Controlled 2: Loving An Alpha Male

by S. K. Lessly

  Nyla frowned. “Yeah, you keep saying that. What do you mean? When was your last relationship?”

  He sighed. “Roughly, about six years ago.”

  Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Six years ago? How can that be?”

  It was Andrew’s turn to look confused. “What do you mean by that?”

  Nyla unfolded her legs and tucked her hands underneath her warm thighs. She leaned forward slightly, resting her weight on her arms. “I mean what about that blonde woman that I saw you with all the time? Wasn’t her name Lori? I know you said you all weren’t a couple, but were you two something else before? Or maybe you—”

  Andrew shook his head before Nyla could finish her sentence. “No, I told you before,” he interrupted. “She and I were never an item.”

  “But, you two used to come to the diner together all the time. I know for a fact she didn’t come for the food or the atmosphere,” Nyla said blandly.

  “Yes, well, Lori and I did have an understanding of sorts. Still, it wasn’t anything more than just a friendship. She would meet me at the diner because she knew it would be the only way to get a hold of me; we had never arrived together. In the past, she and I would also get together for drinks or a friendly dinner, but that was it.”

  Nyla shook her head dubiously. “That’s just so hard to believe. The way she used to look at you. I could have sworn you two were an item. Do you think she has feelings for you?”

  “I haven’t a clue. Lori understood the nature of our friendship. She was only around for a purpose. That was it. I made no promises that we would be anything but what we were.”

  “And what was that exactly?” Nyla asked and Andrew just stared at her. He didn’t respond and it took her a few seconds to catch on. Her eyes grew wide and she looked around nervously.

  “Ah, okay I get it,” she said softly.

  “But,” Andrew began and she met his eyes. “She and I haven’t been like that in quite some time.”

  “Really?” Nyla replied, her voice still but a whisper.

  “Really.”

  “How… um… when was the last time…”

  Andrew gave her a sly grin and admitted, “I haven’t touched Lori since the day I stumbled upon you at the diner.”

  Shocked, she shook her head unable to wrap her head around his words. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was slightly open. When she realized that she was ogling at him, she closed her mouth and cleared her throat. “Um… Okay,” she managed to get out. “So, your last true relationship was really that long ago? Was it serious?”

  Andrew fell silent again. He had this faraway look on his face for a few minutes before he seemed to snap out of wherever he went and moved even closer to her. The moonlight lit up his face enough for Nyla to see his expression clearly. The pain that she saw in his eyes put her on guard.

  “Andrew,” Nyla called softly after she realized he was lost in his own thoughts.

  He seemed to look right through her for a spell before he blinked a few times and dropped his eyes to the ground.

  “Yes, it was serious.”

  Nyla waited for more, but Andrew didn’t offer any other information. He still had this preoccupied look on his face that was starting to alarm Nyla. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she had hoped he would tell her whatever it was he was holding back.

  After what felt like a lifetime, Andrew focused his dark eyes on her. He said to her, his voice wooden and distant, “The last serious relationship that I had was with my wife.”

  10

  “Your wife!?” Nyla blurted out, her hand instantly moving to her chest and then to her throat. She gaped at him in stunned silence.

  This can’t be happening again, she said to herself.

  How could he be married? She didn’t see a ring on his finger; not even a tan line where a ring would have been. However, her mind went back in time to the night she had met Robert. She recalled that he didn’t wear a ring either. She squinted her eyes, desperately trying to remember that night. Did he have a tan line on his ring finger?

  Oh God! Nyla buried her face in her hands. He’s married! She felt her heart begin to hammer against her chest. She rubbed her neck and then her throat, feeling as if it was closing, preventing her from swallowing the bile rising in her throat.

  “Nyla, let me explain,” she heard him say. She lifted her head from her hands and stared at him blankly as though she didn’t hear him speak a word. And she hadn’t. She was too busy trying to steady the throbbing sound of her pulse ringing in her ears.

