’s happy tipsy, not so drunk he’ll forget.”
With a low growl of frustration, Theo pulled his lips away. He didn’t fully step back until I put my hands on his chest and gave a little shove, laughing.
“Ready?” I asked, taking his hand and smiling up at him.
He looked… disgruntled, yet happy. I saw his dimples more and more every day.
“Yeah, gattina, I’m ready.”
···
“That was so much fun!” I repeated, probably for the twentieth time in the very short drive.
To be fair, though, it had been so much fun.
I’d been expecting a snobby bar, filled with egomaniac tech geniuses. Instead, the place was cool, with a bit of a hipster vibe. Old-school arcade games lined the walls, and an entire side room was devoted to pinball. The whole place had been rented out for Morgan Tomas’ birthday, all the games set to free. Most of the food had been served bar style, so people could pick and choose what toppings they wanted on burgers, poutine, nachos, and a few other things. There was a giant computer shaped cake from one of the local bakeries, plus cupcakes with little fondant video games on them.
Everyone had been insanely nice and welcoming, if not a bit intimidated by Theo. Wearing his dark gray dress shirt with black slacks, he stuck out in the crowd of mostly bow ties and skinny jeans.
At first, I’d been nervous I was overdressed. Looking around, I’d noticed that a lot of the girls had been wearing anything from yoga pants to dresses fancier than my simple one.
While I’d sipped at my first craft cocktail, I’d made the decision to stop trying to find ways I didn’t fit in. By my second one, I’d decided to even join some conversations. By drink four or five, I’d taken my rightful place in front of The Simpsons pinball, kicking the butt of every challenger who stepped up. Theo had kept his place beside me, laughing and cheering me on, keeping my glass full of cocktails or water.
I’d forgotten how much I loved pinball.
“I want to play more pinball. I could play it professionally, I think,” I bragged to Theo, shifting in my seat to look at him.
“I don’t think that’s a thing.”
My bottom lip pushed out with the devastation of my crushed dream. “Oh. That’s disappointing. It really should be.” By the end of my sentence, I’d forgotten about my disappointment. “Did you have fun?”
Theo glanced at me and grinned. Even in the dark car, I could see his deep dimples and the warm way he looked at me. It made me feel… Well, I was in no condition to dissect my emotions. But it made me feel something.
“I had a blast, gattina,” he said. “Where’d you learn to play pinball like that?”
“When I was a senior in high school, I worked at a pizza place. They had that same pinball machine. When business was slow, I’d pass the time and play with my spare change. Since I didn’t have much spare change, that meant I had to get good if I wanted to play for longer than five minutes.”
I watched, focusing mostly on the sexy veins in his hand, as Theo rubbed his jaw. The mood had changed, but I was too tipsy to really pay much attention. “That pizza place wasn’t very good, so we were never busy. That gave me a lot of time to play and practice. Then they closed and the owner was going to give me the game instead of my last paycheck, but the foster home I was at wouldn’t let me keep it in the garage or anything. The owner was retiring to Florida, so it wasn’t like he could hold on to it for me.” I sighed. “I do think I could compete professionally. They play poker on ESPN. Why can’t they play pinball? It’d certainly be more exciting than golf.”
“Not a golf fan?” Theo asked, resting his hand on my exposed thigh.
&nbs
p; “Unless it involves hitting a blue ball into a clown’s mouth, no.” Realizing what I’d said, I started laughing my head off. Full on, clapping and wheezing like a seal, laughing. “Kinky.”
Theo joined in, though I got the feeling he was laughing at me rather than the blue balled clown mouth. “You’ve got a dirty mind when you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.” At the raise of his eyebrow, I conceded, “I’m tipsy now. I was drunk. I’ve never been drunk before. Every once in a while, I splurge on the flavored bottles of wine coolers or whatever they are. They go on sale for a dollar sometimes. But they’re so sweet, my stomach hurts before I can even catch much of a buzz.” I shrugged. “Anyways, I was drunk, now I’m tipsy.”
