Page 36 of To Love Jason Thorn

Could I handle being his friend?

Could I ignore my heart begging andscreaming against my chest?

Did he even want to be my friend, or wasthis just a one-time-only favor kinda thing?

The loud ringtone of his phone burst ourlittle 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, heturned to me. “He’ll be here in an hour or so. I had Alvin bring in Chinesetakeout, you hungry?”

“Alvin?”

“My assistant. You’ll meet him soonenough.” As he padded toward his beautiful kitchen, I followed a few stepsbehind him, admiring the way his shoulders moved with every relaxed step.

Don’t look at his ass, Olive. Justdon’t.

Outside the glass walls, the sky was slowlydarkening, and suddenly the entire back patio lit up with dim lights, makingthe entire place look…magical.

“Olive?” Jason called my name in an amusedtone when he spotted me straying toward the glass panels to take a closer look.

With a sigh, I made it back to the longkitchen bar as Jason took out more than a few takeout bags from one of thecupboards.

“What’s for dinner?” I asked hopping ontoone of the bar stools and almost sliding right off of it.

Jesus, why in the hell would they make theseat so small?

Trying to be all covert about it, I pushedmyself up on the foot rest again and tried to sit on it sideways so it wouldlook like I was actually sitting comfortably on the stupid thing.

As my arms started to burn from trying tobalance myself, I gave up and jumped down before I fell off again.

After taking off my leather jacket, Irounded 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 andtwo chicken chow mein, and all this extra stuff.”

“Great. Can I help with anything?”

“I’m trying to find the chopsticks,” hemuttered as he emptied all the bags on the counter. “Can you check the drawersto your left? I should have some extra ones somewhere in there.”

“Sure.” Picking up all the empty paper bagsand setting them aside, I leaned down and tried to figure out how to open hisdrawers. Since there were no handles, I lightly pushed at the first one, and itopened automatically.

I rolled my eyes.

Rich people.

It was full of knives, impressively organizedby size, but no chopsticks, so I pushed it back.

When I lightly touched the second drawer, suddenlythe third one snapped open, hitting me just below the knee. I gasped in painand had to take a step back with the unexpected force of it.

The only problem was, instead of finding mybalance like the graceful human being I was supposed to be, the back of mythighs hit another drawer Jason had opened behind me, and I lost my balance. Inthat 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 thefloor, I felt one hand firmly close around my left boob as an arm hugged me rightunder my breasts. For a moment—for a looong moment—both of us stoodstill, my bottom parallel to the floor. Jason’s hand flexed on my breast as ifhe was checking the size of it, and the other dropped lower toward my stomach.

“Fuck,” he cursed in a raspy voice rightnext to my ear, and the word sent shivers down my spine.

Please, how could I have not closed my eyesto live that shiver to the fullest? And so what if I did arch into his touch justa little bit? Maybe barely held back a moan? Who could blame me? I was just ahuman, after all.

When he suddenly pulled away his right handfrom my stomach as if touching me had burned his skin off, my legs shook and Ireached for the first thing I could grab on to.

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