  Nyla closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said in a rushed tone, “Andrew, you need to explain, because I…” she trailed off unable to finish her sentence. Her fears were starting to take hold of the muscles in her throat. The words Darrius had poisoned her heart with were beginning to fill her with uncertainty and dread.

  Andrew moved closer to her until he was only inches away from her. Nyla looked up into his eyes and watched his features, searching for something…anything that would make the pain in her chest go away.

  “Sweetheart, I’m not married now. But I was married.”

  “Was?” Nyla found herself asking.

  Andrew nodded. “Yes, was. I’m not anymore. I haven’t been for almost two years now.”

  “What happened? Did…did you get a divorce or… are you separated or something?”

  Andrew slowly exhaled then let his shoulders relax. His posture no longer looked as though he was ready to pounce, Nyla noticed. Instead, a quiet calm seemed to settle over him. Nyla wasn’t sure if this transformation was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe he was letting her in or maybe he was building a wall to keep her out permanently. However, the wait was excruciating. Nyla found that she was holding her breath with eagerness so strong it was taking control of her body. She had her fingers crossed, hoping—no praying that this was it; that he was finally letting her in.

  “No, it wasn’t anything like that,” Andrew confessed. He took a slight pause and explained further, “My wife was killed in a car accident.”

  A gasp escaped Nyla’s lips and her hand flew to her mouth in shock. “Oh God, Andrew,” she said through her slackened fingers. “I’m so sorry.”

  Andrew shook his head from side to side. “It’s okay,” he breathed out. “I’m fine. It was a while ago.”

  “Was it? Because I can still see the pain in your eyes.”

  Andrew didn’t respond to that. He merely nodded in affirmation and stared off into the darkness beyond her. Nyla stayed quiet for a while also, staring off into the darkened lake, letting the tension ease from her body. His admission troubled her, but at the same time, it answered a lot of questions. She used to wonder why he always seemed so aloof and detached whenever he came to the diner. She didn’t believe it was just his personality. She had felt at the time, that there was something more to Andrew than him just being an asshole. She had been desperate to find out more about him. She had wanted to know what made him tick, and here was her moment. The question now was, after everything, did she still want to know?

  Nyla looked up at the man before her and said softly, “Tell me about her.”

  Nyla didn’t push him when he didn’t respond to her request. The idea was to let him share whatever he wanted to share in his own time. She didn’t want to press or make him feel he was obligated to talk about his late wife. She would even be okay if he said that he wasn’t comfortable sharing that side of him.

  But Andrew surprised her and gave her a small smile before he opened up his heart and told her about his wife…

  “Her name was Mikaliah,” he started off saying. “She was an amazing woman. Sweet, caring, beautiful… She had a heart of gold, always willing to help anyone in need. I always wondered what she saw in me. I was so hard, rough around the edges, and I didn’t bend at all. But she fell in love with me anyway and turned my world upside down.”

  Nyla smiled warmly at his memory. “She sounds amazing.”

  “Yeah, everyone l
oved her. They questioned her sanity because she was with me, but they loved her none the less.”

  “Well, can you blame them?” she asked jokingly. “You are a bit much to take.”

  Andrew chuckled lightly. “You do have a point.” He gave her a small smile before continuing, “Mikaliah and I dated for about six months before I asked her to marry me. I didn’t need to waste time with trivial shit; timetables things like that. I was in love with her. I wanted her to be with me forever and there was no way I was letting her go. She took pity on me and said yes to my proposal, again surprising her family and mine. I wasn’t surprised, though. I knew that she felt just as I did. We were made for each other…”

  “Wow, it’s pretty great when you’re able to find someone like that,” replied Nyla as Andrew trailed off.

  “Yeah, it is, especially for a man like me. I never expected to fall in love. My parents had told me, or rather warned me, over and over that I would find the love of my life when I least expected it and at the most inopportune time.” Andrew’s gaze softened as he spoke. “I wasn’t a believer at the time, but…”

  “But, now you are?” Nyla finished and Andrew nodded his agreement.

