Jahleel (30 page)

“You’re not going to invite me in?”

“You kept your promise?”

“What if I didn’t?”

“I won’t invite you in,” he said, shrugging.

The mere action caused a lone drop of water to fall from a strand of his hair, land on his shoulder blade, and slowly trickled down the inked inscriptions on his arm. Battling down the urge to lean in and use my tongue to stop the trickle of water in its track, I longingly watched as it flowed into feebleness and melted somewhere on his forearm.

When I looked back at him, he was watching me eyeing the lone trickle of water on his arm.

“What does it even matter if I broke my promise?” I asked him. “
You
just want friendship.”

“It matters because it doesn’t matter that I just want friendship.”

What?
“So, you want to possess me as a friend then, yeah?”

“I’m not a fuckin’ demon. I don’t want to ‘possess’ anyone,” he bit out. “I just respect people who keep their promises.”

“But, if I kept my promise, that would mean I’m staying loyal to you, even though we don’t have a sensible or beneficial relationship.”

Jahleel raked his teeth over his lower lip, and I noted it as something he did whenever he was getting irritated. “That’s the whole point of promises.”

“But we’re not in—”

“
Did
you fuckin’ break it or not?!” he barked at me.

My head jerked back at his unexpected explosion.

No, he didn’t look angered or deranged, just restrained, as if there was something he was struggling to hold back, something he was itching to do and this roundabout conversation was getting him nowhere.

Taking a step towards him, staring into his depths, I pronounced the answer he wanted loud and round. “No.”

I registered no sigh of relief or relaxed shoulders, no change of stance, because the next thing I knew, he yanked me across the threshold, slammed the door shut and pushed me back against it, his lips unerringly connecting with mine.

His kiss was hard and eager, expressing exactly how I felt.

Sighing into it, I made to circle my hands around his neck, but he caught them both and moved them back to my sides, still ravishing my mouth.

When I tried to pull away, he trapped my lower lip with his teeth and reeled me back in. Fool for him, I submitted again. But still, he wouldn’t allow me to move my hands to touch him when I tried.

“No,” he mumbled.

Fighting to be free of his captivating kiss, I cleaved my lips apart from his and wriggled my arms. “Stop. Let me go.”

At once, he released my arms, but his chest was still pressed up against me, pinning me to the door, his lips moving in to meet mine again.

Bringing my palms up, I pressed them against his chest and shoved him. “Stop.”

The man was immovable, my feeble shove did nothing.

Digging for deeper strength, I shoved him harder, and he took a step back, staring at me ravenously, breathing ragged.

Jahleel was a sight to capture when he was turned on. Abs contracting, chest slightly heaving, lower lip sucked into his mouth…

Thinking sensible for a first, I ignored the ball of steamy hotness in front of me, because all this intensity and arousal awakening was just a tease that would lead to nothing further than cuddling. Turned on as he was, Jahleel wasn’t going to shag me.

He wanted to fuck around. I wanted to fuck.

“You can’t keep doing that!”

“You don’t like it when I kiss you?”

He started to move in again, but I shoved him back.

“You know I do,” I panted in response. “But that’s
all
you’re going to do.” Moving forward, I shoved him again and he took another step backward. “I’m only human, JK!”

Again, I shoved him, and again and again and again, taking out my frustration on his defined pecs. With each push, he took a step back, letting me, giving me the illusion that my puny girl hands were moving his hard wall of a body.

“I want you, JK.”
Push.
“I fucking need you.”
Push.
“Take me, please.”
Push.
“Just fucking take me.”
Push.
“Please.”

As if he’d had enough, he caught my wrists to end the pushing, hauled me in flush against his body and pressed his face in the curve of my neck, his erection hard as stone against my stomach. “Sassy…” he breathed. “I want to.”

“Then do it,” I breathed back. “I’m yours to take.”

As he sighed into the crook of my neck, I felt his tongue against my bare skin, making me shudder. “It’s…complicated. I’ll hurt you. If I didn’t care for you, I would’ve given you what you want already. I’d have taken what I crave.”

“You’re already hurting me.”

“Not as much as I would if I…”

“Is this about Krissy?”

He didn’t answer so I tried to pull free. But he held me tight, still kissing my neck, weakening me.

“She doesn’t want you, JK.”

He said nothing.

“She’s in love with the mogul. That’s clear as frigging day.”

He said nothing, but ceased the kissing.

“If she lets you think otherwise then it’s because she selfishly wants to keep you on a string—”

“Stop!” he hissed, but refused to let me go, as if afraid I’d leave. “I don’t wanna talk about her.”

“But you want to keep me on standby in case she doesn’t want you, yeah?”

“What? I’m not keepin’ you on standby,” he denied.

“You want to keep me as
what
, then, JK?”

Pulling back a little, he found my eyes and held them, his gold irises warm and assuring. “I just want to
keep
you.”

“I’ll get attached.”

“I’m selfish.”

“It already hurts.”

“I’m sorry.” He held me tighter.

“I can’t,” I whispered, cleaving away.

He pulled me back in. “Please.”

“Please, what?!” I yelled in his face. “Please understand? Please be a masochist? Please sit on the side and wait while you pine for your
sister
even though I want you for my goddamn self?”

“Neither.”

“Then please,
what
, JK?”

Bringing his hands up to cup my face, he leaned in and kissed me gently, softly, pleadingly. “Just please.”

Oh Christ, I was getting nowhere with him.

I took a step back away from his aura and gathered my scattered thoughts, summoning common sense from its sleeping chamber. “Look,” I began, “I’m sexually attracted to Chad, it’s undeniable. With him, I get more. He’s not complicated and he’s willing to give me all of him if I keep from you. Choosing him is sensible, sane and salubrious.”

