“From everything I was able to find out about Stein and Sons, you’re looking at the total dissolution of the business before the end of the year, unless things change,” he said.
“Which is why you think you can sneak in with that horrible offer, right? I read the terms. You’re not obligated to keep any of the existing board, staff, or employees. So what does that mean? You’re going to come in and fire us all?”
He’d done it in the past, when it made sense for the business, but he’d only put those terms in there this time to make it less likely the board would approve the sale. “I’d do what was best for the acquisition.”
“You’d do what was best for yourself,” she said in a low voice. “Whatever you needed to do for you.”
He scowled. “You’re not being fair.”
“Something tells me this isn’t about being fair.”
“Corinne…”
“I cannot in good conscience suggest to my board that they take your offer, Reese. But they’re desperate. So they’ll probably take it anyway. You’re going to come in and rip it to shreds, put them out of business. Put people out of their jobs, and what do you expect them to do? There aren’t a lot of positions for goat cheese artisans around. And what about me? I’ve been with Stein and Sons for my entire career. Did you think about that? How I might need my job to support myself? My kids?” She took a slow, shuddery breath. “I have two children. They’re my life.”
“You can find another job. You don’t make goat cheese.”
“Sure, because finding a new position that pays me what I’m paid, with my benefits, my flexible hours, yes, that’s so easy at my age. Starting over.” Her lip curled slightly. “Says the man with the yacht.”
“I don’t have a yacht,” Reese told her quietly.
“No, because you get seasick,” she shot back at him.
It was true. She remembered. The words hung between them, somehow accusatory.
He wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to hate her.
He wanted to save her.
“I’ll see you at the meeting on Monday,” he told her, and left her sitting alone in the diner booth.
Chapter Nine
Before
It’s been a long, lazy day of nothing but bed and tea and kissing. They’d gone to bed with the dawn and slept for some hours before Reese woke her with the stroking of his fingers between her legs, finding her clit with that same unerring precision he always did. He’d given her an orgasm, and they’d fallen back to sleep.
Now he’s on his back, one arm above his head, his face turned from her. Corinne had woken a few minutes before and gone to the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth, to generally freshen up a little. She creeps back into the bedroom to stand next to him, looking down at his peaceful, sleeping face. His lips are parted, a soft puff of breath escaping every so often. His brow furrows, eyes moving behind his closed lids.
Dreaming.
Of her? she wonders. Certainly she dreams of him sometimes, mostly when they aren’t together but sometimes even as he sleeps beside her. They’ve been doing that more and more over the past few weeks. He hasn’t quite moved in with her, not yet, but he might as well have. He’s had another falling out with his father that she hasn’t wanted to ask too much about, waiting for him to tell her on his own, but she knows it has to do with Reese quitting the farm.
She can imagine how disappointing it must be for his dad to find out his only son doesn’t want to continue with the family business, and how hard it will be on the farm’s operating budget to replace Reese with higher paid labor. She knows it’s been hard on her boy, who has been looking for a job to replace the farm work, without much success. They’ve spoken of college—he wants to continue past the two-year business degree he already has. He needs money for a place to live, a car, food. School is not the priority.
She could ask him to move in with her, she thinks. Two could live as cheap as one, as the saying goes. She’s already covering the rent on this apartment and all her expenses with the waitressing. She’s eight months away from finishing her degree and already has a couple of job offers lined up for her. Accounting is far from what she’d dreamed about spending her life doing, but it will be better than the late night shift at the diner, long-term.
Besides, she thinks fondly, her boy will make her life easier, even if he can’t contribute financially right off. When he isn’t job hunting, he can mop the floors and clean the toilets and cook for her, she thinks with a small shiver of delight, imagining him at those domestic chores wearing only a pair of lace panties and a blush—he hates when she orders him to wear panties, but he loves that he hates it. Oh, Corinne thinks with another slow, rolling shiver, he will do her laundry. All of it, washing and drying and folding.