  “Well, I’m not completely sold, but I’m at least open to the idea. Mikaliah made everything easy. Life with her was just… easy. Granted, it wasn’t always that way. My job consumed my life at the time and unfortunately, it consumed hers as well. I was just getting into practicing corporate law. I had been working late hours and going in before the sun came up. But, we made the best of it,” Andrew professed and grew silent again. The faraway look on his face returned as if he had plummeted into the past and was reliving his pain all over again.

  Nyla wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him that everything would be okay. Despite her need to console him, she didn’t make a move. It wasn’t the right time, she believed. She felt that he would take her touch to mean something else; pity or displaced sympathy maybe. She didn’t feel any of those things. She just wanted to make his pain go away.

  “One day,” Andrew began, still looking out into the surrounding darkness. “She and I were supposed to head east to her parents’ house. I had planned to be done with work early and meet her at home so we could ride together. Except, something unexpected came up. I had told her to drive up to her parents’ without me and I wouldn’t be too far behind. But… Mikaliah never made it to her parents’ home.”

  A soft gasp escaped Nyla and floated into the muted darkness around them. Andrew felt Nyla’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look at her. Instead, his eyes dropped to the hard earth beneath his feet. He had begun to feel the rage from that night start to climb up his spine. The memories and pain he had felt were fresh in his mind. He had remembered small insignificant things such as the scent of the cologne the doctor had worn when he had broken the news that he’d lost his wife in the hospital’s emergency room. He remembered the warm brown color of the nurse’s eyes as he felt his heart break the moment he had been told that he had lost his reason for living. Most of all, he remembered the helplessness he had felt that night. He was supposed to have been her protector, her knight in shining armor, but he had failed. And that feeling of failure had been the worst sensation he had ever experienced in his life. He had died that day. He had become a shell of what he had once been, declaring that he would never open himself to anyone else again. That all changed the moment he entered Rock’s Diner and his cold, distant eyes fell on heaven.

  The silence from Andrew was starting to alarm Nyla. She was about to ask him if he wanted to go when he spoke again. This time his voice seemed so distant, despite his closeness to her. Anger seemed to have filled him completely. His features darkening, his voice full of rage that made his body tense before her.

  “I was oblivious to what had happened to her. All that time I had thought she was safely at her parents’ house. I had been in a meeting for hours and I didn’t learn of the accident until I’d left the meeting and checked my cell. I had missed calls from some unknown number and a few from my in-laws. I ended up calling them first and that’s when I realized that she had never made it to them. With this sudden sickening feeling crawling up my spine, I dialed the unknown number. The number ended up belonging to Mercy’s emergency room. That’s when I found out that she had been in an accident. I didn’t learn that she was…” he paused and took another deep breath. “I didn’t know she was gone until I got to the hospital. I…” Andrew’s voice faded into the blackness and Nyla couldn’t hold back any longer.

  She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his taut forearm. The blanket fell from her shoulders, but she didn’t care. She freed his hand from the pocket of his sweatpants and laced her fingers with his. She squeezed reassuringly and softly kissed the back of his hand.

  Andrew’s eyes fell on hers and they stayed like that for a moment; him gaining strength from just her touch. Her fighting back tears for a woman she had never met.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nyla whispered and kissed his hand again.

  Andrew moved closer to her and brought her hand up to his mouth. He kissed the back of her hand, keeping it against his lips for a while; savoring her touch and scent. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before releasing it, but he kept her hand in his.

  “Nyla, I can’t promise you that I won’t fuck up.” He professed to her. “I know that I will. I have baggage and I know you do too. And yes, I also know that you and I come from very different backgrounds. But that doesn’t matter to me. The fact that you work at a diner is irrelevant to me. I just want to be with you. I want to take care of you and Se’Nya and be there for both of you.” Andrew pulled his other hand out of his pocket and brought it to the side of her cheek. He caressed her skin softly with the back of his fingers before he cupped her face in his hand.

