No Ordinary Love (9 page)

“You’re sitting on my work.”

Seductively, she tilted to the side and lifted her behind just a little to allow him to retrieve his papers. When he reached for them, Casey leaned down and whispered, “I’d rather be sitting on you. Take a break and let me drive you a little crazy,” she requested.

You already are, he said to himself.

“Let me drive you crazy, D,” she insisted, leaning toward him provocatively. She raised her hand to brush his golden skin but found her wrist deftly caught in his grasp.

Tempted beyond reason was more like it. What man could ignore this continuously and successfully for any period of time? Daemon stood up, pushed his chair back, and then tilted Casey’s chin, letting his lips descend upon hers.

Finally
, Casey, breathed as she closed her eyes.
He’s giving in,
she thought reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck as his expert lips devoured hers.

“I really shouldn’t,” he murmured into her mouth while bringing her lower body into closer contact with his.

“You should,” she breathed.
Oh, God, you should
. “Daemon,” she whispered when he lowered his forehead to hers.

Daemon took deep breaths for composure as her hips ground themselves seductively against him.

“Casey, we can’t…” he began to explain.

Shaking her head in denial and tapering down the hurt that rose inside her at the same time, Casey kissed his lips before pushing him away. “I know, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to. Or you,” she told him.

As if he didn’t already know that to be true, he sighed and backed away from her.

Her lips were swollen from his kisses and now lacked the seductively smile it wore upon entering. “One day we’ll finish this,” she assured him.

There was far too much sexual tension between them to think or suggest otherwise. She’d simply bide her time until then.

Daemon didn’t respond, ashamed that she’d been able to penetrate his defenses against her. “I’ll only end up hurting you, Case baby, and I’m trying my hardest not to. So if you keep this up you’ll figure out just what I mean,” he warned. “Now go, so I can finish my work.”
Or try to.

Not one to dwell on failure, she found triumph in being able to break his control as she eased off his desk and kissed him playfully on the cheek.

Daemon grabbed her arm. “You just don’t know,” he mumbled.

Casey chuckled as she walked towards the door and then shot him a look over her shoulder that was designed to bring weaker men to their knees and smiled. “I plan on finding out,” she informed him. Then she was gone.

Daemon sank into his chair and pulled it up to his desk and stared at the wall outside his office.

Briannah and Tyree

“Bri, I told you to stop pumping up her heart like that,” Tyree told his fiancée as they settled in his SUV.

They were on their way to the get together Case had insisted on giving at the last minute. Under Briannah’s influence, Tyree surmised. Whatever they’d cooked up was bound to fail. His friend was entirely too serious in his quest to keep Casey untouched by him.

“She wants him. All I did was tell her to go after him,” she defended herself. “Is anything wrong with that?” she wanted to know.

Tyree laughed. “Yes, there is. She’s living off the encouragement that she gets from y’all asses. These antics of hers not gon’ get her anywhere.”

“Oh, yes they will. She’s come at him in a very grown up way and he hasn’t responded so naturally he’ll respond in the way that all men who covet do.”

Tyree shook his head at that one. “Playing. I was there this morning when Raheem started that shit ‘bout what happened between him and Case.” A smile danced around his lips when the memory came. “I think D walked in the door somewhere around him wanting Case to wrap her mile long legs around his waist. And that was all he said-”

“Nothing happened between them. The man was probably just expressing simple wishes where Case is concerned. It’s not his fault D can’t handle simple conversation,” Briannah stated, rubbing her belly where her daughter kicked. “A conversation that he wasn’t even included in.”

Tyree cleared his throat. “I ain’t even tryna hear that shit. I was ready to jump all over boah. How he figure he could say that shit ‘bout Case in D’s shop?” Tyree shook his head at the thought. “That nigga stupid,” he added stopping for a red light. He took advantage of the stop and reached over to put his hands on his baby.

“She gon’ be grounded ‘til she get out of college,” he said and got a kick for it.

Briannah laughed. “You’re such a fabulous daddy and all; she’ll be a good girl. We probably won’t have any trouble.”

