Beg for It (26 page)

“Slow,” Reese said.

“Of course.”

She coated her fingers and the strap on with the thick, unscented lube. She used her middle and forefinger to press his tight ring, finding it already open for her after the use of the plug. Her fingers slid inside him with little resistance, and she curled them upward in a come-here gesture that had him bucking and crying out in seconds.

She stopped, her other hand flat on his belly to soothe him. “Hush.”

Reese opened his eyes to meet hers. “Corinne… I haven’t…”

“I know. Shhh.”

He swallowed hard, licking his lips. She let her hand rub his belly in small circles. Her fingers inside him pressed upward again in a slow rhythm. She watched him close his eyes and move with her. After a minute or so, she withdrew her fingers and pressed the tip of the dildo against him. Then, slowly, she breached him, filling him until she’d settled inside all the way.

Reese muttered again. His fingers bit into the bed as he rolled his hips, pressing himself onto her cock. The motion pushed the end against her already pulsing clit. Corinne began to move, watching him carefully for his reaction. Going slow. Sliding in, then out, her nails scratching lightly at the insides of his thighs.

“Yeah, yeah, that,” he groaned. “Harder.”

Her nails dug into him. “Harder, what?”

His eyes flow open. “Please, harder, Ma’am…”

“Like this?” Harder, faster, she thrust.

She’d never seen a look like that on any man’s face. Never before on his. Reese was clearly lost in the sensation, and watching him, Corinne felt herself tumbling into a swirl of tightly coiling desire that built with every thrust.

“Fuck me, Ma’am…please fuck me…”

She did, every smack against him sending another bolt of pleasure through her clit. Both of them spoke, fuck-talk. Words of love too. His gaze snared hers, not letting go. They were connected, both of them surging hard toward climax. Reese slid his hands across the bed and along the outsides of his thighs so Corinne could lace her fingers through his. Pumping inside him with short, shallow thrusts, she winced as his grip tightened.

His cock had gone a deep, flushed red and bounced with every thrust. A puddle of clear sticky fluid had formed on his belly.

“Yes, baby,” she crooned, her own orgasm swirling, her cunt clenching. She stroked him, helping him along. “Come for me.”

He did, a thick, creamy cascade of ejaculate hitting his chest. The sight of it, this visceral, visible proof his pleasure, tipped Corinne into her own orgasm. Subtle, rippling waves of desire tickled through her, forcing a gasp. Then another, louder as a second, stronger and surprising wave of contractions hit her. She shuddered with it, no longer thrusting. Incapable of anything but letting the ecstasy pound through her, leaving her breathless.

Still inside him, Corinne came back to herself aware that Reese’s grip on her fingers had loosened. Blinking, she licked her upper lip, tasting sweat. She smiled. So did he. She eased out of him and rolled onto her side next to him to stare up at the ceiling, smiling again when he reached between them to take her hand.

“Was it always that good?” she asked after a moment or so of quiet. “Damn, baby, I just don’t remember it being that good.”

“I don’t know how anything as good as what just happened could’ve ended.”

That sobered her. Still thinking, she looked at the ceiling. Their fingers squeezed, gently.

“I loved you so much, Reese.”

She felt him twist a little to look at her, but she didn’t look back. “I loved you too.”

There could’ve been more to say after that, and maybe she should’ve found the words, but silence was all she could manage at the moment. They’d already gone over so much of this old ground, some of it in anger. All she wanted to do right now was bask in the afterglow.

Without moving much, Corinne unstrapped the harness at her hips and wriggled out of it. “I’m going to take a shower. You want to come in with me?”

A soft, contented snore was her only answer. Laughing quietly so as not to wake him, she kissed his cheek. She brushed his hair, damp with sweat, off his forehead. He was going to be sticky when he woke up, but for now she’d let him sleep.

“I still do,” she whispered, thinking his smile was because of his dreams, but his answer trailed after her as she headed for the bathroom.

“Me too.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Before

“Bad boy, you couldn’t wait for me to get home?”

Reese turns from the stove, where he’s been stirring the pot of sauce Corinne told him he was supposed to let simmer. “Just tasting it.”

She looks tired. She had class in the morning, worked the night shift at the diner before that, and is scheduled to go back in tonight. She’s due to start her new job in a month, after she graduates. That will let her quit the diner, too, but until the job actually starts, her schedule is going to be insane. He told her she should quit the waitressing job, but she’d given him a look that made him feel stupid.

He hasn’t told her about the money he got from his parents. It would be more than enough to cover the rent for the next two months, if she quits. More than enough to cover a lot of the bills too. But Reese has barely gotten used to the idea that both his parents are gone, and that money…it’s his ticket out of here, for good. He wants to tell her, but it has to be the right time.

Usually she comes home from class and goes right to sleep, but today she’s a little later than usual because she’d stopped at the grocery store. Reese would’ve done it for her, but he still hasn’t managed to buy himself a car. Corinne slings her bag over the back of a chair and offers her face for a kiss.

“How’s it taste?” she asks.

“Not as good as you.” He kisses her, hands going to her hips, and though she responds, it’s not with as much enthusiasm as he’d like. When he tips her back a little to nuzzle at her throat, Corinne shrugs out of his grasp to move past him.

She grabs a can of cola from the fridge and pops the top. “Will dinner be ready soon? I’m starving.”

“I’ll put on the water. You want spaghetti or rotini, or…?” Reese pauses at the sight of her slightly slumping shoulders. “What?”

“Did you make a salad or anything? Garlic bread?”

“I was going to wait for you to get home.”

Corinne turns to face him. “So dinner’s not ready. Nothing is ready?”

“It’ll just take a few minutes. You can grab the stuff for the salad, I’ll start the water boiling.”

