Keeping Jahleel (Loving All Wrong #1.5) (4 page)

I pulled out my cellphone and fired him a text message:

U still luv me?

—

What could possibly change that?

—

IDK. Just worried, I guess.

—

That I’ll leave?

—

Yes.

—

Not a chance.

I’ll deal with ur limelight shit.

—

Ur actions say otherwise. That’s wut makes me worry.

—

Stop fucking doubting us.

We r TOGETHER.

I got my mood swings, u kno that. Stop reading into them. They’re usually shit.
I get over them.

U got nothing 2be worried about. K?

—

I love u so much.

—

No more than I do u.

I hung on to those words, keeping my phone tight to my chest, pouring the words into my soul. And letting go of all doubts, I thought about our future together. Three kids, like he said. Two boys and one girl, a ranch house….

I fell asleep.

Jahleel opened the door a full minute after I rang his doorbell. Old, faded, cut-off jeans hung low on his hips, and that was it as far as clothing went. His hair was tied back in a loose, I-could-care-less ponytail.

Mine
. All mine.

“Hey,” I said shyly, momentarily distracted by the undone button of his jeans and the silky smooth hair peeking out.

Jesus
. Was I ever going to get used to him? This? Us?

Even after everything, I was still blushy, stupid, and tongue-tied around him.

“That smell…” I mused out loud, taking in an unfamiliar fragrance wafting beneath my nostrils. It wasn’t his usual earthy cologne. This was something new. And it smelled divine. “Did you change your cologne—”

He cut me off by tugging me forward into the house, slamming the door shut. Slinging one long, manly arm around my waist, he hauled my body to his with a stimulating force. “Been waiting for a fuckin’ hour.”

A rush of air left me at the heated collision. “Sorry about that. Alina and her new friend Kaydeen wanted my advice on—”

An impassioned tongue forced its way between my lips, shutting me up, stealing all the air from my lungs. I gladly obliged, bowing into him, moaning into his mouth, palms pressed against his bare, taut chest, skin warm beneath my fingers.

I loved him so much. So hard.

Having had his fill of my mouth, he pulled away. “Don’t keep me waiting again. I hate it when I want you and can’t get you.”

When I nodded obsequiously, he pulled me a few paces further into the foyer and stopped. Releasing me, he took a few steps back then looked down to the ground with a nervous smile. Confused, I followed his gaze.

I took a step back, because my eyes had to be fooling me. Arranged in the shape of a diamond were black marble tiles with gold initials, JS. Calligraphed in a style where the hook of the J looped around to start the S. They were entwined in each other. I was floored. Literally. He had our initials, large initials, engraved on the tiles in his fucking foyer.

“I had it done while we were away,” he said.

When I did nothing but stare down at the initials, speech-impeded, he pulled me back to him. “It’s an antiquated way of showing affection, I know. But…I love you. And, to be fair, ancient people loved the best. What people call love today is total shit, if you ask me. So, yeah, I tore a page from ancient Kings’ book and—”

“JK, you’re babbling,” I said, smiling. A reticent Jahleel babbling? “Are you nervous?”

“Guess that explains the babbling?”

“Because you think I won’t like it, yeah?”

“Do you?”

I shook my head at him. “Babe, you’ve literally written our love in stone. No, I don’t like it. I bloody
love
it.”

This made the nervous crease between his brows disappear. Releasing me, he got behind me and circled both arms around my waist. “Walk. Right out to the back.”

This was my second time inside Jahleel’s new house. The first time we were in a hurry to leave the country and I’d barely gotten enough time to check the place out.

The new house was a lot less bachelor than one would expect of Jahleel. It was all dark woods and comfortable chairs, throw pillows, fluffy rugs, and family pictures. Very homey. Unlike his last contemporary pad with clean lines, steel, and glass.

Four bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a fantastic kitchen that I very much envied, and a spacious backyard, which was a given in SF.

A given back yard where I was heading straight to as ordered by Jahleel, traipsing through the living room and right into the dining room that had a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and a sliding glass door.

As I glided the sliding door open, I stopped walking. There were lit candles lining his bean-shaped pool, red petals floating on the water. From where I stood at the door, a red carpet led straight down to the small gazebo on the other end. The gazebo was decorated with white sheer material and twinkle lights, draped here and there.

His arms tightened around me and his warm breath caressed my neck. “You like it?”

With a heavy sigh, I turned in his arms, drawing a pattern on his skin with my thumb, formulating the right words in my mind. But he took one look at my expression and his smile melted, his hands dropping from around me.

He frustratingly dragged his fingers back through his hair. “You don’t like it.”

“No. Yes—I mean, of course, I like it. But…”

“But what?”

“It’s not…
you,
” I said softly.
“
You don’t do candle light and…all that jazz.”

His chest heaved with a relieving sigh, and he took my hands in his. “You’re right. It’s not me. But you’re worried about us. And I’ll try anything to show you I’m nuts about you and that I’m not gonna back out of this. Isn’t this shit what you teary, emotional women like? Rose petals and candle lights? I thought—”

I pressed a finger to his lips, stopping his worry-babble. “Yes. We do like this stuff. But a simple ‘I love you’ would’ve done the trick for me. I’m easy. You didn’t have to go through all this.”

“Thought you realize by now that ‘I love you’ aren’t my favorite words,” he said, shaking his head. “Not because they’re hard to say, but because they’re too easy. Just words. How do you ever know if they’re genuine or not? I prefer the challenge of steppin’ out of my comfort zone to
show
the woman who owns me how much she really means to me.”

“Well… in that case”—I grinned, toeing off my high-tops and moving out onto the red carpet—”I one hundred percent, absolutely, positively fucking love it!”

“Great. ‘Cause I’m starving,” he said through a laugh, moving forward on the carpet as I moved back.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Indian.”

