Nothing But Trouble

THIRTEEN

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.”

“I guess I like you a little.” Her breathing got a bit shallow and she said, “And you need me.”

He did need her. For the next fifteen minutes, he needed her real bad. He fit his free hand in the curve of her waist and she sucked in a breath. Her lips parted in an invitation that he had absolutely no intention of resisting. He kissed her. Slow. Easy. Her mouth tasted sweet, like candy. Sweet, decadent candy, and he fought the urge to push her down and kiss her inner thighs. To work his way up to her slick candy center and to see if she tasted sweet and decadent there too. Instead, the kiss continued, a slow, easy exploration of her mouth, giving her a chance to stop if she wanted. Giving her the chance to turn away and leave him with an aching hard-on and a broken heart.

The orange fell from her hand and hit the floor. She rose onto her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her breasts pressed into him, the soft weight settling against his chest. He slid his hand from her waist to her behind. Slowly he brought her closer until the front of her skirt brushed his fly. He felt like he was fifteen again. When the slightest brush against his groin turned him hard as steel and got him off. But unlike being fifteen, he had more control. Barely.

Without raising his lips from hers, he lifted her and sat her on the island. Her mouth clung to his, giving and receiving wet, feeding kisses while her fingers combed through his hair. He slid his hand up her side and cupped her breast.

She jerked her mouth from his and stilled. Lust lowered her lids and clouded her blue eyes. “My breasts are big,” she stated the obvious.

“I know. We’ve talked about your breasts several times.”

“They’re not very sensitive.” She licked her swollen lips. “Some men are disappointed by that.”

He unbuttoned the top of her shirt. “Some men aren’t me.” He looked into her eyes and unbuttoned until the blouse lay open to her waist. “I’ve only ever been good at two things. Hockey and sex.” He looked down at her. At her large breasts in a silky white bra, and at her flat belly. “My hockey career is over. So that only leaves me with one thing I’m good at.” The waist of her little plaid skirt rested just below her navel. “Take your shirt off.” When she did as he asked, he lowered his face to the side of her neck and spread kisses across her throat and shoulder. He might feel like he was fifteen again, but he wasn’t a bumbling kid who didn’t know his way around a bra. He easily unhooked it, pulled the straps down her arms, and tossed the bra aside. Narrow pink lines dented her shoulders, and he kissed the imperfections marring her perfect skin. He continued down her chest to her deep, deep cleavage, where she smelled like power and tasted like sin. Dark pink nipples lay in the centers of each heavy breast. In perfect proportion to her size. Slightly puckered, waiting for his attentions. She arched her back, and he cupped one breast in his hand. He brushed his thumb back and forth across her nipple several times before it tightened in response. He touched the tip of his tongue to the tip of her breast and pressed inward. When he got the response he was after, he rolled her nipple beneath his tongue, taking his time and working it over until it turned into a hard little pebble. His scrotum got so tight, his stomach ached with the pleasure of it. Then he sucked her into his mouth and he didn’t know which moan was louder, his or hers.

Her head fell back and she gave a sexy little “Ohhh. That feels good. Do that.” She squirmed against the front of his jeans and he about exploded in his pants. He kissed her other breast until her breathing got choppy and he knew there was no turning back. She would give him what he wanted. Let him do all the things he’d been thinking about doing to her.

He slid his mouth down her soft stomach to her belly button. He wanted to kiss her thighs and satisfy the hungry, clawing need that demanded release. A box of condoms lay in the drawer beneath Chelsea, just waiting for him to open them up and slide one on.

He pushed up her skirt as the first twinge of pain gripped his thigh. He stilled, hoping it would go away. “Goddamn!” It knotted his muscles, and he grasped the granite edge to keep from falling on his ass. “Shit!”

“What?”

The pain radiated up his hip and he couldn’t move.

“Are you okay?”

He hung his head and tightened his grasp on the stone. “No.” As carefully as possible, he lowered himself to the floor before he fell. He sat with his back against the island, one hand gripping his thigh. He pulled air in through his nose and breathed it out through his mouth. He didn’t know which was worse. The pain in his body, or the humiliation of his body giving out on him before he could satisfy himself and the half-naked woman on the counter. Probably the latter. The pain in his body would ease. The humiliation would be with him for a while.

