Jahleel (32 page)

Holding up the mug sketch, he went on, “She was holdin’ this mug when she died. Not with coffee, but with green Jell-O—she loved that. The mug fell from her fingers and broke into four pieces instead of shattering. Krissy cried. I picked up the pieces and brought them home with me. Kept them in a box for years. Don’t ask me why.

“When I started sketching, I glued the pieces back together and sketched it with the cracks. A year later, whenever I looked at it, I would get sad and angry. Angry about that little girl not having had a chance to live. So I got rid of the cracked sketching and re-sketched it without the cracks. Made it perfect. As everything should have been for her.”

And there I was feeling like a load of crap for criticizing. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged it off as no big deal. But it was.

“Do all your sketches tell a story?”

“Nah. Some are just crap as you say.”

Scanning the sketches again, I pointed at one with a headless girl.

She stood on what looked like a stage, a mike in her hand. Out of the pencil-shaded darkness beneath her, came crafted hands, raving for her. No faces, just hands in the darkness. Her headless figure above them, held the mike at her side in a confident stance, owning the world.

Had it been in a gallery, viewers of the sketch would wish to know more about the girl, as her posture was so strong, sure, undaunted. They would use their imaginations to envision her face, placing it on women with similar body types. Some might get pissed at the artist for drawing such a powerful sketch, yet leaving the one person with the power, headless. Faceless, though with so much power.

“What about that one?”

Setting down the mug sketch, Jahleel turned to look at the one I indicated. Something flashed across his face, too fleeting to recognize, but I noticed a difference in his breathing, his eyes narrowing. After staring at the sketch for a long while, he shook his head. “It’s crap.”

“Bullocks,” I retorted. “Anyone can see it tells a story.”

“An incomplete story,” he admitted. “That’s why she’s headless.”

“What is it?” I prodded.

Sighing in reluctance, he took up the sketch and looked at it as if he were reading from the traces of his pencil. “I saw her some time ago. I committed her face to memory and sketched her. I saw her some time after that; her face was different, but the rest was the same. Committed her to memory and re-sketched her with her new face. Saw her again. Her face was different and this time, she was different. Committed her to memory and re-sketched her: new face, new person. But, as soon as I was finished with that sketch, I looked at it and knew when I saw her again, something about her would be different. So I immediately re-sketched her. Headless.”

“Do you think you’ll complete it whenever she’s constant in your eyes?”

Head still lowered, he raised his eyes to me. “Yes.”

Thrown by the intensity of his stare, I laughed nervously. “You sound as twisty and peculiar as all those other artists.”

The humour missed him, as he set down the sketch and walked over to me. “No more storytellin’. I came down here to sketch you. So let’s get to it.”

“How do you want me?”

He led me over the chaise lounge. “In the exact position you woke up in when you slept over on the night I was sick. I’ve wanted to sketch you ever since. Think I outlined and shaded you with my eyes a hundred times before you woke up. Your moans and whisperings of my name while you slept was my music.”

Ah, the morning I woke up with my hand down my knickers. I’ll never live that down. Heat percolated my cheeks. “That was embarrassing.”

“It was unforgettably sexy.”

Grasping the hem of my tank, he pulled up to take it off, and I raised my hands, allowing him to drag it over my head, tossing it on the scattered sketches on the floor.

He moved in, the heat of his body clashing with mine, created unbearable steam. His chest pressed against my breasts as he circled his long, muscled, tatted arms around my hypersensitive torso, and though I hoped it would be a tight, sensual hug, it wasn’t, because his fingers landed on the hook of my brassiere and undid it with one skilful flick.

His hands came back around, pulling off the brassiere at the same time. My breath spiked with anticipation.

Throughout the entire process, his eyes stayed on mine, as he seemed to find immense pleasure in building my hopes up, only to deflate them. The brassiere got tossed in the same direction as the tank.

As he hauled his own tee over his head, his warm bare chest now against my aching, hardened nipples, I had to ask, “Are we still sketching or…?”

That damn crooked grin popped onto his face as he took a step back from me and pulled at his cotton tee again and again until it was in shreds. “Told you to stop thinkin’ about sex, Sassy.”

“Are you even serious right now?”

How could he expect me
not
to think about sex while we were both half naked?

“Take off your jeans,” he ordered, shaking his head, grin still present.

When I did as he asked, he positioned me to his desire on the chaise lounge, strategically draping his ripped up tee over me to his liking, one of my breasts covered, one perfectly exposed from the shreds of material.

When he was satisfied, he backed away to the high stool and picked up his sketch pad and a pencil.

“Should I stick my hand down my knickers, too?” I joked.

His laughed easily. “If you feel the need…”

Then the sketching began.

Tick. Tock. Tick.

The thing was, I wasn’t big on sitting still for long periods of time, especially without a smoke or music, so in no time, I was bored.

Jahleel was intensely focused, quiet, the only sounds between us being the faint scratching of pencil lead against paper.

“I feel like that girl from
Titanic
,” I muttered, breaking the ear-splitting silence.

“Except she laid still for Jack,” he uttered low under his breath, pencilling away. “She was perfect.”

“And I’m not?” I shot back indignantly, forefinger idly poking at the chaise cushion.

“Fuck no,” he replied, laughing now. “I think you’ve scratched a non-existent itch on your right thigh about ten times in the last five minutes.”

My eyes went heavenward. “Okay, I probably should’ve told you I’m not good at keeping still.”

