His cock leaped at the sound of that soft thwack. More liquid oozed from the tip, wetting the fabric. “So tell me to lock it, and I’ll put you on the desk, I’ll be inside you in half a minute.”
Her expression went hard. “Absolutely not. You come back into my life after all this time thinking you can be disrespectful? Insulting? That you can use this job as an excuse to somewhat punish me for what happened between us? You will not lock that door. You will not get to taste me, or fuck me again until I decide you deserve it, and you will stand there knowing that at any second someone could come in and see you this way.”
“I will not beg,” he warned her again.
Corinne’s eyes narrowed further. “Hold out your hands. Palms down. Fingers straight.”
He wasn’t going to do it, Reese thought, even as he felt himself obeying. At the first crack of the ruler against his skin, he bit back a grunt—it hurt more than he’d anticipated, but not enough to garner that sort of reaction. It wasn’t the pain. It was the look on her face.
She had never been more beautiful to him than when she was making him hurt.
Again, the ruler cracked down on his knuckles. A schoolboy punishment, fetishistic the way a cane might’ve been, and all the worse for that because of the way his entire body tensed when she raised the ruler again. His balls throbbed. He could see nothing but Corinne. Feel nothing. Hear nothing but her voice.
At the final crack of wood on his skin, the ruler split and broke. One piece fell to the carpet where it bounced. Corinne shook the small stray strands of hair that had fallen into her eyes out of the way and tossed the other part onto the floor too. Reese let his hands close, the knuckles red and sore though he doubted there’d be so much as a bruise to remind him of this even a few minutes from now.
Her blue eyes swam with tears, but her voice was fierce when she said, “You broke me like I just broke that ruler, and you do not get to come back into my life and break me again. Do you understand me, Reese?”
The door wasn’t locked. They were not alone in the office. Anyone could come in at any moment and see them, and Reese didn’t give one good goddamn. He went to his knees in front of her, shoulders bowed. Face pressed to the front of her skirt, so he could breathe in the scent of her.
“Yes,” he told her. “Yes, Ma’am. I understand.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
At the sound of that word, Corinne nearly went to her own knees. Fortunately, all she had to do was reach behind her for the support of the desk. Her ass found the edge. Her fingers curled into the hem of her skirt, sliding it up and over her thighs as Reese pressed forward using one finger to hook her panties to the side.
“No.” She stopped him with a hand in his hair, pulling so hard it must’ve hurt worse than the rapping of his knuckles could have, even though she’d busted that ruler on them.
His lips were so close to her flesh that she could feel his breath, but obediently, Reese didn’t touch her. When Corinne tightened her fingers even more, tipping his face, the dazed look in his eyes took her back to those long ago days when she’d owned him the way she had never owned another man since. She twisted her fingers, watching him wince and his mouth open, but he didn’t mutter so much as a peep of protest.
“I have never had another boy since you. Do you know that?”
Reese closed his eyes. His hands slid along her thighs to rest against the backs of her knees, fingers curled. He shook his head as much as he could, imprisoned in her grip.
“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about that last time we were together, and what I could’ve done differently that might’ve made you want to stay?” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat. “Do you know how often I wished you’d come to the diner that night when I asked you to? I waited for hours, Reese. You never showed. I never heard from you again. And I spent years blaming myself for driving you away because I demanded exactly…this…”
She tugged his hair again, then smoothed it to cup his cheek. He opened his eyes. She ran her thumb over his mouth until he opened for her, and then she tucked it inside so he could bite gently down.
“I have never asked another man to get on his knees for me,” she whispered. “And I have missed you every day. I have longed for you every fucking second of my life. So don’t you fucking dare, don’t you dare think that you can…”
She couldn’t finish, no words to say what she’d spent so many years thinking about. In the beginning, those first horrible hours while she’d waited for him to show, and then in the days after, she’d imagined herself calling him names. Cursing him. She’d imagined telling him to fuck off, to never darken her doorstep.
She drew in a breath. Swallowed hard. “You want me now?”
“I never stopped wanting you,” Reese said in a harsh, strangled voice.
“Beg for it,” Corinne whispered. “Fucking beg me for it.”