Amber had accused him of it. So had more than one of the women who’d come before her. None of them had lasted very long. He’d been cruel, Reese could admit, if only in his lack of attention, his sometimes deliberate refusal to give his lovers what he knew they wanted.
Throughout the years, Reese had placed a lot of blame for the past on other people. His father for being unbending and close-minded. His mother for not defending him. Corinne for not giving him a second chance, though even at the time he’d known he didn’t deserve one, not after the way he’d behaved. He’d blamed lovers for walking away when he’d been the one who forced them to go. And in all this time, he’d never stopped thinking about her and the mess he’d made because he’d been too focused on himself. He had let her down, and every success he’d had since then had been somehow hollow. The question was, Reese thought, was he going to have a chance to make things right with her? Was that what he wanted?
Or maybe the real question was, how could he have ever wanted anything else?
Chapter Sixteen
Before
Reese has never been so content as when he’s on his knees for her. Waiting. Ready to do whatever it is his queen desires.
Right now, on his knees with his hands crossed at the wrist behind his back, all he can think about is tasting her. She’s been teasing him for an hour with the promise of her beautiful pussy. His cock is so hard it’s dripping, slick with precome that Corinne has cooed over, swiping her finger along it to lick right in front of him while he throbs.
They’re due to be at his parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner in three hours.
Corinne, wearing only a pair of tiny black lace panties, is fixing her hair in front of the mirror on the dresser. She glances at him in the reflection and gives him that slow, somehow secret smile that is just for him. She smoothes a curl and tucks it into place, then turns to lean against the dresser.
When she parts her legs and slips a fingertip over the front of her panties, Reese groans. “Please…”
Corinne laughs and leans to take his face in her hands. She kisses his mouth, but when he uncrosses his arms from behind his back to grip her hips, her fingers tighten on his jaw. Hard.
“Behave,” she whispers. “I told you not to move.”
Standing, she can easily press her pussy to his eager, waiting mouth. He breathes her in through the lace, but he does not move again. With a murmur of approval, Corinne at last pulls her panties to the side and lets him lap at her heat. The taste of her has his hips bucking forward, and this time, she slaps his face lightly as she pulls her body away from his questing tongue.
“Bad boy,” she says. The slap wasn’t hard enough even to sting, but her disapproval does.
Again, she takes his face into her hands, this time to look deeply into his eyes. Her kiss feathers over his lips. Reese shakes with the effort of not moving to take her in his arms, to pull her against his face. To push her onto her back right there on the bare bedroom floor and fuck her hard enough to wipe that smile off her face.
“You hate it when I slap you,” she whispers. Her tongue flicks against his lips before she takes the lower one between his teeth and bites, stretching the tender flesh just hard enough to hurt before she lets go and soothes his skin with another kiss. “But you love it too. You want to get me on my hands and knees right now, don’t you? Put me in my place with that thick, pretty cock in my cunt. Don’t you?”
“Yes…”
Another slap, this one harder, turning his face.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” The words come out with a bit of a snarl that makes her laugh, and she’s right. He does hate it when she slaps him, even though he fucking loves it at the same time because he likes the pain. He likes that when she hits him, her nipples get hard and her eyes glaze.
“I like to hurt you,” Corinne breathes into his ear as her hand slides into his hair and pulls. Her shin goes between his legs, pressing his erection against his belly. “I love it. I love the sounds you make, Reese. I love how hard your cock gets, I love how you leak for me, I love it when you can’t hold yourself back any longer, but I love how hard you try because you know I want you to last.”
She pulls his hair harder, tipping his head so she can get at his mouth. His knees hurt. His hands sting from how hard he’s making fists to keep himself from grabbing her. His cock aches, his balls heavy and tender.
“I love you,” Corinne says into his mouth.
He sighs. “I love you too.”
To his surprise, Corinne gets on her knees in front of him. Once more, she takes his face in her hands. “I’m nervous about meeting your parents.”
She has not told him that he can move, but he takes the chance of disappointing her to take her in his arms anyway, because she needs his comfort more than he needs to avoid disobedience. Because this is part of how they work; he needs to know when it’s all right to break out of the game to give her what she needs.
“Why?” He nuzzles her throat, pulling her close as she buries her face against him.
“Well…it’s a big deal, right? Big family dinner. I know you and your dad haven’t been getting along—”
“That’s not because of you.”
“It’s partially because of me,” she says. “Because you’ve moved in with me, left the farm. I know he blames me a little bit for turning your head.”
“My dad doesn’t know anything about me. I wanted to leave the farm long before I met you, Corinne.”
She snuggles against him and they shift so he can sit instead of kneeling. His knees cry hallelujah. His cock, on the other hand, is still tortured when she cuddles herself into his lap.
“I want them to like me, I guess. That’s all.”
“They’ll like you.” He’s not actually certain of that, but it’s a small lie.
She looks at him, not convinced. “Uh-huh.”
“I love you. If they don’t…well.” He shrugs.
