Page 46 of Mark my Words

“Count for me,” she murmured as she made her first strike against the firm muscles on the back of his left thigh, just below his clenched fists. “One strike for every time you teased me this week.”

“One,” he breathed out, his cock hardening, the pink flesh taunting her as she slowly walked around to his front after rubbing the sting out of his thigh. His jaw clenched as she tipped his chin up, looking into his expressive green eyes.

“It’s not nice to tease your Mistress and fail to deliver...”

He nodded, releasing a shaky breath as she stepped back and surveyed him for the next strike. His body was tense as she striped the backs of his thighs, her arousal building with every gasp and visible pulse of his engorged member.

Blowing out a breath, I shifted from side to side, not wanting to adjust myself in front of my boss outright. I hated to admit that Adrian was right about something, but damn, this was some spicy material. Kristine owed me an apology. There was no way Chase and Evan drafted this book without fucking. There was just no way. And I wondered how I would get through the next several weeks of copy-editing the same material with Kristine and keep my hands off her.

“Fucking gold, right?” Adrian laughed as he reached his hand back out for his phone. As I handed it back, a text message scrolled across the screen. It seemed that maybe Kristine and I were right about something else.

Is: Don’t bother going home tonight after work. We’re going through this one at mine.

It disappeared quickly but was followed by another one.

Is: Bring the cuffs. They go on you this time.

Well, that was interesting. Gross, but interesting.

“It’s got some potential,” I agreed.

I just hoped it wasn’t the potential to be disastrous. Kristine’s earlier texts indicated she wanted some space, but I didn’t want this to be what finally caused her to distance herself from me for good. I knew there would be an expiration going in, but I didn’t want it to be so soon.

KRISTINE

BOSTON

I knew it wasn’t fair to Sam, putting on the brakes and trying to distance myself slightly. We’d settled into this non-relationship that felt a lot like a real relationship. It wasn’t just sex with him, although that continued to surprise me. Sam was tender in some moments and demanding the next, consistently amazing me with his attentive nature.

A few nights this past week, we’d even fallen asleep talking, fully clothed, and I didn’t panic the following morning when I was curled up against his chest, his nose buried in my hair. If I wanted to be his girlfriend, I had a good idea of what it would entail. Even his goofy man-child roommates hadn’t managed to scare me away. It terrified me that I’d let him in, but something about how he treated me fulfilled this need for companionship and validation I didn’t even know I had.

Sam’s life had been a stark contrast to my life of privilege, and he’d experienced what it was like to grow up in a loving family. He sometimes grumbled about how his mother meddled in his life, but she was simply concerned for her youngest child. The meddling I dealt with involved manipulating my career, using the lure of financial security to get me to bend to their will, and borderline emotional abuse when I didn’t comply with what my parents wanted for my life.

I’d joked about my mother planning a wedding if she found out about Sam, but the sad truth was that when she found out he was just an average hard-working guy from a middle-class family, she’d tell me I was wasting my time. The more attached I got to Sam, the more I wondered if it was me wasting his time. He was bound to find out I had the potential to be just as toxic as my fucked-up family.

An early morning text pulled me out of the cycle of overthinking. I found myself frequently trapped inside similar paths of thought on the nights I spent away from Sam.

Isobel: Did Sam tell you about Chase and Evan’s new manuscript?

Kristine: A new manuscript? No, why would Sam tell me?

Isobel: He was in the office right after we got their email. I thought he would have told you because you’d be working together again. I knew you two were friendly and wanted to make sure you didn’t think he was getting an unfair advantage.

Fuck me.

Kristine: Isn’t telling me assignments your job?

Isobel: Yes, but I was waiting until the contracts were signed.

Kristine: What genre is it?

Isobel: Thriller, serial killer trope, romantic subplot with BDSM.

Wow. That was quite the departure from both of their previous works. Evan had never explored kink in his novels, and his more thriller-like mysteries hadn’t involved serial killers. I was excited to see the first draft, and it sounded like Isobel was hyped up about the project.

Part of me was anxious that I would be working up close and personal with Sam for the next several weeks. I knew it wasn’t fair of me to think of us collaborating again as a hardship, but it wouldn’t help my tumultuous thoughts. If I kept my heart guarded, I stood a chance against this situation blowing up in my face.

Still, if this book was even half as sexy as Evan’s last project, I knew we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off each other. The last time had been hard enough—pun intended—when we hadn’t seen each other naked yet. Now that I knew his tells when he was turned on and had permission to touch him, it spelled disaster for my willpower to remain distant.

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