Keeping Jahleel (Loving All Wrong #1.5)

by S. Ann Cole

  “That’s the fuckin’ point!” he snapped at her. “There’s nothing you can do to fuckin’ ‘fix’ this, Sassy. It’s over! You ended us. I’ll never be able to trust you again and I’ll never be able to make love to you and feel like you’re mine.”

  Fingers twisting, she stared down at them. “This might work, JK. Could you at least think about it?”

  “Could you at least, ah, leave?”

  Nodding, she slowly stood up. “I love you, JK. So much. I’ll never—”

  Saskia stopped speaking when Jahleel started searching all around. Pulling out the desk drawers and closing them. Looking under the desk. Emptying his sweats pockets, pulling them inside out.

  “Wha-what are you doing?” she asked with a tinge of hope to her voice.

  “Looking for a fuck to give.”

  Without another word, she turned and left.

  Gone.

  With that one word echoing in his head, his knees weakened and he eased down into his chair. Leaning forward, he banged his head on the desk until it hurt.

  He could be an asshole as much as he wanted, but it didn’t change the fact that he was an asshole stuck in love.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Daddy, can we watch the bitten video again?”

  Retreating from the brink of sleep, Jahleel lifted his arm from over his eyes and peeped down at Claire. She was drawing on his chest with a Sharpie marker: a stick figure woman with what looked like long curly hair, oddly shaped eyes with one bigger than the other, and two triangles sticking out of her mouth—he supposed them to be her version of fangs.

  Awful drawing. Just awful.

  Jahleel couldn’t help laughing as he propped up on his elbows a bit to peer down at his chest covered in her horrendous drawings. “What you drawing, baby?”

  “Vampire lady,” she answered absently as she tipped her head to the side and began coloring in the triangular fangs, humming the Bitten song as she did.

  Something the size of a fist clogged his throat. He swallowed. Hard.

  No getting away from her, was there?

  There he was, chilling with his daughter in her room to take his mind off life for a while, off how much of a wretched bitch it was. Claire’s room. His safe haven. The place he came to whenever he wanted to forget…everything. It was a quiet and innocent place to be. Just be.

  Claire. The person he came to whenever he wanted to forget…everyone. And just not think.

  Now she, his own daughter, had ruined that. By drawing her all over him. On his skin. That fucking stick hand right over his heart.

  Her love, her light, was so fucking powerful, it had broken into his safe haven, through his daughter, using her to get her mark on him.

  The woman was still pissing on him.

  Still marking, tagging, staking, claiming, owning.

  An annoyed sigh flowed through his nostrils as his forearms gave way and he flopped back onto the bed.

  There was no escaping her. There was nowhere to hide. Love had screwed him. She had ruined him. He had a hollow space where his heart once resided. Because she still held his heart tightly in her grasp and refused to give it back. He was stuck.

  Stuck in love.

  A sweet, pure, virginal voice, “I can’t wait to grow up and get bitten like you, Daddy.”

  Oh God, kill me now, won’t you?!

  Jahleel covered his eyes with his arm again and grunted.

  Oblivious to his agony, Claire went on as she drew. “Does it hurt to get bitten, Daddy?”

  He didn’t answer. And if she wasn’t his own flesh and blood, he’d tell her to fuck right off and leave.

  “Daddy, are you asleep?”

  The mattress moved as she crawled her way up to him then struggled to move his arm from over his eyes. When she found he was wide awake, she grinned at him, leaned forward, and began drawing who the fuck knows what on his chin as she asked again, “Does it, Daddy? Does it hurt to get bitten?”

  She wasn’t giving up. She was obsessed with this “bitten” shit. He’d watched the Bitten music video with her too many times, and now she was hooked on it. Plus the song wasn’t getting any less popular. In fact, it had shot right back to number one during the cheating/broken engagement fiasco.

  Realizing he wasn’t going to be left alone without answering or fake sleeping, Jahleel reached a hand up and cupped the side of Claire’s face. “Yes, baby. It hurts. So bad. Sometimes I like being bitten. Other times I wish I wasn’t bitten. Because I don’t like the pain that comes with it. But to be bitten means you’ve been claimed. Marked. Forever marked. So even though it hurts sometimes, you gotta embrace the pain and hope that one day, being bitten will start to feel good again. Because when it’s good, it’s great, Claire. It’s great. You want it to end, never.”

