Unconditionally Yours

Chapter One

Delilah

I don’t belong here.

Not in therapy. Not in this chair. Not even in the blast radius of regret.

And I mean that sincerely. Not in the way the guy beside me, muttering to his potted plant means it. Though honestly, the plant looks kind of thriving. So maybe he’s onto something. But me? No. I’m not the problem.

I’m the solution.

I’m a blessing in human form.

I’m the welcome mat of devotion, the fairy godmother of love notes and snacks, the full-service girlfriend experience without the subscription fee.

And I am, somehow, court-ordered to stop dating Hank.

Which is wildly confusing, considering Hank and I were the perfect couple.

Sure, he said we weren’t. But words are slippery when you’re emotionally repressed and dangerously close to being loved too well.

The receptionist side-eyes me over the rim of her mug, which says World’s Okayest Empath. Her brows are plucked so thin they look like quotation marks.

I smile sweetly and cross my legs at the ankle, like I was born in a finishing school and not in a trailer behind a sex cult.

My dress flares just enough to flash the tops of my thigh-highs, pastel pink, obviously. With little hearts. Because unlike some people, I commit to an aesthetic.

Dr. Rhys Hartwell’s waiting room smells like dollar store lavender, despair, and a barely-suppressed fart someone tried to cover with Febreze. The chairs are that special kind of uncomfortable that was definitely designed by someone in a hate spiral.

Two men and one woman are waiting with me.

One guy’s clearly here because his wife told him to stop screaming during pickleball.

The woman’s whispering into a flip phone that isn’t even on.

I think I heard her say “microwaves.” The other guy is twitchy and has been reading the same page of GQ for seven minutes.

The wall clock ticks like a countdown to my next bad decision.

It was already tragic enough when they slapped me with the restraining order. A hundred yards. That’s more than a football field. That’s practically another planet.

How am I supposed to take care of Hank from another fucking ZIP code? I can’t stage interventions with a telescope.

How is he supposed to feel safe, knowing I’m out of radius?

Who’s fluffing his pillows with intentions? Or scrying in his bathwater? Who’s leaving throat coat tea in his mailbox with runes drawn in glitter glue? Or checking his locks, watering his aloe plant, and disinfecting his door handles with sanitizing wipes?

Nobody. That’s who.

Certainly not that plain ass rebound chick.

And now they want this?

Therapy?

“I’m not unstable,” I say, mostly to myself, but also kind of to Microwave Lady, just in case she’s secretly a psychic or an undercover cop. “I’m in love.”

She nods solemnly like she gets it. Then offers me a Tic Tac.

I take it. Might be laced with something. Honestly? That’d be a treat. It tastes like wintergreen and unspoken trauma. We sit in companionable madness.

I drum my perfect fingernails on my knee. Ten tiny acrylic daggers painted like candy hearts. One says FUCK, another says OFF. Self-expression is healing.

The court said I need six weeks of therapy or I go to jail. I asked if that included accessorized house arrest. They said no.

So here I am. Not because I did anything wrong, but because men are cowards, and the justice system is a misogynistic meat grinder for passionate women.

Just because I maybe geotagged Hank’s Prius and gifted his rebound a glitter bomb packed with emotional truths and craft herpes. And maybe borrowed his Amazon account to send myself a mug that says You Belong To Me.

That’s not crazy. That’s love with follow-through.

The door opens.

A man in glasses and a gray sweater with the sleeves pushed up looks at a clipboard, then at me.

“Delilah Darling?” That voice doesn’t belong in a therapy office. That voice belongs in my ear at 3AM, low and wrecked and whispering don’t stop.

Microwave lady gives me a thumbs up.

Oh, no.

Absolutely not.

That’s illegal.

Therapists are not allowed to be hot.

That’s not just inappropriate. That’s practically entrapment. I’m emotionally vulnerable and tragically horny. I came here to fix my reputation, not develop a crush on the prosecution’s expert witness.

That’s how you make problems worse. That’s how people fake progress just to hear you say ‘I’m proud of you’ in that voice again.

My name in his mouth makes everything inside fold like a bad poker hand.

He doesn’t say it like it’s a problem. Doesn’t wince. Doesn’t check my file to see if I’m the reason his malpractice insurance premiums are astronomical. No. He just smiles. Smiles.

Which is criminal.

