Billionaire BWWM Romance 1: The Billionaire's Arranged Marriage (5 page)

They talked lightly throughout dinner about the weather and the restaurant, their food and the service where they were. Reed couldn’t help himself, and he continued to look at Jillian’s body and face all throughout the meal. Jillian tried her best not to look at him, as she felt it was gracing him with far too much of her attention and that was what he wanted more than anything, just like when they were children.

They finished the meal and Reed got her back into the car. He stole sidelong glances at her and decided that he wasn’t through with her for the evening, though she didn’t say anything to him about continuing their time together or going back to her house.

He thought he would take her for a drive, so he wound his car slowly up into the hills for a while before she finally turned to look straight at him. “Where are we going?” she asked.

He looked back at her and smiled. “I thought we might go for a drive. We can head up to the hills and see a sunset together. It might be nice to enjoy with each other. I realize our parents are the ones who want us to spend time with one another, but it could still be enjoyable if we make it that way,” he said with an earnest smile at her.

She suddenly felt a huge wave of guilt. “I’m sorry. I haven’t really been giving you a chance at all. I’m still holding a bit of a grudge from the incident when we were children and I’m not thrilled that my mother wants me to date you… and that has nothing to do with you, it has more to do with being allowed to make my own choices.”

He pulled the car onto a deserted stretch of land that looked over the city down below and they could see the sun setting into the ocean. He helped her out of the car and they went and stood in front of it and looked out at the view.

“To be honest, I wasn’t really thrilled about it either, when my father brought it up, but I will say that I have done my best to give you a fun evening and I don’t seem to be making a good impression with you.” He turned toward her slightly, his hands in his pockets and he let his eyes wander up her legs and slowly take in every curve on her body until he reached her face, which was still pointed toward the sunset.

“I understand. I really haven’t been very fair to you.” she replied, and her mother’s words rang through her mind… ‘make a good impression’…. “I am sorry about that,” she said, looking down and then turning to look up at him with an apologetic expression.

Before she knew it, Reed had slipped his hands from his pockets and reached for her face, tilting it upward to meet his. He pressed his lips against hers gently, softly at first and then he opened her mouth with his and kissed her deeply. Her hands flew up to his shoulders and she pressed against them to push him away, but Reed held her head firmly with one hand and slid his other hand over her breast, squeezing it and then he reached around behind her and grasped her rounded hip, pressing her snugly to him.

He moaned in pleasure and she jerked her face away from his, finally breaking his grasp on her head, but not escaping his arm around her or his hand clamped to her hip.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” she yelled at him in disgust.

He smiled at her, pulling her close to him and he leaned in and kissed her neck softly, just beneath her ear. “I’m letting you make it up to me. You’ve behaved like a stuck up snob all night and now you say you’re sorry. Well, this is how I’m going to let you make it up to me.” He trailed warm, soft wet kisses down her neck. “Besides, honey, this is what our parents want. I’m just doing what you and I are expected to do.” He reached for her head again and planted his mouth over hers, kissing her deeply again.

Guilt and fury wrestled within Jillian as he dominated her mouth and sent sparks of electricity shooting through her body. She didn’t want anything like this to happen between them, but he was right, this was exactly what her mother wanted, and the woman would have been pleased to know that Reed liked her and wanted her, but at the same time, she was outraged that no one was respecting her feelings or her desires and wishes; not her mother, not Carter, and certainly not Reed.

He reached his other hand around her so that both of them were firmly grasping the fullness of her hips while he kissed her, his tongue sweeping over hers hungrily, and he pulled her tightly to his hips, pressing his rock solid erection against her and rubbing the bulge of it against her inner thigh. Flames of desire shot through him and he groaned in need as the feel of her body against his filled him with lust for her.

She couldn’t stand another moment of him, and his advances had finally gone much too far. She wriggled out of his grasp and moved several steps away from him.

“Our parents might want this,” she said breathlessly, trying to slow her anger and her heart, “but I sure as hell don’t! You have no business whatsoever treating me like that! Did I ask you to kiss me? No!

“Did I invite you to feel me up or start grinding on me? No! What is it with you? Do you think you can just do whatever you want with any woman at all and she just has to go along with it? Do you think I’m standing here for nothing more than your physical pleasure? Well, I’m not! You need to get a grip!” she yelled at him.

He stood before her, staring at her in absolute shock, and complete arousal. No woman had ever told him no or not wanted him before. It was a totally foreign experience to him.

“I had a grip…” he teased, smiling at her and stepping toward her. “I had a great grip, but you broke out of it. What is it with you? What’s your big hang up, anyway? I tell you how gorgeous you are, and you get insulted.

“I try to flirt a little and you shut me down. I bring you up here to enjoy the sunset and you apologize to me for acting so cold and mean, and then when I give you a little kiss, you freak out and get all upset!” He stepped closer to her again. 

“That was not a little kiss!” she snapped at him. “Your hands were all over me!”

He chuckled and nodded slightly. “Oh yeah, honey, that was indeed just a little kiss. If you want, I can give you a really good kiss,” he stepped toward her again and she held her ground, “a kiss that will make you melt right in my arms, and you will feel things that you have never felt before.” He grinned at her and she glared at him. He paused in his approach toward her.