  Remembering that he was talking to a four-year-old, who’d merely asked him a simple yes-or-no question, he stopped his blabbing.

  Claire just blinked at him. Of course, she didn’t understand.

  Popping the cover back on her Sharpie marker, she threw it across the room like a rebel, then snuggled up next to him. “Can we watch the vampire lady video? When are we gonna see vampire lady again, Daddy? Mommy says never. But I miss vampire lady. She talks different. Can we have pizza for breakfast? Will you sleep in my room tonight…?”

  As Claire fired off a string of discombobulated questions, Jahleel eased his cell out of his pocket and pulled up the YouTube app, tapped in Bitten by Saskia Day (Official Music Video), and hit play.

  As soon as the video ended, Claire demanded he played it again. And again. Until she started drifting.

  Marsha waltzed into the room with a cup of tea. Looking fresh from a shower, she was wrapped in a short silk robe. Marsha had the kind of body men pictured in their minds when jacking off. She was hot, she was sexy, she was fresh, and she was pretty as fuck.

  He should have been fucking her to bruises and soreness in a million different ways. He was single, after all.

  But as much as she paraded around the house in her usual silky, lacy, skimpy, come-fuck-me garments, his cock never even tried to peek between her thighs. And to believe there was once a time when he couldn’t so much as glimpse Marsha and not want to fuck the shit out of her, she was so hot.

  Now? Nothing.

  Stopping at the bedside, she smiled and shook her head at the markings all over him, then held out the cup to him. “Earl Grey.”

  Jahleel mumbled out a thanks and told her to put it on the nightstand before bringing his attention back to the video playing on his phone.

  Marsha fidgeted about the bedside, but Jahleel made it a point not to inquire what was wrong. Of course, she could hear the song and knew what he and Claire were watching, though Claire was nodding off to sleep by then, sucking on her thumb.

  It bothered her. It always did. Everything about her bother her.

  Marsha sat down on the edge of the bed without invitation, and Jahleel finally made himself look at her, giving her the “what the fuck do you want” expression.

  “You’ve seen her recently, haven’t you?” she asked in a whisper, perhaps to not ruin Claire’s near sleep.

  In lieu of answering, he just stared at her. He wouldn’t answer that, because, really, how was it her business? And how did she even know he’d seen Saskia?

  “Maybe it’s because I’ve known you for a long time,” she continued, despite his lack of response, “but, JK, I love you so much that, at this point, I can read you a lot better than you think. And when it comes to her, nothing’s hidden. Either you don’t know how to hide anymore, or whatever you feel for her is too strong to be hidden.

  “Based on the change in your mood, I can tell exactly when you saw her. It was last Thursday. You came home and you were…just not who you were when you came here fresh from a heartbreak three months ago. Since Thursday, you’ve been heavier, draggy. You frown a lot. The creases between your brows are perpetual like you’re vacillating on something…” She trailed off a
nd sighed, staring down at her hands in her lap. “She wants you back, and you’re thinking it over. Thinking it over. You’re fucking thinking it over.”

  “Marsh, just like I don’t give a flyin’ fuck what’s goin’ in on your life beyond my daughter, you’re not supposed to care what’s going on in mine. Got that? We have one common factor here and it’s Claire. That’s about it.”

  She sniffled then. But he could care less. Women’s tears didn’t work on him. “You were never gonna get back together with me, were you?”

  Jahleel’s gaze snapped to hers. “Were we ever together, Marsh?” he asked with incredulity. “Did I fuck you bareback as my girlfriend and knock you up? Or were you a fuck friend who stole my sperm, knocked yourself up, and then tried to pass my daughter off to another man?”

  She winced. “I love you.”

  “I don’t need to tell you the feeling’s not mutual, do I?”

