Page 14 of Chosen By a Billionaire (Rags to Romance #24)

Jayda knew it was the craziest thing ever.

She knew it was so not like her that it felt like an out-of-body experience.

But she was so drawn to this man that she didn’t know where to deposit those feelings or why she was even feeling them!

She was bursting at the seams with emotions she couldn’t understand even if her life depended on it, and there had to be a release. There had to be.

She thought she had choices, but when it came down to it she realized she really only had one choice.

That was why she removed her shoulder bag, sat it in the chair, and stood up.

She placed her hand in his hand, and as soon as they touched they both felt a charge that coursed through their bodies like wildfire.

It was so startling that they both froze.

Jayda was scared. She’d never felt such a charge before.

Harrison was perplexed. Why on earth was he feeling this way toward this woman?

Why did he feel something for her when he first saw her outside of his office building?

Why did it continue when he saw her in that restaurant?

He stared up at her, and she stared down at him, and for several seconds they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.

This meeting wasn’t turning out the way either of them could have ever imagined.

But Harrison had that added burden of arousal to deal with.

He was hard as a brick. He had to feel more than just her hand.

So he gave in to his lower head than his upper head and eased her down onto his lap, right on top of that erection that needed her attention, and he wrapped her into his arms.

Jayda closed her eyes as her back pressed against his hard chest. She could not believe what was happening to her.

But somehow she knew she was exactly where she wanted to be.

She was not regretting her decision to get up from that chair and go to him.

Somehow she believed she was in good hands with him.

And for the longest time they sat there quietly, and oddly at peace, as they grappled with emotions they should not have had toward each other. But those emotions were as alive as they were, and were so profound, and so intense, that they could not be ignored.

Not that there were zero explanations for their out-of-character behavior.

It could all be a passing fancy maybe. Just a momentary lapse of good sense perhaps.

But as they sat there, and as Harrison held her so protectively in his big arms and soaked up her sweet scent as she soaked up his masculinity itself, it didn’t feel like any kind of momentary glitch to either one of them.

And every other attempt at explaining it seemed lame.

Jayda could feel that Harrison was so aroused that it felt like a rod beneath her.

That wasn’t good. But she was on fire for him, too, which was even worse.

And when he turned her face toward his face, and he could see how gorgeous the brown of her eyes were and she could see how magnificent the green of his eyes were, it only heightened their desires.

And when he looked from her eyes to her mouth, she knew she was about to allow something to happen that she never in a million years would have thought was ever possible for a sensible, practical girl like her to even entertain.

But she more than entertained it. This man who was commanding her attention unlike any other man ever had placed his mouth onto her mouth and began kissing her. And to her own shock and amazement she allowed it. She could not believe she was allowing it.

It was more than an allowance for Harrison. It was a need for him. He needed to taste her. He needed to see if this feeling was coming from a place of lust only, or somewhere much deeper than that.

But as he kissed her harder and harder and he couldn’t stop moaning as he did so, and even as she returned his passion, those deeper emotions were beginning to overtake him too.

And he knew in that moment that he had somebody special on his hands.

This was not going to be some easy lay. This was not going to be a hit and run.

This, she , was going to be somebody very special in his heart.

Maybe even in his life. Somehow he knew it right then and there.

But he knew how to put a stop to that. Love was not going to be in any cards he dealt, he didn’t care how much it seemed like that very thing.

But stopping the other part of it was trickier.

Because that sensual part was already getting out of hand.

Because the more he kissed her, the more he wanted her.

The more he wanted her, the more he had to have her.

It began to get frantic. He began to quickly unbutton her blouse as his kissing grew harder and more urgent.

Jayda was so caught up in the enormity of the passion that came with just kissing him, and the emotions of those deeper feelings for him she couldn’t understand either, that it wasn’t until he had already unlatched the front enclosure of her bra, and had pushed her bra aside to reveal her sizeable breasts, and he was fondling her there, did she realize just how out of hand it had already gotten.

And in that moment, when she realized how far it had gone and still could go, she froze. Just as Harrison was cradling her to do much more than touching could do, she pulled back. And looked into his eyes.

That was when he saw that terror in her eyes. That was when he saw that look of uncertainty and fear that his intentions toward her were just lust-related and not honorable at all. And he didn’t want her to feel that way. Hurting her was the last thing on earth he would want to do.

“Too much too soon?” he asked her.

At first she nodded her head. She wasn’t sure if she could speak. But then she spoke. “Yes,” she said.

As tears appeared in her eyes, he pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear as he held her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

But he had. Everything she swore she’d never do she was doing in those few moments with that man. She had literally just gotten out of a toxic relationship. Now she was plunging into another one???

She wanted to think that this new man wouldn’t be toxic too, but how could he not be?

She was in a world that wasn’t going to embrace her.

She was with a man that probably only had one thing on his mind.

How could she even think it was going to end well?

And wasn’t she tired of giving away her milk for free and ending up with nothing but a sour taste in her mouth?

This rich man didn’t want her. He wanted what he could quickly get out of her! What was she thinking ???

With her blouse open and her naked breasts pressed against his chest, and with his arousal still rock-hard beneath her, she knew he was going to resist her decision.

But she didn’t care. Despite those strong feelings she couldn’t deny she had for him, and despite the fact that he might be the only real chance she ever had of getting somewhere, she wasn’t going to compromise her sense of self to get there.

And she wasn’t going to rely on a man, especially one like Harrison, to get her there.

She pushed away from him, despite his resistance to let her go, and got off of his lap.

But as soon as she stood up, those French doors opened, and Allan came out onto the terrace.

Jayda quickly turned her back to Allan and began clasping her bra and buttoning her blouse.

Harrison could barely speak, and his arousal was so evident that he had tented his pants. Allan would have had to be a blind man to not have seen it. “So sorry to disturb you, sir,” he said with regret in his voice, “but your guests have arrived.”

Harrison was still reeling himself. “Thank you,” was the most he could get out of his mouth, as he dismissed his house manager with a wave of his hand. Which was enough. Allan backed out of the terrace with a slight bow, closed the doors again, and left.

Harrison stood up and turned Jayda around to face him. But Jayda was still so ashamed that she could barely look at him. “I’d better get downstairs to my post,” she said with a fixed frown on her face as she buttoned the final buttons on her blouse.

Harrison wasn’t embarrassed, but was rather shocked that he had lost such control of himself when he’d never done so before, and was resentful of her for taking him there.

Although he knew he was the one who took her there.

But he hated losing control. “You have no post,” he said to her in a voice that sounded harsh. “You’re one of my dinner guests.”

His voice sounded resentful, but his words did not. And Jayda was thrown. She knew she had heard him wrong. And this time, she looked him dead in the eyes. “Your guest?”

“That’s correct.”

“What do you mean your guest? I was paid to be a server at your dinner party. You said nothing about me being a guest. I thought I was supposed to serve.”

“No.” He kept both of his hands on her small arms and was staring into her eyes. “I never intended for you to serve me. You were invited to come to dinner tonight.”

But Jayda wasn’t so easily convinced. She was searching his eyes. “But why would you want me as your guest? I’m the person who said you. . .”

“Who called me a perv?” Then he frowned. “Yes, I know that.”

“Then why would you invite somebody like me to your dinner party?”

Because you’re the one that makes me feel unlike anybody ever has.

You’re the one I honored and didn’t go all the way with when all within me wanted to.

But that was before I looked into your sweet, tender, scared eyes.

You’re the one that just may accompany me to my father’s estate.

You’re the one who just might be the one and only person for me, and that I cannot overlook .