Twonder (Completed)

Chapter 36: A Promise

            

Christmas Day

            " Merry Christmas baby." Wakeem rolled over in bed and kissed Cleo on the nose as she lay slumbering beside him. It had been some months since she'd ousted herself and told Greg and Wakeem about the true intention behind her newfound profession, and though Wakeem hadn't accepted that she was doing it for Nathan, he pardoned her. He did so because he simply had no choice in the matter. She was the love of his life without ever trying, and that was all there was to it.

" Shit, it's morning already? Hey Wa." Cleo's face scrunched in disgust momentarily as she took in the fact that it was indeed morning, before giving way to an efface of pure bliss; she was in love with this man.

            Though she still worked diligently as a hitwoman to free Nathan, she also knew she was in love with the man who she woke up next to everyday and went to bed with every night.

" So what's on the agenda baby? I'm on ya time today." Wakeem had put off other contracts in order to cater to his woman today; she deserved this day, as she did many others.

" Well for starters, I like the idea of a lazy morning with my baby." Cleo snuggled closer to Wakeem and placed gentle and warm kisses on his muscular arms. " But after that we gotta go meet the family at Rome's."

" So I finally get to meet the famous Harlem Jordan?" Wakeem pulled Cleo on top of him and spoke the words into her mouth as they kissed.

" An honor in and of itself." Cleo's sarcasm was insanely intact all early in the morning, but the thought of spending a Christmas without Jerome, but with Wakeem, was fucking her head up.

            So many things had changed since the top of the year, and now that a new one was only days from swooping upon them, Cleo reflected on the pitfalls and blessings that'd fallen into her path. There was the shooting; but with that came Nathan, there was Kaline's betrayal; which made room for Wakeem, and there was the entrance of new friends such as Jenny and Jessica.

Ring, ring

            " Merry Christmas Cleo." Nathan smiled through the phone and in reaction Cleo followed suit subconsciously; his effect on her was like a reflex by now. Wakeem got out of bed and walked his boxer-clad frame into the other room, and away from his woman who was currently boo loving something serious. Wakeem hated the way Cleo reacted to anything having to do with Nathan, that shit was simply unnatural.

            At the mention of his name her eyes would glaze over in an unabashed wash of passion, when her nightly thoughts ran rampant through her subconscious it was his name she called through her slumber, and when she saw something that even remotely reminded her of him, it seemed to render her senseless and often times immobile. She'd see a man with grey eyes and damn near fall at his feet, see the name Nathan on a page in a magazine and be stuck on that same sentence for an hour, or hear a line Nathan says and walk around with a goofy ass smile on her face for the rest of the day. This was all beside the fact that Nathan's phone calls and letters rendered her deaf and dumb to Wakeem's advances for days on end.

            " Merry Christmas Mr. Lavelle, how are you this wonderful morning?" Cleo stretched her arms before snuggling back under the covers with the phone still pressed to her ear; she momentarily imagined Nathan under the covers beside her.

" Better now that I'm hearing your voice baby girl." Nathan wondered if she had received his present, the fact that she hadn't mentioned it signaled to him that his plan was still patiently unfolding.

" You gotta stop tryna lay this young man word game on me Nathan.", Cleo chuckled at her own humor before continuing, " I like your words much better." Nathan had to actively remind himself that she was Wakeem's girl, before he messed around and proposed marriage through the phone.