by S. Ann Cole
Lion, who knew the man personally, was laughing, saying the man only agreed to his girlfriend’s inane therapy idea to appease her, but nothing was really wrong with him. He was naturally a douche. Twana, Amanda, Amy and Jamie took turns throwing in their opinions on how all fucked-up men had dark, tragic pasts.
Jahleel was quiet throughout it all. Until he spoke.
“That’s the thing with you women. You always think there’s some psychological explanation for why a dude acts the way he does. You always think you can ‘save’ him, ‘change’ him. But really, most men come into the world as jackasses and assholes and will die as jackasses and assholes. Hard as you try, they can’t be saved by some girl, no matter how good she can ride or suck a cock. No matter how pretty, sexy she is. Sex is just sex. Looks fade. Feelings vanish as if they were never there. Shit goes deeper than that.”
There was a pause, long quietness, then, “Some assholes, you just have to wait for them. Don’t try to work on them or fix them. ‘Cuz that shit can’t be forced. Wait for them to decide to live life and not just have it. Not just keep it to themselves, refusing to share it with someone else. Because when they do decide to live, they won’t just share their life with you. They’ll give it to you completely. Giving themselves over to be fully and wholly owned.”
There was a moment of silence, then all at the once, the male voices erupted, “Word!!”
And the rowdiness resumed.
Chad came back at that point, reclaiming my attention.
We ate, laughed and chatted about things that didn’t matter. He was simply amazing, and I could see myself wanting him for more than sex. Too soon, his phone interrupted us again and he answered, speaking in Russian. As the conversation went on, his face grew taut, his voice was curt and riled, sounding like someone different. Someone dangerous.
“You still gonna be here about an hour from now?” he asked when he hung up.
“Not sure. Why?”
Getting to his feet, he buttoned his blazer. Sexy fucker. “Something I gotta go take care of.”
I gave him a thumbs up. “If I’m still here in an hour, I’ll text you.”
Head cocked to the side, he asked, “You got my number?”
“Yep.”
“How?”
“I got my sources.”
He stared me down, a strange gleam in his eyes, one I couldn’t fathom.
Scaring me straight, I was compelled to let on who I got his number from, so I spared, “Lion gave it to me.”
The strange look left his eyes at once, and he nodded then leaned over to kiss my cheek. “See you later, then.”
For some eerie reason, I decided to watch him as he walked away. He was still Chad.
But by the time he got to where Jahleel had drawn his imaginary threshold for Bitchy Sassy, Chad’s smooth, suave posture disappeared, and he suddenly seemed taller, superior, shoulders squared, back straight, like someone with unlimited authority and power.
Amazed, I watched a Chad I didn’t know disappear through the exit.
Just then, Amanda occupied Chad’s vacated seat. Glaring at me.
“What?” I snapped.
“You know I’m Chad’s biggest fan,” she said. “But what you did this evening? Not acceptable.”
“I’m no sub of yours, Manda,” I told her. “So I don’t give a rat’s arse what you think is acceptable or not.”
She slapped her palm down on the table between us and I fought back a flinch, pretending to be unfazed. The woman could be scary sometimes.
“This wasn’t put together by ‘us’. Me, Lion, none of us got nothing to do with it. All we were told was where and when. He rented out this whole place. He paid for everything. He did all of it for you. And then you spend the entire evening flirting with Chad?”
“JK’s a friend. That’s what he says he wants. So I don’t think it should matter who I spend my time with.”
Lips compressed, she leaned back in the arm chair, glancing around the room. “He left, you know?”
“Why?”
“Don’t know.” Her hard onyx eyes returned to drill me. “Why do you think?”
“You don’t intimidate me, you know,” I bluffed.
“You’re my best friend, Kia. My job is not to ‘intimidate’ you, but to wake you the fuck up.”
“He invited the giggly sluts,” I pouted stubbornly. “I was upset. He didn’t care.”
Amanda stared at me like I was loopy. “They’re your friends.”
“He shagged them both.”
“You just said he’s only a ‘friend’, didn’t you?”
“I love him!” I yelled, hands fisting. “You know that!”
“Keep your damn voice down, will you?” Amanda glanced around room, making sure no one was eavesdropping. “Look, you need to quit dicking around. It’s either JK or Chad. Choose one. Trust me, you don’t want to be the whore who wedged two friends apart. Or you’ll be the one hated in the end.”
Pushing up from the chair, she jerked at the bottom of her blouse to straighten it like the head bitch in charge and told me, “Now, get off your arse. Everyone’s waiting on you to pick a team so we can start bowling.”
As people tended to do at the sound of Amanda’s voice, I moved at her command, following her to the shoe shelves.
My cellphone vibrated against my thigh in my shorts pocket and I eased it out. Text message from Jahleel:
Remember your promise.
Chapter Seventeen
A terse low ding sounded when I pressed his doorbell.
Bathed in a warm glow created by simple brass sconces above either side of the door, I released the ringer and stuffed my hands into my back pockets. I glanced down at the red and black weatherized mat beneath my sandal covered feet that displayed, ‘Goodbye’ instead of welcome.
Typical Jahleel.
I knew Thomas was somewhere nearby keeping watch on me without making me aware. But I was aware.
Forty-eight hours had passed since the stress-relieving get together Jahleel threw for me. Aside from his single text reminding me of my promise—never to kiss anyone again, like I’d done with Chad—I hadn’t heard a word from him.
Not like I expected to. This was his style. Especially after Chad and I isolated ourselves from everyone at the get together that he, Jahleel, threw? Even worse so.
I returned from L.A just this afternoon, did some vocal training, went home and slept like an Olympian. Later I woke up around 8:30pm with Amanda and Ferbie gone, loneliness in my bed, and one person on my mind.
I knew if I rang or text him he wouldn’t answer. Or would he?
Jahleel Kingston was unpredictable like that, yeah. So I snatched up my Mercedes car keys and left on my own to circle Jahleel’s home. Three times, but his bike wasn’t in the driveway.
Determined to wait him out, I drove around the city, listening to P!nk, with no Davidoff to smoke. When I circled a fourth time at 10:34pm, his bike was on the lawn and lights glowed from the windows on his floor. The top floor was dark and Krissy’s Audi was gone, so I swung right into her spot and strolled jauntily to the house.
I had no idea if he had a girl with him, and I didn’t care. All I knew was I wanted to see him.
Mannerless sod that he was, he kept me waiting for a few long minutes after the doorbell sounded, before he finally opened the door, wearing white, low-swung, drawstring sweatpants and nothing else. His skin damp, hair wet and slicked back from his face as if he’d ran out of the shower to answer the door.
He didn’t look surprised to see me. Just blank. Wet. And heartbreakingly beautiful.
He said nothing. I said nothing. He didn’t invite me in. I wanted in.
“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 bla
de, 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.