Senior Advisor to the Boss: Billionaire Obsession Dark Romance (Managing the Bosses Series Book 9) (11 page)

“Erica, what’re you still doing here?” Mark didn’t turn away from the expense reports he was compiling.

“I’m here to talk to you, but I can go if you’re going to be an asshole,” Erica said sharply from behind him.

Mark set down the sheaf of papers in his hand and turned around to look at Erica, who was standing in the doorway of his office, leaning against the frame with one shoulder and one hip, her arms crossed over her chest.

“What do you want to talk about?” he asked. He’d resigned himself to the fact that they weren’t going to work out.

She took a step closer, and her arms relaxed into a less aggressive posture. “About this thing going on between us. Whatever it is. I don't like it, and I don't want it to keep happening.”

He stared at her in surprise. He’d been so sure it was over. That she wasn’t interested anymore. “I don't like it either,” Mark said. “I really don't want to fight with you all the time, Erica. But I don't know how to fix it when I can't seem to get you to listen to me when I try to talk.” Hadn’t she just told him the same thing last night?

“I'm here to talk. How does that say that I'm not listening?”

“I tried to talk to you yesterday, too,” Mark said, standing and turning all the way around. “And we both know how that ended.”

“That wasn't just me,” Erica said, and he saw her shoulders tighten, her body pulling back into itself.

“No,” he admitted. “It wasn't. I said my share of things that I shouldn't have said. Although, for the record, I don't think you're a slut and I never said that I did. I just don't like it when you flirt with other guys. It's not that strange a reaction.”

Erica's mouth pressed into a thin line. “And I don't like it when you get all touchy with other women, but for some reason I'm not allowed to have that opinion, even though your opinion is perfectly valid.”

“I wasn't getting touchy with other women,” Mark said, fingers of one hand curling around the back of his chair. “I was comforting my sister-in-law, who was having a difficult time. If that makes you jealous then you're taking it too far. I’ve never hit on Christine.”

“Why is it,” Erica demanded, stalking across the floor toward him, “that whenever you have an opinion it's reasonable, but when I share what is pretty much the same opinion from my side, it's suddenly irrational?”

“That's not what I'm saying,” Mark retorted.

“No? Then what are you saying?”

Erica took another step toward him, and suddenly she was in his space, close enough that he could almost feel the heat of her body against his own, smell the apple scent of her shampoo. She'd showered before she came to see him. Mark breathed in the smell of her, his body already reacting to her nearness.

“I'm saying,” he said, not reaching out to grab her shoulders or her waist or her hips even though he wanted to, “that if you have a problem with me flirting with random women, then say so. Although, if you remember, we already went over this not that long ago, when we were talking about flirting for the sake of the club. But if you don't like me flirting with women, then just say so. I don't really like you flirting with random men, especially when it involves you practically hanging on their arm. But if you want to have physical contact with your family members, I'm not going to throw a fit about it.”

“I told you not to be an asshole,” Erica growled.

Mark wasn't sure which of them moved first. They were both there in the same moment, though, bodies pressed together and hands sliding over skin and clothing. His mouth found hers and they kissed hard, all pressure and heat. One of his hands slid up her shirt. The other moved down the back of her pants. Erica's were on his abs, palms moving upward toward his chest.

Damn, it felt good to have her in his arms again. It made whatever they were fighting about seem ridiculous.

He took a step forward, and she was forced to take a step to move with him. He kept moving, pressing her back until she was trapped between him and the wall, her arms wrapping around his neck and his thigh sliding between hers. She rocked down against it, and Mark rolled his hips against the curve of hers. They broke for air, panting.

“This isn't a good idea,” Erica gasped as he bit a mark into the curve where her neck met her shoulder.

“Do you want to stop?” Mark asked.

She shook her head, hands dragging him closer again, and Mark bit her shoulder a second time.

He caught the hem of her shirt and yanked it up, unfastening her bra next and pulling it off her shoulders. She lifted her arms to let him do it, and then grabbed for the fastenings of his dress shirt, unbuttoning it fast enough that he was sure he heard at least one of the buttons fall off and hit the floor, bouncing away to disappear forever under his desk. He didn't care. All he wanted was Erica. Preferably as fast as possible.

Shirt off, his skin was bare against hers, and Erica raked her nails down his back hard enough to hurt. His hand curled tight around her hip while the other opened the button of her jeans and started working them down her legs. She reached between them to help. Her shoes wouldn't let them come all the way off, but he didn't care about that either.

Mark forced a hand between her thighs, trapped together as they were by the pants around her ankles, and rubbed his fingers against the lips of her sex, feeling them wet already with how much she wanted him. He growled low in his throat and pulled her hips forward with the hand wrapped around them hard enough that he would maybe leave bruises behind in the shapes of his fingers. The angle was better that way, and he could work his fingers inside her, making her gasp, her nails scraping against the wall.

“Mark,” she hissed. “Fuck.”

Her head tipped back against the wall with a quiet
thunk
, and Mark stroked his fingers over her walls again to listen to the hitch in her breath that came with the touch. She writhed between him and the wall, caught right where he wanted her, beautiful in her need.

“Get your shoes off,” he growled.

Erica toed them off, kicking her pants away with them while Mark unfastened his slacks and shoved them and his boxer-briefs down. His cock was achingly hard already, and sprang out between them as he pushed the clothes out of the way. Erica reached down and wrapped her hand around it, stroking him once. It pulled a groan from his throat, and he slid his fingers free of her so that he could wrap both hands around the backs of her thighs and lift her.