She kisses him lightly on the mouth. “I want to fill your ass with that new toy I bought you, so that when I look at you across the dinner table, I’ll know you might be talking and eating and laughing, but you’re totally going to be thinking about me fucking you when we get home.”
He’ll be thinking about that anyway, and she knows it. The thought of that—the heavy rubber toy stretching and filling him while he has to face his family…it’s too much. His cock leaps, another trickle of clear fluid sliding from the tip, but his expression must show his concern because Corinne frowns.
“No?”
“Please, no.” He won’t be able to deal with it. Not in front of his father.
“Puppy, if I want you to wear that toy for me, you will. If I want to put a collar and a leash on you and parade you through the living room on your knees, you’ll do that too.” Her voice has gone stern and cold for a second, her gaze assessing him before she softens. Another kiss, this one lingering. She caresses his hair, petting. Her ass rocks against his cock, teasing. “But I won’t ask you to.”
Reese presses his face to the warmth of her throat, his eyes closed. “I can’t. I want to be able to, but I just can’t.”
She puts her arms around him, holding him even though she’s still sitting on his lap. They rock a little bit. She hums some soothing noises into his ear.
“I might ask you to do things you think you can’t do, or things you think you don’t want to do,” she says against his skin. “But I won’t ask you to do what you absolutely can’t do.”
He’s relieved, but also disappointed. “I’m sorry.”
“Hush.” She pulls away to look into his face. “Don’t be sorry. All of this, everything we do…it’s no good for me if it’s not good for you, too. If you don’t want it and love it—”
“I do. I do love it and want it.”
“I know.” She smiles, though her brow’s still a little furrowed.
He shifts to move her weight a little on his lap. “I’ll be thinking about you fucki
ng me no matter what I’m wearing.”
“I know that too.” In a smooth motion, she turns and straddles him, taking his cock deep inside her so fast he cries out. Her hand goes over his mouth. The other goes behind his neck to cup him.
Corinne begins to ride him. Her pussy, hot and slick, grips his cock until he can’t stand it, or he doesn’t think he can, and then she slows. Stops. Squeezes him with internal muscles without moving. Her hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.
Then somehow, they’ve rolled and he’s on top of her, fucking hard and deep and fast. Her knees come up to grip his sides. Her nails rake his back, then down to score his ass with stripes of pain that only urge him on. They kiss, bruising each other and then pulling back. Softer. Slower. He doesn’t want to come until she does, and she needs more than this slamming.
Reese pushes himself up on one arm to use the other hand between them. Corinne arches into the touch with a low, urgent cry. Again, her body tightens on his, and he’s close, so close, but he keeps himself from going over by concentrating on her. He pinches her clit lightly between his thumb and forefinger, thrusting so slowly now he’s almost not moving at all.
Corinne is always beautiful to him, but when she orgasms, she is transformed. Sweat glistens on her upper lip as her body tenses. She is lost in the pleasure, and Reese loses himself in watching her. She cries out his name. Her pussy pulses, milking him, and he can’t hold back any longer. They finish together. When he can focus his vision again, he looks down at her.
She’s smiling, but she puts on a stern tone. “Now I’m going to have to shower all over again. We’re going to be late to dinner.”
“It was worth it.”
Corinne laughs and pulls him down to kiss her mouth. “Always. With you, it’s always worth it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Corinne would be damned if she let Reese Ebersole see for even one second how much his presence in the office rattled her. She wasn’t used to answering to anyone higher up when it came to daily office dealings—Lynn and the others had rarely been present in the office except for the board meetings, and Corinne had been left to do her job as she saw fit. Reese had made it overtly clear that the only reason he was settled into the formerly vacant office next to hers was because he needed to keep a close and personal eye on how things were going with the changes he’d put into place. He was checking up on her, and it rankled. Well, she wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of knowing how much she despised his hourly pings to her instant message requesting random information. She would never let on that every time he called her into his office, she wanted to tell him to go fuck himself.
She would never show that each time she met his gaze, all she could think about was telling him to get on his knees in front of her and eat her pussy like it was her birthday.
That’s what she’d told herself this morning as she’d dressed carefully in a charcoal pencil skirt paired with a stark white blouse that tied with a bow at the throat. Her hair in a tight French twist. Pearl earrings. Shit, the only thing that saved this outfit from being a parody was that she refused to wear tottering stilettos and had instead slipped into a pair of cute, hot pink kitten heels with a pointed toe. She looked fucking amazing, though, she thought as she poured herself a mug of coffee in the break room, and if looking good was like putting on armor, Corinne had been battle ready for the entire week.
“Corinne. I need to see you in my office.”
Her back straightened, but she didn’t turn to even offer him a glance. She continued stirring sugar and cream into her coffee. “Sure.”
“Oh, and bring me a cup while you’re at it, would you? Black.”
Oh.
No.
He.
Did.
Not.
