Building Up Love: Insta Love Shy Girl Romance #10 Read online

  “So sweet,” he murmured. “Just relax, honey.”

  Mark leaned in to kiss me softly as he pushed the shirt up to my collarbone, freeing my breasts. He ran his palms over them, his thumbs brushing my sensitive buds until I moaned. Then as his tongue slid into my mouth, his right hand slid down my stomach, slowly skimming his fingers between my legs.

  Every delicate bit of skin felt like it was swelling and opening, desperate for his touch. I loved the way he explored my body, as if he were analyzing every sound and motion I made. I’d never had anyone’s attention so focused on me, and I adored it.

  It was unusually comfortable, Mark caressing me gently while kissing me. I knew I would never get tired of his perfect lips on mine.

  His fingers began to move, playing with me gently as my breath started to stutter. Anticipation fluttered and sparkled through my belly as he released my lips, moving down to suck a nipple into his mouth. His fingers slid me open, gently flickering along every wet inch of my most delicate skin.

  My skin was overheating. My bones were softening. His finger began to nudge inside me, and I gasped.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle,” Mark whispered, switching to the other side to run his tongue around my tight peak before kissing down my belly and spreading my thighs wide.

  His complete lack of hesitation startled me as his tongue dug straight in, lapping against my skin as if he had already memorized a treasure map of all of my most sensitive parts.

  I heard strange breathy noises before I realized I was making them. Why did it feel like my heart was somehow opening?

  Mark’s fingers and tongue were everywhere, lapping along every edge, then fluttering around my twitching button until I thought I was going to pass out from the pleasure.

  I didn’t realize my hands were tangled in his hair until they already were . My body had taken over, and in a flash of shock, I noticed that my hips were writhing as I rode his tongue.

  I glanced down in horror, but Mark was smiling, giving me a nod of encouragement. “Mmm,” he murmured. “You’re delicious, honey. Just relax and come for me.”

  I honestly didn’t have a choice, as the pressure inside me was about to burst at any second. His left hand was scooped under my thigh, holding me in place, as the fingers of his right hand slid inside my wetness.

  He flattened his tongue, pressing against every nerve, just as the coiling force inside me began to unfurl. My unearthly rasped moan released as I did, shaking as I gripped his hair, holding his tongue against my pressure point as the heat waves rattled through me.

  Blinking hard, I saw that I had curled up until I was almost sitting. I flopped back down onto the bed.

  Mark licked me gently for another moment while I quivered, then kissed slowly up my body until he caught my lips. “That was the sexiest moment of my life, Alison.”

  He pulled the t-shirt back down to cover me, and laid down, pulling my back to his chest.

  I felt like I needed to thank him, but had no idea what to say. “Mark, I...” My head was still spinning and I couldn’t latch onto one thought as so many spiraled through my mind.

  His lips trailed along the side of my neck. “Sweet dreams.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * Mark *

  Waking up to the purr of Alison’s breathing against my chest, I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life.

  It was definitely too soon to tell her, but I could at least admit it to myself: I was already in love with her. Everything about her made me feel like I was gaining energy. She was such a positive person, who balanced me so well.

  The fact that we were going to be able to work together as well was incredible. But for that to happen, I had to get to the office early.

  Kissing the top of Alison’s hair, I whispered, “I have to go home to change before I get to the office, honey. I’ll see you around nine, okay?”

  “Mmm hmm,” she murmured. Then her head swiveled and she caught me in a deep, lingering kiss that was nearly impossible to leave.

  Slipping out of bed, I got dressed, leaving a note on her kitchen counter in case she didn’t remember what I said while she was still half asleep. Throwing my jacket on over my bare chest was good enough to get me home. It was silly, but I liked the thought of her wearing my shirt to sleep in.

  Driving back to my house was much faster at six am, so I was able to sneak in a quick workout in my basement gym, shower, dress, and make it to the office for eight with a protein shake in my hand.

  Hillary, our HR person, usually worked eight to four, so she was already in her office. Quickly explaining the situation, and forwarding her Alison’s resume, I asked her to email me a list of all available positions.

  She nodded and started to say something, but then her phone rang. I gave her a wave and went down the hallway to my office, greeting and nodding to the people who were in early.

  I never made it a contest to see who put in the longest hours. For some people, it was easier to work eight until four, for others, ten until six. As long as the work got done and everyone was available via email during business hours, I was happy.

  Settling in at my giant glass desk, I waved to our receptionist Deborah as she came in. Skimming my email, I whipped through a dozen responses, then got a note from Hillary.

