Filled, Owned, and Fucked by My Best Friend’s Father

I shouldn’t be looking for him. I tell myself that every time I come over.

But somehow, even before I greet Tatiana - my best friend, my eyes drift—to the hallway that leads to his home office, to the back patio where he sometimes takes work calls shirtless, to anywhere he might be.

It’s disgusting, really. He’s my best friend’s dad. Off-limits in every way. Twice my age. Tattooed, god-tier attractive, and the reason I’ve rewritten my private daydreams more times than I can count.

Gianni.

I shouldn’t even call him that in my head. “Mr. Rossetti,” I correct myself silently, but it lands wrong.

He doesn’t act like a “Mr.” anything. He acts like a warning in a suit, like a man who knows exactly how good he looks and exactly how dangerous that is.

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to focus on the conversation Tatiana is having beside me, but my gaze is already wandering toward the sound of splashing water. I know he’s out there. Shirtless. Probably with a drink in his hand and some woman on his radar. That thought makes something twist in my stomach.

I hate how much I notice him. I hate how much I imagine things I shouldn’t.

But the day I saw him eating out a woman like a starved animal, is the day my vagina decided she had an owner.

He inserts two fingers into me, stretching her…

I watch his face, focused and intense, as he continues. “Don’t stop!” I  gasp, nearing my climax. “Oh god, yes… just like that! I’m about to come! Please, don’t stop!”

How many times have I dreamed of this?

Except, I wasn’t the woman he was fucking, taming, taking pleasure from. I wonder if the rumors are true? That he fucks as dirty as he fights.

IT SHOULD BE ME.

“Cat, are you even hearing me?” Tatiana bumps my shoulder with her champagne glass and spills a dot of gold on the leather seat. “You just graduated, and your boyfriend of five years didn’t come to the ceremony. That’s not love, babe.”

"He had to work early tomorrow," I say, repeating the excuse he’s given me too many times. "I guess I can’t blame him for trying to be responsible."

"An adult would have asked for the day off. He’s known about the graduation date for months," she says with a shrug. "I don’t buy it, Caterina."

Luciano has hurt me so many times I can’t see any good left in him. I don’t know why I stay. Maybe it’s the fear of being alone.

Our driver, Roger, turns up the private road, tires whispering over smooth stone. The iron gates lift their lashes and let us in the Rossetti estate. My stomach flutters. Gianni Rossetti' estate. He is both dangerous and intriguing. He has many enemies because he doesn’t always follow the law, which my father warns me about.

Tatiana swigs the last inch of champagne and sighs. “Five parties. Zero Luciano. He knew how important your graduation day was to you, and he couldn’t even make time for dinner when your dad specifically invited him.”

I have to come up with another excuse. "He couldn't help that he had to cover a shift."

Her snort fills the car. “Oh, right. I forgot about his job at his uncle’s gym.”

“The gym he’s going to take over,” I remind her gently.

"I'm just saying... You deserve better," she says, then tips onto me as Roger stops at the portico.

He opens the door like we’re royalty and he’s had enough of it. I step out and the night hits my face—cool, clean, a little like cedar and smoke. It smells like him even when he isn’t here. That’s the problem. The house holds him like a secret.

“Do you need help, Ms. Rossetti?” Roger asks, voice flat. He’s wearing that bored expression that says “I care, but also, please no.”

Tatiana narrows her eyes. “Do you need manners, Mr. Stone Face?”

I loop her arm through mine. “She’s fine. We’re going in.”

Roger’s mouth twitches. “Get her upstairs before she decides the fountain is a pool.”

“I heard that,” Tatiana says. “I would never do that again.”

The foyer swallows us.

“Bed,” Tatiana groans, kicking off her heels with a tiny moan like she’s breaking up with them. “Help me, saint.”

“I’m not a saint,” I say, hitching her arm higher across my shoulders. “You’re heavy.”

“I’m priceless,” she sings. Then, with a sly look, “And you’re staring at the staircase like it leads straight to sin.”

I don’t answer. Because it does.

We hit the first landing. Tatiana leans more weight into me and hums some happy, messy tune. “You okay?” I whisper, adjusting my grip.

“Mmhm,” she says. “You’re quiet.”

“I’m carrying you.”

“You’re thinking about him.”

Heat flashes up my neck. “No.”

“You are,” she says, sing-song, then yawns. “You always do in this house.”

“Stop,” I say, soft. “You’re drunk.”

“You’re in denial.” She snorts out a laugh. “My dad isn’t your problem, baby.”

I swallow. “He’s not.”

“Don’t let him become one.”

We climb. My thighs burn and my mind decides to make it worse—feeding me little snaps of memory I didn’t ask for:

A winter afternoon. Steam curling up from the pool. His back a map I don’t have the right to study. He’s not looking at me, but my heart acts like he is.

A kitchen night. Me making a bad joke about a headline. His mouth tilting half a degree. A sound I replayed for weeks like I saved it on my tongue.

Tatiana stumbles on the next step. I steady her. “Almost there.”

We pass the gallery wall of black-and-white photos. I catch myself in the glass over a frame. I look like someone I don’t recognize. Glossy lips. Tired eyes. A girl trying to look like a woman and hating the parts that still look nineteen.

The boyfriend talk crawls back in. Luciano. Perfect on paper: patient, familiar, good with my parents, never late to work. But love isn’t a résumé. It’s a room. And lately, when I stand in the room with him, I feel like a ghost. I can’t live there anymore.

“Okay,” I breathe, bracing us for the final stretch. “Left here.”

Tatiana mumbles, “I hate stairs,” and I laugh under my breath because same. Also because laughing helps when you’re trying not to think about your best friend’s father while walking to her bedroom. This is insane. I’m insane. I need sleep. I need water. I need a new brain.

We turn down her hall.

I slow near her door.

I rest my forehead against the cool wood for a second. Just a second.

“Cat?” Tatiana breathes, dream-thick. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, too quick. “Just catching my breath.”

From the stairs. From the house. From myself.

Next time I see Gianni, I’m not going to be “good.” I’m going to put my back to his kitchen door, take his hair between my fingers, and make him ruin me with his tongue.