He looked at her. “That’s probably what your mom said.”

She sucked her teeth. “Ain’t nothing wrong with me.”

In agreement with that he nodded and said, “You my baby,” and added a quick kiss.

“I know. So what’s up with D? He want her or not?”

“He does, but he won’t do anything about it.”

Not if I can help it, Briannah thought. She wasn’t trying to hear any excuses. In her world, if a female wanted a male, and that male wanted that female they made an effort to get together.

“So I was right in helping her,” she concluded.

Catrina

The drive from David’s Center-City apartment was proving to be an amusement in itself. David’s sense of humor kept her laughing. Though, she couldn’t quite pinpoint that as the one reason she enjoyed spending time with him, Catrina admitted to herself that she did. She reflected on the amount of time they’d been spending together for the past few months and attempted to push the thought of the happiness it brought to her away. At that present moment they happened to be talking about Casey and Daemon.

“He is not going to be happy ‘bout this,” David told her.

“I pretty much figured that out already,” Catrina responded. She laughed even though the slightest feeling of him holding her hand while rubbing his thumb absentmindedly over her fingers made her nervous.

Be unattached,
Catrina coached silently and closed her eyes, determined to relax and enjoy.

“It’ll be fun seeing Case baby do her thing,” David admitted.

“Yeah, she invited Jermaine to make D jealous. You know how he clings like a puppy dog.”

“You sure she not… well, you know?”

Catrina grinned and shook her head. “I’m sure.”

“Well, it might just work. Daemon is the jealous type.”

“Aren’t all men?” she inquired nonchalantly, thinking back to the way he’d acted that very morning.

“I’m not. If I were, you’d be mine to keep,” he said, playfully lifting her hand to his lips for a kiss

That had Catrina’s eyes snapping open. He was doing it again, she thought. Hadn’t she just said that she enjoyed being with him because he didn’t expect anything in return? Based on his last jealous tantrum, he was proving her wrong.

“We’re talking ‘bout D and Case, not us,” she managed, snatching her hand from his. “And I do believe that you messed that up on your own.”

It was apparent to Catrina that her anger was due more to the irritation she felt for herself, just for wishing that she was his, rather than with him at the moment. Nothing was wrong with it, if she never vocalized those feelings; they were her own to keep and harbor.

What about Shay?
Catrina thought of the current girl who was claiming exclusive ownership to him.
How would she feel if she found out about us?

Not wanting to press, because he knew she would react like a venomous snake trapped in a corner, he said, “So you say. In any case, I’m content with what we have and give me a little credit if I feel confident that I’m the only man making love to you,” he said, knowing it would annoy her.

It did.

“Trust me, you’re only a substitute.”

Taking her hand again, he said, “You scared I could be your Mr. Right?”

“Negro, please,” she snorted, shaking him off her.

“Yeah, you know you love me,” he teased, slanting his sexy hazel eyes her way.

If only you knew.
Catrina shook her head to clear it. “You think. What’s up with you and your girl?”

“Nothing. Same thing that’s up with you and all your dudes.”

David’s arrogance annoyed her. He was always certain when it came to other guys’ place in her life, they had none. It seemed to him that her heart would always belong to him even if at the present time she was acting stingy with it.

“How’d we get on this?”

He frowned. “You actin’ all stank-a-dank ‘bout being with me.”

“David, you have a girl. You don’t need me.”

I do, bey, so bad. If you’d only let me show you, he thought. Instead he said, “Why you actin’ like this? I thought we were cool.”

“Things are cool. We’re together tonight and were together last night,”
the night before and the one before that
, “but a few days don’t mean permanence. There is nothing permanent about us.”

She’s being snotty, he thought. “Here we go with this shit again,” he murmured to himself.

“Yeah, here we go with this shit again,” she started. “I’m not your woman, you’re not my man, so stop tryna act like it,” she fumed, folding her arms over her chest like a stubborn child.

David didn’t say a word to that but pulled over and cut the engine to the car.