  The tears flowed freely from her eyes, and she shuddered. “I…you’ve been so good to me. You took me and Claire places. Everywhere. In the past couple of months, we were like…a family. You practically live here. And you’ve made me fall in love with you all over again…I just…I just thought…”

  “Never, Marsha. Not ever,” he told her in a firm and certain tone. “And I’m not sayin’ this to be mean, okay? That’s just the way it is. Sorry if ever I made you think otherwise.”

  Marsha sniffled for a few minutes, then suddenly straightened her shoulders and wiped her tears away. “You should hurt her back.”

  Jahleel cleared his phone screen and stuffed the cell back in his pocket, then he rolled a deep-sleeping Claire over onto her stomach so he wouldn’t end up with a stray punch to the face once she started fighting in her sleep.

  Then to Marsha, “What?”

  “You’re gonna go back to her,” she expounded. “I know you are. You’re so in love with her, I don’t think you even realize how much. You just can’t hide it. I’ve seen what you felt for Krissy once, and I’m seeing what you feel for Saskia now. And it’s so completely different. You wanted Krissy on a tolerable level, but you didn’t need her, because you let her do whatever she wanted. Date whoever she wanted. Fuck whoever she wanted. And you only started acting like you gave shit when she started dating Trev because you were also falling for someone, Saskia, and what you felt was confusing you.

  “Saskia, you need her, on an intolerable level. You can’t stomach her doing the things you used to allow Krissy to do. It rips you up, and it shows. And as much as I hate it, hate her, I can’t force you to love me. I just have to accept that the man I love is in love with someone else. But the fact is, I still love you, I don’t think I can stop, and loving you also means I care about you. So I hate to see you hurting like this. Your hurt hurts me, JK.”

  Marsha paused and took a deep breath, closing her eyes, as though digging for inner strength. “So, what I’m saying is, before you even think about taking her back, fuck her heart up the same way she did yours. It will not heal you, it will not make the facts disappear, but it might help you cope with those facts. If you can’t imagine growing old with anyone else but her, then one fuck-up of hers is not worth being miserable for the rest of your life. So since the forgiveness thing’s not working out, try another route. I’m not suggesting this because I hate her. The unacceptable truth is, sometimes, an eye for an eye works a fuck of a lot better than turning the other cheek.”

  Jahleel actually laughed at this logic. “Would you do that to me, Marsh? An eye for an eye?”

  “No. I love you too much.”

  “Well there, you got your answer,” he said. “I’d rather pluck my other eye out and hand it over to her. So she’ll have four eyes and I’ll have none. So I’ll have to follow wherever she leads. That’s how much I love her.” He turned away from Marsha and rolled onto his side, staring unseeing at Claire’s flowery wall. “Blind in love. I’d rather be blind in love than hurt her.”

  That’s what he’d thought at the time. But two weeks later when the heartache was nowhere close to subsiding, he’d began pondering on the two women’s suggestions. Would that really help?

  Stupid. He thought it was stupid. And if one should ask him again and again, he’d give the same answer: it’s fucking stupid.

  But one night while he was in bed watching her as a guest on a late night show, her damn accent filling his head, her smile bright enough to light up an entire fucking continent, her beauty weightless and intangible like light, bright fucking light, he broke down and texted her.

  Thought about it.

  Tomorrow. My place.

  8pm.

  At 9:15 p.m., Jahleel rode through the gates of his residence. Three months and two weeks, that’s how long it’d been since he’d been to this place. His own home.

  The Phantom was parked next to his Jeep. Of course, she’d let herself in. She had her own keys. How’d he forgotten that?

  Jahleel parked his bike and reluctantly mounted the steps to his front door. He’d made arrangements to meet there at eight, but now it was after nine. He’d gotten caught up in a meeting with Chad about Red Rhage. The meeting had stretched on for hours, and because he didn’t want to go through with this…thing to begin with, he never bothered calling to let her know he’d be late.

  Nope, he wasn’t in a haste to come fuck some chick in front of her and rip her fucking heart out.

  The door swung open just as he reached out to turn the handle.

  Saskia. Phone in her hand, her big, cat-gray eyes staring wide up at him.

