His Secret Desire (Atlanta Nights)

by Linda Verji

  “Livy,” he called out, his voice sounding deeper in the darkness of the room.

  “Hmm?” Her drowsy murmur resonated against his shoulder as she cuddled closer to him and toyed with his dog-tag.

  He ran his hand up and down her arm, “Are you asleep?”

  “Yes,” she muttered then spoilt it with a chuckle.

  His lips kicked up in a smile and he turned to press a kiss to her forehead. “Really? Then how come you’re talking?”

  “I’m sleep talking.” Her voice sounded much clearer now. “You knocked my walls out so hard I think it messed up a circuit in my brain.”

  That earned a fully belly laugh from him. She soon joined him with a very wakeful giggle. Catching her hand in his, he pressed her fist to his lips. “You’re crazy.”

  “For you.” She lifted up and pressed a kiss to his lips. Her lips were warm, sweet and soft. Marcel’s dick stirred at her delectable taste but knowing that he’d probably worn her out with his exuberance in the kitchen, he didn’t deepen the kiss.

  She broke their kiss to circle the rectangular metal lying on his upper chest with her finger. “I saw Sebastien with a dog-tag like yours. Is it a twin thing?”

  “Yes-” he answered automatically. Other people had asked him about the tag - other women - and this was always the same answer he gave them. Yeah, then changed the subject. But this time he found himself adding, “- and no. They were our mom’s dog-tags. I have one, Seb has the other.”

  The words escaped him before he could stop them, shocked him, because he didn’t like talking about his mother. She was a weakness he didn’t like revealing. So why was his psyche prodding him to talk to Olivia about her?

  She isn’t other women. The thought struck him like thunderbolt. Before he could fully twist and analyze the thought, Olivia lifted her head from his shoulder to stare at him. “I didn’t know she was a soldier.”

  “She was.” He was silent for a moment, hesitant to open up. Olivia didn’t prod, as if waiting for him to decide if he wanted to tell her more. And he did! Drawing in a deep breath, he spilled out his mother’s story. From her recruitment into the army, her meeting their father on one of her breaks, their birth, her preparing to exit, then dying in Operation Desert Storm before she could. They’d brought back her cold body, tags intact.

  “We were nine at the time. My dad gave them to us.” Dredging up memories of his mother was enough to cause a lump in the back of his throat.

  Olivia cupped his jaw and stroked his chin. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  He shrugged but didn’t say anything, unable to speak through the lump in his throat. She arched upward to place a sweet kiss on his lips. The soft motion of her lush mouth against his eased some of the pain rolling in the pit of his belly.

  When she snuggled back against him, she shared, “My mom had leukemia, only a few months to live, and according to the doctors no chance of having kids. So she made her bucket list, and on it she had ‘sleep with a black guy’.” Olivia shook her head. “Apparently every white girl wonders. Anyway, somehow she and my dad hooked up at one of his concerts and voila - Olivia.”

  “What?” Despite himself, Marcel guffawed. “You were the product of a BBC fantasy?”

  “It isn’t funny.” Olivia slapped his arm. Humor unmistakable in her voice, she added, “My grandparents almost had a heart attack, what with them being good God-fearing southern folk and my great granddaddy Jeb being a KKK card carrying member. But they survived.”

  “Did they raise you?”

  “For a while.” Her tones sobered up as she continued, “Until the bullying started.”

  It was a hard enough being a mixed child in a town where everyone was white. But to be the heaviest kid too? The bullying and name-calling had been relentless. It hadn’t been that hard for her dad to convince her nana, SueAnne, that living with him would be less torturous. The issue of her race had lessened once she was out of that town, but she was still fat. And the media wouldn’t let her forget it.

  “You were just a kid.” Quiet rage stole down Marcel’s spine. “Who cares if you’ve got some extra pounds?”

  “Huh!” Olivia scoffed. “Try being a fat celebrity kid. The press are as lethal as their readers.”

