Jahleel (14 page)

As he turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, I remembered Krissy saying they lived together. “Is it divided?”

“Yeah,” he threw his response over his shoulder. “Krissy’s up top. I’m down here.”

“Oh.” I was relieved they didn’t actually live
together
. “Does she—”

“Too much fuckin’ questions,” he snapped, glancing at me over his shoulder. “Stay here. Be back in a sec.” Then he strode off down the hall.

Why did I continue to subject myself to this man’s awful treatment?

Oh, right, because I love him. At least, I
think
I did. Or maybe I suffered from a more subtle brain dysfunction than Ferbie. Maybe
all
the Days suffered it, and I just happened to be a tad more sensible than the rest of the lot. That could explain it—why I continued down this path.

I wasn’t some obedient child, or anyone’s pet, so I didn’t ‘stay’ as he ordered me to. Instead, I wandered down the hall to find it branched into two wings; the left wing ran into the kitchen—which also had a gap entrance by the front door—while the right wing led into a massive living area.

Taking the path to the living area, I concluded there and then that red was this man’s favourite colour. The space was decorated in a theme of red, grey, white and black, with red being the primary colour.

One large, pristinely white rug covered the centre of the hardwood flooring, and a low Chinese-style coffee table sat atop it. Two long, red suede sofas faced each other on either side of the table. Another sitting area was furnished with two grey sofa chairs placed side by side, each with its own round, black leather ottoman in front.

The place looked so spotless and clinical, it was
impossible
to believe the person living there rode sports-bikes, drove around in door-less Jeeps, wore ripped-up jeans and Timberlands, and used the F word like it was a prayer.

He was a bloody neat freak.

I hated those kind of men. They were the ones who made up the bed the second they rolled out of it, never left dirty dishes in the sink, kept the bathroom dry and arranged, folded the towels, colour coded the closets, and took off their shoes at the front door.

Well, I still had on my shoes, so I guess he wasn’t that bad.

A 60 inch flat-screen was installed inside the wall north, and the entertainment centre beneath it displayed neatly arranged CDs, DVDs, and a shitload of pictures with Krissy. Some of him and her, some just of her. Most were candid shots of Krissy in her natural, unguarded state. One even while she slept, her mouth hung loosely open.

The ones of him and her were casual, faces pressed together with his arm holding out the camera, smiling, laughing, happy. A Jahleel I didn’t know. Might never know.

Did I even stand a chance?

Those were the kind of pics he framed, and put on display, candid and open. The only other picture present that didn’t include Krissy was one with his parents.

How could she see those and
not
know he regarded her as more than a sister? She either knew and didn’t care, or she was just as much of a bitch to him as he was an a-hole to others.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up—I felt him before he even spoke. “You don’t follow instructions very well, do you?”

I spun around and took a startled step back when I realized how close he was, flipping a thumb-drive between his fingers. His jaw worked as he chewed something, and I knew it was his stupid raisins.

“I’m not Ferbie.”

“You’re right,” he nodded in agreement. “He can dance. You’re a fish. Even walruses dance better than you.”

“Uh, psssh. I can dance,” I protested, using my offended face.

With a slight smile, he reached up and softly pinched the centre of my top lip. I moved into it, but before I could get any closer, he nodded over my shoulder, indicating the photos I had just seen. “It’s her birthday today.”

What the fuck did that have to do with the price of rice? “Oh. You got something special planned, yeah?”

“Yep.” He turned to leave the room. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.”

I was tired of these short clipped moments with him. I was tired of him kissing everyone except me. Tired of him being with everyone else except me.

Common gossip labelled Jahleel a man-whore who shagged anything with a vagina, yet I constantly fought to get his attention.

I was Saskia Day. I owned the fucking world. I shouldn’t have to follow him around, waiting and hoping he’d touch me, or realize that I, too, was a woman with a vagina between her goddamn legs.

And very
willing
to accommodate him, I might add.

As we got to the front door, I reached out and grabbed his hand before it touched the door knob. Slightly turning his head, he looked at me with his brow raised in question, and I shrugged.