“Noted,” Theo said before changing the subject. “I almost forgot, I want to ask you something.”
“What’s up?”
“Mom called earlier to see if we were coming for Sunday dinner. The heat is supposed to be record breaking, so how would you feel about having some of the family over to our place for swimming and a cookout?”
My mind was muddled with booze and exhaustion. Even still, I caught a lot of monumental things he’d said in just a few sentences. He was asking for my opinion on people coming over, something he didn’t have to do since it was his house. But, according to what he’d just said, it was ‘our place’.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice coming out as a whisper. Giving myself a mental kick to the rear, I spoke up. “Yeah, that sounds fun. You can invite them all if you want.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “I love my family, but there’s only so much I can take of them in my space.”
Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes. My brain was like a pinball machine, my thoughts bouncing all around. They kept hitting the same spot, practically forcing the words out of my mouth as I whispered, “Thank you.”
“What for, gattina?”
“For… everything, really. But, most of all, thank you for giving me a family for a bit.”
His hand on my thigh tightened. “Dahlia—”
“My mom died when I was a newborn. She wasn’t a good person. Neither was my,” I paused, lifting my hands to do air quotes, “‘father’.” I opened my eyes, rolling my head to the side so I was looking at him. “He killed my mom.”
Theo’s intake of breath was sharp, his curse harsh. “Fuck, Dahlia.”
I shook my head. “He was married when they hooked up. They ended things before she found out she was pregnant with me. Since she knew he wasn’t a good person, she waited until I was already born and stashed safely with her mother before going to confront him at his ‘hookup apartment’. Based on what neighbors overheard, they had loud sex and then she started screaming about how she’d recorded it and was going to tell his wife about them. He killed her before she even told him about me.”
“How did you find out about this?”
Even though it was long in the past, there was still hurt in my voice. “When I was four, after my grandma got sick, I went to this really nice foster family. The woman used to sing all the time. The man was big, but gentle and calm. It was like stepping into a Disney movie. I’d wake up in the night, and need to open my door to see it wasn’t just a dream. I’d hear them sometimes, whispering about adoption. Then one morning, the woman wasn’t singing. Her and the man wouldn’t even look at me. I got picked up by someone from The Department of Children and Families that afternoon.”
“God,” Theo said, the ache in his voice echoing my own.
Realizing I never really answered his question, I continued. “They’d decided to hire a private investigator to get ready for the adoption process. They wanted to be prepared in case I had some distant family member they had to worry about. Instead, they’d found out about how my mother had been killed and that they’d never caught my dad.” Theo’s body went alert at that, but I just shook my head. “The cops were sure he’d fled the country. There was never any activity on any of his accounts after that day. If he’s not dead, he’s in the wind with no clue about me.”
Theo’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, once that was out, there was no getting it back. There were foster family support groups and old school message boards online. Every time a family would start the adoption process, they’d inevitably find out about the way my mom had been killed. It’d been… messy. They’d get scared, and I’d be out the door with all my worldly belongings shoved into one plastic bag.” The hurt left my voice, emptiness replacing it. “It wasn’t about the stuff. I stopped even trying on the clothes or playing with the toys. I was quiet and polite, trying my hardest. But I didn’t have any real hope. I was alone with no sense of hope.”
I tried to read Theo’s expression, but couldn’t. I was glad. If he pitied me, I didn’t want to see it.
“Anyway,” I said, forcing some pep into my tone, “eventually, I was too old to have any real chance of adoption. I bounced around foster homes until I was eighteen. Then I moved in with another girl from the system for a bit, but it didn’t work. When you live with so many people, usually sharing everything, including a room, you want your own space. I never had a family after the age of four, and even before that, really. Grandma hadn’t even wanted to raise her own daughter; she certainly didn’t want to raise her daughter’s daughter. But now I feel like I kind of have a big family. And I love that. So, thank you.” Before Theo could say whatever he was thinking, I added, “Can we drop this subject, though? We had a good night, and now I feel like I brought the mood down.”
