Beg for It

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 o
f 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…”

  “And you wanted to see me again.”

  “Yes. More than that, I wanted you to see me.” He cleared his throat, wishing it was as easy now as it had been back then to give up to her. “I wanted to show you that I’d been right to leave. If I’d stayed in Lancaster, I would never have become what I am today.”

  Corinne tilted her head to look him over. “You wanted to prove that I’d been wrong to ask you to stay.”

  “I wanted you to see how wrong you’d been not to want to come with me,” he said.

  “Because now you have money and power,” Corinne replied quietly. “As though any of that ever mattered to me.”

  She’d always been able to read him. Hearing her say it shamed him, but he lifted his chin anyway, not wanting to show it. Her smile struck him right between the eyes.

  She shrugged. “You wanted to show me up and prove a point by coming back here, and you also wanted to show me up and prove a point by making me run those ridiculous reports. Well, are you happy about it now? Do you think you got what you wanted? I am impressed, by the way, with everything you’ve accomplished. But I always knew you would make something of yourself. Even if you didn’t think I did, I always knew.”

  As a younger man, he’d taken a lot of comfort from relying on her to guide him. His indiscretions had been minor. Her disciplines as much a game as anything they’d done. He didn’t forget, though, how it had felt to trust her, to know that whatever she was asking of him, he would be able to provide. He’d learned not to need that guidance from someone else, but he’d never forgotten how it had felt to have it.

  “This is stupid,” Reese complains. Pen in his hand. Paper in front of him.

  Corinne has demanded he write lines.

  “You’re a procrastinator,” she tells him calmly from her place at the kitchen sink where she’s peeling potatoes for dinner, a job he was supposed to do but had left so long that she’d lost her patience with him. “If I ask you to do something, I need to know you’ll do it. If you tell someone you’re going to, you need to make sure you do. What good is your word if you don’t keep it?”

  He writes the first line, I will not leave my chores undone.

  “Writing lines isn’t going to make a difference, Corinne.”

  “No, edging your cock won’t make a difference in this, because you like that,” comes the retort. She turns, peeler in hand. “After the two hundredth line, when your hand is cramping and you’re sure you can’t do another one, maybe you’ll remember the next time to keep your word.”

  “This is ridiculous!” He writes another line.

  She laughs. “Yes, it is.”

  He does it anyway. When he has finished, she rubs his sore hand with warm oil and blows him, off and on, for an hour or so. That is a different sort of punishment and torture, but it is not discipline.

  They both know the difference.

  “Did you?” Corinne asked again. “Get what you wanted?”

  He cleared his throat and looked at the desk, then back at her, amused to see that she was blushing a little. “Yes.”

  “It’s been a very long time since I did anything like that. Actually, I’ve never done anything like that.” She smoothed her skirt over her knees.

  They stared at each other for a few minutes in silence, but it wasn’t awkward. If anything, sitting quietly in her presence reminded him strongly of when they’d been together, when they’d needed no words. When simply being with each other was enough.

  “The night you came to my house…”

  She smiled. “Yeah?”

  “Did you mean what you said?”

  Corinne looked scared for a moment. Then slowly, she nodded. “Yes. I did. Everything. Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked down for a second, and when she looked up, the smile was back, this time with a glimmer of tears in her gaze. “Things are not the same as they were back then. I’m not the same person.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to be.”

  “You,” she said firmly, “are not the same person.”

  “I hope not.” Reese inched a bit closer, not reaching for her, though he wanted to.

  Corinne cleared her throat. “You were very clear when we met in the restaurant that first day to talk about the offer. You are not my boy.”

  “I was being a dick—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “No. You were right. You are not my boy, and I don’t want you to be.”

  His stomach twisted. Shit. All this, and he’d made an ass of himself for nothing. He could buy and sell a company, but he couldn’t buy or sell her.

  “I don’t want a boy,” Corinne continued. “I want a man. Someone strong. Capable. Mature. Willing to be a partner. I have a life and responsibilities and children now. They’re my priority. And as much as I love fucking you, I have to put my kids first.”

  “I understand.” He did reach for her hand this time, linking her fingers in his. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “So if you just want to fuck around—”

  Reese shook his head. “No, Corinne.”

  She cleared her throat. Then nodded once, carefully. Her fingers tightened around his. “We have to set some ground rules.”

  He leaned to offer his mouth to hers, waiting for her to take it. “I love ground rules.”

  “Mmmm.” She brushed his lips with hers, not pulling away but not letting the kiss deepen, either. When he tugged her hand, she moved onto his lap, her skirt too tight to allow
her to straddle him, so she sat sideways. “I think the first rule should be, no fooling around at work.”

  “That’s a terrible rule.”

  When she took his lower lip between her teeth, nipping, Reese groaned, already getting hard again. His balls still ached from unreleased arousal.

  She didn’t let go. The sting increased, though she stopped just before it would’ve become actual pain. She knew him. After all this time, she still knew him.

  Her tongue flicked over the sore spot. “Are you going to argue with me about everything?”

  “Not about everything. No.”

  She laughed with a hitch in her voice and put her arms around him to tuck her face against the side of his neck. She spoke into his ear, soft feathering brushes of her lips on his skin making him shiver. “I’d like to do it right this time around.”

  He hesitated, then pushed her back enough so he could look at her face. Reese brushed a strand of hair off her face. “What was so wrong about how we were, before?”

  “Obviously something, since we broke up.” She shifted on his lap, easing the pressure on his growing erection.

  He nuzzled her neck, loving the way it made her sigh and arch to give him better access. “You think we need something more formal? A…hell, a contract or something?”

  She laughed again, this time pushing him away to get a good look at his face. “Oh, my. That sounds formal.”

  “People do it. They lay it all out, get it notarized, the works.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Get out of here. That serious?”

  “They do. It’s usually a master/slave sort of thing, laying out the exact details and responsibilities…” He broke off at the sight of her expression. “What? No?”

  “I thought that was something in books. Not for real life.”

  “One of the businesses I own is a travel company that caters to people in the lifestyle, planning vacations that incorporate kink.” Reese shrugged. “There are lots of things in books that really happen.”

  “Pony stables?” Corinne whispered, looking both gleeful and horrified.

  Reese snorted laughter, surprised she knew about stuff like that but realizing he shouldn’t be. “Oh, yeah. For sure.”