Rachel Gibson - Nothing But Trouble

The woman’s attention turned to Chelsea. “Who’s your girlfriend?”

That someone would mistake her for Mark’s girlfriend was humorous. “Oh, I’m-”

“Chelsea,” he interrupted her. “This is Christine, my ex-wife.”

Wife? She remembered Mark had said something about his ex-wife getting a nose job. She wondered how big it had been before. “It’s nice to meet you.” She stuck out her hand.

Chrissy’s fingers barely touched Chelsea’s before she dropped her arm to her side and turned her attention back to Mark. “I heard you were in a rehabilitation hospital until last month.”

“I got your flowers. Very touching. Does Howard know?”

She adjusted the strap of her Fendi bag. “Yeah, sure. Are you still living in our house?”

“My house?” He slid his palm to the small of Chelsea’s back. She jumped a little at the weight of his hand. The warmth of his touch heated her skin through the cotton of her blouse and spread tingles up her spine and across her butt. This was Mark Bressler. The guy she was paid to work for. She shouldn’t be feeling anything. “I’m moving as soon as I find a new place,” he added. “Chelsea’s helping me out with that.”

“Are you in real estate?” she asked Chelsea.

“I’m an actress.”

Chrissy laughed. “Really?”

“Yeh,” Mark answered for her. “Chelsea’s acted in a lot of different stuff.”

“Such as?”

“The Bold and the Beautiful, Juno, CSI: Miami, and some ‘go meat’ commercial.”

She was shocked he’d remembered. “Hillshire Farms,” she clarified. She glanced up at him, then returned her gaze to his former wife. “I’ve mostly acted in the horror genre.”

Chrissy raised one disdainful brow. “Slasher movies?”

Mark’s voice was a deep velvet rumble when he said, “Chelsea’s a real screamer. You know I’ve always been partial to screamers.” He smiled, a slow, sexy curve of his lips.

“That was one of your problems.”

“That was never a problem.”

Maybe it was his smile. Maybe it was the warm touch of his hand, but Chelsea couldn’t help it. Her mind went there and she wondered exactly what the man did to make women scream. She’d never screamed. She’d come close once, but never actually screamed out loud.

Chrissy’s eyes narrowed. “I see the accident hasn’t changed you. You’re still the same old crude Mark.”

“See you around, Chrissy.” He removed his hand from Chelsea’s back and pushed the cart in the opposite direction from his ex.

Chelsea walked beside the cart and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye. “That was interesting.”

“For who?” he asked, and moved down the cereal aisle.

“Me. She’s exactly the type of woman I’d expect you to marry or date.”

“What type is that?”

“Tall. Pretty. Expensive.”

“I don’t have a type.” He dumped two boxes of Wheaties into the cart. “At least not anymore.”

Mark carried the last bags of groceries into the kitchen and set them on the island. He leaned his cane against the granite top and grabbed a gallon of milk and a couple of packs of cheese. Earlier, his thigh had started to bother him and he’d popped several Vicodin before Derek had arrived on his bike. Now with the pain dulled, he moved with relative ease.

“You don’t have to put my groceries away,” he told Chelsea as she opened several cupboards until she found where he kept his salt.

“What else am I going to do for an hour?” The hem of her skirt rode up the backs of her legs as he watched her put away a box of sea salt.

Mark opened his mouth but forgot what he was going to say. His eyes were glued to her butt and his feet were stuck to the floor like he was a kid again, waiting desperately for a glimpse of female bottom. Instead of a grown man who’d had more ass than he could recall. She lowered her arm, and he moved to the refrigerator and opened the door. “You should probably wear pants the next time Derek is scheduled to come over.” He shoved the milk and cheese inside, but left the door open and returned to the island.

She turned and looked at him. Her brows creased as if she wasn’t going to like the answer to her “Why?”

“I think I’ll have you play in the net.”

Her mouth parted and she shook her head. “No way. That kid said I have a stink eye.”

“I told you that’s just trash talk. Every hockey player has to learn to trash talk. I learned before I joined the traveling team.”

“How old were you?”

He reached for the sour cream and meat and returned to the refrigerator. “Ten.”

“Were you any good?”

He smiled. “I was good at a lot of things on the ice. Starting shit was just one of my many talents.”

She grabbed the counter behind her with both her hands and crossed one foot over the other. “Like making women scream.”

