Keeping Jahleel (Loving All Wrong #1.5) (24 page)

Jahleel smirked. “Wow. I’m the shit, aren’t I?”

I reached over and punched his arm. “We’re getting married, you sod. Can you
not
be a cocksure arse for two seconds?”

Above us, Mr. Kingston cleared his throat and I winced, murmuring an apology.

Still smiling, Jahleel took up my ring from the throw-pillow and slid it onto my finger.

“Sometimes people fall in love, and in the beginning, every little thing is cute and adorable. They laugh at each other’s jokes, and they crave to be around each other 24/7. But soon, things change, all that goes in reverse, then they fall out of love.

“For us, I pray that never happens. My
Always
: I want to
stay
in love with you, always. I want to find the things you do cute and adorable, always. I want to laugh at your farts and compete with your belches, always. I want to tease you about your snores and your untidiness, always. I want to laugh at your shitty jokes and get turned on by your accent, always. I want to crave you
always
.”

On a pause, he made a deep exhalation as his gold eyes glazed over. “My
Promises
: I promise to rub your feet when they hurt. I promise to pick up the slack when you’re beat. I promise to be more punctual and never leave you waiting….or hanging. I promise to be honest in all things and tell you the truth even when it hurts. I promise to be a pillow for you to cry on, and a shoulder for you to lean on. I promise to be your nurse when you’re sick, and strong when you’re weak. I promise to never, ever hurt you again, physically, verbally or emotionally.

“In tough times, I promise to stick with you, stay with you, fight for you. I promise to keep my promises. Before GOD, I make all these promises, Sassy. So please mark the sacredness of this moment. I never believed in Him because I never thought He cared. But then I started prayin’ for five things repeatedly: Love, contentment, peace of mind, humility, and light. And He gave me one thing in return”—a weak tear dropped from a single eyelash, so near imperceptible I would’ve missed it if I wasn’t staring so deep into his eyes—”
you.
I love you, Sassy. Thank you for sayin’ yes, to this. To us. Don’t ever leave me. Because,
‘You are my life. Where you end, I end.’
”

We stared at each other for a whole minute after he finished, because I was lost for words. Blown out of this world that I, me, Saskia Day, had managed to get the mighty Jahleel Kingston so undone. He shed a tear for me. His words… His promises…

That made me shed a tear of my own. Two, actually. Or three.

Okay, I was flat-out crying.

Mr. Kingston cleared his throat again and we both glanced up. I’d forgotten all about the man’s presence.

Eyes identical to Jahleel’s glossed over under the warm glow of the gazebo light as he said, “By the power given to me, I hereby pronounce you, Mr. and Mrs. Kingston.”

Before we could even kiss to seal the deal, Mr. Kingston walked out of the gazebo, but stopped when he reached the bottom of the steps to look back at Jahleel. An honorable smile tipped up his lips when he said, “I’m so proud of you, son. Your mother was upset she wasn’t allowed to come. But I guarantee she’s going to sniffle all night when I repeat your vows to her.” Then that blessed golden gaze shifted to me. “Take care of my boy, Mrs. Kingston. I concur, you
are
his light.”

With that, he turned and left.

Swiveling my attention back to Jahleel, I panicked, “We seriously need to start planning some kind of reception or something, because once our people—ahem, Lion—find out we got married in secret, it’s…
off with their heads
!”

Jahleel barked out a laugh at me, tumbling back on the comforter. The sound so soothing to my ears. Taking my hands, he yanked me down with him. “Breathe easy,
wife
. We can tackle that tomorrow. Or the day after…or the day after that. For now, let’s just
be
.”

Inhaling a lungful of felicity, I snuggled up against him and did as he decreed.
Be
.

Because, why not?

After almost seven years of obsession, stalking, heartache, and pain, I finally had him.

For real this time. As in legally, bindingly. That forever kind of way.

I had him.

I had Jahleel Kingston.

And I was bloody well
keeping
him.

For life.

The End.

We have no fucking end.

T
HANK YOU:

To all the avid readers who took a chance on
Jahleel
, loved it, left a review, and recommended it their friends.

I love you all something fierce.

One Love!

S
. Ann Cole is a passionate writer and reader, and a lover of anything that distracts her from the real world. Reader first and second a writer, S. Ann Cole is an exaggerator, a laugher, sometimes overly chatty, sometimes overly shy. She believes cats are evil, and also detests dogs with a bitter passion—mainly because she’d been bitten over a dozen times on separate occasions by the rambunctious creatures in her formative years (even by her own dogs).

Ann is not your typical girl: she hates chocolate, candle-lit dinners and all that hearts and flowers stuff makes her feel awkward, and coffee makes her drowsier than ever.

A lover of all things ‘romance’, Ann has always been a writer of poetries and songs of any kind. All who’s acquainted with Ann can attest to witnessing her write her way through life: through destruction, devastation, hardship, sadness and disappointments, her coping mechanism has always been writing.

Having an obsessive and unquenchable affair with the written word, she’s naturally a recluse who dwells inside her imagination and has to suffer continual bashings from her friends for being a neglectful pal who does nothing but sit around the computer all day, writing.

When she’s not abusing her computer keyboard, you can find her nosing a novel, watching anything on television that makes her laugh out loud, studying the Bible, or nursing any of the three alcoholic beverages: Black Label and Coke, Heineken, or a glass of Merlot.

Visit www.AnnCole.net for more information on S. Ann Cole’s books and upcoming releases.

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