Chapter: 1: The Girl Can't Help It
Destiny was shoplifting earrings one day when a man leaned on the glass counter next to her.
"You know you can get in a lot of trouble for that?" he asked.
"For what? I've done nothing wrong." She held the earring next to her face and turned her head to the side to regard her reflection in the mirror--and to admire the stranger's face-the two-day growth of beard that shadowed his strong jaw. Her fingers itched to touch that raspy dark stubble.
"You don't think shoplifting is wrong?"
"It's not shoplifting,"
"What do you call it?"
"I call it 'subsistence thievery.' I only take what I need."
"Earrings?" He raised a skeptical eyebrow, and she got a little twinge that caused the muscles of her thighs to contract.
She nodded, and looked into ocean-blue eyes that stirred the longing for a dream she could never remember.
"What would you say if I told you this store has a policy that you pay for what you need? And they hire guys like me to enforce the policy." His eyes smiled, but his mouth was hard.
"I would say 'oh, shit.' "
Destiny had pulled some fine stunts, but she'd never been arrested.
He took her by the elbow and guided her out of the mall to the parking lot.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"To the coffee house just down the street. Trust me."
And she trusted him.
They talked for hours, switching from cappuccino to Irish coffee as night blackened the windows of the café. His name was Ian, he was a sculptor, he'd never been married, had never found the right woman. She opened the book of her life for him to read with insightful eyes.
"Have you always been such a naughty girl?" Those words from a mouth as hard as stone, yet soft in her imagination as she played with the image of those lips on her rosy nipples, her fluttering belly.
"Let's just say that in high school I was voted 'the girl most likely'."
"To do what?"
"Fuck the principal."
He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't get punished for your misdeeds very often, did you?"
"My parents indulged me."
"I thought so."
She was a rebel who had not found her cause. Destiny herself did not know what she was looking for, but she dreamed at night of a man, of rough kisses and soft restraints, penetrating looks and commanding words from a deep voice, and a liquid joy that filled her. In the morning the dream eluded her. But in her waking hours, she believed that someone, somewhere, was made to take her and mold her, and that she, in turn, was someone's destiny.
He reached out an index finger and wiped a spot of cinnamon-flecked whipped cream from her upper lip, then fed it back to her, letting her draw his finger into her soft warm mouth. Her green eyes clouded as she sucked, her cheeks hollowed.
When he withdrew his hand, she looked down at the table, for the first time in her life flustered by the nearness of a man.
"Look at me, Destiny."
She lifted her gaze to the gray-blue eyes that had haunted her dreams. It was like staring into the sun.
"You never have to lower your eyes. I don't want to break your spirit. You don't have to call me 'Master.' But I will rule you."
And she believed him.
It was a week before she saw Ian again. By that time, she had whipped herself into a frappe with her fantasies of him, of waking next to him in the morning to suck his already-hard cock, of lying beneath him as he drove himself into her, of bending over to spread her cheeks for him, to allow him entrance to her most forbidden place-something she'd never done before. Her lusty, playful fantasies had taken on a dark and serious tenor. She was, as they say, fit to be tied.
He was waiting for her when she left the library where she worked part-time reading stories to children.
He didn't even say hello, just held the car door open as she slid into the front seat.
Men didn't usually take Destiny home. Taking Destiny to meet your mother was like taking a frog to church, or a tiger to the ballet: the results could be unpredictable. Even if a fellow lived alone-well, a rooster doesn't invite the fox into the place where he's most vulnerable.
Ian's house was a study in dark blues and tranquil greens, and when she stepped into the foyer, she knew that she had crossed more than just a physical threshold.
Standing there, her back against the door, she waited. His deft hands unbuttoned her sweater, peeling the clingy fabric away to expose white breasts mapped by delicate blue veins, pink-tipped with sensitive nipples that constricted under his examining eye. She wanted to scream Take me, or Suck me, or Fuck me, like a demanding and impatient child. But she knew that Ian was running this show. She, who had always called the shots, manipulated the slavering men with their burgeoning cocks, giving freely only that which she wanted to give-she was the one who must now wait, dance to another's tune, yearn for a touch the way a dog longs for a bone from a benevolent owner.
Ian turned her so that her back was to him, her naked breasts flattened against the unyielding oak door. He lifted her skirt, palmed her belly with one hand.
"I'm going to pull your panties down now, sweetie."
She could only groan. She didn't know what was coming-only knew that she had waited a long time for it.
Cool air swept across the curving planes of her bottom when he peeled her pink lace panties down around her thighs.