But he had, yes he had, and it actually made her want to laugh. Not with humor, exactly, but a thickly bubbling near-hysteria that would’ve totally wrecked her calm demeanor if she let loose so much as a single chuckle. She hadn’t turned. He hadn’t left the break room. She could feel him watching her.
Waiting.
Well, Reese could wait until an angel and the devil did the do-si-do, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of getting a rise out of her.
“No problem,” she answered smoothly, still without turning more than her head, ever so slightly. “Be right there.”
She waited until she heard him leave because she couldn’t trust herself to keep her hands from shaking as she poured the coffee. Some of it still sloshed over the rim. She wiped it carefully with a napkin and carried both mugs into his office. Even more carefully, she set his in front of him so that not a drop splashed.
She didn’t sit.
“The financials from last quarter,” Reese began, then paused.
Corinne said nothing.
“They’re in good shape.”
“Well,” she said, “I’d expect them to be. You did have me redo them in the new program you prefer.”
Never mind that Stein and Sons had been using the same software for the past five years, a program she’d personally picked out because it was easy to use and had all the functions she needed. The program Reese was insisting they switch to was glitchy and far less user-friendly. If he was making busywork for her, he was going to be disappointed to discover that she wasn’t going to complain, at least not to him.
When he didn’t say anything else, didn’t even sip the coffee he’d asked her to serve him, Corinne tilted her head. “Is there something else?”
“No,” Reese answered in a tone that sounded more like yes.
She didn’t wait for him to add anything. She left his office and went into her own, firmly shutting and locking the door so he couldn’t burst in on her. Not that he would, she reminded herself. He would simply message her and expect her to drop everything and run in to service him.
She would do it too, Corinne thought with a curl of her lip. In that moment she couldn’t tell whom she hated more. Reese for putting her through this rigamarole, or herself for letting him.
Chapter Eighteen
Before
Thanksgiving at his parents’ house is always a good time. Food, music, laughter. Games of cards spread out on the dining room table with plates of pie and mugs of coffee. Reese’s family is enormous and they all gather in the old farmhouse every year.
He’s never brought a girl home before, and everyone notices but nobody gives him a hard time. Well, not too much. They all like Corinne, of course they do. There’s nothing about her that isn’t easy to like.
Corinne’s camped out on the sofa with one of Reese’s cousins, looking at the photo album from her recent wedding. Reese has brought Corinne a mug of coffee and a piece of pie.
“No,” she says, offhandedly, “not pumpkin.”
It’s not a chastisement or anything. Not even a command. He’s so used to her gentle corrections that it doesn’t even seem strange to him that he takes the plate of pumpkin pie back to the kitchen and returns with a slice of apple that she takes from him, her face tipped up so he can kiss her before she goes back to looking at the pictures.
It feels natural to take a place on the floor at her feet, especially since with all the guests in the overfull living room, seating is at a premium. And Reese is content to lean with his back against her legs, her fingers every so often brushing the back of his neck. When she hands him her empty mug, he takes it without question to the kitchen for a refill.
His father has been watching him, apparently. At the counter as Reese fills Corinne’s mug, his father takes a seat at the kitchen table. He gestures to Reese’s mother for her to cut him a piece of pie, even though the tins are directly in front of him, and she has to come around the table with a plate to do it.
“Sit,” his father says. His mother flees the kitchen.
“I have to take—”
“She’ll wait,” his father says. “Sit down.”
Reese sits, wary. He and Dad haven’t been getting along for a long
time, but he’d thought that at Thanksgiving there’d be peace, at least for the night. “Yeah?”
“How’s it going? Living with her.”
“Good. It’s all good.” Reese turns the mug in his hands.
“You find a job yet?” Dad digs into the pie with his fork, chewing steadily without looking away from Reese’s face.
“Not yet. I’m looking into some bank loans for school, though. And I have a lead on some part-time work.”
“You’re living off her? She supports you?”
Reese frowns. “Well…yeah, I mean…I’m going to get work, Dad.”
“But until then, you’re the housewife?” His father’s disgust is clear in his tone.
Reese goes cold inside. Then hot. His throat and cheeks burn, but he keeps his voice steady when he answers, “I take care of things around the house, yeah. Corinne goes to school and works.”
“Pussy.” Pie flecks his father’s lips and clusters in the corners of his mouth.
Reese looks away. “Don’t.”
“She has you trotting to and fro, bringing her coffee and pie? What else does she have you doing? Folding her panties?”
“Sometimes wearing them,” Reese replies, voice cold and hard and sounding somehow distant, even to himself.
He means to be shocking. To stun and hurt his father. It appears to have worked, because Dad’s mouth works, but nothing comes out.
“I thought you’d just be happy I’m not gay.” Reese wants to get up from the table. He wants to take Corinne’s coffee to her and sit there while his family laughs and talks; he wants to play a killer game of Spoons and then have another piece of pie. He wants to go home with the woman he loves and sleep beside her and wake up in the morning, and if she asks him to do a load of laundry, he’ll do it. He’ll do whatever she asks. “I don’t expect you to understand. But, Dad, it’s not your business.”