Coveted: An Alpha Male Romance (7 page)

Rocco de Michele

A man’s heart isn’t supposed to skip a beat.

Especially not mine. Women didn’t affect me. They didn’t move me. But this woman, she moved my feet before I even willed them to.

“Yanna?”

I was too far away. She couldn’t hear me. But she definitely saw me. I wasn’t sure if it was her at first. She looked more mature. Her curls were longer. Her bangs fell into her face, so I could barely see her eyes. But the way she looked at me with a faint smile curling at the edges of her lips as I came closer, told me it was her.

I could hear the guy with her as I approached them. “Girrrrl, you know this fine specimen of a man? Swear?”

Obviously he was gay, which made me feel a hell of a lot better. Meant that he wasn’t with her and I didn’t have to embarrass or beat the shit out of him to get to her.

I was more than ready to do either or.

“Rocco?”

Damn, the sound of her voice was like the remedy that I didn’t even know I needed. Suddenly, I exhaled. As if I had been holding my breath until the moment I saw her again.

Before I knew it, I was wrapping my arms around her. I didn’t care that we were both sweaty. Now that I had seen her again, I planned to never let her go and do whatever I had to do to be wrapped around her, with our sweat smearing amongst one another’s.

Only, we’d be naked.

“Yanna. Wow,” was all that I could say. “What are you doing here?”

“Uhh... working out.”

“Right.” I nervously laughed at my own stupidity. “Dumb ass question.”

“I barely recognized you under that hood. Still can’t catch you without something over your head. That hasn’t changed…but much of you has.”

She did a bad job at hiding how she looked me up and down. Her friends had never once tried to hide it at all. I think I saw drool coming out of the guy’s mouth. But I didn’t look long enough to confirm that. What had my attention was the way that Yanna was looking at me; she was taking me all in. I had grown in more ways than one since the eleventh grade. My only love was the gym and I fucked her every day. I knew that my body was impressive; especially to people that hadn’t seen me since I started lifting. But Yanna had never looked at me twice. It was like she always saw through me, never staring long enough to see how I felt for her.

But now, I could swear that her eyes were squinting with lust.

Is she checking me out? Please say she’s checking me out.

Finally, I forced myself to tear my eyes away from the smirk on her face in order to find words to say that would fill the awkward silence. “I’m in here every day. I’ve never seen you in here. When did you start coming?”

She slightly rolled her eyes as she answered, “They talked me into it. Trying to tighten up a bit.”

I looked her up and down. I couldn’t help but lick my lips as I took in her voluptuousness. I was so appreciative that she had matured and kept every asset that I had fantasized about over the years. “Looks good to me. Don’t lose too much.”
Damn, did I just moan?

I must have, because the guy let out a little muffled squeal that I still managed to hear above the music coming from the gym’s sound system.

I was way more forward than I had ever been with her, I knew it. Her eyes bucked and she seemed to shy away. I hated to shock her with my aggression but I wasn’t that little boy anymore who couldn’t figure out how to flirt with the curvy sistah that made my cock do things that I didn’t know about. I was a grown ass man that had made enough women cum on command that I was ready and equipped to explore every inch of this woman; from her mind to every curve on her body. Even without the experience, I had dreamed about her enough that I was prepared to will myself into her heart, mind, body and soul until my dreams came true.

“I’m Courtney!”

I regretfully tore my eyes away from Yanna’s beautiful browns and looked towards the guy who she was with. He was extending his small hand with a smile. He was a small, dark–skinned guy. He couldn’t have been taller than 5’6”, but I couldn’t deny how cut up he was.

“This is Tanisha,” he continued to introduce the woman that was by Yanna’s side as I shook his hand. She was also in obvious shape. She looked like one of those chicks that did yoga or some shit; the slim, petite woman that Gabe would be fucking drooling over the moment he saw her.

