Beg for It (16 page)

It had always been so good when he did this. Reese worshipped her with his mouth, both hands moving beneath her ass to lift and hold her in place. He eased off right before she came—he’d always been able to tell exactly how close she was. Her low, frustrated cry urged a chuckle out of him, and the soft puff of his laughter against her was a fresh torture that had her writhing.

Settling her back onto the rug, he knelt between her legs and opened the button of his fly with one hand while the other continued to stroke her clit. He paused long enough to shove his jeans down—nothing but bare skin beneath. His cock sprang free. He worked the denim down, using one foot to push his leg free. Then the other. Kneeling again, he tugged his shirt off over his head and tossed it to the side.

Time had sculpted him. He’d always been lean and muscled and still was, though he’d grown bigger. Broader shoulders, bigger arms, his chest and thighs both harder and more rounded. His cock, too, seemed impossibly longer and thicker than she’d remembered even in her fondest recollections.

He stroked it as she watched. “You always liked to watch me do this.”

“I still do.” She pushed up on her elbow to get a better look.

“I want to be inside you,” Reese said. “But I don’t have anything.”

Corinne hesitated. Everything had been force and fire a few minutes ago. They hadn’t used condoms when they’d been together before—she’d been younger and stupid and trusting and on the pill. She couldn’t get pregnant now because she’d had her tubes tied after complications with Tyler, but there were other reasons to be careful. Mesmerized by the slow stroking of his hand, though, she didn’t make a protest at first.

“I’ve been with a lot of women,” he told her.

“Are you trying to make me jealous?”

He shook his head. “No. Just…I didn’t want you to take a risk with me that you weren’t ready for.”

She lay back, thighs parted to give him a good, long look at her treasure. “Touch me, Reese. And touch yourself at the same time.”

“Like this?” His hand moved between her legs. Fingers tweaking her clit. She was so wet he slid two knuckles deep inside her without effort, then out to circle the slickness over the tight knot of nerves.

“Fuck, yes. That. Oh…fuck.”

She wanted to watch him, but pleasure kept forcing her eyes to close. Her hips lifted, rocking. He fucked deeper into her, then out, taking the time to concentrate on her clit long enough to bring her to the edge before easing off. His other hand took care of himself, faster and faster, jacking just below the head. Sometimes he thrust into his fist instead of stroking, and the sight of that drove her wild because it matched up perfectly with the timing of his fingers pushing in and out of her.

“How many women? Corinne asked with an edge in her voice.

“A lot.”

“You made them come?”

“All of them.” Reese groaned. He moved faster. His touch stuttered a moment, but that only sent her higher and higher, closer to the edge.

Her muscles tensed, pleasure building. She had to remind herself to breathe. She was going to come any second. She wanted him with her.

“You fucked them,” she muttered, not a question, but he answered her as though she’d made it one.

“Yes. Shit, yes, I fucked them.”

Her gaze locked on his. Her body bore down on him. Her fingers dug into the rug at her sides as she moved with him, perfectly in sync despite the fact he wasn’t fucking her with his cock.

“How many of them,” Corinne asked, “fucked you?”

His body jerked at her words. Reese shouted, hoarse, something that might’ve been her name or a prayer or a curse or a plea, or possibly a combination of all of those. Thick, hot fluid covered her belly. The smell of it, of his desire, this proof of how much he wanted her, finally tipped her over and she rode the waves of orgasm as she shook and lost herself inside it.

Some minutes after that, he’d spooned behind her, a hand flat on her belly in the stickiness he’d left behind. His face pressed to the back of her neck, pushing aside the fall of her hair. They breathed together, one breath. Two. Perfectly matched in this the way they’d been with everything else. She was drifting into sleep when he spoke, waking her.

“None of them ever did,” Reese said. “That was only ever you.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Reese had never particularly despised Monday mornings, but today he was looking forward to going into the office about as much as he would have enjoyed a kick to the crotch. Since waking up alone on his living room floor Saturday morning, he’d already been feeling like he’d taken a knee between the legs. The sight of Corinne’s closed office door didn’t help make anything easier.

He should have called her.

No, fuck that.
She
was the one who’d snuck out without a word, not even a note. If anyone should’ve picked up the phone, it ought to have been Corinne…except Reese knew that wasn’t the way things worked. Not with most women, and certainly not with her.

He wanted to blame the booze for Friday night, but the truth was that two and a half glasses of Merlot were nowhere near enough to have made him out of control. He’d known exactly what he was doing when he’d called her to come over. When he’d kissed her. He remembered every second of it and couldn’t forget it.

What if
she
wanted to?

She’d crept away before the dawn and he hadn’t heard from her since. What if she were regretting everything that had happened? What if he’d done nothing but make a colossal fool of himself over her?

Grouchy, Reese logged in to his email to take care of a few things. He shot off a few replies, then forwarded the rest to Tony, who was due here in Lancaster tomorrow. After that, he pushed back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head, and closed his eyes to replay Friday night.

The taste of her. The scent. The sound of her moans. The clutch of her body on his…

With a discontented mutter, Reese let his feet hit the floor. He looked at his desktop’s instant message window. There she was, the small bright green circle next to her name showing her online. He typed quickly, before he could change his mind.

I NEED A MEETING AT 11. MY OFFICE. BRING REPORTS.

Her answer came a moment later.
OK

Okay? That was it? Frowning, Reese typed again.

MAKE SURE THEY’RE THE MOST RECENT, THE CORRECT ONES

This time, she didn’t answer.