“No shit,” he agreed.

“Maybe if there was music or something…?”

Eyes never leaving his pad, he mumbled, “My whole life is music and movements. This is where I come when I wanna wind down.”

His brows pulled together, two soft creases forming between them as he held the sketch pad out at arm’s length and examined it. “But I think I can tolerate
you
singing. My choice.”

Glad to!
Beats lying here in silence. “Which one?”

He lowered the pad and began sketching again, taking a few minutes before answering, “Coming.”

The name of the song came out so low, I almost didn’t hear him. Funny how he chose that song. It was about him. The whole award-winning album was about him, as a matter of fact. But that particular song was a retelling of the first time I ever saw him. ‘Coming’ was a number one hit right off the bat.

“You like that one?” I fished. “It’s an oldie.”

“A favourite,” he confessed. “Now sing so I can sketch.”

Watching his strong hand manipulate the pencil into a smooth flow across the pad, I cleared my throat and sang a song he had no idea was written for him.

A bout of shouts
A bright white light
A fresh false start
Shining, blinding, recognizing

A grab of a wrist
A kiss and a smile
A promise for more
Bigger, better, forever

An obscure beauty
A red colour of love
A fool of me, no senses
Tripping, falling, gaping

Ignore what the eyes can see
Ignore what the heart can feel
Ignore what the world says to be
But please, please, don’t ignore me

Because I’m coming
I’m on my way
I will be there
Don’t give my heart away

I’m coming, coming
Stray not too far
I will be there
Don’t love while we’re apart

Wait, wait, wait,
I’m coming for your love

You, You, You,
Will give me all your love

Long after I finished the song, neither of us spoke. Jahleel kept his head lowered as he sketched. I avoided eye contact for fear I might reveal the truth: that rich and famous as I was, I was also a pathetic stalker who was obsessed and irrationally in love with him.

The silence now was different. It was a contented, peaceful silence. A quietness that, instead of being fidgety as before, I now succumbed to. I closed my eyes and envisioned how different this day would be if I was the one who could have chosen what we’d do. The sex we would be having… And on those futile imaginations, I fell asleep.

Even as I slept, I felt him. My eyes flicked open to see Jahleel sitting at the edge of the chaise, watching me with an amused expression. It took me a moment, while I yawned, to realize my hand was down my knickers again.

“Oh crap.”

Jahleel flashed me a half-smile and I didn’t bother removing my hand.

“I ruined the sketch?” I asked him.

He held up two separate sketches. One was half-complete with me awake, and the other was complete with me asleep, hand down my knickers.

The completed sketch was awe-inspiring. Faultlessly done. Vivid even without colour. Even my curls looked as they would in a camera snapped image.

“Wow,” I whispered, “You’re really good at this.”

Nodding at the compliment, he set the sketches aside. “I need to feed you.”

“I want to come,” I blurted. My dream had left me in a semi-aroused state.

“You didn’t come in your dream?” he asked, a smirk on his lips.

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, sorry about that.” He made to get up, but I grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Please. Make me come.” As he started to protest, I pleaded, “
Please
.”

Staring at me for a long moment, he gave in. “No sex, okay?”

“I know.”

Moving between my thighs on the chaise, he took off my knickers, spreading my legs apart; one crooked on the top of the chaise, the other hanging off the edge.

Wide open, wet and wanting in front of him.

He removed the ripped up tee and tossed it to the ground, leaving me completely naked, heated, squirming, waiting for the first touch of his fingers.

Lowering down on top of me, he braced his jeans covered erection against me. His navel kissed mine, his abs kissed mine, his chest kissed mine, and his lips hovered above mine—no kiss.

Flexing his hips so the friction of his erection made me moan out, he whispered, “My hands are yours. Tell me, what do you want me to do with them?”

As he circled his hips again, I whimpered, “Anything. Anywhere. Just touch me.”

Easing back a fraction, he ran his fingertips down my neck to my nipples, passing his thumbs over them in gentle circles. An indescribable sound left me at his touch.

“Is it me you’re hot for, or anyone else would do?”

“Yes. Just you. Always.”

My breasts mourned the loss of his touch when his hands left them and smoothed their way down my stomach, down my pelvis and settled on my inner thighs.

“Lie,” he refuted. “You just want to come. And I just so happen to be the man in the room.”

“Fuck you, JK.”

The words were meant to be venomous, but came out in panted moans instead.

Jahleel ignored the curse and brushed his knuckles against my sopping folds. “You expect me to believe it’s just me?”

With the question, he caught my clit between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed.

“Oh God!” I cried, almost exploding into something unexpected. “It’s always been you, JK.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he hissed as he drove two fingers inside me, making me cry out in sheer pleasure. “Wasn’t it just last night you were ready to choose someone else?”

As his fingers moved in and out of me in a smooth, slow rhythm, a familiar tingle crept up the back of my knees, alerting me that my orgasm was near.

“I wouldn’t have,” I told him in a mewl. “You know it.”

“I don’t know jack-shit,” he shot back before I even got the last word out.

Removing his fingers from inside me, he caught hold of my clit again.

Half-conscious, half-consumed with pleasure, I gazed up at him through hooded eyes. “Are you still mad at m—”

“Shut up,” he cut me off, then squeezed my clit again, commanding, “Give in, Sassy. Now.”

As he fingers applied pressure, my body yielded to his command and I spiralled into a loud, writhing mess. “JK…Ohmigod, JK!”