Beg for It(23)

“Why did you buy this company, Reese?”

He didn’t look away from her. “Because it’s what I do.”

“It wasn’t to…” Her breath hitched. It was hard to swallow, her throat tight. Too much emotion. She took a step toward him. “To protect me? To take care of me?”

She was wrong; she saw that immediately in the twist of his lips and the way his gaze shuttered. He took two steps back from her, far enough to be certain there was no way she could reach and touch him. His look of utter disdain hit her like a stone through a glass window.

Shattered.

What had she really thought? That after all this time and all that had passed between them that any decision he ever made had anything to do with her at all? How could it?

Hadn’t she learned already that she wasn’t worth the effort of being cherished?

Hadn’t Reese been the one to teach her that very painful lesson?

She’d seen it at once written all over his face and could have gone the rest of her life without hearing him seal it with his words, but of course he said them anyway.

“I think you’ve got the wrong idea,” Reese told her. “I’m not your boy anymore.”





Chapter Eleven


Before


“He’s going out again, Mother.” This is what Reese’s father says while looking directly at his son. “Look at him. What are you wearing? Girls’ clothes?”

The hot pink skinny tie had been a gift from Corinne, true, but it’s still from the men’s section of the store. The soft cotton panties he’s wearing under his dark jeans, though—those are girls’ clothes for sure. His dad would have a heart attack if he knew his son was wearing panties. Reese is pretty sure that’s a big reason Corinne has asked him to. She’s never met his father, but she knows exactly how to push every single button Reese has.

“When you’re wearing my panties, it reminds you constantly that you’re mine,” she had told him two days ago as he knelt between her thighs to press his cheek to her skin. Her hands had stroked, stroked through his hair. He could smell her *, so close and yet denied him for the sole purpose of making him crazy with desire.

“I could never forget that I’m yours, Ma’am.”

She’d never asked him to call her that. It had slipped out of him the first time they were together, an automatic expression of polite address, and her reaction had been electric. He didn’t call her Ma’am all the time. Just when he wanted to watch her eyes grow dark with arousal and see her nipples grow tight. It was his version of her asking him to wear panties.

“Answer me,” his father says with a thump of big fists on the table, drawing Reese’s attention back to the present.

Reese shrugs. “I’m not wearing girls’ clothes, Dad.”

“You’re wearing makeup.”

“It’s just…a thing.” Reese shrugs.

“You look like a fairy.”

“I’m not wearing wings.” Reese grins, but his father doesn’t. There’d been plenty of times when Dad had been able to take a joke, but it seems more and more like he’s set on turning into a grumpy old man who never laughs at anything. “Dad, c’mon. It’s a pink tie and a little eyeliner. Not a big deal.”

“You’ll be out all night in that pink tie, doing what? Wasting your money and your time.”

“It’s fun, Dad. That’s all.” Reese tugs at the knot of the tie. “Here, I’ll take it off, if it offends you so much.”

When he shifts, he can feel the softness of the cotton riding up his ass crack. The panties are meant to fit Corinne, too small on him. She’s right about how they keep him constantly reminded of her.

“Never mind,” his father says. He shakes his head in disgust and waves a hand in Reese’s direction. Dismissing him. “Go out. Go waste your time and your money, come home with a sick belly. You already have the sick head.”

Reese had been backing out of the kitchen to avoid the tirade, but this stopped him, dead still. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His father won’t look at him. He keeps his attention on the paper spread out on the table in front of him. The after-dinner cigarette smokes in the ashtray. Stinking. Reese’s father looks at what’s in front of him so he doesn’t have to see his only child.

“Dad.”

His father gives another of those dismissive waves, but Reese isn’t going to let him get away with it this time. He steps closer to the table, forcing himself into his father’s line of view until the old man looks up with a long sigh rooted so deep in his guts it seems to take forever to slip from his lips. Reese puts his hands on the table and leans forward, trying to catch his father’s eyes.

“What did you mean? Sick in the head?”

Finally, looking pained, his father raises his head. “Go. Just go. And if you’re going to stumble in with the stink of alcohol on your breath tomorrow morning instead of being ready to help with the milking, you might as well just stay out and not come home.”

“Are you kicking me out?”

“I’m sure,” his father says with a slightly curled lip, “that one of your boyfriends can give you a place to stay, if you need one.”