She wrapped her long legs around his hips, her back pressed against the wall, and slid her arms around his neck. He let his hands slide upward until he had them wrapped around her hips, and then he pulled her down onto his cock. Her spine arched, and she moaned, nails digging into him again, hips rocking against his.

“Fuck, I've missed you,” Mark groaned against her throat. “Missed this.”

He rolled his hips up, pulling her down to meet him again. Moans bounced off the walls of the room, filling the space with the sound of them. He wanted more of her. Everything that he could take. Wanted to fill her up until no one was ever good enough again. “You're so fucking hot.”

She didn't answer, her breath coming quick and shallow as she worked herself on his cock.

Neither of them was going to make it much longer. He could already feel her thighs trembling, feel the pleasure coiling along his spine until he thought that he might explode with it. And he was close. So close.

Another thrust, feeling her tight and wanting around him. Another gasp as his teeth sank into the soft skin over her collarbone. He wanted to cover her in his marks, let everyone know that she belonged to him.

“Erica,” he breathed.

“Mark,” she answered. “Fuck. Fuck.”

They rocked together, and then the pleasure that had pushed him toward orgasm was pushing him over. He came with a shout, body trembling and taut against Erica's as he spilled into her. She followed him over with a cry.

His knees threatened to give out in the aftermath. His legs trembled, and he let himself sink slowly downward until they were both sitting on the floor, Erica still in his lap and wrapped around him. Mark let his head tip forward so that he could rest it against her shoulder, and just breathed in the scent of her.

This was what their relationship was supposed to be. Not the anger and the fighting and the jealousy. If they could believe that no one else was going to be able to touch what they had, maybe they would be able to let go. Stop arguing at every turn about which one of them had looked at someone else. Or touched someone else. Or said the wrong thing.

It was all so silly, Mark thought, kneeling there on the carpet in his office with Erica wrapped in his arms. Why did they care so much about it when they both knew who they were going home to, and who was coming home to them?

“Erica,” he said again, low and soft, the word muffled against her skin.

“What?” she asked. The word slurred a little. Maybe she was still dizzy with afterglow and pleasure.

“Erica, I don't want to fight with you,” Mark said. “Please. We're good together. We're hot together. I don't want this to end over stupid, meaningless flirting.”

He pulled back enough that he could look up into her face as her eyes opened and she met his gaze. “So tell me that you'll stop with the double standards. Or relax them. Because if you think something is flirting for you, it's flirting for me, too.”

Mark took a deep breath, and nodded. “I wasn't flirting with Christine. And I want to be able to comfort family members when they need it without worrying about whether or not it's going to cause a problem.”

“Okay,” Erica said. “That's fair. That means that you can't freak out every time I talk to a guy, though.”

He didn't freak out every time she talked to a guy, and it wasn't the same thing. Mark didn't point that out. He didn't want to have the same argument that they'd just had, not ten minutes ago.

Erica must have caught the look on his face, because her own expression hardened. “You’re not going to give it up, are you? You’re going to hold onto this stupid argument until it breaks us up.” She was moving, getting up off his lap.

Mark let her go. “I’m not holding onto anything,” he said, standing because he wasn’t going to kneel naked on the floor in front of her while they argued. “I didn’t say a word.”

“No. You just sat there with that stupid look on your face, obviously disagreeing with me.”

Mark wished that he was dressed. Erica, naked and angry, was glorious, her skin gleaming in the yellow lamplight. He had a feeling that he wasn’t quite as attractive. “You’re the one holding onto the argument,” he said, voice steady. “I was willing to bite my tongue, and you’re attacking me for it.”

“Because you don’t get it!” Erica shouted. Her voice quieted. “You won’t say anything, but that doesn’t mean that you understand why I have an issue in the first place. Which you obviously don’t. And if you can’t, I don’t know that we’re really at a place that we can just move past this.” She was reaching for her clothes.

Mark reached for his, too, pulling his slacks up quickly. He didn’t bother with the shirt. “So what does that mean?” he asked, watching her pull her own shirt over her head. “If we can’t move past it?”

Erica turned to look at him. “I think you know what it means.”

“Really? Over this?” She slid her shoes on, and Mark shook his head. “If you’re really going to leave instead of talking this out, Erica, that’s your choice. And you can stay out.”

For a moment, he thought that she would change her mind. She looked at him with an expression that he thought was hurt under the anger, and hoped that it would be enough to motivate her to turn around and talk to him.

But she just nodded once, sharply. “Fine,” she said. “Then that’s the end of it, I guess. It was a good run. Fun while it lasted.”

“Do you want to come pick up your things, or do you want them sent to you?” Mark asked, to cover the way that watching her walk out for the last time hurt. He didn’t let the catch in his throat come out in his words.

“I’ll pick them up. I still work here, after all.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Unless that’s going to be a problem?”

“Not at all,” Mark said. “You’re a professional. So am I. It won’t be an issue.”

“Then I’ll be here in the morning for work as usual, and I’ll start moving my things out after close,” Erica said.

“Okay. I’ll see you then. Have a good night, Erica.”

She paused in the doorway, turning to look back over her shoulder at him.

He almost swayed toward her, almost reached out a hand.

“You, too,
Mr. Reid
.” Erica walked out and shut the door, then.

It had hurt the night before when she left. But it hurt worse watching her walk out the door for the last time. Hurt to hear her calling him Mr. Reid like he was some stranger that she’d hardly met, or a boss that she had no interest in being friends with.

It was probably for the best. Being overly friendly would just make things awkward. They would need to cultivate some distance until they were able to interact without the echoes of their relationship getting in the way. In the moment, though, that didn’t lessen the pain. He’d really thought Erica was the one. Had been planning marriage and children, a house they could make their own.