Beg for It Read online

  Reese has a crush on her. Corinne knows this because she catches him watching her as she takes care of the other tables. When he thinks she can’t notice him, he stares, but every so often she’ll look up into the diner’s mirrored interior and let her gaze move across the room, deliberately seeking out the sight of Reese’s long-distance worship. On the nights when he doesn’t come in, she finds herself still looking for his reflection.

  Tonight, they’re short-staffed and overcrowded. People wait for tables even though it’s nearly two in the morning, and anyone with any sense would’ve gone home to bed by now, grouchy Corinne thinks as she weaves and bobs to get around Dino, the busboy, who’s trying to clear off a table so she can seat someone else. Corinne’s so busy she barely notices when Reese and his friends come in, at least until she finds herself at their table. They’re jostling and joking, causing a ruckus as usual. Except for Reese, in the far corner.

  At the sight of him, every bad feeling she’s had this entire night, all the shitty tips and messed up orders and rude patrons…all of that melts away when she sees Reese’s smile. He’s a gust of clean, fresh air, and she breathes him in. For a moment it’s like they’re the only two in the diner, but only for a blink, because she shakes herself back into the real world. No time for goo-goo eyes. She sees him watching her in the mirrors as she walks away, and for the first time in all the months he’s been coming in here, Corinne lets her gaze meet his in the reflection.

  She smiles.

  After a few seconds, Reese smiles too.

  The next hour is a blur of coffee and late-night orders, but she keeps an eye on the clock for four a.m. Her salvation. Her shift will end, and she’ll be able to finally get home, grab a steaming shower, and slip into bed. It’ll be Sunday. She doesn’t have class, and she won’t have to go back to work until Monday night.

  So caught up in the rest of the work, she doesn’t notice when Reese’s group heads out, leaving piles of cash on the table and Reese sitting alone, waiting for the check. She notices the look in his eyes though. Oh, yeah. She notices that, for sure.

  “I’m about ready to go off shift,” Corinne says as she scribbles the total on the bill and passes it to him. “If I leave before you’re ready, you can take it to the register.”

  “I’m ready now.”

  The words leap from her lips, coasting on a smile. “Are you? You sure?”

  Reese doesn’t smile. He nods, his gaze never leaving hers. He’s lined his icy eyes with dark liner that make them stand out even bluer. It’s not a look she usually goes for, but something about this guy flips Corinne’s switch.

  “Yes. I’m sure,” he says.

  As far as come-ons go, it’s subtler than she’s used to, but that’s what she likes about him. He’s waiting for her outside when she comes out, and she somehow expected that. His shoulders are hunched, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and he’s blowing out a few frosty breaths into the late November chill.

  “Are you coming home with me?” she asks.

  “Yes, please.” He smiles.

  And that, that she fucking loves, the way he says it so politely, so hopeful and yet at the same time it’s clear he has no doubt she’s going to say yes. He’s confident. Not cocky.

  She lives close enough to the diner that the car doesn’t even have time to get warm before she’s pulling up in front of her apartment. Not that it has to—the heat between them is palpable. They haven’t talked much on the ride over, but whenever she glances over at him, Reese is looking at her.

  Inside, she hangs up her coat and turns to him, meaning to ask if he wants a drink, but she’s in his arms before she has time to say a word. Reese pulls her close, his hands firm on her hips. She expects a kiss.

  Instead, Reese goes to his knees in front of her.

  Everything inside her shakes at this, his worship of her, his face pressed to her belly. Her hands go automatically to the top of his head, fingers threading through his hair. She cannot breathe.

  She can feel the heat of him through the thin cotton of her uniform. He inches up the hem, sliding his hands up the backs of her thighs along the smoothness of her pantyhose. At the press of his mouth between her legs, Corinne mutters a cry.

  Reese laughs and nuzzles her. Her fingers tighten in his hair until he looks up at her. His eyes blaze. His mouth is wet.

  She finds her voice. “You want this pussy on your tongue?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Please.”

  Her grip tightens a bit more. His eyes go half-lidded, heavy with desire. She doesn’t know why she says this, but something inside her has awakened. Something strong and powerful and incapable of being denied.

  “Please…what?” She waits, breathless, uncertain what he will say, but when he speaks, his answer is perfection.

  “Yes, please…Ma’am.”

  In that moment, everything Corinne has ever believed she wanted from a man falls away. She’s been waiting, she thinks, dazed, as she stares down into Reese’s face. Waiting her entire life for this.

  Chapter Three

  Stein and Sons had started off as the Stein Brothers back in the thirties, when Morty and Herb Stein had joined forces to provide a dairy delivery service to rural families who lived too far from town to make a regular trip but who didn’t live on farms.

  Morty had handled the actual deliveries. Herb had gone door-to-door not only to the farmers from whom they’d negotiated their supplies, but also to the families who’d needed convincing that the Stein Brothers could provide them with efficient, reliable, and, most importantly to Depression-ravaged central Pennsylvania, thrifty goods and services. They’d started with driving a single horse-drawn carriage and preparing invoices in the back room of their mother’s house and ended up with a fleet of refrigerated tankers and a corporate headquarters. In the early to midseventies, renamed Stein and Sons, they’d been the largest local dairy delivery service in the entire state. Corinne could remember pouring Stein and Sons milk on her cereal while watching Sunday morning cartoons.

  Of course all that had changed over time. No more home deliveries. Competition from other dairies. Issues with customers refusing to buy products that used bovine growth hormone. Slowly, the business had diversified and reorganized and downsized.

  Stein and Sons morphed from a delivery service of bottled milk, cream, and cheese into a small dairy specializing in gourmet items such as goat’s milk, artisanal cheeses, specialty yogurts, and hand-churned ice cream. With an on-site store and tours to capitalize on Lancaster County’s thriving tourist business, Stein and Sons had a tidy little setup that would’ve confused its founders, but Corinne liked to think it would also have made them proud.

  Chief financial officer. The title felt unwieldy when she said it aloud, though it looked just fine on all the stationery printed with her name. The company was so small that she did more than take care of the financials—she was also the head of human resources and director of operations…sort of. All the jobs had been bundled into one. They’d had to let go most of the other staff. Other than the off-site custodial staff that came in to clean three days a week, most of the time it was only Corinne and the secretary, Sandy, in the office. The fifty or so other employees who maintained the barns and livestock and worked in the production facility rarely, if ever, came in. It wasn’t exactly what her early twenties self, waitressing at the local diner and busting her ass to complete her MBA, had pictured she would be doing, but Corinne guessed that could probably be said by a lot of people.

  She’d started at Stein and Sons fifteen years ago in the accounting department and worked her way up, until here she sat in her own corner office with a big, shiny desk and a view of what had once been farm fields but was rapidly becoming obscured by neighborhoods populated with mini-mansions. She’d been through every downsize and shift in the company’s focus. There’d been a few times she’d considered leaving for a position that paid more, but she’d never quite made the leap. She’d been too aware of how decep