I shook her hand, smiled, and attempted to make small talk as I failed at keeping my eyes off of Yanna, who was doing a damn good job at avoiding my eyes. She seemed to be trying to hide behind her friends. She was cowering in shame for whatever reason. She was attempting to fix her hair, wipe her face free of sweat and fix her clothes. I had the sudden urge to grab her, hold her and tell her that she had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of or fix.

She was fucking perfection to me, and I really wanted her to stop fucking with perfection.

I did grab her suddenly. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to have goddamn small talk with those two about how much I worked out, did I train, or what the fuck ever. I wanted to talk to my heart, to the woman that I had been obsessed with all of my life.

I could hear her friend’s shocked, muffled squeals as I reached past them, took Yanna’s hand and pulled her towards me. Her beautiful eyes bucked, but she followed me a few feet away from her friends, who eyed us like fucking hawks.

They were like top flight security or some shit.

“How have you been?” I leaned against the island in the middle of floor, which was full of book bags, protein shakes and gallons of water. No one knew the real purpose of this damn thing. We just used it to house all of our shit.

With a sigh, Yanna answered, “I’ve been good,” and for whatever reason, I knew she was lying.

She hadn’t been good. She didn’t even look like it. The Yanna Hill that I knew had a light in her eyes that I envied, that put so much light in my day when I would sneak and stare.

I didn’t see that light anymore.

But I let her get away with it.

“How have you been? You look great.”

I smiled. “Thank you. I’ve been all right. I’ll be better when you give me your number.”

Her mouth opened but nothing came out. She looked at me curiously. It seemed like she was wondering who the fuck I’d turned into.

I had turned into a man, and I couldn’t wait to show her just how much of a man I was.

But I decided to let her in on that plan later. “I haven’t seen you in ages. We gotta catch up over dinner, drinks. Do you drink?”

“Socially,” she told me.

“Yea, so we definitely have to hook up. What’s your number?”

I wasn’t giving her an opportunity to tell me no, or to take my number instead; shit that women do to get out of giving their number away. But I was no longer the boy that couldn’t figure out how to get the girl of his dreams, and I was about to do everything in my power to get her.

She rattled off her number as she shot weird looks at her friends. Then I called her so that she could have my number. “Lock me in.”

She replied faintly, “Okay.”

I reached out and hugged her again. I couldn’t help it. Having her in my arms was the answer to an unknown question. “It was good to see you. I’ll call you soon.”

When I let her go, there was so much confusion and wonder in her eyes. But I soon planned to fix all of that.

Chapter 10

Yanna E. Hill

Seeing Roc at the gym was like seeing him for the first time. While in high school, I saw him, but he was nothing like the powerful, masculine definition of a man that stood before me. He was cute in high school, but Roc was now
strikingly divine,
and it wasn’t just his immaculate features that defined his good looks. His presence itself was breathtaking and intimidating. My panties were wet, and it wasn’t the sweat from my workout that was soaking them.

I was awe–struck when he blatantly flirted with me and manhandled me. I was speechless and even more flabbergasted when he actually called me that night.

Oddly, since that day at the gym, Roc and I spoke often; every day, for hours at a time.

At first, we were catching up. We had known one another all of our lives, so there was much to discuss. But after our third conversation, we started to talk about life, love, relationships, and marriage. I thought it to be strange that the sexy ass Italian at the gym never missed a beat to tell me how beautiful and sexy I was. After about two weeks, I had become dependent on his good morning text messages. My night was complete when he called to see how my day was before I went to bed. He never missed a morning or evening.

I had to wake up at six in the morning to teach children when his hard knock lifestyle was just about ending at that time of morning. He didn’t keep from me what he did for a living. He tried to explain to me who he was in the streets without scaring me. It was hard to believe that Rocco de Michele was a self–made man, but it wasn’t shocking. In school, he was much more focused on being bad, than being smart, and by now he had perfected being bad.

He was so bad that even my mother had heard of it during her conversations with Mrs. de Michele. Therefore, she was very disappointed when I confided in her about falling for Rocco. Her disappointment was warranted. We were like night and day; I was a teacher and he was a gangster. But my days and nights were so full of him that I no longer saw the difference.