“What?” He shoved everything in those little drawers and shut the door. “Are you talking about my conversation with Chrissy?”

“Yes. That was kind of inappropriate in the middle of Whole Foods.”

He’d just been trying to get a reaction out of his former wife and he had. He’d recognized the irritation in her eyes. Not because it hadn’t been appropriate conversation in the middle of a grocery store, but because he’d reminded her of all the times he’d made her scream. Interesting thing was, he’d stopped caring what Chrissy did or thought a long time ago.

“Are you still in love with her?”

“God no.” So why had he purposely riled his former wife? He wasn’t altogether sure, but it had had something to do with the way his ex had looked at his assistant. Mark recognized that look. Like she was better because she was porking an old guy for better seats at country club events.

Chelsea pushed herself away from the counter and walked toward him, the heels of her pumps a light, sexy tap tap across the tile. “How long have you been divorced?”

“A little over a year.”

She picked up his boxes of Wheaties and moved to the cupboard next to the stove. She opened the door and stood on her tiptoes. Her heel slipped out of one shoe and the hem of her skirt slid up her thighs. The cereal belonged in the pantry, but who was he to stop the show. “What went wrong?” she asked as she reached way above her head with a box in each hand.

“Chrissy loves money. Lots of money.” He moved up behind her and took the cereal from her. “She left me for someone with more money and a better seat at the country club.”

“An older, wealthier man?”

“Yeah.” He easily slid the boxes in place.

She dropped back down and looked at him over her shoulder. “I can’t imagine being with a man just for his money.”

“Then you’re not like most women.” At least not like the women he knew.

He’d been fighting a hard-on since she’d walked up the driveway toward him, the wind blowing in her hair and lifting the bottom of her skirt. Hell, he’d been fighting it since that very first dream a few weeks ago. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back against him. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands up and down her arms. He didn’t want to fight it anymore.

“Mr. Bressler?”

“Mark.” She was warm and soft and her little butt pressed into the zipper on his Lucky’s.

“Mark, I work for you.”

“You work for the Chinooks.”

She turned and looked up at him through clear blue eyes. He wondered how long it would take him to make them get all drowsy with lust again. “You can get me fired.”

“And why would I do that?”

Instead of answering his question she said, “I’m your assistant. There’s a boundary that can’t be crossed.”

“We crossed it the other day.”

“That was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Until the night of his accident, he’d always been extremely self-disciplined. He relied on that discipline now and took a step back. “Why did you?”

She slid past him and moved to the center of the kitchen. “Well, I…” She looked at her feet and shook her head. “I’m not quite sure. You’re a nice-looking guy.” An orange lay on the granite island, and she picked it up. “It makes no sense. I’ve worked for nice-looking guys before, and I’ve never done anything at all out of line.” She rolled the orange between her small hands and his lower belly tightened. “Never wanted to.”

He walked across the kitchen toward her. “Not once?”

“No.” She turned toward him, and confusion wrinkled her brow. “All I can think of is that maybe it’s because I haven’t had a boyfriend for over seven months. Maybe longer.”

“How long since you had sex?”

“I don’t remember.”

“If you can’t remember, it must have been bad sex. Which, in most cases, is worse than no sex at all.”

She nodded. “I think maybe it’s just all pent up inside.”

Oh God. He reached for her free hand and brushed his thumb across her fingers. “That’s not healthy.” He should know. He had so much built-up lust he was about to explode. Yes, he was a man who was used to extreme self-discipline. Absolutely, but he was also a man who was used to getting what he wanted. “You have soft hands.” And he wanted her hands on him. All over his body. Her mouth parted but she didn’t say anything. He pressed her palm against his chest and slid it up to his shoulder. “And a really soft mouth. I think about it a lot.”

She swallowed, and the pulse in her wrist pounded beneath his thumb. “Oh.”

He raised his free hand and brushed his knuckles along her smooth jaw. “I would never get you fired, Chelsea. Not for the things we might do, or might not do. I’m really not that big a tool.” He lowered his mouth to hers and smiled against her lips. “Most of the time.”

“We should stop before things go too far.”

He slid his palm to the side of her neck and tipped her head back. “We will,” he said, but there was no such thing as too far. There was only her naked and him finding release between her soft thighs. “But the thing is, I like you and you must like me. At least a little. You’re still here after I called you retarded, lied about you being unattractive, and made you buy that pleasure ring.”