There were no words available, so I tried putting it all in my eyes, because my mouth or brain never seemed to function whenever those gold irises were focused on me.

As he turned fully to me, I let go of his hand. “Sassy?”

My neck heated and my cheeks burned hot as flames, but I didn’t answer as he moved into me, backing me up until I was against the wall. He moved in even closer, until the space between us was non-existent.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Now if I could just get my lips to work. Oh, they would work alright, the minute his touched mine, they most certainly would, like a frog kissing a prince.

“What, Sassy?” he whispered. “What do you want?”

Swallowing past the golf ball size lump in my throat, I sighed back, “Kiss me.”

“You want
me
to kiss you?” he asked as his hips pressed against mine, now pinning me to the wall.

“Yes. Please.”

“Why, Sassy?” he demanded in a husky voice—a voice I assumed he reserved for moments like these. His right hand came up to brace against the wall, right next to my head, as if he needed a fulcrum, stability, something to keep him restrained.

“Because…” was all I could get out.

“Because…?”

“I just want you to fucking kiss me,” I snapped, full of sexual frustration. “You kiss women all the time, don’t you? Just do it.”

Using his other hand to grip my waist, fingers digging into my flesh, he leaned in even further so his lips were whispering against mine. “I thought you were feeling Chad?”

The hell? How did Chad get into this?

His searing grip on my waist was causing a heavy, unbearable pressure between my thighs. I wanted,
oh God
, I wanted him. Right now. Right here.

Hooking my thumbs into his belt loops, I yanked him even tighter up against me and raised my face to his, waiting. Waiting for his lips to touch mine. “No.
You
.”

“You playin’ games, Sassy,” he accused, his cool, minty breath caressing my aching ones.

I tried sounding convincing as I squirmed against the wall. “No, I’m not.”

“You think you can have both of us?” he bit out, his mood shifting. “It’s me today, him tomorrow? That’s how you play?”

He watched my face closely, intently, searching for something. “One minute you want me to talk to him for you, the next you want
me
to kiss you?”

Dear God. He was reading this all wrong. I didn’t want Chad. I wanted him. HIM! Couldn’t he see that?

Tipping up on my toes, I tried moving in again to kiss him, but he drew back before our lips met.

I felt like screaming, crying, begging. “You, JK. You. Not Chad.”

Lips nearing mine again, he earnestly searched my face.
The hell was he searching for? Just kiss me, dammit!

“Please. Kiss me.”

“No,” he whispered, even as his teeth nipped at my bottom lip.

“No?” My breath was coming in airy, ragged waves now.

He nipped my lip again, tugged and released. “No.”

Turned up to maximum heat, I frustratingly whined, “Why not?”

“Because I’m not the one you want, Saskia.” He drew back.

My thumbs were still hooked in his belt loops, so I yanked him back. “How can you determine that?”

Leaning in close again, eyes to eyes, nose to nose, lips to lips, his mouth moved against mine as he murmured, “Because your nostrils aren’t flaring.”

What the motherfuckingfuck?

Was he even being serious right now? Really? Because my ‘nostrils aren’t flaring’?

Before I could explain that Chad’s theory about my nostrils flaring was total bullocks—even though it wasn’t—the moment was aborted by a loud crash at the front door, followed by an eruption of giggles.

Jahleel jerked his gaze to the door, and judging by the look on his face, I knew it was Krissy.

Being too aroused, confused by the nostrils flaring comment, and intrigued at the depth of his feelings for his sister, I didn’t look their way, but watched Jahleel’s face instead.

“Oh my God, JK, I’m so sorry!” Krissy giggled harder. “I
really
ought to start using my own entrance.”

The way she emphasized ‘really’ meant it wasn’t the first time she’d walked in on him with someone.

Jahleel’s grip on my waist loosened as he removed his hand and, with said hand, raked his fingers through his hair, closing his eyes. His expression was that of utter confusion and conflict.

Opening his eyes, he turned to Krissy and told her, “I’m sorry” before striding off down the hall.

Me forgotten.

Because, to Jahleel Kingston, Saskia Day was no one, while Krissy was everything.

