Simple Perfection

Della. Shh, it’s okay. Come back to me, baby. Please come back to me. I’m right here and I have you.” I whispered in her ear how much I loved her; I wasn’t going to let her go until her body started to ease.
    Slowly, her arms loosened their grip around her legs and wrapped around me, and then she buried her face in my neck. She was back. I continued to tell her she was wonderful and she was mine and I would take care of her. Reassuring her reassured me that I had her. That she was here and I could take care of her. I had let her take on too much responsibility because she was good at it. I had started letting her work longer and I was checking on her less. This was my fault. My mother would never have gotten to her if I had been watching her closer.
    “I’m sorry,” Della said in a teary voice against my chest.
    “Don’t say that,” I replied as I ran my hand over her hair and down her back. “Please, baby, don’t say that. I hate for you to think you have to say that.”
    She sniffled. “I need to be stronger. I want to be stronger. I want to be tough.”
    Did she not realize how fucking tough she was? She had lived a horror story for sixteen years of her life that had ended even more horrifically. And she still laughed and found reasons to smile. She was brave enough to live life, even after enduring the monsters that had terrorized her in her room as a child. And they weren’t pretend. She’d faced real monsters and she had survived. There was no one as fucking tough as this woman.
    “Della, you are tougher than anyone I know. Just because you have to protect yourself sometimes and fade away from me doesn’t make you weak. You’re a survivor. You are my inspiration and I love you. No matter what, I love you.”
    Della clung tighter to me. My mother had upset her. I would deal with her. She wouldn’t get close to Della again, even if I had to ban her from the club. This would stop. I was done with my family hurting what was mine.
    We sat there in silence. Della let me hold her as close as I needed to. She let me kiss her head and hands and run my hands over her arms and back to reassure myself she was okay.
    The knock on the door ended our peace and quiet. Della started to move out of my lap but I held her to me. I was going to ignore whoever it was. Vince should have been out there by now.
    “Is everything okay, sir?” Vince asked from the other side of the door.
    “Yes, we’re fine,” I replied.
    Della tilted her head back to look up at me. “Did he see me?”
    I nodded. I didn’t want to lie to her, even though I knew she hated for people to see her when she was like that.
    “He’s going to think I’m insane,” she said with a defeated sigh.
    I grabbed her chin and made her look up at me. “No, he won’t. You aren’t insane. You are intelligent, lovable, and beautiful. But you are not insane. You lived through hell and you beat it, Della. Most people can’t overcome something like what you’ve overcome. Don’t ever think you’re less than amazing.”
    A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “You just love me,” she said.
    “More than life,” I replied before pressing my lips to hers.

Della
    W oods hadn’t left me alone since my blackout yesterday. I knew he had work to do. I also had work to do, but he was keeping me by his side at home. Every time I mentioned going into the office, he did something to distract me. Oral sex on the kitchen counter had been his first tactic, and it worked. I had forgotten about anything but the way he made me feel.
    Then he’d caught me sneaking off to take a shower when he was on a work-related phone call. I mentioned that we needed to get ready, and then he’d taken me against the shower wall. After he cut the water off and carried me to bed, we’d made love again.
    Now he was outside on the phone again. I knew he was dealing with work from home and it only proved my point that I was hindering him. My weakness was a weight on him, but I wanted to help him. When he opened the door and stepped inside, I started to tell him that we should really go to work. I was going to fight off any sexual advances he tried to use to keep me there.
    “That was Vince. I have two board members in my office that my mother contacted about some things she knows nothing about. I need to go into work to deal with them. I should be back in two hours max,” he said before the door closed behind him.
    He wasn’t going to let me go. “I could