“Mark.” Chelsea knelt beside him, her bra on and her shirt buttoned over her breasts. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.” He took another deep breath and gritted his teeth. “Just give me a few minutes.”

“Did I…did I do something to hurt you?”

Until that moment, he’d thought his humiliation was complete. “N o.”

“What happened?”

His muscles began to relax, and he looked into her pretty face, her lips still swollen from his kiss. “Sometimes I forget my limitations. When I move too fast or just the wrong way, I get a cramp in my thigh.”

“Can I massage it for you?”

“No.”

“But if you’re in pain, I could rub your leg.”

He laughed as the pain receded from his hip. “My leg isn’t the only place I’m in pain. If you want to rub me, go ahead and massage my hard-on.”

She bit the side of her lip. “That’s not in my job description.”

“Honey, everything we were just doing wasn’t in your job description.”

She sat back on her heels. “I shouldn’t have let you talk me into taking off my shirt.”

“There wasn’t a lot of talking.”

“I know.” Her cheeks flushed pink like the bottom of her hair. “Sometimes I have issues with impulse control, but I can’t have sex with you. It’s wrong.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.” She shook her head and pushed her hair behind her ears. “I work for you, and there are boundaries that I just can’t cross. Please don’t ask me to. I don’t want to lose this job.”

They were back to that. He took a deep breath and let it out. The last of the pain eased from his body, but he knew that one wrong move and it would return. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I told you that you won’t get fired.”

“I’d still have to leave. It would just be too weird after that. It would be like I got paid to come here and have sex with you. I know that after what just happened you might not believe this, but morally and ethically, I just can’t do that.”

Morally and ethically, he did not have a problem with having sex with his assistant. None at all, but he’d never been the type of guy to pressure a woman who didn’t want sex. Not even when he wanted it so bad his teeth hurt and his balls ached.

“I don’t know what else to say.”

He glanced over at her. Suddenly he felt tired. And old. Like he’d just gone two rounds with Darren McCarty in overtime. “You don’t have to say anything. I took a bunch of Vicodin just before you got here and lost my mind.”

She stood, and he looked up her bare legs. “Does it usually make you lose your mind?”

No, she made him lose his mind. “It makes me forgetful, and I forgot that I can’t have sex with you.” But he wouldn’t forget again. He had blue balls and she was about to walk out the door. Just like last time. She was cute and sexy and he liked her, but there were a lot of cute, sexy women that he liked. Cute, sexy women who wouldn’t let things like morals and ethics stand in the way of a hot, raunchy roll in the sheets.

If not for a leg cramp, Chelsea would have had sex with Mark. Right there on top of the granite island. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind about that. He hadn’t been the only one to lose his mind that afternoon in his kitchen. And just like there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she would have done him, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that it would have been good.

Real good.

Scream at the top of her lungs, rock the gates of heaven, and beg him not to stop, good.

She didn’t know what it was about him, other than his good looks and hot body. Other than the heat of his brown eyes and the touch of his skilled hands and mouth, that made her forget everything. Forget her ethics and plans and who she was and what she wanted to do with her life.

She’d worked for fantastic-looking men before. Men who’d made it known in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that they wanted to have sex with her. She’d never been tempted. To them she’d just been a woman they found attractive. A body. It hadn’t been personal.

Mark was different. There was just something in the way he looked at her sometimes. Not as if he wanted her, but as if he needed her. It surrounded him like some sort of hot magnetic force that drew her in and drained her brain. It made her all raw nerve endings and warm urges. It made her throw caution and good judgment to the wind, along with her clothes, and want to press her naked body against his. To touch him all over and feel him touch her.

I’ve only ever been good at two things. Hockey and sex, he’d said. My hockey career is over. So that only leaves me with one thing I’m good at.

She’d never seen him play hockey, but she imagined his approach to both was the same. She imagined he used the same thoughtful precision to score goals as he did to score with women. He stayed with it and took his time. Didn’t rush and did whatever it took to get the job done.

