This

Chapter 19

“Back to my hotel. I don't want to cause issues for you and Renee,” I replied quietly. I had done nothing, absolutely nothing wrong, yet from some reason I felt guilty.

“You leaving will cause issues,” Mark said, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair. His eyes were focused on a distant part of the floor, and his brow was slightly furrowed.

“How is me leaving going to cause more issues than me being here?” I said sarcastically. Mark's eyes snapped up to meet mine, and the intensity of his stare intimidated me.

“If you leave, what am I meant to tell Renee? 'Oh hey babe, Elle's gone because she felt weird being around me after I admitted that I want to fuck her. Oh by the way? The only reason we had sex last night was to try and get her naked body out of my mind.' Yeah, because that is going to go down well, isn't it? Fuck, Elle.”

“Well- Uh, yes, that would be a potentially problematic thing to say to her. I just hate being here, now that I know that you want to- you know...”

“Have your gorgeous, creamy thighs sliding up and down my sides?” Mark muttered, and I suddenly realised what I saw behind his eyes; a whole lot of scotch. I wondered how much he had had to drink in the five minutes since his admission in the kitchen.

“Um, okay. I feel guilty and wrong, and ugh... Why couldn't you just keep it to yourself?!” I whined. Silence filled the room, neither of us knowing really what to say. What am I meant to say to my married boss who wants to sleep with me, and what is he meant to say to the girl that is young enough to be his daughter that he can't stop thinking dirty thoughts about?

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mark sighed, taking a seat on the end of the bed a foot away from me. I could smell the alcohol in the air with every breath he took.

“If I want to get you off of my mind, I need you to stay and help me pretend that nothing happened. More for Renee's sake than anything. If I can convince her that there is nothing going on in my head, then I can convince myself. I need you here, Elle. You have to help me,” he said as he turned to face me. His eyes were full of pleading, and I saw a man who loved his wife more than anything. I could see the self-loathing and regret in his eyes. He didn't want to hurt her, I knew that for sure.

“Only if you stop making me feel like crap,” I mumbled. If I was going to stay, I didn't want any more encores of this morning's performance. It made me have thoughts that could probably rival Mark's, and those thoughts made me feel like a home-wrecking whore.

“Excuse me?”

“The loud sex across the hall from me. The blatant showing-off of the scratches on your back. All that kind of shit, it needs to stop,” I sighed. Mark chuckled beside me, his body shaking the bed.

“What, are you jealous or something?” he laughed.

“Yes, I am, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? You're hot, and you have that dirty humour that attracts me, and you make me want shit from you that I haven't wanted from anyone for fucking ages.” Oh my God, why did I say that? Maybe I needed that bottle that Mark was making friends with mere minutes ago.

“Oh. Well, this is definitely a shitty predicament that we've got into, isn't it?” Mark muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. I bit my lip and held my breath before I said anything else that I would instantly regret.

“So you want me, and my God, do I want you, and we have to get through a week or so until your place is ready, all while being civilised and keeping Renee in the dark? If she knew, it would be a repeat of what happened with my last assistant but ten times worse because it's all reciprocated,” Mark said, spelling out just how bad the situation really was.

“You forgot the part about us working together alone for eight hours straight...” I added quietly. Mark groaned and lay back on the bed. I couldn't help but notice the ripply muscles by his ribs. I thought to myself about setting some ground rules for our... well, to make things easier.

“Look, everything will be fine, Elle. I can just pretend that you have a really weird looking body under your clothes and it'll be easier to not think about you in that way,” Mark joked. I felt my lips press together in an unimpressed way.

“Yeah okay, but you're banned from being shirtless around me,” I said. I couldn't stop my eyes scanning his body from waist to neck, and I mentally slapped myself when my head tilted and followed the vein in his bicep. God, I felt like such a fucking pervert.

“I'll go put a shirt on then,” he smirked before sitting up and exiting the room. The scratches on his back weren't as prominent as they were when I first saw them, but his back would be the death of me.

“You're a fucking slut, Elle,” I muttered to myself as I started to find clothes to wear for the day. When I was finally ready I descended the stairs to find Mark, who was in the kitchen cleaning up the glass he had smashed. He was dressed impeccably in a navy blue suit, but all I could think of was 'Thank God he has clothes on now'.