Reese shifts in his sleep, the sheet slipping down to reveal the firm muscles of his bare belly and the fine line of dark hair disappearing below the edge of the fabric. With a small, careful tug, Corinne pulls the sheet farther down to reveal the sweetly sleeping head of his cock, half-hard. He takes a slow sip of breath, but doesn’t wake.
He is so fucking beautiful.
Slate-blue eyes he likes to line with black, thick dark hair to match. His body is lean and tight from working on the farm. Before Reese, there’d been more than a few guys. High school, college, then after. She has five years on him, after all. It bothers him, she thinks sometimes, that she’s had men before him, and he’s had only a girl here or there. Nothing like what he and Corinne share. She could tell him forever that it’s different with him, but she’s not sure how to convince him. Reese knows he’s attractive because he’s been pretty his whole life, but Corinne still reminds him. It’s important to her. Making him believe it.
Once, years ago, her parents had given her a five-thousand-piece puzzle that had been nothing but black with a single crimson cherry in one corner. It took her the entire Christmas break to finish the puzzle, hours spent searching through the identical pieces to create the picture—until at last, at the end, she’d been able to fit that red cherry into the final, empty space.
In her life, Reese is the cherry.
They found their way to each other and managed to discover the rarity of two people whose darkest desires aligned. They don’t talk much about the things they do that set them apart from other couples. For Corinne, Reese’s innate desire to serve and please her came not as a surprise, but as a relief. He doesn’t call her a bossy bitch or promise to give her whatever she wants, so long as whatever she wants is what he feels like giving her. She asks. He provides. It makes the sex smoking hot and kinky as fuck.
It’s work too. If he’s going to trust her to make the best decisions for him, she has to be willing and able to do that. It’s a big responsibility that has nothing to do with fucking. Some days, Corinne is overwhelmed with the honor of her boy’s belief in her; that she will always know best. It has made her realize how selfish she’s been in the past. How much being with him has changed her.
When she pulls the sheet entirely off him, he stirs. His cock thickens, growing against his thigh so the head nudges his belly. Sometimes she wakes him by sliding up his body to straddle his face, letting her pussy tickle his lips until he moves, hungry and feasting on her. Today, though, seeing his cock rising awakens a different desire inside her.
Corinne moves onto the bed between Reese’s legs, letting her hands run up the insides of his thighs to push them apart. His muffled gasp of surprise make her giggle against his skin as she runs her tongue along his secret inner flesh. He writhes, hips thrusting automatically, but her murmured command stills him.
She loses herself in his scent and warmth and the way his muscles tense and release beneath the tracing tip of her tongue. When she adds a light scratch of her fingernails, he writhes again. This time, she sits up.
Her nails dig deep, pinching tender flesh. This only makes him arch harder, into the pain. Not away from it. This is where Corinne finds her pleasure. Not solely in t
he causing of agony, but in knowing that she’s turning him on.
“I told you to stay still.”
“Sorry…”
She decreases the pressure of her fingernails in his skin, then runs the tips of her fingers over the marks she left. Reese shudders. Kneeling between his legs, Corinne pushes his thighs apart, wider and back so his knees bend. Reese makes a noise of protest, shifting to look at her with pleading eyes but an open mouth, lips glistening from his tongue.
“No?” she asks calmly, though her voice dips lower, rasping. “I was thinking of getting ready for work. I could just go do that—”
“No!” His gaze catches hers for a second before his head falls back against the pillows. His hands fist on the bottom sheet.
He opens himself to her.
Fuck, that’s it. Right there. His obedience, especially with that tiniest hint of reluctance, totally flips her switch. She shakes inside with it, that power over him.
Her fingertips tickle him. She watches the muscles in his belly leap. Watches him swallow, hard, as his head tips back, exposing the line of his throat to her. His chest hitches with a half-strangled breath. When she pushes his knees back farther, exposing more of him to her, Reese lets out another small, muttered noise, this time not of protest but of utter, complete acquiescence.