In the cooler section of Whole Foods, she’d wondered what the man did to make women scream; now she knew. And now that she knew, she worried that getting through the next few days, heck, the next three months, was going to be torture.

But she needn’t have worried. The next day at work, Mark returned to his previous pattern of behavior and ignored her. He ignored her the day after that too. In fact, over the course of the next few weeks, the only real time he spoke to her was when she took him to appointments or chauffeured him around to look at real estate. He looked at so many properties, she didn’t think he’d ever find anything. The property was either too big or too small. If he liked the floor plan, he didn’t like the area or vice versa. Either it was too secluded or the houses were too close. He was like the Goldilocks of house hunters and couldn’t find something that was just right.

Often his friends picked him up, or he spent time in the weight room up-stairs or on the golf course just outside the backyard. On the rare occasions he did speak to her, he was so extremely polite, she wanted to hit him on the arm and tell him to knock it off. To send her on a stupid errand or insult her clothes and hair.

Instead, he asked about safe stuff, like her acting. She told him about the background work she’d done for HBO. She’d been hired for a commercial shoot in a local coffee shop, and she’d tried out for the part of Elaine Harper in a local production of Arsenic and Old Lace. She didn’t get it, which was a little disappointing but okay. The play wasn’t set to open until September. She wasn’t sure how much longer she would be in Seattle after September.

Perversely, the less attention he paid her, the more attention she paid to him. The more he ignored her, the more things she noticed about him. Like the way he tended to draw out the O’s when he talked. Or how when he was irritated, his “yeah” got chopped to a “yeh.” She noticed how his voice sounded through the glass as she stood in the office and watched him coach Derek on the driveway. His coaching style was equal parts encouragement and exasperation, and he was in turn amused and annoyed by Derek’s utter lack of coordination.

She noticed the way he smelled. Like some lethally good combination of soap and deodorant and skin. And she noticed the way he walked. He no longer wore his splint, and he’d switched his cane to his right hand. His strides seemed easier. Less thought out. Smoother. She noticed he seemed more comfortable and that pain rarely bracketed his mouth. And she noticed that he fell asleep less during the day but that he often looked tired by the time she left at five.

All that she noticed about him, but he didn’t seem to notice much about her. Sometimes she wore clothes so bright, she thought for sure she’d get a reaction. Nothing. It was like that afternoon in his kitchen had never happened. As if he’d never touched her and kissed her and made her want more.

Yet…yet there were a few times when she thought she caught a glimpse of something in his eyes. That hot need burning just beneath the surface. That barely controlled desire, but then he’d turn away and leave her wondering if she was crazy.

Over the next month, she came to view him as something decadent. Something she craved like brownie fudge ice cream. Something bad for her, but the more she told herself she couldn’t have it, the more she seemed to crave just one bite. And just like brownie fudge ice cream, she knew that should she ever indulge, one bite would not be enough. One bite would lead to two. Two to three. Three to four, until she’d feasted on the whole thing and there was nothing left but regret and a bad stomachache.

She also knew just where she’d start feasting on Mark. Right where the collar of his T-shirts hit the base of his neck. She’d kiss the hollow of his throat just below the slight bump of his Adam’s apple.

Working for him was as hard as it was easy. She didn’t have to make sure he got invited to the right parties or arrange events as she had for her past employers. She didn’t have to call up designers and make sure he had the right clothes. He was very low-maintenance, but his very laid-back attitude was what often made him difficult.

Three days before the Stanley Cup party, he suddenly remembered that he had to buy a shirt. Chelsea drove him to Hugo Boss and sat in a chair next to the trifold mirror as he tried on several dress shirts. Since the accident, he dis-covered that he’d lost an inch around the neck, chest, and waist. Which meant he had to buy a new suit and have it altered by the party. He picked out a two-button wool jacket and pants of classic charcoal. To go with it, he tried two different shirts. First a charcoal and black, then a stark white.

The salesman brought him a selection of ties, and he picked out a simple blue-and-green stripe with the stark white. Chelsea watched him through the mirror as he flipped up the collar and wrapped the tie around his neck. Even though he’d regained a lot of the dexterity in his fingers, his stiff middle finger kept getting in the way.

“Shit,” he swore after the third attempt.

