This

Chapter 20

“Hi,” I mumbled awkwardly. How was I meant to behave? I had never had a 'root-and-boot' without any of the 'root' part. It was new territory for me, and I had no fucking clue what to do.

“Uh, shouldn't we be leaving?” I said as I saw the time on the clock, which was dangerously close to nine o'clock. I wouldn't have minded not going in to the office today anyway, because it would have meant that I could have a day away from Mark.

“Fuck... Yeah, let's go,” he said, leading me towards the elevator. If I wanted to be really anal about this whole thing, I could have snapped at him about the rather low positioning of his hand on my back, but I didn't think it would be necessary. As the doors pinged closed behind us, I heard a sharp intake of breath from beside me.

“What?” I spat at Mark, who had his tongue between his teeth, and was leaning away from me.

“Nothing, you just smell fucking delicious,” he breathed. I tried to subtly sniff a lock of my hair, as I was sure it was probably my shampoo that he could smell.

“Vanilla? It's the scent of my shampoo,” I said, smoothing down my hair over my chest. Mark stood silently in the awkward way he was leaning for another minute or so, making me feel extremely uncomfortable. Was I meant to apologize for smelling nice? Or was he meant to apologize for making me uncomfortable? What was the proper etiquette when dealing with someone you're trying not to have dirty thoughts about?

Silence. There were no words exchanged until we reached the ground floor, where we had the awkward 'you first, no you first' conversation. Jeez, I'd been this guy's personal assistant for all of twenty four hours and shit was already tense. Maybe he would have been better off promoting Psych-Olivia instead, I thought to myself snidely.

“Are we going to be silent and moody towards each other all day or is that just this morning's agenda?” I mumbled as we slid into his car. Mark turned to look at me, a thousand thoughts swirling in his head that I guessed were probably witty comebacks to my question.

“It'll be less awkward at the office. There'll be shit to do to distract me from that ass of yours,” he said, his face scrunching up as he realised what he had said.

“I'm going to make a tally of every time you make a lewd comment today, and I'll go out tonight and have a shot for every comment. So if you want me to come home conscious, actually no, if you want me to come home at all and not go home with some random from the club, then you best keep your comments to yourself,” I said, my lips twitching up into a smirk. I knew that playing on Mark's distaste towards me being with anyone else was a really bitchy thing to do, but if it meant that today would be less... well, it was my way of making sure that things went smoothly at the office.

“If you go out tonight, I'll be coming with you to keep an eye on you,” Mark muttered through gritted teeth as his knuckles glowed white while he gripped the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. The way his jaw twitched as he clenched it shut was kind of sexy, but I wasn't going to say anything.

“Nah-uh, it's ladies night.”

“Where the fuck does ladies night on a Wednesday night?”

“The strip club near my hotel,” I said. This was a total lie, but Mark wouldn't know.

“Oh. But if it's ladies night, how would you go home with a random guy?” he said smartly, thinking he had caught me out, but I somehow had a quick response.

“When I said I'd go home with a random from the bar, I never specified that it'd be a male.” My comment made Mark almost crash into the taxi that was stopped in front of us, and I had to bite my cheeks to stop myself from laughing at the look of shock that was plastered on his face.

“You little bitch,” Mark said as my laughter burst through my lips, but seconds later he was joining in as well.

“Aside from the whole random chick from the club thing, I'm serious. One shot per comment I find remotely inappropriate. And I'm the judge on the comment,” I said as the car started to move again.