Corinne bends back to loving him with her mouth and tongue and the press of her teeth on the marks she already left. She nuzzles him, her hair brushing his balls. She can feel the heat of him on her cheek. Eyes closed, she presses harder, teeth nipping. Her hands slip beneath his butt cheeks, her thumbs pressing the twin trigger points in the hollows framing his asshole.
The first time she’d ventured into touching him there, Reese had jerked himself away from her touch, closing himself off so fast she’d barely had time to taste him. He’d laughed nervously, twisting to roll her beneath him. Putting her in the “right” place, she’d thought at the time, and had let him do it, because they’d been brand new and still learning each other. Even now months later, he hasn’t fully embraced how much he loves it.
Now, waiting for him to go still again, Corinne simply breathes on him. She lets the hot tickle of air tease him. His thigh muscles have gone rock hard, and so has his cock. Neither of them moves for an eternity, until at last she lets just the tiny, pointed tip of her tongue flick him.
She doesn’t laugh when he cries out, though his reaction fills her with an overwhelming delight. She doesn’t moan, either, though she wants to. Instead, she gives herself up to loving him with her mouth again. Soft kisses, tender swipes of her tongue. No teeth this time, though her nails dig lightly into the meat of his butt. She doesn’t scold him when his hips move. Knowing he can’t keep himself from moving pushes her own hips down, grinding her clit against the bed.
Reese has spent hours worshipping her pussy, and Corinne gives him the same attention and adoration now. She runs her tongue up along the seam of his balls to the base of his shaft, adding the pressure of her fingertip on his asshole without dipping inside. Her hair falls across her face, brushing his skin. She’s on her knees, one hand on his thigh, the other between his legs, so turned on she doesn’t even need to touch her clit to start the delirious, building pressure of orgasm.
Clear fluid drips from the slit of his cock, stretching from the head in a thin strand to puddle on his belly. Her head spins at the sight of it, that clear and evident proof of his arousal. His helpless reaction to everything she’s doing. It’s a flame set to the gasoline pool of her desire, igniting her.
“I fucking love it when you leak for me,” she whispers.
Reese laughs softly and looks up at her. “I can’t help it.”
“That’s why I love it so much,” Corinne tells him.
Looking into his eyes, she swipes through the slickness on his skin, then presses those fingers a little deeper inside him. He’s already wet from her tongue, but lubed this way she slips in easier, a little faster even than she’d intended. Reese mutters and grips her wrist.
“Hush,” she whispers, not moving, giving him time to adjust.
He’s not holding on to her to keep her from pushing inside, though. He’s urging her to go deeper. Still kneeling between his legs, one hand on his shaft and stroking, Corinne eases her fingers inside his heat. Twisting her wrist, she curls slightly upward, pressing.
His cock leaps in her grip. His fingers bunch the sheet, tugging it free at the corners. A series of small, desperate moans slip out of him, along with a single word.
“Please.”
“Please what, puppy?”
“Please…fuck me.”
Who could ever understand this? she thinks. How much she loves when he begs her that way, how tender it makes her feel toward him. How much pleasure she gets from making him feel so good.
Her fingers curl again, a come-here gesture inside him. She strokes his cock, making sure to palm the head and coat him in slickness. Then she grips him firmly just under the head, jacking him without moving up and down along his length, avoiding the sensitive tip. He’s so stiff she can feel the rush of his heartbeat beneath his shaft’s thin skin.
“I’m so wet for you right now, it’s dripping down my thighs,” Corinne says.
Reese moans, hips thrusting a couple times before he stops, obviously remembering she’s told him not to move. “I want to taste you…”
“I thought you wanted me to fuck you.”
He laughs, breathless. “Yes, that too.”