“Hey, are you sorry or not? Are you interested in making this a good date or not? Come on. Come here and make it up to me. Be a good girl.” He reached for her and closed his hands around her waist, pulling her to him again, looking directly into her eyes. “This is what our parents want,” he said with slight sarcasm. “Let’s give them what they want. We can’t be disobedient.” He threw the statement at her and it hit her squarely in the heart.

She froze. Was she being disobedient? Her mother had been so adamant about her being with Reed. Her heart began to pound and she felt a little panic rise in her. Reed reached up and slipped the comb from her hair and it tumbled down her back and over her shoulders, falling all around her like a satin curtain. He stared at it, and stared at her.

“Holy sh…” he started to say and stopped himself. His voice came out in a reverent whisper. “You look unbelievable…” He barely spoke the words.

As if in a trance, he reached one hand up and touched her hair, letting his fingers glide over it slowly and weave into the strands as he lowered his hand. Then he cupped her face with that hand, her hair still twined into his fingers, and with his other hand on her back, pulled her toward him and pressed his lips against hers, tasting her more slowly this time, sucking gently on her full lips and her tongue, discovering her mouth with his and losing himself in the exotic sensuality of her. “You are so delicious…” he said in a soft voice, his lips barely leaving hers as he spoke, his heart pounding heavy in his chest.

She fought against the internal battle between the obedience she knew she owed to her mother and the independence she wanted so desperately to have for herself. She tried to deny it with everything in her, but Reed’s kiss was sending very hot waves through her body and she wished desperately that her body wasn’t betraying her just then, and that it would be as repulsed by him as her brain was. It was then that she felt his hand close over her breast again and begin to massage it, squeezing it as his thumb moved over her hardening nipple. That was all she could stand.

Reed was so enraptured in his passionate moment that the sound and feel of her hand as it smacked his face was a complete shock to him. Added to that was the fact that no woman had ever hit him or denied him anything he wanted. He stumbled back from her in amazement and shock, his hand on his face and everything in him swirling in chaos and confusion. The physical sting of her slap was painful, but it was nothing compared to the jarring impact on his ego.

“What the hell was that for?” he asked, completely incensed at her rejection of his advances.

“Just who do you think you are?!” she yelled at him again. “I just told you that you had no business doing that to me! We don’t even know each other! How can you be like that with someone you just met! You’re so disgusting!”

He was completely stunned. “…disgusting?” He felt a rare anger rise up in him. “You think you’re the only one who was told to go on this date? You aren’t! I didn’t want to be here either, but here I am, doing what is expected of me, and you go off half cocked and hit me! What the hell are
you
thinking?”

She was outraged. “How dare you! What makes you think you have the right to touch anyone like that without being invited to do it? I didn’t even kiss you back! You’re unbelievable!”

“Oh you think that was the wrong move on my part? You seemed to like it just fine by the feel of it!” he spat back at her, nodding at her breasts. Her nipples were stiffened and straining against the sky blue material. She cursed them silently and yelled at him.

“All of your moves have been wrong right from the start, when we were kids! Take me home right now! I don’t want anything to do with you! Nothing! What a pig you are!” she yelled and then turned on her heel and got back into the car, slamming the door behind her and glaring out her window so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

He got into the car as well and zoomed quickly back down the mountain, clenching his teeth in anger. He pulled up to her house and she jumped out of his car and slammed the door shut again. He was gone down the road before she had taken two steps.

Hot tears stung her eyes and she covered her mouth, looking up at the front door of the house in dismay. She knew her mother would want the details of her date, and she had no idea how she was going to explain it. She trembled and tried to take deep breaths to calm herself, and she quietly let herself into the house. Her father was sitting in a chair in the front room, a lamp on beside him and a book in his hand. His eyes went straight to her when she walked in and he immediately set the book down and walked to her.

Samson enveloped her in a big warm hug and she finally let silent tears stream from her eyes and roll down her cheeks. She held her breath so that she would not sob and draw her mother’s attention. She didn’t see her mother in the room and she didn’t want to. Jillian looked up at her father and he touched his finger to his lips, indicating that they should be quiet.

He led her out of the back of the house, through the garden and into his dojo. As soon as the screen closed behind her and they were alone, she let the sobs out and he held her as she cried in frustration, anger, and sorrow.

He didn’t say a word to her until she calmed down and he dried the tears from her face. “Well,” he said softly, “I guess it didn’t go as nicely as we had hoped?”

“He was horrible Daddy! He’s a disgusting pig and I don’t want anything to do with him.” She wept miserably.

Her father looked stern. “Did he hurt you?” he asked.

“He didn’t hurt me. He was unbelievably disrespectful, but I’m not hurt,” she said through her tears.

Her dad held her close again and rubbed her back. “It’s alright, baby. It’s alright.”

“Daddy, Mother wants me to date him. She told me to make a good impression on him so he’d want to see me again and I didn’t!” She looked up at him in consternation.

He smiled down at her. “Oh now, you’re a good girl, Jillian. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. What could you have done that would drive him so far away that he wouldn’t want to see you again?”

She spoke quietly. “I slapped his face.”

Samson raised one eyebrow. “You slapped his face? Well, if he pushed you that far, I know he must have deserved it. Don’t you think about it any longer, baby girl. You’re home and you are alright. Let it go, now.”