Paying Her Dues
“Atta fuckin’ girl,” I say, and accelerate down the highway, so happy it feels like a dream.
* * *
The jeweler’splace is high end, fancy as it comes in this area. “No way,” she says in awe when we pull into the parking lot.
I get out first and open the door for her. “Way.”
Inside we go, into the coolness and stillness. The place feels expensive, as it damned well should. Only the best for her. Now and always.
She thinks we’re here for rings, but we’re not. I take her hand and lead her to the side of the store, where a row of glittering cases showcase some very particular, very specialized jewelry. The kind that locks. The kind that makes a binding fucking promise.
She studies the bracelets and the necklace, each of them with some different sort of lock—some delicate, some gaudy—accompanied by a key.
She understands it immediately. “Oh,” she says, eyes sparkling. “Oh, I see.”
No, she doesn’t. Not yet. But she will. Over time. And with lots of fucking and loving and caring and training and learning and tears and orgasms.
“Which one do you like? If Daddy lets you have a say.”
She bits her lips, averting her eyes, as a blush sneaks up her cheeks. “Let’s see.”
I give her some space, watching her close all the time, but letting her have some freedom to think and look around. Because y I want to own her, now and always, but I also don’t want to suffocate her for even one goddamned second. She’s only known suffocating love until now. From today forward, she’ll always be able to breathe.
I hang back a bit, by the men’s watches, letting her explore the D/s jewelry, and even turn my back on her for a second to check my phone. But when I turn back around, she’s talking to the guy who works here. He’s giving her the eye, and then I watch her swing her hair over her shoulder, flirting right back.
My vision clouds with the red haze. Worse, way fucking worse, than when I overheard her talking about that dickwad Dr. Markham from the orchestra. Because this fucker, this motherfucker, is talking to my baby girl.
And she’s talking back.
And this not fucking happening.
I crack my neck side to side, resisting the very real urge to leap over the beveled glass cases and rearrange his facial features like a motherfucking live-action Picasso. I come up right behind her and possessively slide my hand down her ass.
“So?” I ask giving her round flesh a squeeze.
She lifts her eyes to me, warm and innocent and welcoming. Not a hint of deceit, not a hint of residual flirtation. She’s just clearly so fucking glad to see me that it feels like a punch to the sternum. It’s only because I want her so fucking bad that I doubted her, that I misread the swing of her hair.
But I didn’t misread the clerk at all. He looks deflated like any guy does when he gets royally cockblocked.
“Sir. Hello.”
At least he didn’t keep flirting with her when I showed up. But I don’t acknowledge him at all. “So tell me what you want, baby. Because I need to talk to you outside. Now.”
“Oh!” she says, looking surprised and a little disappointed. “We can go, if you want? I mean, I hadn’t really…”
Bullshit. I’d seen her linger over by a rock of a diamond solitaire with a heart-shaped lock on the clasp. Delicate and beautiful and discrete. “It’s the diamond, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she answers, smiling and shy. “But it’s too expensive.”
The fuck it is. I slip my wallet out of my pocket and take my credit card from my money clip.
“We’ll take it,” I growl at the salesguy, without ever taking my eyes away from Jess.
He goes off to get us squared away and I take a step into her, caging her in by the pearl earrings.
“Let’s get one thing straight. No flirting. With anybody. Not even if it’s innocent, we clear? Not even to be polite because...”
She looks scared, surprised and interrupts me. “I… I didn’t mean to…”