Nothing but Trouble (Chinooks #5) (14 page)

She guessed it was okay to make him ride his bike if he was exhausted. Just not with a “smashed nut.”

As Derek rode away, Mark moved toward the garage doors. “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” he asked her.

“Answering your fan e-mails.” She followed him, letting her gaze travel from the back of his hat, down his neck and wide shoulders, to his tapered waist and hard butt. The man made everything look good. “Why?”

“Some of the guys are coming over to play poker tomorrow night. I thought if I wrote you out a list, you could go to the store and pick up some beer and snacks.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.” He took her stick and placed it on a shelf in front of a big gym bag. “I’ll give you some cash.” He pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and opened it. “Well, that sucks. I only have a five,” he said, and returned his wallet. “I guess that means we both go.”

She lifted a brow. “You shop? For your own groceries? Aren’t you too big a star?”

“You have me confused with one of your celebrities.” He moved to the back door and reached inside the house. He came back with a set of keys and tossed them to her. “There’s a Whole Foods down the street.”

“Are you going to backseat drive?”

“No.”

She stood her ground and refused to get into the car. “Promise?”

He raised his right hand and looked like he was flipping her off more than swearing an oath. “Not even if you sideswipe a tree and kill me.”

“Don’t tempt me.” She opened the door and slid inside. The seat was so far back, she couldn’t reach the steering wheel, let alone the pedals. “Have you been driving?”

“No.” He looked away and shut his door. “I was looking for something the other day.”

“What?”

“Something.”

He didn’t want to tell her, fine. As long as he didn’t turn into the backseat driver from hell, he could keep his secret. And surprisingly, he was true to his word. He didn’t complain at all about her driving. Not even when she tested him by coming to a rolling stop at a stop sign.

Whole Foods was one of those stores that took great pride in selling natural and organic foods to people who could afford it. The kind of place that had a killer deli and a kick-butt bakery. The kind that Chelsea generally avoided if she was shopping on her own dime.

She grabbed a cart and they hit the beer aisle first. Mark loaded up on local brew. Everything from Red Hook and Pyramid to beers she’d never heard of. He grabbed bags of blue chips and organic salsa. He bought crackers and three kinds of cheese. Prosciutto and thinly sliced salami.

“Do you know how to make nachos?” he asked as they headed toward the milk case.

“No.” There were certain boundaries she didn’t cross with employers. Slaving away in their kitchens was one of them.

“It can’t be that hard.”

“Then you do it.”

“I tried it once.” He shoved a quart of sour cream and a gallon of milk into the cart. “And I burned my hand and couldn’t wear my glove for a week.”

“Poor baby.”

“You can say that again. That burn was pretty much the reason I didn’t win the Art Ross Trophy in 2007.”

“The what trophy?”

“Art Ross. It’s the trophy given to a player who has the most points at the end of the regular season. Sidney Crosby won it that year. Beat me by five points, all on account of nachos.”

She chuckled. “Is that even true?”

He smiled and held up his bad hand like he was a Boy Scout again. He reached for bags of shredded cheese. “It’ll be easy. You won’t even have to grate the cheese.”

“Sorry. Making nachos is above my pay grade.”

He dropped the bags of cheddar into the cart. “What is your pay grade?”

“Why?”

“Just curious about what keeps you coming back every day.”

“My deep and abiding commitment to people in need,” she lied.

He shook his head. “Try again.”

She laughed. “I get paid fifteen bucks an hour.”

“Fifteen bucks an hour to answer e-mails and drive my car? That’s easy money.”

Spoken like a typical pain in the backside. “I have to put up with you
and
now Derek.”

“Derek’s an eggbeater. You should make human resources give you hazard pay.”

He must not have been told about the bonus. She wondered whether she should tell him. The Chinooks’ organization hadn’t ever told her not to mention it to anyone. She didn’t think it was a secret, but something held her back. “Maybe I will if he ever connects with my shin.”

“First he has to stay on his feet.” He smiled, and it spread to the tiny creases in the corners of his eyes.

“Hello, Mark.”

He looked over his shoulder at the tall woman behind them. His smile fell. “Chrissy.”

“How are you doing?” The woman had platinum-blond hair and turquoise eyes. She was stunning, like a supermodel, but like a lot of models, she wasn’t perfect. Her nose was a little too long. Like Sarah Jessica Parker in
The Family Stone
. Not the Sarah Jessica of the
Sex and the City
movie. That Sarah Jessica was way too skinny.

He spread his arms. “Good.”

While Chrissy checked out Mark, Chelsea checked out Chrissy’s vintage Fendi satchel with the classic Fendi clasp in black. The purse was so difficult to find, it was practically an urban legend.

“You look good.”

“Still with the old man you married?”

Ouch. That sounded bitter, and Chelsea figured that Chrissy must be a former girlfriend. She was the sort of woman Chelsea would expect to see with him.

“Howard’s not that old, Mark. And, yes, we’re still together.”

“Not that old? He’s got to be seventy-five.”

“Sixty-five,” Chrissy corrected.

Sixty-five wasn’t old unless you were thirty-five. Which was how old the woman looked. But who was Chelsea to judge? She might have married an old guy to get her hands on that vintage Fendi too.

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.”

“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. “No.”

“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.”