I wanted to die a million deaths. When would I grow some sense?

“What a fucking asshole,” Krissy’s companion grumbled, which prompted me to glance over at them for the first time since they entered.

With coal-black, shoulder-length, bobbed hair, the friend reminded me of Amanda, the thick-legged, big booty type. Except she was unmistakably Armenian. Zane would love her.

She tried getting up to her feet from the ground, but kept stumbling back onto Krissy and the scads of shopping bags around them. Going by the dejected expression on her face, there was no doubt Jahleel was shagging her, too—or at least used to.

Jesus, I couldn’t take this.

“For the love of God, Marsh!” Krissy barked in a fit of hysterical giggles.

Feeling awkward, uncomfortable, mortified, abandoned and rejected, I shifted on my feet, not knowing what to with myself. If only I could click my heels and disappear.

Krissy looked up at me from where she laid sprawled on the ground, but her friend was pointedly ignoring me, pretending it was no big deal having Saskia Day five feet away from her.

Well, screw her. I wasn’t going to acknowledge some plonker who was as brainless as I was to want a fucking scumbag douchehole who was incestuously in lust with his forbidden adoptive sister.

But I opted to be nice to Krissy—not because I cared a damn about her, but because I appreciated her not reciprocating Jahleel’s affections, and also somewhat respected her for possibly being the only woman in his radius who didn’t turn into a complete lummox over him.

I wish I had her strength, her common sense, her freedom. I wanted to be free. Free from this captivation. Free from loving someone who would never love me back. Free from loving all wrong.

“May I use
your
loo?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she chirped in that airy, amicable voice of hers. “Upstairs, turn left.”

Nodding, I moved off down the hall, and as I reached the staircase I remembered Jahleel saying it was Krissy’s birthday. That explained the shopping bags.

Spinning back around to her, I forced a smile on my face even though I didn’t feel like it. “Oh, happy birthday. Hope it’s been good so far for ya’?”

“Thank you,” she replied with a smile, and for the first time I detected something not so genuine behind it. “It has been so far.”

As I reached the top of the stairs, I heard her friend attempting a whisper, so I stopped to eavesdrop.

“Okay, so, I was trying my damnedest not to look starstruck—you know me and that pride shit—but, holy shitballs, isn’t that
Saskia Day?!
”

Krissy laughed. “Yep.”

Opting not to hear if they had good or bad to say behind my back, or laugh at my expense at Jahleel’s thoughtless dismissal of me, I continued on to the bathroom and locked myself inside.

Her bathroom was impressively huge, holding both a shower and a claw-foot bathtub. Those two weren’t lacking for anything, that’s for sure. For two normal, casual people, they lived rather large and luxurious. Nothing I wasn’t used to, of course. I guess, knowing how hard I worked to acquire all I had, the easy-to-come-by lifestyle of others shocked me every time. Life had never been easy for me, I only ate bread by the sweat of my brow—not that I was complaining.

Closing down the lid on the toilet, I sat and inhaled deeply. I had to calm myself. I needed to put an end to this. The situation was not getting better, but worse. Jahleel was far worse than I anticipated. Too much to bear, too much to tolerate, too much to handle.

Maybe if I started dating again, I could forget about him. Maybe.

Thing is, I never gave myself completely to any of the men I’ve dated before, because I hoped for Jahleel. And in those times, I never knew just how awful he could be, and I never considered he might be in love with someone. I was being delusional.

Maybe, with all this sordid knowledge, I could now rationalize with myself and fight, determinedly, to move on from this inane obsession—even though Jahleel would still own a part of me.

I could move back to Los Angeles—because he was the reason I moved here in the first place—and I could go back to being blonde, because he was the reason I went raven.

Maybe, if I reversed everything I’ve ever done because of him and let go of all the pointless hopes and dreams, the obsession would fade too. Sometimes I wondered if obsession was an incurable illness, if it was actually a phenomenon, or if it was all illusion—dreaming while awake.

Curling my feet up on the toilet, I wrapped my arms around my legs, dropped my chin to my knees and started singing an acoustic version of Christina Aguilera’s
Ain’t No Other Man
.