My stomach actually growled at that. Embarrassing.

Jahleel laughed at me. “Take it you’re hungry, too.”

“I love you, JK.” I needed to stop saying that. It had to be annoying for him, but I couldn’t help it.

“I know.”

“Can’t you ever say it back?”

“I love you.”

“Was that genuine?”

He stopped advancing.

I stopped backing up.

“No, Sassy, I just said it for the fuck of it. ‘Cause I’m that big
asshole
who goes around tellin’ chicks that I love them and askin’ them to marry me as a fuckin’ pastime.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m just—”

“What? Insecure? Worried? Afraid?” he prodded. “Guess what, Sassy, I’m all of those things, too. I might’ve been the one who cheated the last time, but you’re the one who left me. Bad as it looked then, I
never
would’ve left you.”

“So you expected me to stay with you after you—”

“I expected you to fuckin’
fight
for me!!” he exploded as if this was something he’d been holding inside him for a while now. “It was so
easy
for you to leave me with her and run straight into Chad’s arms. So
easy
for you to just hand me over to Marsha when she played her tricks. You claim you love me, but you never, ever fought for me. You just allowed people to push you out of my life while you assume that’s what I wanted. That’s all you ever do:
assume
. Now we’re back here again? I slapped a fuckin’ ring on your finger and it’s still not enough for you? What the fuck else do you want me to do, Sassy? You’re drivin’ me shit crazy.”

“I want you to promise me you won’t leave me no matter what.”

“
Jesus Christ,
are you even hearing anything I’m sayin’ to you?!” he shouted. “Since when did you become so whiny? Where’s the strong Sassy I fell in love with? Did she die when you tried to kill yourself and now all I’m left with is an empty shell of her?”

“No,” I whispered. “She died when losing you again became her greatest fear.”

Walking up to him, I gripped his biceps hard and stared up into his irritated gold eyes. “You must understand that I’m
nothing
without you, JK. You must understand that you are my air, my purpose, the reason I wake up in the mornings. You must understand how much I need you, crave you, love you. You must understand why I’m being so whiny and pesty and perpetually seeking your assurance: it’s because I’m my own enemy, my own murderer. I fear my own self and what I’ll do to me if I don’t have you. My obsession with you is deep. My love for you is depraved. You must understand that you
cannot
leave me.”

Jahleel blinked. Quite possible that it was starting to dawn on him that he’d popped the question to a complete loon, wondering what the bloody hell he’d gotten himself into.

Several minutes of silence ticked by as we stared at each other, nothing but the sound of the light night winds whispering nature’s secrets through the tree leaves, crickets being the usual nuisance, and the words of Kings of Leon’s
Beautiful War
travelling smoothly on the wings of the wind towards us from the gazebo.

Sighing audibly, Jahleel moved in and wrapped his arms around me. “We’re never gonna have a relationship if we keep lingering in this area: you worryin’ about a future we can’t see into. You got to let go of your fears and let us enjoy each other, our time
now
, and when storms come, we face them together. We never know what’s gonna happen tomorrow, Sassy. Hell, I can’t even see into the next hour from now. We need to move forward, and in order to do that,
you have to stop worrying
. Don’t know how many times I have to say
I’m not going anywhere
for you to believe me. So, let’s wait and see, shall we? In the interim, let’s eat. Food’s gettin’ cold.”

“But—”

“Shh,” he shushed me. “C’mon.”

Forcing me into a 360 turn, he urged me towards the gazebo.

Inside, were two huge sofa cushions pushed together, spread over with a thick, red blanket, boxes of Indian food on trays in the middle.

“Seriously?” I laughed.

“You were right. I’m not a sit-around-the-table-with-wineglasses kind of man. I’m a drink-Jack-straight-from-the-bottle kind of man, so I kinda went halfway with all this—if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Right up my alley.” I smiled in reminiscence. “Reminds me of our first time together…”

Jahleel groaned. “Was
really
hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

“Why?”

Backing me up against a column, he pushed his hips into me so I could feel his hard-on. “‘Cause now I gotta turn the menu upside down.”

“I’m…totally okay with that,” I breathed out just before our lips met, his tongue dipping inside to rub against mine.

Locking my hands around his neck, I pressed into him, my nipples hardening as my arousal heightened. Whenever Jahleel was around, I was usually just a second away from wet knickers. Aside from the fact that I loved him something fierce, every damn thing about him made me hot. He was all I’ve ever wanted, all I’ve ever dreamed of, and now I had him.

Ask me. Go on. Ask me if I’m not the happiest woman in the world right now….

Jahleel hoisted me up by the waist and perched me up on the gazebo railing, shimmying himself between my now spread thighs, never once breaking the kiss.

….Sorry, my mouth is occupied at the moment. Will have to answer your question later…

Warm hands slid up under my sleeveless denim shirt-dress and smoothed up my thighs until they reached their destination. Jahleel groaned into my mouth, breaking the kiss and pulling back to look at me. “No underwear?”

“Why bother wearing any when I knew precisely what I was coming here for?”

“Not the food?” He smirked. “Or the schmaltz?”

“Definitely not,” I said, slamming my mouth back to his while he removed his hands from under my dress and worked on popping the buttons open.

In a second, cold night air was whispering over my skin as he removed the only item of clothing I had on. But my blood was roiling far too hotly to take notice of the night chill. That’s what Jahleel did to me. Made me forget everything; making him, his touches, my only focal point. He was my master. He owned me. All my moans, all my screams, all my orgasms.

When his tongue flicked around my right nipple, I dug my fingers into his shoulder and arched into him, whispering his name. Cupping both my breasts in his hands, tweaking my nipples, he moved up so our eyes met. “I wanna eat you out, Sassy. Can I eat you out?”