“So when are you guys going out?” Courtney’s smile was bright and mischievous as me, him and Tanisha waited for the bartender to bring us our Cosmos.

I smiled as I fixed my hair in the mirror behind the bar. It was crazy how two weeks ago, I could barely look at myself and smile, but constantly hearing how beautiful I was had assisted me in holding my head as high as I used to; that and being constantly in the gym with these two had the inches shedding rather drastically. My body was in shock. I was nowhere near thin, but damn it if my curves weren’t doing their thing in the Bodycon dress that I was wearing.

“Ooooo,” Tanisha squealed. “What’s that smile about, girl?”

“Nothing,” I lied. But it was definitely something. I hadn’t seen Roc, besides randomly in the gym, since the day that we exchanged numbers. He had asked me so many times, but I was scared. Even over the phone, without asking or confirmation, I could feel that I was already his. Simply with his voice, he owned me. He had taken it upon himself to involve himself into my life. He was part of my every life and I, his. He had staked his claim without verbalizing his triumph. He had never once even sexually flirted with me, but he handled me like I was already his. He said things like, “How was my baby’s day?”, “Don’t work my body too hard,” “Don’t lose my curves.” Everything about me he had already claimed. He was just waiting for me to figure it out.

Without my permission, he had begun to court me. But I guess my submission was his permission.

So, that’s why I hadn’t gone out with him yet. Being in his possession felt so effortlessly good and I feared how comfortable and happy I was when the man hadn’t even penetrated me…. yet.

I knew that the moment that I was intimately in his presence, there would be no looking back.

“So, what the hell?! C’mon! Spit it out!” Courtney squealed. “When are you going out with his fine ass?!”

“I will. Soon. I guess we’re getting to know each other. I don’t kno–”

“What you mean you don’t know?”

“It’s hard to tell. He hasn’t outright said that he wants to date me, but he flirts, he’s always telling me how beautiful I am and how he had a crush on me in high school.”

“Girl,” Courtney waved his hand. “He wants to date you and then some. He wants some of that chocolate, honey.”

I blushed at the thought.

Tammy asked, “Has he asked you out?”

I fidgeted with my hair nervously. Just the thought of this made me anxious. “Yes.”

“Then daa! There you go!”

It wasn’t that simple. Before seeing Roc again, I was emotionally fucked up. I needed to fix me. I didn’t know how to do that with a man that was seemingly out of my league. I mean, I knew that I was a pretty woman, but one with flaws, as any woman would be. I just couldn’t wrap my head around why a man with Roc’s stature and physique would be into…. me.

But even as I questioned it in my mind, my heart knew that he indeed was and that it was genuine. I didn’t know why. But maybe I didn’t need to know why. It wasn’t important. What was important was that I was convinced that it was genuine.

“Damn it,” Courtney cursed as the bartender arrived with our dinks. “You’re going to make me call him.”

I laughed, and just as I was about to say something slick, a vision in off–white caught my eye. I could hear Courtney chirping in the distance as my eyes zeroed in on Alex.

She
was on his arm.

“Yanna?.... Yanna?” I could hear Courtney calling my name, but I was too engrossed in watching how happy she looked on his arm. “Ya–nna!”

I spun around and faced the bar. “Alex is here!”

Tanisha gasped. Courtney went straight into
Bad Girls Club
mode. “Oh hell no,” he snapped, with a clap of his hands. Then he started taking off his pretend–earrings. “I’ve been waiting to see this bastard.”

“What are you going to do, Courtney?” Tanisha asked with a side–eye.

“I keep telling you I got Indian in my family. I’m from the Pop–A–Hoe tribe! I will chop his ass up!”

“Ssshh!” I insisted. “Just be quiet, Courtney. I don’t want him to see me.”

I hid my face inside of my Cosmo and tried to breathe. You know how in instances like this you just want to go to your happy place because you know it will make everything better? That’s how I was feeling. I wanted my happy place. I wanted Roc.