  Marcel didn’t want to imagine people attacking a ten year-old kid just because she wasn’t exactly the ideal size. But then again, how many times had he seen people attacking celebrities via social media and taunting them cruelly as if they weren’t real people?

  “I rebelled. Tattoos, alcohol, drugs, bad friends, the works… I gave them a whole lot of headlines.” She chuckled but there was no humor in her laugh. “But when I was fifteen I decided that I was done with that lifestyle. I wouldn’t let them destroy me anymore, so I walked away.”

  He tightened his hold on her, hating the thought of her being so overwhelmed that she’d had no choice but to run away. “Didn’t your dad protest?”

  “I think he was just relieved that he wouldn’t have to pick up me from juvie again.”

  She told him of how her dad had helped her disappear off the social scene by sending her off to Switzerland. By the time she came back to the States three years later people had forgotten her, and she was a different person.

  Marcel and Olivia’s talk lasted through the night. She shared how at thirteen she’d gotten the butterfly tattoos on her arm to piss off her father. At fifteen she’d gotten the dragon to burn those stupid butterflies because nothing inside her felt beautiful. She just felt burnt. She told him of how she’d gotten the ‘only the strong survive’ tattoo after her stint in rehab.

  He revealed his love for drawing and art, and how it was his father who’d nurtured it. He talked of the pain of losing his father at seventeen to cancer. He told her of Sophie and how she’d been his first serious relationship. He confessed how much her betrayal had hurt. With the lights off, their talk felt even more intimate and Marcel felt closer to her than he had with any other woman.

  Even Sophie.

  Suddenly that relationship felt so superficial. Somewhere between showing Olivia some of his designs and telling her about Sebastien’s arrest he realized that he was glad that Sophie had run off with that photographer. Otherwise he would’ve never gone to that club or met Olivia. The connection he felt with her was unique, beyond the physical.

  It felt real.

  Olivia felt like she was sailing on a dream the next day.

  Despite having only two hours of sleep and zero coffee in her system, her morning session was a breeze. Her lunchtime class was as easy as beginner yoga and spotting weight lifters had never seemed so much fun. Even Nikki’s dropping by for a quiet one hour session wasn’t enough to kill her good mood.

  She was walking on sunshine, high as a kite.

  And it all circled back to Marcel. He’d kept her up the whole night talking. Of what? Everything. Apparently the walls she kept up to keep people at arms-length were useless when it came to Mr. Isaac. They’d crumbled like straw under his genuine and non-judgmental interest.

  She’d told him things even Lex didn’t even know. Like how she’d straddled the line between addiction and recreational drug use so closely that they’d put her through rehab before she’d started school in Switzerland. She’d told him of her wigs and how they were the only part of ‘crazy’ Olivia that she still kept.

  She should’ve been embarrassed at revealing that she was the furthest thing from Little Miss Perfect. Instead she was elated. Finally, she’d found someone she could really be herself with. Someone who thought her crazy was endearing. Someone who trusted her enough to share his own weaknesses with her.

  “I’m telling you, Liv,” Lex announced when she called him during one of her breaks, “if he’s introducing you to his family, he’s serious.”

  “No, he isn’t?” Olivia refuted, but she was beaming like a drunk sailor as she tapped a jaunty tune on the reception counter.

  “Liv, I’m a dude. I know this stuff,” Lex’s voice c
arried in her ear. “If he was planning to keep you as a side-piece he wouldn’t have invited you.”

  “You think?” She let him convince her for a couple more minutes before he finally ended the call to go teach a class.

  “Oh!” Morning waggled her eyebrows. “Things getting serious with The Man?”

  “Sort of.” Olivia grinned. Despite herself, she found herself imagining how it would feel to be his wife.

  Olivia Isaac.

  “Stop it,” she admonished herself. She was turning into one of those women who started planning weddings and baby showers on the first date. It was too early to be thinking of a future with Marcel.

  Why is it too early? Her giddy senses dismissed. Olivia Isaac was a catchy name. She smiled, floating on a bubble of happiness and satisfaction

  But all bubbles have to burst some time.

