Beg for It (17 page)

“I love it when you call me Ma’am.” Corinne’s whisper tickles his ear as she nuzzles him. Her fingers are sliding over his chest and belly to cup his cock, still half-hard though only moments before he’d been exploding inside her.

He puts his hand over hers, reminding her without words that in the aftermath of their lovemaking, he’s sensitive. “You do? How come?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of silly.”

He turns his face to find her mouth with his. She tastes of salt. Their kisses are lightweight and floating.

“I just know that I love it,” she tells him.

“Then I’ll always say it,” Reese replies. “As long as you want me to.”

“You didn’t have to come over,” he said in a low voice. “You didn’t have to let me touch you. Or kiss you.”

Corinne tilted her head, just so, and Reese held back a groan. She looked at him the way she’d used to. Assessing. Considering. Narrowed eyes and that small, smug smile. He couldn’t see them, but he knew her nipples were hard.

“Your pussy’s getting wet for me,” he managed to say, though every word snagged and ripped on his clenched teeth.

She drew in a breath, her eyes going heavy lidded for a second. “Oh, yes. Yes, Reese, I’m so wet for you right now, all I can think about, actually, is sliding up the hem of my skirt and having you lap it all up.”

He’d taken a step toward her before he could stop himself, but with one look she stopped him in his tracks. Another look would’ve sent him to his knees in front of her, right there with his cock busting out of his shorts, but Corinne held up a finger. The other hand let the ruler dangle.

“No,” she breathed. “No, you don’t deserve a single lick of this pussy. Not a single drop of my honey. Do you?”

“I’m not going to beg for it. I don’t do that anymore.”

A lift of her brow sent a surge of arousal burning through him. “I imagine you don’t have to. But you
want
to beg me. Don’t you?”

“This is not professional, Corinne. If you want to be judgmental about it, at least I asked you to come to my house. I didn’t…I didn’t corner you in the office…” It was hard to keep his voice from shuddering at the way she gave him another small head tilt. Her gaze swept him up and down.

“There’s a wet spot on the front of your shorts. Your poor cock. It must ache, it’s so hard.” She kept her voice low, but glanced behind him, over his shoulder, before latching eyes with him again. “You didn’t lock the door.”

“No.”

“Anyone could walk in. And what would they see? That thick, hard cock tenting the front of your shorts. So desperate to get inside my cunt that you’re already almost coming right there.” She curled her fingers upward and let the ruler fall against her palm.

His cock leaped at the sound of that soft thwack. More liquid oozed from the tip, wetting the fabric. “So tell me to lock it, and I’ll put you on the desk, I’ll be inside you in half a minute.”

Her expression went hard. “Absolutely not. You come back into my life after all this time thinking you can be disrespectful? Insulting? That you can use this job as an excuse to somewhat punish me for what happened between us? You will not lock that door. You will not get to taste me, or fuck me again until I decide you deserve it, and you will stand there knowing that at any second someone could come in and see you this way.”

“I will not beg,” he warned her again.

Corinne’s eyes narrowed further. “Hold out your hands. Palms down. Fingers straight.”

He wasn’t going to do it, Reese thought, even as he felt himself obeying. At the first crack of the ruler against his skin, he bit back a grunt—it hurt more than he’d anticipated, but not enough to garner that sort of reaction. It wasn’t the pain. It was the look on her face.

She had never been more beautiful to him than when she was making him hurt.

Again, the ruler cracked down on his knuckles. A schoolboy punishment, fetishistic the way a cane might’ve been, and all the worse for that because of the way his entire body tensed when she raised the ruler again. His balls throbbed. He could see nothing but Corinne. Feel nothing. Hear nothing but her voice.

At the final crack of wood on his skin, the ruler split and broke. One piece fell to the carpet where it bounced. Corinne shook the small stray strands of hair that had fallen into her eyes out of the way and tossed the other part onto the floor too. Reese let his hands close, the knuckles red and sore though he doubted there’d be so much as a bruise to remind him of this even a few minutes from now.

Her blue eyes swam with tears, but her voice was fierce when she said, “You broke me like I just broke that ruler, and you do not get to come back into my life and break me again. Do you understand me, Reese?”

The door wasn’t locked. They were not alone in the office. Anyone could come in at any moment and see them, and Reese didn’t give one good goddamn. He went to his knees in front of her, shoulders bowed. Face pressed to the front of her skirt, so he could breathe in the scent of her.

“Yes,” he told her. “Yes, Ma’am. I understand.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

At the sound of that word, Corinne nearly went to her own knees. Fortunately, all she had to do was reach behind her for the support of the desk. Her ass found the edge. Her fingers curled into the hem of her skirt, sliding it up and over her thighs as Reese pressed forward using one finger to hook her panties to the side.

“No.” She stopped him with a hand in his hair, pulling so hard it must’ve hurt worse than the rapping of his knuckles could have, even though she’d busted that ruler on them.

His lips were so close to her flesh that she could feel his breath, but obediently, Reese didn’t touch her. When Corinne tightened her fingers even more, tipping his face, the dazed look in his eyes took her back to those long ago days when she’d owned him the way she had never owned another man since. She twisted her fingers, watching him wince and his mouth open, but he didn’t mutter so much as a peep of protest.

“I have never had another boy since you. Do you know that?”

Reese closed his eyes. His hands slid along her thighs to rest against the backs of her knees, fingers curled. He shook his head as much as he could, imprisoned in her grip.