  “Give me a chance to prove to you that I’m all in and that this that we have is what I want. You’re what I need. I need you, Nyla.” His hand drifted to the back of her neck, gripped her firmly, and tilted her head up. She felt his warm breath against her face. “Let me prove that to you,” he whispered softly just inches away from her lips. Then he closed the gap and lightly brushed his lips against hers. Andrew continued to kiss her softly, keeping a bit of distance between them while caressing her lips with his.

  When he pulled back from her, he didn’t let her go. He kept his gaze steady on her while she fought to gain composure.

  “Andrew,” she said reluctantly. “How can you be so sure about us?”

  “I can’t really explain it, Nyla. I just know that the idea of you not being in my life scares the shit out of me. I’m willing to take the risk and see where this takes us. I’m not going to lie to you. I do suck at this; at relationships. Sometimes I can get so wrapped up in my work that I forget the world exists. But...” Andrew firmly kept his hold on her as he saw Nyla tense up. “I will not make the same mistake twice. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve missed you too fucking much and I won’t go through that again.”

  It was Nyla’s turn to not reply. She went through everything in her mind, wondering if this would be all worth it or not. Could she take the risk and possibly get her heart broken again? Could she now risk Se’Nya’s heartache? She understood that her daughter was young and probably wouldn’t remember Andrew if they didn’t last. But still, Nyla questioned if it was worth taking that risk. But, how could she not?

  “If we continue with this, we are going to have to take this slow,” she insisted. “I have my daughter to think about.”

  Andrew nodded, caressing the side of her face. “Absolutely. I understand.”

  “I just want to be sure about us before I take this chance. And I know this is ass backward. I just…”

  Andrew put a finger to her lips to prevent her from uttering another word.

  “You don’t have to explain. I have no problem with us taking our time. Whatever it takes. Regardless of the pace we’re taking, Nyla, it doesn’t change the fact that you belong to
me.” Nyla held his heated gaze for a moment longer before her cheeks spread into a soft grin. Andrew frowned. “Nyla, I am so serious.”

  Nyla’s grin grew. “I have no doubt that you are.”

  Andrew stood there brooding while Nyla took in the view one last time before she asked that he take her home. It took a little longer this time going back to Nyla’s apartment. Mainly, because Andrew had calmed down and was driving a little closer to the speed limit than before. The ride back to her place was spent mostly in silence, much to Nyla’s amusement. She was able to get some dialogue from him, but for the most part, he remained quiet. Once he arrived at her complex, he pulled into a parking space in front of her building and turned off the engine.

  “Wait here,” he commanded before he climbed out of the car.

  Andrew walked around the hood of the car, looking around as he did so, and opened Nyla’s door. He offered her his hand. She took it. As he helped out of the car, she saw that his eyes traveled down to her cleavage. The frown he wore on his face deepened as he went through the motions of locking his car doors and protectively taking Nyla’s hand.

  The climb to her third-floor apartment was uneventful. Nyla reached her door, unlocked it, and turned to Andrew. She looked up at him and saw a barrage of emotions swirling around his blue eyes.

  “Okay, Pierce, I’ll give you some props for taking me to the lake. It was beautiful. And, just because I was willing to talk to you and I let you kiss me, doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” advised Nyla. Andrew remained quiet as Nyla added, “You’re still on my hit list for ignoring me, but as I said, I’m willing to see how this goes.” Nyla stood on her tiptoes and lightly kissed Andrew on his cheek. When she pulled back, she smiled slightly. “Goodnight.”

  Andrew didn’t move to leave, which puzzled her.

  Cautiously, she asked, “What’s wrong? Is there something else you want to say?”

  “No,” Andrew responded flatly. “I’m waiting for you to open your door so that I can make sure that your apartment is clear.”