“You didn’t,” he said, grabbing my hand and lifting it up to his mouth. He kissed my fingers, keeping them there so his lips brushed them as he spoke. “But we can drop it.”
It was obvious he didn’t want to. His jaw was tense, the vein and muscles in his neck more pronounced. But for me, he kept his thoughts to himself.
“What should we cook on Sunday?” he asked instead.
“Good question. That burger bar was pretty cool, what about something like that?”
He nodded. “That’d be good. I’m sure everyone will want to bring sides or dessert.”
We pulled into the driveway a couple minutes later, parking right in front of the porch. Without the city lights, the sky was so much darker.
Who has a birthday party on a Monday night? It’s eleven and I have been up since like four. More importantly, I have to be up in less than five hours.
What was I thinking?
I peeked over at Theo.
Oh. Yeah.
Still, I yawned as I climbed up the steps, wishing I’d taken my shoes off in the car.
As if he’d read my thoughts, Theo asked, “Feet hurt?”
“Yeah, but not as bad as I’d expected.”
Unlocking the door, he stepped aside so I could enter. He followed me in, pausing to punch in the code. “Think you can keep them on a little longer?”
I started to ask why before seeing the look on his face. Instead, my nipples tightened, my panties grew damp, and I had no other response but to nod.
Well, that and throw myself at him. Which was exactly what I did.
My body hit his, my fingers going into his hair as I pulled his head down. It didn’t take much effort since he was already leaning down to kiss me. Theo lifted me, his hand pushing the skirt of my dress up so he could cup my ass. My legs wrapped around him, my mouth hungry for a taste of every bit of skin I could reach.
I licked the vein in his neck. Bit down on his stubble roughened jaw. Kissed his lips. Bit and sucked his bottom lip.
“Close enough,” he growled, setting me onto a step. Dropping down to his knees on a lower one, he pulled my panties off and put my legs over his shoulders. His mouth covered my pussy, and he licked and sucked as if he’d been deprived for years, like a starving man unleashed on a buffet.
Like he was addicted.
Holding his head to me, I focused on what I was feeling. The tension that coiled in my lower stomach. The telltale build t
hat begged for me to chase it. Only I didn’t have to. Theo knew exactly what to do, what I needed, to send me over the edge.
And that night was no different. He let it build, easing back when I got too close to the edge. When I couldn’t take it anymore, he flicked my clit faster with his tongue, his fingers fucking me roughly until I was coming. He slowed and removed his fingers, before starting again with just his mouth.
When I was rocking my hips, needy and empty, Theo pulled away. “Roll over.” Doing as he said, I was rewarded with his low groan. I heard his pants rustling as he took them off before feeling his thick cock pushing against me. He curled over my body, his lips grazing my ear. “This too hard on your knees, gattina?”
“No.” I gripped the stair in front of me.
Slowly, he slid his cock into me. Once it was in, filling me, his hands went next to mine. His body stayed curled over mine. “Tell me if that changes.”
I cried out as he pulled almost all the way out just to thrust back in. If it weren’t for the fact I was still wearing my dress, I’d have some uncomfortable rug burns developing on my chest and stomach.
Sex with Theo had always been intense. Once I’d gotten used to taking him, he’d stopped holding back. That meant it was often rough, hard, and uncontrolled.
I loved it.
Theo fucked me like he couldn’t get enough. Like he couldn’t get close enough. Deep enough.
The way his body surrounded me, blocking out the world and making me feel safe, was like nothing I’d ever imagined.
And that was my life with him.
Protected.
Worshipped.
Happy.
Loved.
I gasped, sharp and loud, the sound echoing in the stairwell.
“You gonna give it to me, Dahlia?” Theo grunted.
My legs locked.
Releasing the step, he shoved a hand under me. “You know I need it.”
My head dropped, my hair wild.
His large hand spanned my pelvis, his middle finger rubbing my clit. “You know I need you.”