“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about that last time we were together, and what I could’ve done differently that might’ve made you want to stay?” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat. “Do you know how often I wished you’d come to the diner that night when I asked you to? I waited for hours, Reese. You never showed. I never heard from you again. And I spent years blaming myself for driving you away because I demanded exactly…this…”

She tugged his hair again, then smoothed it to cup his cheek. He opened his eyes. She ran her thumb over his mouth until he opened for her, and then she tucked it inside so he could bite gently down.

“I have never asked another man to get on his knees for me,” she whispered. “And I have missed you every day. I have longed for you every fucking second of my life. So don’t you fucking dare, don’t you dare think that you can…”

She couldn’t finish, no words to say what she’d spent so many years thinking about. In the beginning, those first horrible hours while she’d waited for him to show, and then in the days after, she’d imagined herself calling him names. Cursing him. She’d imagined telling him to fuck off, to never darken her doorstep.

She drew in a breath. Swallowed hard. “You want me now?”

“I never stopped wanting you,” Reese said in a harsh, strangled voice.

“Beg for it,” Corinne whispered. “Fucking beg me for it.”

Reese pressed his mouth to the inside of her bare thigh. “Please. Please, please, please, let me back inside you.”

In answer, she slipped her panties to the side, giving him access. At that first slow swipe of his tongue, she put one leg over his shoulder. Her head fell back. She cried out, muffling herself by biting her tongue, aware that they were not alone in the office.

She was already coming when he pushed his fingers inside her, fucking along with the steady stroking of his tongue. Her orgasm rocketed through her, leaving her breathless and gasping and blinded with the pleasure.

Blinking, she looked down at him. His wet mouth. Passion-glazed eyes. She traced his lower lip with her forefinger.

A knock came at his closed, but not locked, office door. Sandy said, “Mr. Ebersole? I have a package here that was just delivered. Should I bring it in?”

As far as scandals went, Corinne guessed this would be one that would keep Sandy gossiping for years, but that wasn’t why she pushed herself away from him and tugged her skirt down. It wasn’t like she had to worry about losing her job for fucking the boss—Reese owned the company and the only person she had to answer to was him. But he would be humiliated if the secretary walked in to find him on his knees with a raging erection, his mouth still wet from Corinne’s pussy. He would suffer for this, and that was something Corinne would not allow.

“Get up,” she murmured. “Behind the desk. Now.”

He was already moving as she did at the same time. By the time she got to the door, Corinne had slicked back the stray hairs off her cheeks and forehead and smoothed her clothes. She pulled the door open with a vague smile to find the secretary already reaching for the knob.

“Hi, Sandy. We were just finishing up a finance meeting. I can grab that package, if you want.”

Sandy frowned, leaning to look past Corinne. Whatever she saw must not have been juicy enough to warrant more than a shrug though, because she held up the padded envelope. “Courier brought this from the real estate office.”

Corinne half-turned, already taking the envelope. “I’ll give it to him. We still have some business to go over.”

“I was about to take my lunch, is that okay? Can I bring you anything?”

“I think I’m about to head out, myself,” Corinne replied smoothly, looking finally to see Reese looking nonflustered and completely calm in his desk chair. He’d even managed to grab a few folders and a pen and looked as though he’d been hard at work.

Oh, he was hard all right, she thought and with that, the giggles threatened to overtake her. She bit her tongue hard enough to taste copper. Sandy gave her a glance, but Corinne covered up her impending hilarity with a cough.

“Yeah, me too,” Reese said from behind her. “I’m suddenly dying to eat out. I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”

Sandy gave them both a curious but not suspicious look. “All right, well…if you’re both going out too, I’ll make sure to lock the office.”

Corinne managed to keep herself together long enough to close the door behind the older woman, but then there was no holding back the flurry of half-hysterical laughter that surged up and out of her. Leaning against the door, she let it out, aware that more than a few of the chuckles were sharp-edged and almost sobs. She got herself under control quickly, though, and straightened.

“Bad boy,” she told him. “Bad, bad boy.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Reese had ordered Chinese delivery, and with the door locked, he and Corinne were making a picnic on the floor of his office. He’d grabbed a shower, grateful for whoever’d had the forethought to put a full bathroom in the office. Now, hair still damp but back in his suit, he watched her spread out the cartons of fried rice and chicken lo mein on the tablecloth she’d snagged from the break room.

Corinne handed him a pair of chopsticks and a paper plate she’d already loaded with beef and broccoli from one of the plastic containers. “We have enough food here for ten people.”

“Leftovers. I’m a bachelor, remember? This has to last me the whole week.”

She rolled her eyes and settled back with her legs demurely tucked to the side, a plate of lo mein in her hands. “Still never learned to cook, huh?”

“Nope. Never had to.” Reese took a bite of broccoli.

They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes before Corinne set aside her plate and gave him a serious look. “So.”

Reese swallowed and wiped his mouth, then set his own plate down. “So?”

“We can’t keep doing this…this hate-fucking.”

Ouch
.

“Is that what you think this is?”

“A little, yes,” she told him.

“Do you hate me, Corinne?”

“A little,” she whispered. “And it sure seemed like you hated me.”

“Maybe I did. A little.”

“Why did you come back here, Reese? The truth. Not some story you want to tell me, or tell yourself.” Corinne leaned a little closer. “Why?”

“When I saw the report about how Stein and Sons was a good prospect for a buyout, I didn’t even think twice. I knew I had to make an offer. It was a good excuse to see you again. That’s it.” The truth felt good.

“So…why were you such an unholy bastard about everything?” She still had that familiar head tilt, the one she’d always given him when she was trying to figure him out…or trying to figure out what to do to him.

He didn’t have a good answer for that. “I’ve spent a lot of years forcing myself to forget or push aside the memories of how we were together. Until I saw you again…”