Catrina closed her eyes and shook her head.
Tantrum number two
, she thought.
This is his last
. If he couldn’t accept her terms, then she’d just move on. Their relationship, or lack of was certainly counterproductive, in any case. Catrina took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and found him staring.

“I thought we had all this straight. If you’re attempting to fence someone in, you’re spending your time with the wrong person. I can’t handle a relationship with you, David, not right now. Maybe not ever. So if you can’t accept what I want this time around, we’ll just go back to the way things were before.”

Catrina could practically see the anger rising into his eyes, the fight in him to maintain his calm, cool, and collective personality.

Then she saw it explode.

“When you were ignoring me for two years?”

Catrina turned her nose up. Her pride would not allow her to cry, and she would not allow herself to be subjected to his convictions.

Most of it is his damn fault, ain’t it?

Catrina looked out the window and saw an old woman in ratty clothing with a broken umbrella walking toward the car in the beating rain. Why, she wondered, would she prefer to be out there getting soak and wet in the tears of Mother Nature than to be stuck beside him in the close confines of the car?

“Look at me,” she heard him say. “Don’t I get an explanation?”

Her head whipped around. “Are you serious? You cheated on me. I didn’t like it, plain and simple, and that was how I dealt with it.”

Already, she’d said too much, Catrina knew. If he knew that she had a weakness for him, he’d use it to his advantage, use her vulnerabilities for him to break her. And that was something she wasn’t giving anyone the opportunity to do, ever.

David swallowed the lump in his throat and said, “We’re older now. Much more mature than either of us was six years ago. I don’t know what you want me to say for something that happened such a long time ago. If you weren’t over it, maybe you should have thought about it before you got at me.” In his anger he made the last sentence sound so cold.

She sighed. “I don’t want you to say anything. I’m not asking you for anything, Dave, not your heart, nothing.”
You talk a good game, girl.

“What if that’s not enough for me?” He questioned, though he had agreed minutes before that he was content with their status.

It wasn’t a question, she noted.

David’s fingers were tense on the wheel now. He didn’t for one second pretend to understand the game she seemed to be playing. One minute she claimed not to want anything he was offering and the next she was cuddled next to him in sleep. Just how indecisive could one woman be, he wondered. It worried him to have her talk this way when he wanted everything she was opposed to.

“Like I said, if you want that, you’re with the wrong person,” she told him directly.

“Bey,” he said. Taking her face between his hands, David looked into her eyes. “Whatever it is that’s holding you back from me, you might as well let it go. I want you. That’s what I know.”

He waited for her to let it, to speak about what he felt only she had a right to speak on. He wanted to hear the words from her mouth.

Catrina pulled her face away, determined not to be swayed by his calm touch or sincere words. The fact that he kept using their pet name for each other didn’t make it any easier. He did it on purpose because he knew it agitated her, Catrina suspected.

“People get their feelings hurt when you make false promises. That’s what I know.”

“True enough,” he agreed. “You’re just scared though, bey. You’re letting things that happened in our past rule what could happen between us in the future.”

Catrina shook her head. If she was so mature now, how come he made her feel as if she was confused about being in love?

“A lot of stuff happened in our past, Dave. You were my first everything.” She laughed. “And you basically taught me a lesson….one that I’m not likely to forget.”

“I’m serious about this. About us,” he stated as a matter of fact.

Because she could see he was, she would remain distant. It seemed so easy for him to speak of reclaiming old love, and so hard for her to trust his words. “So you say,” she murmured.

Progress, he thought as he watched her deal with the words he’d just given her. A smile appeared. Things would change. They had to. She was the one thing he wouldn’t give up. So they’d do things her way. For now, he declared mentally. Time wasn’t on his side. His personal and professional lives had never been so close to colliding until now.

Suddenly, Atlanta began to feel so far away. He had the choice of telling her about it, but talked himself out of it. David was well aware of how she thought. There’d be nothing to fight over. She wouldn’t have given him the time of day after coming home had she known he would be moving come the end of July.