I stand. Or more accurately, I float, swerve, glide, whatever makes my hips do that thing men usually lose custody over.

His gaze flickers, just for a second, to the pastel hem of my skirt. Or maybe I imagined it. Maybe I’m hallucinating. Wouldn’t be the first time. Once I thought Hank’s new girlfriend was blinking in Morse code to ask for help. She wasn’t. But that didn’t mean she didn’t need help.

The hallway is too narrow. His cologne smells like bergamot and cedarwood. I try not to breathe it in too hard but fail and do a little choke-sniff like a pervert with asthma.

He gestures politely for me to go first. A gentleman. I don’t. I let him lead.

Because the back of him should be studied. Or worshipped. Or licked like a communion wafer.

His sweater fits him too well. Sleeves shoved up just enough to show forearms with veins I want to write sonnets about. Big, blunt hands. Therapist hands. Safe hands. Spankable hands.

He opens the office door. Low light spills out. The air smells like old books, leather, and emotional unavailability.

I get wet immediately.

“Have a seat,” he says.

I do. On the couch. Legs crossed, head tilted, everything about me designed to say I’m unwell but photogenic.

He sits in a chair across from me. Angled slightly. Dominant but not aggressive. Classic predator-prey positioning. I’ve read the research. I’m practically a psychologist myself. Except instead of a license, I have vibes.

He picks up a pen. Clicks it. Starts writing something on his little clipboard. I try not to moan.

I fail.

His mouth moves. He’s talking. Saying words. Probably important ones. Maybe his name. His credentials. Why I’m here.

All I can hear is mouth.

That mouth could wreck me. That mouth could say you’ve been very bad, Miss Darling, and I’d cry and thank him.

I watch the way his hand grips the pen, the little flicks of motion as he writes. Strong. Rhythmic, like he’s disciplining the page. My clit responds at the soul level.

That pen has seen so much. Does it know how lucky it is?

He pauses. “Are you listening to me, Delilah?”

Absolutely not. Not even close. I’m currently imagining what that mouth would look like telling me no. And how fast I’d break him down until it was yes, baby, whatever you want.

I nod, the way raccoons nod right before they tip over your garbage can. “Mmhm.”

His brow furrows slightly. “Can you tell me what I just said?”

“Your sweater’s doing things to me,” I say sweetly.

It is not what he said. It is exactly what I meant.

He blinks. Slowly. Like he’s accessing some internal HR protocol.

That’s fine. Let him report me. I’ll get court-ordered to him again.

He shifts in his chair. I follow the movement like a cat watching a laser pointer. “You’re here voluntarily?” he asks.

“Court-mandated voluntary.” I lean forward just enough to weaponize my cleavage. “I’m very committed to my growth.”

His pen stills.

I wink.

And that’s when I know he’s not immune.

Oh no.

He’s mine. He’s how I move on from Hank’s emotional neglect.

“And your middle initial, P?” he asks, flipping through the form like he’s just now realizing he’s not treating a person so much as an emotional IED with tits and a Lisa Frank trauma binder.

I tilt my head and smile the kind of slow that makes priests reconsider things.

“What do you think it stands for?” My voice goes molasses-thick and legally actionable. “Projection? Penetration? Progress?”

His pen clicks in a warning shot. He blinks. Once. Hard. Like he’s rebooting via pelvic processor.

“I’m going to assign you a task,” he says finally, voice steady enough to make me suspect he’s either biting the inside of his cheek or bracing for divine punishment.

“I’d like you to journal every night. Thoughts, feelings.

Progress related to your relationship with Hank.

Especially your understanding of boundaries. ”

“Oh, so homework?” I bat my lashes. “Will there be bonus points for penmanship? Presentation? Provocation?”

He hesitates. Just for a second. But it’s the kind of second you can spread your legs across.

“No,” he says carefully. “This isn’t graded.”

I lean in. Just shy of inappropriate. “Not even for glitter gel pens?”

He exhales. Through his nose. Like a man at war with his own dick.

I grin wider. Victorious. “I’ll use stickers. For emotional nuance.”

Rhys Hartwell closes the file as if he’s sealing a time capsule marked do not fuck.

And in that moment, I see it all:

How he’ll try to keep this clinical. Distant. Safe.

How it’ll unravel thread by thread until he’s muttering my name into his steering wheel.

How I’m going to win. Not gracefully. But gloriously.