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…fuck, 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.”
She gave him another of those thoughtful looks. “You really got used to having money, huh?”
“It’s better than not having money.”
She laughed. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“I couldn’t take care of you back then,” Reese said. “I know it was a problem.”
Again, that thoughtful, contemplative look. “We had a bunch of problems, back then.”
“We had a lot of good things too, Corinne.”
“Yes. We did.” She smiled, then said, “I said I would bring you a list of rules.”
He nodded, thinking he should sit up, but not moving. Her fingers stroked through his hair, her nails scratching lightly on his scalp. “Yes.”
“It’s a short list,” she told him.
Reese closed his eyes, smiling. “Okay.”
The feather-light touch of her fingertips over his face traced his eyebrows. The bridge of his nose. Each lip, though when he opened his mouth to try to nip at her fingers she laughed and put her palm against his mouth.
“Bad boy,” she whispered, and he looked up at her. Her eyes gleamed. She traced his lips again, and this time he resisted biting against the tickle. When she tucked her forefinger inside his mouth, he sucked gently on the tip; she withdrew it to paint slickness over his bottom lip. “The list has one rule on it.”
“Only one?” He tried not to sound disappointed, but did anyway.
She laughed. “Yes. Only the one.”