Beg for It(47)

“You can’t promise something and not deliver,” Corinne said.

Reese didn’t think she was talking about the vacation company. His fingers curled with a twinge, a sense memory. “No. You shouldn’t. What good is your word if you can’t be counted on to keep it?”

Silence.

He didn’t want to bring up the past, or the reasons why they’d broken up. Truth be told, Reese couldn’t have said exactly why it had ended so abruptly and so badly. Losing his parents had been hard, especially because he’d never made things right between him and his dad before he died. Corinne had encouraged him to, and she’d been right. He’d refused to listen. He remembered being angry. Blaming her. Later, he’d come to admit to himself that he’d done his share of ruining what they’d had, if only because he’d learned there was never only one person at fault. He wished he’d have figured that out sooner.

“You never went on one of those trips?” she asked.

“Of course I did. I bought the business. I had to see for myself how it worked. Just like I need to be in the office here,” he said. “You accused me of being hands-off, but really, I’m more a hands-on kind of guy.”

“Yeah, your hands are on,” Corinne said. “I get it.”

Reese grinned at her sarcastic tone, then said, “Yes, I went on a few of the trips to see what they were like.”

She stroked her fingers through his hair again. “Alone?”

“Once alone. Twice with someone.”

She nodded, looking thoughtful. “What was it like?”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He’d taken three of the specialty trips, one to each of the locations his company sponsored. Two different women. Amber had been the last one, and he was certain that the trip had led directly to their breakup. Not that he cared, much.

“It was better when I was alone,” he said.

“Really?” She sounded surprised, not jealous. “Why?”

“More relaxing. The times I went with someone, it was a lot of work,” Reese said. “It wasn’t like this, with them. I wasn’t like this.”

Corinne studied him with a small smile. “What were you like?”

“In charge.”

She laughed. “Ah.”

Reese turned his face against her thigh, closing his eyes. “It was a lot of work, that’s all.”

“You dominated them?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” Corinne’s stroking fingers paused for a moment, then started again. Soothing. Rhythmic. Reese pushed into the touch like a cat. “Tell me about it, puppy.”

“You won’t want to hear.”

“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…f*ck, 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.”