I felt a familiar tug on my hair as he hooked his arm around my neck and drew me to his side. I let my shaky hand rest on his chest, near his heart. When his lips touched my forehead and he didn’t loosen his hold on me, I closed my eyes and let my heart enjoy the peace.
When he drew back, my heart was going a mile a minute. Looking into my eyes, he smiled. “You have never in your life annoyed me, little one. If I didn’t have you looking after me, who would’ve always given me the first and biggest slices of those pies you made with your mom?”
I chuckled. “Do you remember the first time you came to our house? I promised you the biggest slice of the apple pie and ended up giving you half of the damn thing. I can still see the shock on your face when I brought it over.”
His eyes twinkled with laughter. “How could I forget? You looked so pleased with yourself, just waiting in front of me to hear what I thought of your baking skills.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t so happy when my mom swooped in and took the thing right out of my hands before I could give it to you.”
“You brought me five slices worth of pie, little one. After your mom’s dinner, I barely had enough room to eat one piece.” His voice had gone quiet when his eyes met mine.
“Well, I was heartbroken,” I said, equally softly.
His dimple beckoning me to take a very, very small taste, Jason’s eyes looked down at me with such a warmness to them that I didn’t know what to do or what to say for several seconds.
Could I handle being his friend?
Could I ignore my heart begging and screaming against my chest?
Did he even want to be my friend, or was this just a one-time-only favor kinda thing?
The loud ringtone of his phone burst our little bubble, and he took his arms away from me to answer the call.
“Tom? Yes. Take your time, we’ll be okay. Fine, call her and come up with a new strategy then.” Ending his call, he turned to me. “He’ll be here in an hour or so. I had Alvin bring in Chinese takeout, you hungry?”
“Alvin?”
“My assistant. You’ll meet him soon enough.” As he padded toward his beautiful kitchen, I followed a few steps behind him, admiring the way his shoulders moved with every relaxed step.
Don’t look at his ass, Olive. Just don’t.
Outside the glass walls, the sky was slowly darkening, and suddenly the entire back patio lit up with dim lights, making the entire place look…magical.
“Olive?” Jason called my name in an amused tone when he spotted me straying toward the glass panels to take a closer look.
With a sigh, I made it back to the long kitchen bar as Jason took out more than a few takeout bags from one of the cupboards.
“What’s for dinner?” I asked hopping onto one of the bar stools and almost sliding right off of it.
Jesus, why in the hell would they make the seat so small?
Trying to be all covert about it, I pushed myself up on the foot rest again and tried to sit on it sideways so it would look like I was actually sitting comfortably on the stupid thing.
As my arms started to burn from trying to balance myself, I gave up and jumped down before I fell off again.
After taking off my leather jacket, I rounded the huge island and came to stand next to Jason.
Peering into one of the boxes, I asked, “Oh, chicken chow mein, do we have beef, too?”
“Thankfully, we have two beef chow mein and two chicken chow mein, and all this extra stuff.”
“Great. Can I help with anything?”
“I’m trying to find the chopsticks,” he muttered as he emptied all the bags on the counter. “Can you check the drawers to your left? I should have some extra ones somewhere in there.”
“Sure.” Picking up all the empty paper bags and setting them aside, I leaned down and tried to figure out how to open his drawers. Since there were no handles, I lightly pushed at the first one, and it opened automatically.
I rolled my eyes.
Rich people.
It was full of knives, impressively organized by size, but no chopsticks, so I pushed it back.
When I lightly touched the second drawer, suddenly the third one snapped open, hitting me just below the knee. I gasped in pain and had to take a step back with the unexpected force of it.
The only problem was, instead of finding my balance like the graceful human being I was supposed to be, the back of my thighs hit another drawer Jason had opened behind me, and I lost my balance. In that split second, I accepted the fact that I was about to fall right on my ass; I just wished it didn’t have to happen right in front of Jason fucking Thorn.
However, instead of feeling my ass hit the floor, I felt one hand firmly close around my left boob as an arm hugged me right under my breasts. For a moment—for a looong moment—both of us stood still, my bottom parallel to the floor. Jason’s hand flexed on my breast as if he was checking the size of it, and the other dropped lower toward my stomach.
“Fuck,” he cursed in a raspy voice right next to my ear, and the word sent shivers down my spine.
Please, how could I have not closed my eyes to live that shiver to the fullest? And so what if I did arch into his touch just a little bit? Maybe barely held back a moan? Who could blame me? I was just a human, after all.
When he suddenly pulled away his right hand from my stomach as if touching me had burned his skin off, my legs shook and I reached for the first thing I could grab on to.
His hand.
The one that was still covering my boob.
And fine, if you really need me to admit it, at some point I might have kind of squeezed his hand and that might have inadvertently forced him to squeeze my boob. Or maybe I had groped myself with his hand? Who the hell knows, and more importantly, who the hell cares? Hands touch boobs all the time, all over the world. I bet, at that exact moment, a lot of boobs were being touched.
“Little one.” He growled and his chest—oh, dear god, his chest—hit my back, holding me firmer against him.
One deep breath.
Two deep breaths.
His hand was still on my boob, and my hand was—not so surprisingly—still over his when I said, “I’m so sorry. Just…just give me a second to get my balance back.”
His arm wrapped around my middle again and he hoisted me up.
When I was no longer parallel to the beautiful hardwood floor and felt like I could master standing straight all by myself again, I reluctantly let go of his hand, which was resting comfortably on my breast.
As soon as he made sure I was okay, he lifted both his hands off me and slowly took a few steps back.
Not knowing what to say, I looked down and saw the damn chopsticks sitting in the open third drawer.
I cleared my throat, a few times actually. “I found them.”
“Great,” he said a few seconds later, his voice all rumbly.
Jesus! Talk about dreams coming true.
Not having the courage to look at him, I snatched up two sets of chopsticks, pushed the freaking drawer closed, and walked back to the glass panels.
Even though my face was probably as red as a frigging tomato, I was grinning like crazy. When I noticed there was no way I could figure out how to open the panels, I decided it would be wiser to wait for Jason before I brought the house down on us.
Two takeout boxes in his hand, he came to stand beside me with a small remote control.
When all the glass panels surrounding the living room and the kitchen area opened up, I took my first step out to heaven and took a deep breath of the crisp air.
“It smells amazing,” I said in a low voice, not quite having the courage to look at his face yet.
“It smells…like grass,” he said.
“I know. I love it.” I took a few more steps. “Can we sit by the pool?”