“But you don’t feel anything for him.”

“Feelings can grow.”

With a sniff, he took a step back from me, too. “Fine. Just know I take promises seriously. Once they’re broken, that’s it.” He motioned to the door with his hand. “Close it on your way out.”

He turned on his heels and stalked off, disappearing around the corner at the end of the hall.

Long after he left, I stood staring at the spot he’d been in.

How unfair was he being? Or maybe I was overreacting? One thing was, he never actually admitted to anything about Krissy, I just drew assumptions and took his silence as confirmation.

He wanted me. Of course he did. Chad’s statement about them having a ‘common interest’ stated as much. But he also wanted his non-blood sister, to the extent where he was reluctant to get too involved with me in case, somewhere down the line, Krissy decided she wanted him, and he would end up leaving me for her. Thus hurting me.

And he wanted me to understand
that?

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

He hadn’t stopped himself with Tiara. He hadn’t stopped himself with Krissy’s best friend. He hadn’t stopped himself with anyone. Hell, he even leaned over Jamie’s convertible and sweet-talked her into hooking up with him while Krissy was standing right there.

So what the heck was the deal with me? Could it be that he wanted me as deeply as he wanted her? That he didn’t just want to shag me because he could, but wanted something more, making him afraid to take the risk?

My gut told me Krissy wouldn’t go after Jahleel. If her feelings were mutual, she hid them well, because I’d never seen her look at Jahleel with nothing more than sisterly love.

Which brought the question: would I be making a terrible mistake by going with Chad? Knowing it would be solely sexual on my side?

There wasn’t the emotional, all-consuming, all-encompassing, overwhelming, senses-gone-wild pull with him like I had with Jahleel.

For me, Chad was irresistibly sexy, intense, mesmerizing, with this air of promise that he would give the woman lucky enough to land in his bed fucks she’ll never forget. Suave, calculated and in control, from arousal to orgasm. Safe.

But I craved the rawness of Jahleel, the starvation, the unpredictability, the greed, the push and the pull… I just loved him overall. Ever since I fell flat upon seeing him all those years ago.

I stalked him around the world and had come this far, this near, this close, only to do what? Find out he has a hot best friend and choose him instead?

Hands stretched out at my sides, I glanced back at the door, then down the hall, indecision looming overhead.

Decision made, I turned towards the door, making the few steps it took for me to get a hold of the doorknob. The little latch on the knob locked with a click when I flicked it down. I pivoted away from the door and started down the hall, switching off the lights as I went along.

Taking the right to where I knew his master-bedroom was located, I noticed the door was left ajar, light from the television flashing through the crease. I slung my messenger bag from across my shoulders and quietly pushed his door open.

Jahleel sat up in bed, back against the headboard, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, laptop opened on his lap, the glow from the screen reflecting on his face. A face that ignored me.

Even as I meekly walked into the commodious master bedroom, silently stepping across the cream carpeted floor and setting my messenger bag down in the red suede armchair, he didn’t look up at me.

He’d known I wouldn’t leave. Couldn’t leave.

Sidling to the other side of the bed, I sat on the edge and undid the straps of my sandals. I stared at the muted television, airing
Hell on Wheels,
and contemplated what to say to him.

I came up with nothing, so I crawled up onto the bed and balled up next to him, my head at his hip, eyes peeking at his computer screen.

Still, he didn’t acknowledge me, sifting through a stream of emails forwarded by Kayla M., his gangly ginger assistant. Some looked like proposals, some were schedules stretching into months ahead. Boring, boring, boring.

Resigned to him not speaking to me out of vexation, I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent. Fresh. Water and bar soap. No bike exhaust, cologne or raisins, his usual scent.

I began drifting off into a light sleep to the sound of his fingers as they tapped against the keyboard. The tapping stopped, and I heard the laptop close with a soft click.

Soon, I felt him slide down next to me.

I wasn’t sure if he thought I was asleep or not, but his arms came around me and pulled me closer into him.

As he swept a lock of hair over my shoulders, his fingertips brushed my bare skin and he kissed the spot his fingertips touched.

In a voice laced with a mixture of disbelief and relief, he whispered, “Somehow, you have the power to hurt me.”

At his words, my eyes opened and locked with his stare. He knew I was awake. “JK, I didn’t—”

“Shh,” he hushed.

Now I felt bad. Did I feel this awful when I broke my ex-boyfriends’ hearts because I couldn’t commit to anyone except fantasies of the man who now held me? No. I’d felt nothing because I didn’t care and I’d warned them not to get attached. Now I felt like crap for saying something I knew I didn’t mean even as I said it.

“I’m sorr—”

“Shh,” he hushed again. “Just be with me tonight.”

“I’ve missed you,” I whispered.

“Me, too.”

No more words were exchanged, just our hot breaths mingling, slowing, syncing.

Right there in his arms, the way they held me, I felt something. Somehow, I got the impression those arms had been waiting for me to enter them for years. Waiting to curl around the form and curves of the one woman they longed to hold.
Me.

But then again, I’ve always been delusional.

I awoke to the distant sound of a door handle turning. My eyelids lazily lifted in time to see Jahleel as he entered the bedroom. Dressed.

By ‘dressed’ I mean cut-off, hem-raveled jeans, simple grey tee, white sneakers and a red Nike sack-bag on his back, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail bundle with an elastic band.

Yum.
I’d give the world to wake up to this grungy hotness every morning.

“You must be really tired,” he commented as he moved across the room towards me, sliding the sack-bag off his shoulders.

“Huh?”

My voice was hoarse and unwilling to speak, just as unwilling as I was to get out of bed. All I desired at that point was to roll over and sleep for a decade—if Jahleel would get in with me.