  “I’m sorry, Mark, but we just filled two positions last month. We could give Alison an unpaid internship if she wanted to work in the engineering planning division. But there are no paid opportunities right now, unless you are creating any new jobs that I’m not aware of.”

  Dammit.

  The other positions we were hiring for must have all been technical, and just crisscrossed in my mind with the jobs that had already been filled.

  I had talked Alison into leaving her job, promising her something here. I didn’t mean to overstep any bounds, but there was no way I could have allowed her to stay in that hellhole, with that creepy man yelling at her. Nobody should ever be screamed at in the workplace. Working in a terrifying environment was no way to bring out the best in people.

  Sure, she was hopefully going to quit that place soon anyway, but still.

  What the hell was I going to do?

  If I gave her an internship and paid her for it without paying the others, someone might find out and say that I was playing favorites. We usually began paying the interns after a few weeks, but it was quite minimal until they hit the two-month mark. And those jobs were intended for students who needed job experience, which wasn’t really where Alison was.

  I skimmed through the employee list, brainstorming. I had a distinct impression that Alison was a hard worker, and she was obviously very smart. But every department seemed to be well staffed.

  Jumping up, I took a slow walk around the floor, taking the long route to the coffee room.

  Almost every desk was in use. As I walked past Deborah at reception, I remembered that the long desk had been designed for two people. When this company had been run by my Father, he had a receptionist and a personal assistant who both sat there.

  Dad was a brilliant man, but his organizational skills left a lot to be desired. His assistant Brandy had worked with him for over fifteen years, keeping him on schedule, proofreading his paperwork, and providing general backup for everything he did.

  When I took over in his place, I took a couple of online courses in office organizational systems and thought that I could do everything myself. Yet just this morning I hadn’t been aware of what jobs needed filling, and that people had already been hired.

  Would Alison want to be my personal assistant?

  To be honest, It would help me out a lot. I could unload a lot of my busywork that I’d only been doing myself out of stubborn pride. That would free up my time to supervise job sites more closely, and spend more time on the things I was good at, like creating teams, and working on project development. Also, it would likely make Alison happy if I wasn’t working such crazy hours.

  According to her resume, she was an org
anizational wizard, and a good writer. She could probably draft up most of my emails so that I could simply skim and personalize them before sending.

  Sitting back at my desk and sipping my coffee, I stared out the window. I knew that Alison was driven, and took her career seriously, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit protective.

  I couldn’t send her out as a temp on any job sites. They were all good men out there, but sometimes they were a bit rough and crass. Alison was a little quiet, so I didn’t think that would be a good fit.

  Having her as my assistant was certainly worth a try. She could always work for me for a few months, and if she didn’t like it, we could find her something else, or she could look elsewhere. Once we became more serious, I certainly wouldn’t be offended if she wanted to work somewhere on her own.

  After another swig of coffee, I went out to reception. “Good morning, Mr. Green.”

  “Hey, Deborah. Listen, I’ve finally hired a personal assistant, and the best place to put her would be right here.” I pointed to the receptionist chair that was very close to my office door.

  “Oh, all right. I can have IT set them up with a phone and computer this morning.”

  “That would be great, thanks. Her name is Alison Williams, and she’ll be here around nine.”

  She smiled, her short blonde curls bobbing as she leaned in a bit. “To be honest, I’m relieved. You work very long hours, and do too much of your own paperwork.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, it’s time to call in an expert.”

  “Exactly.”

  I went back to my office with a huge sense of relief. Calling up a fresh note file, I started making a list of all of my tasks I could begin offloading to Alison. By ten to nine, the list was a lot longer than I would’ve imagined.

  It would take a couple of weeks for her to learn how everything worked, but my sexy sweet girlfriend was going to be kept very busy with her new boss.

  Staring out the window for a moment, I began thinking of ways that I could make it up to her, and was lost in a vision of spreading her across the bed, making her squeal until she forgave me for working her so hard.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * Alison *

  I had set my alarm so that I would have time to get up and make us both breakfast, but Mark was already gone. It made sense, since he needed fresh clothes.

  His note on the counter was adorable. Nothing like the notes I used to leave my Father to avoid communicating in person and probably bothering him. I appreciated that Mark didn’t expect me to be sharp while I was groggy. He even drew a little daisy on it to match the ones in the vase beside it.

  Waking up snuggled against his chest for a good morning kiss was the most exciting thing that had ever happened on a Monday morning in my life.

  But now that I was in the elevator taking me up to his company’s offices, my blood felt chilled. I had no idea what sort of job situation I was about to be thrown into. I also had no idea whether he was going to tell anyone that we were involved.

