Beg for It(50)

“My favorite,” Reese said.

She laughed. “We’ll eat about six thirty, after trumpet lessons.”

“I’ll be there.”

She wanted to kiss him, then, but didn’t. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Corinne…” His voice stopped her at the door, and when she turned, he was there, one hand moving past her shoulder to keep it closed.

Instant heat.

“Yes?”

He took her hand and pressed it to his crotch, his cock hard beneath. “I want to come for you.”

“No,” she said in a low voice, rasping and rough. “Not yet. I want you to suffer a little for me, first.”

She didn’t pull her hand away, though he was moving it up and down on the hard bulge. She held her coffee out to the side, so it wouldn’t spill. When he tried to kiss her, she turned her face.

“Later,” she told him.

Reese chuckled and stepped back, adjusting himself with a wince. “I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“What it was really like,” he said, no longer laughing. “To obey.”

She was going to drop her mug and throw him down right there, climb him like a tree and ride his face, no matter how unprofessional or inappropriate or… Corinne gave herself a mental shake. It had been a long time since her buttons had been pushed with such expertise.

“I didn’t forget this, ever,” she said. “I dreamed about it for years.”

Reese swallowed hard. “Let me change my lunch plans. Let’s go somewhere…”

“No,” she told him with a small, determined shake of her head. “What did I tell you already?”

“This is about dating. Getting to know each other again.”

“Yes. Which means we don’t f*ck in the office.”

He smiled. “That’s why I said we should go somewhere.”

“You’re making this very hard for me, Reese,” she told him, and wagged a finger before he could reply with an innuendo. “Do not even say it. Get back to work.”

He ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it, and nodded with a glance back at his desk. “Yeah. I have a bunch of things in motion. Tony’s bringing updates on some new distribution resources. It means we’ll be getting the product into some of the bigger markets. Not just Philly, also out toward Pittsburgh.”

“Yeah? That’s fantastic. You’re really good, Reese.”

He cocked his head to give her a look. “Did you think I couldn’t turn this around?”

She had, in fact, wondered if his reasons for buying Stein and Sons might’ve clouded his actual ability to save the company from totally swirling down the drain. “Not because I didn’t think you were good at what you do. But let’s face it. Artisanal yogurts and ice cream…you’d have been better off just selling off all the pieces.”

“I didn’t want to do that. I made the commitment, so I want to make this company work.” He backed up a few steps and pivoted to head for his desk, saying over his shoulder, “Not just to impress you, either. I don’t usually hang on to companies I don’t think I can fix.”

She watched him settle into his chair. “I believe you.”

He looked up. Smiled. How was it, she thought as she let herself out of his office and headed for her own, that in all this time, she had never stopped loving him?

She must have, she scolded herself as she forced herself to face her computer. Whatever love they’d had back then had been young, fluid, immature. It hadn’t been meant to last. She was fooling herself to think that what she was feeling now was more than rekindled lust—it might become more than that. But it was not yet love.





Chapter Twenty-Seven



Tony had already snagged the back corner booth by the time Reese made it to the diner. The meeting with the realtor had run a little longer than he’d expected. The woman had been full of opinions about what he needed to do in order to make the house even close to salable, and while money certainly wasn’t a problem, he did wonder how much effort would be worth the payoff. As he slid into the booth, Tony craned his neck to look past him.

Reese looked around too, already guessing what his assistant wanted to see. “She’s not here today?”

“Damn it,” Tony said. “I don’t think so.”

“She heard you were coming in and called in sick.” Reese grinned at Tony’s scowl.

Tony shrugged, looking at the menu and not at Reese. “You text a woman a few dirty pictures and then suddenly she ignores you.”

“Dude. You did not.” Reese held back laughter, but barely.

“Hey, she sent hers first,” Tony said, indignant.

“Did you tell her you’d be here today?”

“No.” Tony frowned. “I wanted to surprise her.”

“How long has this been going on?” Reese scanned the menu, already knowing he was going to order breakfast, but not sure if he wanted a veggie omelet with tots or his standard eggs over medium.

Tony’s sigh trailed into a groan. “A week. But I was going to try to take her out while I’m here. I booked a room at the Arts Hotel, by the way. You’re covering the cost.”