  Her bubble burst at exactly six forty five p.m. the same evening. She was headed out for the day when she bumped into Tay at the reception.

  CHAPTER 24

  The moment Olivia saw Tay leaning against the reception counter and chatting up a giggling Morning, her hackles rose. Every part of her being stiffened into a taut thread of anger. Her first instinct was to smack the smarmy smile right off his lips. But her logic reminded her that this was her workplace and acting out could mean getting fired. So, taking a deep breath, she hiked her gym bag over her shoulders and marched past them toward the elevator.

  She was done with him.

  Unfortunately he wasn’t done with her.

  Just as the elevator doors began to slide towards each other, the man ducked between them. Olivia’s pulse jumped in instant fury at his arrival.

  “Hey, Liv.” He grinned as he positioned himself beside her. If it was up to her logic, she would’ve walked out right then.

  Hell no, her crazy yelled, are you kidding me? Now way in hell would she let him kick her out of her elevator. Kissing her teeth, Olivia leaned forward and pressed the ground floor button. The doors met, trapping the two within the steel cage and it began its descent.

  “Hey, Liv,” Tay repeated.

  She ignored him.

  Had his cologne always been this cloying? Standing this close to him irritated her senses enough to make bile rise in her throat. Careful not to look at him, she shifted further away from him.

  “So that’s how we’re doing it now?” He sounded angry. She didn’t bother to look at him to confirm. Instead, she glanced upwards to the elevator’s floor indicator. Three more floors to go.

  “Are you serious right now?” he snapped.

  As a heart attack. Someone give her a needle and thread so she could stitch his mouth shut! Did he not get the memo? She was done talking to him.

  Tay snorted. “So now that you’ve got your little thing going on with Marcel you don’t have time for me, huh?”

  You’re damn right, Skippy! How she’d ever fallen for this man was beyond her. She must’ve been high on bad weed. Two more floors to go.

  “And don’t be fooled. It’s a little thing.” His tone as venomous as a viper’s bite, he continued, “You know what he told me? He just wants a taste of that pussy you’re passing around like candy.”

  His words stung at her like a barbed spear. Olivia’s fist tightened over the strap across her shoulder as she struggled to resist the temptation to fling her heavy gym bag at him. Exactly how important was her job to her? Oh, yeah! It fed her. She sucked in a calming breath and looked on straight ahead. One more floor to go.

  “What? You thought he really wanted you? Because he took you to his family’s barbecue.” Tay’s laughter echoed in the small alcove. “He takes all his women there. Makes it easier to seduce them.”

  Olivia had never wanted to smack someone so badly. This man had chosen the right place to come and spout his garbage. If they were anywhere else and she had her bat with her, he would be picking his teeth off the floor. Lord, hold me. Don’t make me lose my job over this fool.

  There was some shuffling then he edged closer to Olivia, suffocating her with his presence. By the side of her eye, she caught sight of him holding out a picture. “Look at her.”

  Olivia didn’t bother.

  “Look at Sophie.” The photo materialized in front of her face. She slapped his hand and the photo away, but not before catching sight of a slender dark-skinned beauty. “That’s the kind of woman Marcel dates. Classy women. You don’t even come close to his type. Actually any man’s type. Who the hell wants to be with a crazy, tattooed sex-freak who looks like a man?”

  His words seared right into all her insecurities, lacing her fury with pain. If the elevator hadn’t pinged right then, she would’ve swung. Screw her job. Fortunately someone up there was looking out for her, and the doors opened right then. Her breath coming in quick, angry puffs, Olivia exited the elevator.

  “Enjoy it while it lasts,” Tay taunted from inside the elevator, his words fading with each rushed step she took. “When he dumps you, Daddy will be right here waiting for you.”

  By the time Olivia entered her car, her eyes were stinging. She reminded herself that none of what he’d said was true, that he was a bitter shrew lashing out because he couldn’t get his way. But a tear slid down her cheek anyway, then another, and another. By the time she eased into the highway, they were in freefall.