  Of course, I didn’t really know how involved we actually were. My feelings for Mark were too much to make sense of right now, and I didn’t want to assume that he felt the same way.

  As the doors opened, I stepped out into a bright silver and blue lobby, featuring several huge green plants in the corners. “Welcome to Green Construction.”

  I spun toward the dramatically long reception desk, where a friendly blonde woman was smiling at me. “May I help you?”

  “Yes,” I said, coming closer. “I’m starting work today.”

  She smiled warmly. “Alison?”

  “Yes.”

  She jumped up to shake my hand. “I’m Deborah. We’re going to be desk mates.” She waved to the empty chair several feet away from her. “Come on around.”

  I walked around the desk and took a seat, stashing my purse, and a shopping bag with a sweater and my mug full of pens in the bottom drawer.

  “Welcome,” she said brightly. “I’ve already contacted the IT department. They’re taking care of some little emergency, then they’ll be here to set you up with a phone and a laptop.”

  “Wow, that’s fast. Thanks.”

  “The team here is pretty efficient,” she said. “Which is why I’m so relieved that Mark is taking on a personal assistant.”

  I smiled and nodded as I realized that must be my position here.

  “He’s great, don’t get me wrong,” Deborah said quickly, “But I’ll be honest – he isn’t the most organized. With construction and development work, he’s amazing. But then there’s the financial, scheduling, and communications side of things,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  I laughed. “Not his strong suit?”

  Deborah nodded. “Exactly. I think maybe he sees some things as non-essential because they aren’t poured in concrete. He figures they can wait, which means he usually gets to them at the last minute, and isn’t able to do his best.”

  A tiny bit of relief washed through me. He really did need help, and perhaps wasn’t quite making this job up just because of me. “So I’ll be taking over the organization and busywork so that he can run around and focus on the actual construction of the buildings?”

  “That’s what it sounds like.” Her enthusiasm made me feel a bit better.

  Deborah kindly gave me a rundown of the entire company and each department, which made me feel more grounded. I could handle a huge intake of information. I took a few notes in my ever-present notebook, and tried to ask enough questions that I felt I had a good grasp on the situation.

  All the while, I was trying to figure out what was really going on. Mark hadn’t said a word about me working directly with him, or being his assistant. I had been thinking that I might be right for a position as a general office assistant. Or maybe an assistant to a manager.

  Perhaps my resume didn’t stand out as much as I’d thought. But the thought of picking up Mark’s dry cleaning and fetching his coffee really rubbed me the wrong way. Wasn’t it far too early in our relationship to be this close all the time?

  To my great relief, Mark came out and brought me into his office just as the IT people arrived.

  “Come on in,” he said, waving me to his guest chair.

  “So, apparently I’m your assistant?” I tried to sound curious, not disappointed.

  He frowned, his hand roughly rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry about that. I was sure that there were a couple of non-technical jobs to fill, but they’d all been taken care of a month ago.” He smiled at me sheepishly. “Which proves that I really do need a personal assistant.”

  I felt my lips pressing together in irritation, but tried to relax my face. “What would that entail, precisely?”

  “Back when my Father ran this company, his assistant kept his life on track. Running errands, buying gifts for my Mom, bringing him lunch.” He must have noticed that this line of thought obviously didn’t impress me. “I don’t expect any of that,” he said quickly. “Here’s what I’m thinking.”

  He turned his monitor to show me a huge list of tasks that required organization, writing, filing, and constant monitoring.

  “Oh,” I said weakly. “Wow.” Skimming it again, it would require nearly every program I knew, and some interesting organizational work.

  “Yeah, it’s a lot,” he said. “I rearranged the list so that it’s in order of importance, so maybe if you just start there, and we’ll keep adding as we go.”

  “You realize that I’ll need full access to your email and files?”

  “Sure.” He wrote down the passwords on a sticky note. “I’ll send you the links as soon as your computer is online, and IT will give you access to the servers.”

  Mark smiled at me. “I’m sure you were likely hoping to be managing a team or something, but as you can see, I do a team’s worth of work every week. This is going to help me be more hands-on with the job sites, where I’m really needed.”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I felt a lot better.

>   Standing up, he shook my hand, flashing me a wink. That was obviously his signal that we were going to be professional in the workplace. “Welcome to the team, Alison.”

  “Thanks. I won’t let you down.”

  “I know you won’t,” he said softly, so nobody could hear through the open door. “I trust you completely, and know how bright you are. That’s why I’m so happy about this.”

  Mark checked the hallway, then pulled me close for a tiny kiss. He jumped away as footsteps came toward us.