Nothing but Trouble (Chinooks #5) by Rachel Gibson

hell?”
    His “assistant” gave the GPS an address in Belltown, then looked across at him and smiled. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I programmed my name into the voice recognition. It kept calling me Mark, which was just confusing because I am clearly not you.”
    “ Turn right. 3.6 miles till destination .”
    He leaned forward, brought up the menu screen, and turned off the sound. “Confusing for who?”
    “The GPS.”
    “The GPS doesn’t get confused.” He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He’d been right about her. She was nuttier than squirrel shit, and she was driving his ninety-thousand-dollar car.
    “How was your appointment?” she asked, all cheery.
    “Great.” Mark opened his eyes and looked out the passenger window at St. James Cathedral. But the appointment hadn’t been great. He hadn’t received the news he’d been wanting to hear. The doctor had seemed pleased, but the tendons weren’t healing as fast as Mark hoped and he had to wear the splint for at least another month. Which meant he couldn’t transfer his cane to his right side for better balance. It also meant he had to take the splint off to button his shirt or pants, take a shower, or eat a meal. Although he’d always shot left, trying to sign his name left-handed was like writing with a pen stuck in his toes.
    A dull ache radiated from deep in the marrow of his femur and spread to his hip. At the moment, it wasn’t bad. Nothing he couldn’t handle, but in a few hours it was likely to get worse. He hadn’t brought any medication with him because he didn’t like to be doped up in public. He didn’t want anyone to think he couldn’t handle a little pain. He was Mark Bressler. He’d played hockey with a fractured ankle and a broken thumb. He’d played through concussions and torn and bruised muscles. He could handle the pain. If he was lucky, it wouldn’t get real bad until he got back home, where he could park himself in front of his big TV and knock back a bottle of his favorite medication.
    The car turned on Madison, and Mark glanced across at his assistant. Despite her big sunglasses, two-tone hair, and hideous shirt, she was cute. Like a kitten was cute, but Mark didn’t like cats. Cats were sneaky. One second a cat looked all soft and harmless. All big blue eyes and innocence. One second you were just looking at it thinking, Huh, that’s kind of a cute kitten , then it sank its teeth into your hand and ran away. A sort of stealth blitz that left a guy stunned and wondering what the hell just happened.
    Behind the mirror lenses of his glasses, he lowered his gaze down the side of her neck and shoulder to her breasts. She sure wasn’t built like a little kitty cat, more like a porn star. She’d said she was an actress. All porn stars thought they were actresses too. He wondered how much she’d paid for her boobs.
    He closed his eyes and groaned. What had his life come to? Looking at a nice pair of tits and wondering how much she paid for them? Who gave a shit! In another life, his other life, he’d be thinking about how he was going to get face-deep in her cleavage. His only thought about kittens would begin and end with how he was going to get her little kitty cat naked and riding his lap.
    For most of his life, Mark had been good at two things: hockey and sex. He’d only set out to be good at shooting pucks, but a guy couldn’t exactly live his life hip-deep in rink bunnies and not get to know his way around a woman’s body. Now he couldn’t do one and didn’t have any interest in the other. He’d never been a guy whose dick defined his life, but sex sure had been a big part of his life. Except for when he’d been married. Christine had used sex as a reward. When she got what she wanted, he got laid.
    Hell, he’d always thought he should be rewarded because he’d been faithful, which, given the amount of time he’d spent on the road with women throwing themselves at him, had been damn