Chelsea stood and moved in front of him. “Let me,” she said, and pushed his hands aside. The backs of her knuckles brushed against the thick broad-cloth of his shirt as she adjusted the length.

“You’ve done this before?”

She nodded and concentrated on the silk fabric in her hands instead of on his mouth just inches from her forehead. “A million times.” She crossed the wide end over the narrow and wrapped it twice. “Half Windsor or full?”

He shook his head. “Whatever.”

“I like the half. It’s less bulky.” He smelled wonderful, and she wondered what he would do if she tilted her face up just a bit. Her fingers brushed his chest and her thumb touched his throat and she thought about rising onto her toes and kissing his warm skin. If she undid all those buttons and slid her hands all over his bare chest…Of course she would never do it.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said just above a whisper. “Or I swear I’ll push you against the wall and have sex with you right here.”

She raised her gaze up his throat and mouth to the stormy anger in his eyes. “What?”

He knocked her hands away. “Forget it.” He grabbed one end of the tie and pulled it from his neck.

He was clearly mad about something she’d done. Wisely, she moved away and waited for him at the counter, where he dropped more than three thousand dollars on a suit, two dress shirts, and a tie.

On the ride to Mark’s house, an awkward silence filled the car. At least it was awkward for Chelsea, and she left work early. When Bo got home that night, the sisters looked in Chelsea’s closet for dresses to wear to the Stanley Cup party. Chelsea didn’t have three thousand dollars to blow on clothes, but she did own a small but impressive selection of designers.

After thirty minutes of indecision, Bo reached for the black Donna Karan stretch taffeta. It had a bow sash and a deep V in the back, and Chelsea had worn it to an Oscar party in Holmby Hills three years ago. Of course it fit Bo perfectly, and she looked wonderful in it.

Chelsea didn’t have to think about which dress she’d wear. Last year she’d found a Herve Leger beige sheath at a consignment store. It was made of rayon and spandex, with gold jeweled straps. She’d never had the chance to wear it, until now.

The day of the cup party, the twins pampered themselves. Chelsea had the hot reddish-pink low-lights taken out and her hair dyed a nice summer blond. She had her hair straightened while Bo got hers curled. Together they got their fingers and toes done at a local day spa. Chelsea had learned a long time ago that one of the best and most inexpensive places to get her makeup professionally applied was at a makeup counter. The twins drove to the mall in Bellevue, and Chelsea got her face done at MAC while Bo chose Bobbi Brown.

The last time Chelsea had had so much fun with Bo had been the night of their senior prom. The dance had ended in disaster with their dates deciding that they wanted to switch twins, but she and Bo had had a great time until that point.

“Your boobs look huge in that dress,” Bo said as she slid her feet into a pair of red pumps and sat on the bed.

“My boobs are huge. So are yours.” Chelsea turned sideways and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. The dress wasn’t her usual style. It hugged her like a second skin, and the color was very sedate.

“Can you sit down in that thing?”

“Of course.” She slipped her feet into a pair of jeweled sandals with five-inch heels and sat next to Bo to buckle the straps around her ankles. That morning she’d called a plastic surgeon and made an appointment to talk to him. She’d been waiting for the right moment to tell Bo. They’d been having such a good time, she figured now was as good a time as any. “I’m going to use the money I get from the Chinook organization to have breast reduction surgery,” she blurted.

“Shut up.”

She looked up, then returned her attention to her shoes. “I’m serious.”

“Why would you do something so horrible to your body?”

“It’s not like I’m cutting them off. Haven’t you ever wanted smaller breasts?”

Bo shook her head. “Not enough to mutilate myself.”

“It’s not mutilation.”

Bo stood. “Why do you always have to be different?”

“I’m not doing it to be different. I want to do it so that I’m not fifty and slumped over like Mom. I made an appointment with a local plastic surgeon week after next. I want you to go with me.”

“I won’t support you this time.” Bo shook her head. “I don’t even want to talk about it.”

Chelsea grabbed her beaded clutch off the dresser. The one person in the world who should understand and support her decision, didn’t. The only other person in the world who’d seemed to understand, currently wasn’t talking to her at all.