  “Oh,” she murmured. And as if she couldn’t help it, her gaze drifted down his body, taking him in. “I tried ringing you a couple times…thought you changed your mind…”

  “You thought, or you hoped?” he asked emptily.

  “I…” She sighed. “All I want is you, JK. What we had. I want it back.”

  Ignoring that, he moved to the side and brushed past her into his house.

  Heat, hot lava heat, seared up his shoulder when it brushed against hers.

  That was the kind of fucking impact she had on him.

  The door closed with a click behind him, and he fought like hell not to turn around, grab her, slam her up against him, and kiss the fuck out of that dirty, little Brit mouth. He also tried his damnedest not to look down at the floor, where their initials were wrapped around each other.

  A brunette broke around the corner from the kitchen just then, eating ice-cream from a small porcelain bowl, and he had to wonder if Saskia was trying to lose him, or win him back. Because this chick was a solid ten.

  Why would she pick a chick who looked like that?

  In a barely there, too-tight-to-breathe red dress, she was a little shorter than Saskia, a little thicker, curvier, prettier, with a half-slut, half-virgin thing going on.

  Tilting his head, Jahleel assessed her from a different angle, and, yeah, she got fucking ass. A lovely ass. A Marsha kind of ass.

  He laughed a little to himself, because this just might work after all. Not to reconcile things with Saskia, but to get the fuck over her with the first girl—other than Saskia—who had managed to get a rise out of his cock after being dead and uninterested in the female species for the past couple of months.

  Saskia mistook his laugh for something different and came to stand next to him, anxiously wringing her hands. “Is she good enough? She catches your fancy?” she asked. “I had her wear red since it’s your favorite color and all…”

  Without answering, he walked over to the girl who was damn well gawking at him. Either she wasn’t told the identity of her fuck partner for the night, or she was a fan, er, “JK’s Babe.”

  Looming over her, Jahleel used his thumb to wipe a smudge of chocolate ice-cream from her bottom lip. “What’s your name, blue eyes?”

  The girl’s head tipped back to meet his gaze, her eyes glazing over dreamily. “A-Ashley. You’re JK. I had no idea—”

  “Ashley,” he cut her off, taking the small bowl of ice-c
ream from her hands, “you came here to eat, or you came here to fuck?”

  Pretty Girl Ashley licked her pouty red lips, and she seemed momentarily dazed. “Fuck.” She swallowed. “I’m here to fuck. You. Oh my freaking god…” She mumbled the latter so much lower than a whisper; he almost didn’t hear it.

  Giving her a slant smile, he scooped up some ice-cream and spooned it in his mouth. “Guest bedroom’s the second door on the right down that hall. Go on. Don’t undress. Wanna peel you outta that fuckin’ dress myself.”

  Ashley nodded, flashing him a coquettish smile as she tottered off.

  Feeling a fuck of a lot better about this, Jahleel turned to Saskia.

  She looked ill, her face pale, every single blue vein under her skin prominent.

  Yep, the realness of this insane idea of hers was starting to sink in. But, hey, she proposed it. And it was only a minute ago that he’d grown comfortable with the idea.

  “Where’d you find that fox?” he asked her casually, light, open. Screwing with her head.

  Raking her fingers through her long blonde curls, she averted her eyes. Soon she shrugged, patently shooting for insouciance as she brought her gaze back to him. “Fox? Really?”

  To hide a smile, Jahleel spooned more ice-cream into his mouth. It was that Haagen Dazs flavor Saskia had hooked him on, Chocolate Peanut Butter. The taste dancing on his tongue reminded him of the things they’d done sexually together with said ice-cream.

  He struggled not to stare at her. Because he really, really wanted to fuck her. Over and over again until the sun came up. Until God returned for his world. He would burn fucking her in hell. Yeah, he would love to die with his cock buried inside her.

  Think about Ashley back there, dude. She’s hot as hell and waiting for you to fuck her brains out. Just do what you came here to do and get the fuck out. Rip Saskia’s heart clean out, walk the fuck away, and never think of her again.

  When he didn’t respond to her crack, she spared, “From Manda’s kinky club.”