  Despite herself, she questioned whether what Tay had about Marcel was true. Was she just a fling until he found a ‘classy’ woman? They hadn’t even talked about what their relationship was so she had nothing to latch on to. Sure he’d taken her to his family’s barbecue, but like Tay had said, it was something he did with all…

  Stop it, Olivia. She gave herself a mental slap. She was giving Tay power he didn’t deserve. This was the same thing he’d done to keep her and Marcel from getting together the first time and she was letting him do it again. No, his part in the drama that was her life was over. Exit stage left, punk.

  However, despite her pep-talks to herself, Tay had managed to ruin her mood. The moment Marcel stepped into her apartment later that evening, he noticed. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” She offered him a bright smile as she settled across his muscular thigh.

  But something must’ve been wrong with her smile because his eyes narrowed as his concerned gaze scoured her. “Livy, what’s wrong? Tell me.”

  Her first instinct was to come up with some fake excuse, but the last thing she wanted was to taint their growing relationship with lies. That was Tay’s modus operandi. She muttered, “Tay was at the gym today.”

  In the snap of a finger, Marcel’s large frame tensed and anger flashed in his eyes. “What was he doing there?”

  She shrugged and lowered her face.

  Marcel tipped up her face with a finger under her chin. When their eyes locked again, his face was stern, dark and lined with no trace of amusement. “Did he come at you?”

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  “What did he say?” His voice was as cold as a frozen pond.

  She could hear, feel, the tight anger in Marcel. Not wanting to agitate it any further, she soothed her palm over his jaw. “Let’s just forget it. He’s just salty because we’re together and lashing out.”

  “What did he say?” snapped Marcel.

  She tried to divert his attention with another kiss but Marcel was determined to find out what Tay had said. In halting words she explained everything that had happened in the elevator. “… Fortunately, when we got to ground floor he didn’t follow me.”

  For a long moment Marcel said nothing. His body language on the other hand was as loud as a trumpet. Eyes sparked in anger, his jaw ticking and his hands fisted.

  Olivia soothed her hand over his back. “They’re just words, Marcel. He can’t hurt me,” she said even though Tay’s insults still stung at her.

  Obviously Marcel didn’t believe her words because his eyes narrowed. He shifted her off his lap and started to rise. But before he could straighten to his full hei
ght, she tugged him back down.

  “No.” She shook her head as she clung to his arm. “You’re not going after him.”

  “Olivia,” Marcel growled.

  “No.” She moved from the seat and back to his lap, straddling him. “He’s not worth it.”

  Marcel glared at her angrily, his hands tightening on her waist as if to lift her. Olivia wove her arms around his neck and pressed her body downwards, intent on staying right where she was.

  “He’s not worth your anger because I don’t believe him,” she said softly. “I know you’re not using me for sex. Maybe Sophie is prettier, classier, than-”

  “She’s not,” Marcel interrupted with a growl and squeezed her waist.

  Olivia had glimpsed the woman’s photo and let’s face it Sophie was everything any man would want. So she shrugged. “Maybe she is, maybe she’s not. But I know you’re not using me. Not because I’m special or anything but because that’s not you. You’re not that kind of man.” She traced the angry line of his mouth with her thumb. “You’re a good man.”

  Her words struck a chord in him. His eyes softened and the anger in them faded. “You’re right I’d never do that to you. But you’re wrong if you think it has nothing to do with who you are. You’re Olivia.”

  Her heart jumped a beat at the intent look in his eyes as he continued, “Beautiful, witty, unique Olivia. The woman whose got me wrapped up so tight around her, I can’t imagine spending a day without seeing her, talking to her. I love your voice, your body, your smart mouth.” He smiled. “How crazy your eyes get when you’re mad.”

  “Hey,” she protested, slapping him on the chest with the back of her hand. But a smile tugged at her lips.

  Marcel tilted up her chin and touched his own smiling lips to her. “I love how passionate you are when we’re together.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Why did I know you’d go there?”