“Never mind.” She gulps cola. Without looking at him, she grabs her bag and disappears down the hall. The bedroom door shuts.

Irritated, Reese follows. She’s already gone into the bathroom, stripping out of her shirt to stand in her jeans and bra, brushing her teeth. Hair pulled into a ponytail. She’s gorgeous.

But when he moves behind her to kiss the back of her neck, Corinne pulls away. “What?”

She gives him a look in the mirror and bends to spit toothpaste into the sink. “Tired. Hungry. I’m going to grab a nap before work. I’ll eat there.”

“But I made dinner.”

“You’ve been home all day long,” Corinne says without turning, her lip curled. “You
didn’t
make dinner. The only thing ready is the sauce, and I put that on the stove this morning before I left for class.”

“I was filling out résumés. I worked out. I was busy, and there wasn’t any point in making the pasta if you weren’t home yet.”

She pushes past him and into the bedroom. He follows. The bed is covered in laundry he’d been folding, and when she turns to look at him, Reese feels her contempt like a punch to the gut.

“You know, when I agreed to let you live here, it was with the understanding that even if you couldn’t pay rent, you were going to do all this other crap.”

He has been doing all the other crap. Most of it, anyway. He’s doing his best, at least, and most of the time, he’s done a pretty damned good job of it. “I’m not a housewife.”

“No shit.” Corinne snorts soft laughter that doesn’t sound at all like she’s amused. “Whatever, Reese. I’m going to try and get some sleep.”

He grabs up the laundry she’s about to toss to the side. “Hey, that’s clean.”

“Then put it away!”

“You don’t just throw it on the floor, Corinne!”

“I wasn’t going to throw it on the floor,” she snaps. “I was moving it over so I had room to get under the blanket. Maybe if you had put it away, I wouldn’t have to.”

“I can’t believe you’re being pissy with me about this,” Reese says as he tosses the clothes into a basket. “What the hell?”

Without a word, Corinne slips into the covers and turns away from him, her dark hair a tangle on the pillows. Muttering, Reese puts the laundry basket on the chair. He doesn’t want to fight with her, not about this or anything else.

Pulling his shirt off over his head, then shucking his jeans, he quietly gets into bed behind her. Pressing to her back, he slides a hand around between her legs. Making her come will make her feel better. Let her sleep. Orgasms are good, right?

“Stop,” she says after a minute, and when he tries again, she sits up to twist around. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Fine.” He sits up too. “I just wanted to make you feel good.”

“Then pay attention,” Corinne mutters. “I’m not a blow-up doll, okay?”

“Sorry. I guess I’m just a bad boy,” he says, trying to tease. To be light about it, bring the conversation back to neutral ground and not anger. “Maybe you need to take me in hand?”

“Wow.”

“What?” he asks, totally pissed off himself, now, because as far as he can see, she’s being unreasonable.

“Is that all this is to you? What are you trying to do, make me mad so I’ll punish you, so you can get off?”

That’s not it at all, but he’s not about to say so. Not when she has that look on her face, which confuses him but also makes him even angrier. She points at the basket of laundry.

“Go fold that. Put it all away. Go make dinner.”

He’s already getting out of bed, but hesitates. “I’m not a servant, Corinne.”

Her eyes flash and her voice is cold but lacks that undercurrent of sexual tension that usually would have his cock twitching. “I told you to do something. I expect it to be done.”

“Yeah, well, you know what, you can fold it yourself.” With that, he gets off the bed and leaves the room.

The water’s boiling in the kitchen, but fuck that, he turns off the heat without adding the pasta. He wants to go for a run, work off all this anger, and he strips down to his briefs in the kitchen. At the sound of her behind him, he turns, hands on his hips. And yeah, he notices how her gaze takes in his body, how she looks at him, and no matter how pissed off he is, he takes a gleeful, smug satisfaction in the glitter of her gaze.

“What?” Reese holds out his arms. Confrontational. Tensing muscles, putting on a show to be sure she notices the ridges of his muscled belly—all this time at home without finding a job has left him a lot of hours to work out. He knows she loves it too, the way his body’s changed.

“Let me guess, the floor needs to be scrubbed. You want me on my hands and knees, Corinne? Yeah. Look at you. You’re dying to see me down there on the floor.”

“Stop it.”

He can’t. He’s horny and angry, and all he wanted was to have some time with her before she has to go to work, and fuck all of this, he’s spent too many days just trying to make her happy and now she’s being a bitch because he didn’t make the goddamned dinner? Sneering, he sinks to his knees, arms still held out, palms turned upward.

“This is where you like me, right?”

It’s where he wants her to like him. He’s pushing her; he wants to see the gleam in her gaze and watch her swipe her tongue over her lips. He wants her to order him to push his face into her pussy and make her come.

Corinne shakes her head.

“No? Seems like you liked it last night.”

“What I like,” she tells him in a low, angry voice, “is when you do what you promised you’d do. When you keep up your end of the bargain. When it’s not just all about you and your dick.”

The floor hurts his knees, but he doesn’t get up. Instead, he crawls toward her, making a show of it, until he’s at her feet. He bends as though to kiss her toes, but looks up at her.

“The princess wants her little tootsies kissed, right?”

She flinches and takes a step away. “How about you kiss my ass?”

She’s turning, but he’s on his feet fast enough to move in front of her, blocking her way. He’s not sure why or how this became so enormously catastrophic between them. He’s not sure how to stop it. They’ve argued before. Minor things. But nothing like this.

This feels like it could end up being permanent.

“It’s not just about getting off,” he says.

Corinne won’t look at him. She presses herself against the wall, her arms crossed over her breasts. Her jaw is set.

“Corinne.”

She shrugs. Reese sighs and tries to pull her closer, but she’s too stiff and unyielding. He lets her go.