Beg for It Read online

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know,” she said.

  Reese sighed. “The first woman was a casual lover who’d expressed interest. She was more into the Daddy dynamic, which didn’t do anything for me at all. We didn’t see each other again after that trip, nothing nasty about it. We just didn’t bother with each other.”

  “And the second?”

  “Her name was Amber. We dated for about eight months.”

  “Why did you break up?”

  Reese sighed. “She found someone with a bigger bank account.”

  “No small feat, I take it.” Corinne laughed. “But before that, you took her on the kinky sex vacation.”

  “She wheedled her way into coming with me. She liked to be put on display. Paraded around. She was very proud of her body. She liked to be called a slut.”

  Corinne puffed out a breath he could feel on his face. “Oh, my.”

  “I didn’t think she was a slut,” Reese said. “What she wanted to do with her body was her own business.”

  “What else?” He could hear the approval in her voice, but he didn’t open his eyes.

  He nudged against her stroking hand until she started up again. “When she got…unruly…I disciplined her.”

  “How?”

  “I made her write lines,” Reese said after a moment, holding back a laugh. “She didn’t like it.”

  “Did you like it?”

  He didn’t open his eyes. “I didn’t hate it— Ouch!”

  She’d dug her nails into his scalp. “Don’t smart mouth me.”

  Corinne didn’t sound angry, only firm and a little amused, but the tone of her voice…fuck, it made his cock twitch. It always had. He looked up at her.

  “I felt disconnected from it,” Reese said.

  Her brow furrowed. Then she nodded. “Yes. I understand.”

  He smiled and closed his eyes again. “The whole point of the company is for kinky people to be able to visit these places that have everything set up for them to get their kink on. It was very much a scene thing. Lots of ritual and stuff. Very gothic. Naked people eating from dog bowls, that sort of thing. Amber got off on it. I didn’t.”

  “Wow. That sounds intense.”

  He looked at her. “I could take you. If you want.”

  “Just because I call you ‘puppy’ sometimes doesn’t mean I want you to eat from a dog bowl off the floor, honey.”

  “I could take you somewhere else. Anywhere you wanted to go.”

  She gave him another of those thoughtful looks. “You really got used to having money, huh?”

  “It’s better than not having money.”

  She laughed. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “I couldn’t take care of you back then,” Reese said. “I know it was a problem.”

  Again, that thoughtful, contemplative look. “We had a bunch of problems, back then.”

  “We had a lot of good things too, Corinne.”

  “Yes. We did.” She smiled, then said, “I said I would bring you a list of rules.”

  He nodded, thinking he should sit up, but not moving. Her fingers stroked through his hair, her nails scratching lightly on his scalp. “Yes.”

  “It’s a short list,” she told him.

  Reese closed his eyes, smiling. “Okay.”

  The feather-light touch of her fingertips over his face traced his eyebrows. The bridge of his nose. Each lip, though when he opened his mouth to try to nip at her fingers she laughed and put her palm against his mouth.

  “Bad boy,” she whispered, and he looked up at her. Her eyes gleamed. She traced his lips again, and this time he resisted biting against the tickle. When she tucked her forefinger inside his mouth, he sucked gently on the tip; she withdrew it to paint slickness over his bottom lip. “The list has one rule on it.”

  “Only one?” He tried not to sound disappointed, but did anyway.

  She laughed. “Yes. Only the one.”

  He did sit this time, shifting on the couch to face her. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  Corinne cleared her throat, looking a little nervous before she smoothed her expression with an obvious effort. She shook the hair off her forehead. Squared her shoulders. She looked him right in the eyes.

  “Don’t let me down.”

  He paused before answering, surprised at the simplicity of the single rule. “That’s it?”

  “That should be enough, shouldn’t it?”

  “I just thought…” He stopped himself.

  “I know what you probably thought,” Corinne said. “I think I know what you probably wanted.”

  He smiled. “Yeah? What did I want on the list?”

  “You wanted rules about how you should address me. Yes?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he said with a grin.

  “Here’s the thing about rules, Reese. If you make a list of rules for the sole purpose of defining what has to happen when you break them, doesn’t that sort of dilute the impact of the rules to begin with?”

  He frowned. “Not sure what you mean.”

  Corinne took him by the front of the shirt and pulled him closer, her gaze tracing all the places her fingertips had touched only moments before. “It means that I don’t want this to be about jumping through hoops. It’s hard enough to find someone you like, much less someone whose kinks align. And ours align, don’t they?”

  Her fingers tightened in his shirt, digging into his chest beneath. Her mouth brushed his, but when he tried to kiss her, she pulled away. Reese’s laugh had an edge to it.

  “Yes.”

  “It means that I want a relationship based on mutual desires. Also respect and responsibility. It means that I’m going to take this seriously, and I expect you to do the same.” The tip of her tongue flicked his chin.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “It means that I want us to take our time and relearn each other,” Corinne continued. This time, instead of her tongue stroking him, her teeth nipped at his skin. She nudged his head back to get next to his throat.

  Fuck, his cock was hard enough to break brick, just from the subtle pressure of her fingers on his chest and the brief, tempting sting of her teeth. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  She laughed, sweet and throaty, against his skin. “I love when you call me that. I always did.”

  “I know. See? I know a lot about you already. I know you like this,” he added, sliding a hand between them to cup her breast and let his thumb pass over her nipple, already erect and taut through the thin material of her shirt and bra.

  Her hissing gasp sent a slow, rolling bolt of desire through him. He wanted to bury his face between her breasts and pull up her shirt to get at her flesh beneath, but he kept his thumb just barely stroking over her nipple. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound of her breathing.

  When she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled his head back, he didn’t move his hand. Corinne licked her lips. “This is not going to be all about sex.”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  “I expect you to actually take me out. On dates.”

  He grinned, letting his thumb stroke, stroke, stroke. Her nipple felt about as hard as his dick; he hoped she was starting to ache the way he was. “Absolutely. Anywhere you want to go.”

  “I…oh.”

  He pinched lightly then, sending a shudder through her that had her giving him a stern look. “Yes, Ma’am? You were saying?”

  She put her hand over his, then removed it firmly. “It’s late. I don’t know about you, Mr. Bazillionaire Boss, but I have to work in the morning.”

  “Call in sick.”

  “Up.” She pushed him until he moved away, then she stood. “I’m going home.”

  “But—” At the warning look she shot him, Reese gave a muffled groan. “Fine.”

  She laughed and bent to kiss his mouth, letting it linger until he grabbed for her hips. Then she slapped his hands lightly. “Nope. I’m going. And you’re going to wait until I’ve left, and then you’re going