“Smart-ass. You know what I meant.”
“I don’t think so,” Reese said. “I don’t think I’d have been able to. I’d never been anywhere or seen anything but the farm, pretty much. You were the one who always kept an eye on the news and stuff.”
She sipped the wine, then set the glass on the table and wriggled in his lap. She loved the way he shifted a little at the pressure of her against his crotch. She’d had him put the plug in as soon as they got home, and she knew it had to be making him at least a tiny bit crazy.
“You had opinions,” she remembered.
He laughed and stroked her hair off her forehead. “Of course I did. But they weren’t very informed, I don’t think.”
“No, you liked to talk about philosophy and stuff like that.”
“I did?” He looked surprised. “No way. I don’t remember that at all. Me?”
“Yep. You. You’d argue with me about the existence of God, life on other planets, that sort of thing.”
He frowned. “And you put up with that?”
She sat up. “I liked it, at the time. I don’t think I’d mind it, now. I love that we can discuss current events and financial planning, don’t get me wrong…”
“You make it sound so sexy when you put it that way,” Reese interrupted drolly, with a roll of his eyes. “So I went from freaky goth kid to boring old numbers cruncher, is that what you’re saying?”
Corinne laughed. “No! Not at all. I like that we can have real conversations.”
He kissed her, then said into her ear, “Even if we’re talking about the ramifications of current political policy while I have something inside my butt?”
“It speaks to your powers of concentration.” She turned her head slightly. “How does it feel?”
“Good. It reminds me every time I move that I’m doing what you asked me to do.”
Arousal flooded her, peaking her nipples. “Ah.”
Reese moved a little, tugging at the front of his jeans. “I’m half-hard from the pressure.”
“Mmm,” she breathed.
Just like that, she wanted him iron-hard, throbbing, and begging for release. She wanted him on his knees for her. She wanted his ass in the air while he opened himself for her…she wanted every piece of Reese Ebersole.
“Stand up,” she told him.
He did at once, his instant obedience a burst of fuel on the already smoldering fire of her desire.
“I want you naked, but in the bedroom. Go take a shower and get on the bed for me and wait. I want you facedown, ass up.”
Reese blinked rapidly as a soft hiss of breath escaped him. “Umm…yes, Ma’am. Okay.”
The wine had given her a lovely warm glow, but watching his reaction intoxicated her even more. She waited until he’d disappeared down the hall and then went to the kitchen to put together a platter of cheese, grapes, and crackers. Some chocolate truffles they’d picked up this afternoon went on a small glass plate she realized with a start had come from her old apartment—she’d never known he’d taken it with him when he moved out and would perhaps have been angry about it at the time if she had, but seeing it now only moved her to an emotion so tangled and twisted she couldn’t have put a name to it.
Nostalgia, melancholy for what might’ve been if they hadn’t both been so stubborn and stupid. Bittersweet longing. Affection.
Love, she thought. Yes. Okay, so this was love, or at least the beginnings of it. And that was okay.
All of this was going to be all right.
Putting the food, along with the wineglasses and bottle, on a tray, she carried it carefully down the hall. She’d dallied to be sure Reese had ample time in the shower and to be waiting for her. She had anticipated he would be.
She hadn’t been expecting this.
He’d lit candles. A dozen or more, some small votives and some pillars, placed carefully on all the flat surfaces of the room. In the middle of them, on the bed with the comforter and sheets already pulled down, he waited for her, exactly as she’d told him to. Head turned away from her, his arms spread, knees wide, ass up. She could see the rounded ring of the plug she hadn’t told him to remove.
He had done what she’d asked of him, and it was beautiful.
Setting the tray on the table next to a few of the candles, Corinne crossed to the bed. “Good boy.”
He smiled, but said nothing. His fingers twitched, though. He breathed deep, his body moving. His cock was long, thick, and totally hard, the tip just barely brushing the crisp white sheets.
“I’m going to fuck you,” she said.
He let out a small sigh, but said nothing.