“Like this?” Her fingers curl, pressing, and she moves them in and out. His reply is a garbled mutter she has to take as affirmation. She laughs too, and the sound stutters out of her throat, also a little choked with emotion. “You are so fucking beautiful, Reese.”
He’d argued with her the first few times she’d told him that, but he knows better, now. “Thank you, Ma’am.”
Corinne lets her hand stroke up and over the head of his cock. “My good boy.”
At the words, his cock throbs, and more precome oozes out of him. Her clit pulses, her hips rocking forward as she clenches internally. She’s so turned on that time seems to slow, everything surrounded in a glow.
There is something she’s been thinking about for some time now but had not yet brought up to him. They’d fallen into this relationship without really talking about the things they both liked, finding their way together with one small reveal at a time. No whips, no chains, nothing that draws blood. Nothing like the things she’s read about in the few books she bought online, the ones that say you need contracts and safe words and aftercare. Their negotiations have been informal, a mutual give and take. They’re doing it wrong, according to anything she’s ever read, although everything they’ve ever done has only felt right.
Withdrawing her touch, she moves up his body to straddle him. She lets her hands stroke down his arms to circle his wrists, bring them up next to his shoulders, an act he gives in to without resistance. She kisses his mouth.
“Reese…”
“Yeah?”
“I want to fuck you,” Corinne whispers into his ear.
He turns his head slightly so his lips brush her cheek. “Yes, please.”
“I want to really fuck you.”
He says nothing for a second. Neither of them move. His erection, trapped between her ass and his belly, pulses. She can slide down an inch or so and take him inside her. She’s so wet he will slip in without friction. But that isn’t what she wants, and she thinks he knows it.
“…How?” he asks, finally.
She presses her face to the side of his neck. She rocks a little on his dick, moving so her pussy enfolds him, though he is still not inside her. “I have something.”
Corinne had bought her first vibrator at age twenty-one from the back room in the cheesy adult video store that featured LIVE GIRLS DANCING (which, she presumed, was way better than dead ones). She’d worn her share of sexy lingerie. She’d even gone to a couple of those home “toy” parties hosted by her giggling
friends who’d shrieked and covered their faces at the sight of anything remotely off-center. Even so, nothing had prepared her for the wealth of choices. She’d gone online to look for what she wanted, and finally found it after wading through pages of reviews and descriptions that had by turns thrilled and confused her. Her purchase had arrived in a discreet brown package, bigger than she’d thought it would be. She’d tried it on a few times, feeling ridiculous. Will I feel silly in front of him, she thinks suddenly, knowing this desperate desire inside her is going to urge her toward taking the chance of looking foolish.
This thing she wants, this thing she’s been dreaming about for a long time even before she knew it was actually possible…if she can’t ask it of Reese, she can’t imagine who she’ll ever be able to ask it of.
His hand strokes down the back of her hair. “What kind of something?”
She pushes upward to look at his face. “I can show you.”
Most of the time she can read Reese’s face as easily as though he has a ticker tape describing his thoughts scrolling over his forehead. Not right now. His gaze has gone shuttered, expression beyond neutral. Blank.
Then his brow furrows. His lips press together. He gives a single, sharp nod.
“Show me.”
She isn’t certain her legs will hold her when she gets up from the bed and goes to the closet, where she’d put the box on the top shelf so it could stare at her and mock every time she pushed it to the side to get at her stack of winter sweaters. Everything about her feels numb, so that she might stumble on unfeeling toes. She can feel him watching her as she walks the few short steps. Watching the way her body moves as she pushes up on her tiptoes to pull down the box. She knows he loves the way her hair hangs down just above the dimples at the small of her back, and normally she’d have swung her hips to give him a little extra show, but now all she can manage is to keep herself steady as she turns, box in hand.
Reese has pushed up, sitting. His cock hasn’t softened. If anything, the anticipation has seemed to make him impossibly harder, thicker. It’s started to flush that telltale dark red she’s learned to recognize and crave.