He was being an idiot, and he knew it. It was only ten in the morning now, and he didn’t want to spend the next hour thinking about her. He didn’t even give a damn about the reports—Stein and Sons had been in a financial mess, but it hadn’t been because of anything Corinne had done wrong. All he was doing was looking for an excuse to call her into his office, when what he really needed to do was just go in, take her in his arms, and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe.

Instead, he changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from his gym bag and went for a run. Reese didn’t love running, but that was part of why he did it. He had to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and not on what he was going to say to Corinne about what had happened. By the time he got back, sweating and sore, it was closer to noon than eleven.

She was waiting for him in his office. Today she wore a sleek black skirt that hit just below the knee, with a little pleat in the rear that showed off the backs of her knees when she shifted. Her blouse, a pale green dotted with tiny black dots, had him remembering the times when he’d fed her spoonfuls of her favorite ice cream flavor, mint chocolate chip. She’d pinned her hair up in a soft twist that made him want to tug it free of the pins and sink his face into it.

“I went for a run,” he said unnecessarily, because the way she looked him over made it clear she could see exactly what he’d been doing.

“Would you like to take a shower or something? You’ve already kept me waiting. I can handle another twenty minutes.”

Reese took a long, slow pull from the bottle of water he’d stopped to grab from the break room fridge. He watched her eye his throat as he swallowed. Then his mouth when he licked his lips.

“Used to be that you liked me sweaty.”

“You will want to stop pushing my buttons, Reese,” Corinne said in a soft, dangerous voice. She took a step or two closer. “You called this meeting with a demand for me to bring you ‘correct’ reports like I’ve never provided you anything you needed before, which is not true and extremely insulting. You showed up late, which was also disrespectful. And if you want to talk about being unprofessional, that last comment borders on sexual harassment.”

He blinked.

“You’ve made it very clear that our past relationship is of no consequence to our business dealings,” she continued in that same low, stern voice that had once been enough to get him to his knees in front of her.

It was making his cock twitch, no way to hide an erection in his thin running shorts. God help him, he’d brought this on himself. He didn’t move when she took another step toward him, which put him within grabbing distance…if she chose to touch him.

“Therefore, Reese, I expect that you will treat me with the respect I am due. Is that understood?”

Fuck, that look. That voice. He’d been playing with matches and had started a fire.

“Yes,” he answered.

Corinne’s gaze flashed. Her lips parted. He could see the flash of her tongue as she slid it along her teeth.

“Yes, what?”

Ma’am. Yes Ma’am. Please, Ma’am.

“Yes, I understand,” Reese replied, knowing what she wanted but refusing to give it to her.

Her gaze fell to the bulge in the front of his shorts, then met his eyes. “I’ve already told you once not to push my buttons, Reese.”

He laughed. “Or what? You’ll spank me? You really think that’s going to work on me, anymore?”

Without blinking or turning away from him, Corinne reached to the cup on his desk. With unerring precision she slid the wooden ruler from amongst the pens and pencils. She drew it between her hands, gripping it lightly in front of her. Reese was so immediately and inexorably aroused that he actually thought he might need to sit down. Sit, or fall from knees gone weak.

Corinne tapped the ruler lightly on the underside of her palm. “Since you acquired Stein and Sons, do you feel your behavior toward me has been respectful and professional?”

He didn’t answer her.

The ruler tap, tap, tapped on the underside of her palm. If his cock had ever been this hard, Reese couldn’t remember it. The look she gave the front of his shorts only made it worse, because he could square his shoulders and lift his chin and refuse to give her what she wanted, but there was no way he could hide how much she affected him.

“Do you think it was appropriate of you to come to my house?”

Silence.

The ruler tapped.

“Do you think it was appropriate for you to request that I come to your house, for you to be drunk—”

“I wasn’t,” he gritted out. “I’d been drinking, but I wasn’t drunk.”

Corinne let a small slow hiss slip between her teeth. “That’s one.”

“My list is getting longer,” Corinne says. “Keep testing me, Reese. See what happens.”

He knows what is going to happen. She will refuse him the sweetness of her pussy on his tongue, or she will tease his cock for an hour before she’ll let him enter her. She will have him kneel, naked, hands behind his back and forbidden to touch her or himself while she makes herself come and all he can do is watch. Corinne has dozens of ways to discipline him. Hundreds.

“Keep testing me,” she says again, the words an offer, a command, a promise, and a threat all wrapped up in a wicked smile. “See what happens.”

“I had two and a half glasses of wine. It wasn’t enough to impair me.”

“So you ordered me to come to your house after work and you put your hands and mouth on me, all without the influence of alcohol?” This time, she smacked the ruler hard enough beneath her hand to make a cracking sound.

“I don’t need to be drunk to want to fuck you.”

Her eyes narrowed; he hated himself for the way the words had come out, but something inside him pushed him to it. Years had passed in which he’d dreamed of saying all the things he’d wanted to tell her. Of closing the door that had stayed open through every other broken relationship.

“Oh, yes. I know.” Another crack of the ruler on her skin had him swallowing hard. Her gaze never left his. “That was not my question, Reese. I asked you if you thought it was appropriate. Considering that you are technically my boss. Do you think it was professional of you to invite me to your house after you’d been drinking?”

“No.”

“To touch me?” This time, she slid the wooden ruler through the half circle of her fingers; it made a whispering sound.

His fists clenched at his sides. “No.”

“No…what?”

“No, it wasn’t professional or appropriate.”

Corinne straightened. “No, it wasn’t professional or appropriate…what?”