Visions of Destiny (Complete Series) Read online

  It took Rachel a few seconds to realize that he had asked her a question and was expecting her answer. “Ye—yes,” she stammered, belatedly adding the needed, “Sir.”

  He continued to alternate between squeezing her ass and releasing it, and every time she couldn’t stop herself from jerking lightly. She couldn’t have said whether she was trying to get away from his bruising hands or closer still.

  “I’ve been doing all the work so far,” he said, a light smirk flirting on his lips. “Your turn, Sheila. I want you to bounce on my cock. Can you do that for me?”

  This time, the “Yes, Sir” came out more smoothly, if just as quietly.

  Holding on to his shoulders, Rachel slowly raised herself higher on her knees, until only the head of his cock remained inside her, then sank down again, pushing him all the way back in. She repeated the process three times, but he stopped her with a cluck of his tongue.

  “I said bounce, Sheila.”

  Rachel blinked at him, mouth opening to apologize, maybe, or ask what he meant—or tell him that she would come if she moved any faster than she did now. All she needed was to look into his lust-filled eyes to realize he knew that. Of course he did. He could always tell when she was close.

  She started to move on top of him again, but while before her movements had been careful and deliberate, this time she did exactly as he asked and bounced, quickly reaching a fast, almost frantic rhythm. Sometimes, she only moved an inch or so up his cock before slamming back down. Sometimes, he almost slipped out of her, and she hurriedly lowered herself again so as not to lose him.

  “That’s it,” Master David panted. He was still holding on to her ass, and—she was sure—leaving more marks, this time shaped like his fingers. “Very good, Sheila. You’re so lovely, dancing on my cock like that. As beautiful as when I take a flogger to your ass. Can you go even faster, pretty?”

  Rachel couldn’t answer in words, didn’t even know what she would have said if she had tried to form coherent sounds rather than the harsh panting and moans that passed her lips. All she could do was try to follow his command and increase her pace.

  Master David shifted beneath her. So far, he had remained very still, letting her do all the work as he had said, but now he seemed unable to control himself, and his hips jerked up every so often. Every time he did, the pleasure that was lurking on the edge of Rachel’s consciousness grew more intense, and it wasn’t long before her hands closed reflexively on his sweat-dampened shoulders as an orgasm, quick as lightning, ripped through her. A second followed, just as fast, just as intense. Then a third.

  Pleasure flashed through her over and over, drawing a continuous moan from Rachel’s lips. It was all she could do to keep moving, even though her rhythm was erratic now.

  The entire time, he continued to rain sweet words on her, calling her beautiful and good, saying how glad he was he had found her, how proud that she called him Master, how hard he became every time she allowed him to touch her like this.

  Rachel had played scenes with Doms who didn’t bother to utter a word that wasn’t an order or chastisement. She had been surprised, the first time she had played with Master David, by how much praise he offered. He was always quick to point out her faults, but he acknowledged her successes just as readily. She doubted she would ever be able again to enjoy playing with someone who didn’t talk to her like Master David did.

  She also doubted she would ever feel more pride than she did when her actions, her body working hard on top of his, finally caused Master David to come.

  His hands, palms warm and slick, slid to her waist and held her down tightly against him as he thrust up into her, a short jab of his hips as his eyes closed and his head fell back. His moan, soft and quiet, was the most beautiful of sounds.

  He pulled her closer to him until they were chest to chest, both of them trembling, both of them out of breath and sated.

  As she slowly climbed down from her orgasms, Rachel smiled against his shoulder, her eyes closed. His hands were now running up and down her sides, back, and ass, the touch so light that it was soothing rather than stinging.

  “Sit up,” he demanded quietly after a moment.

  As loath as she was to relinquish contact, she pushed away from the warmth of his chest and sat up straight on his lap. His softened cock slipped out of her at the same time that he lifted one hand off her skin. A tiny whimper of loss escaped Rachel.

  “Shh… I’m here.”

  She shuddered at the coolness of a wet wipe caressing her folds and thighs; a box always rested near the sofa on a low table.

  As he cleaned up them both, she knew he was watching her, and it made her smile even more that his entire attention was still on her.

  “Are you satisfied?” he asked quietly.

  She hummed before answering. “Yes, Sir.”

  “How about happy?”

  Although the question puzzled her, she felt too content to give it much thought and answered again with a quiet and truthful, “Yes, Sir.”

  “Has another Master ever taken care of you as well as I do?”

  Her smile faded. They had long ago agreed that they wouldn’t talk about other Doms or submissives they had played—or still played—with. There was no need to compare, and certainly no need to feel jealous, not on either of their parts. Still, lately she had stopped playing with other Doms altogether, and the thought of Master David enjoying himself with another submissive had become too troubling for her to consider. She wondered if she had upset him in some way, and finally opened her eyes.

  She had time to voice a quiet, “Sir?” before she saw his hands, and what was in them.

  She sat back against his thighs, and even the pain flaring again in her ass couldn’t begin to mask her shock at what he was holding.

  In each of his hands was a collar, his fingers playing over the lengths almost hypnotically. One of the collars was plain black leather, narrower than her pinky finger, with a small, silver clasp; it looked like a choker, made to receive a small pendant that would rest at the hollow of one’s throat. The second collar was wider, with sparkling jewel studs lined up in two rows around the circumference; it screamed BDSM, and even people who weren’t part of this lifestyle wouldn’t have mistaken it for a simple piece of jewelry.

  Was he asking her to choose one? She blinked at the collars, then dared a look up at his face. Butterflies took flight in her stomach, and her mouth was suddenly desert dry.

  “I like taking care of you,” he said. “I like simply being with you.”

  His words were slow and precise, and she had the feeling he had rehearsed this. The number of butterflies suddenly quadrupled.

  “And I don’t want you to play with anyone else,” he continued. “Will you wear my collar?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  She answered reflexively. She didn’t even have to think about it. For so long, she had wanted someone who wouldn’t simply be a Dominant, a Master who played with her for one night or ten, but someone she would be able to call her Master. When she had moved across the country for her job, she had been sad to leave her closest friends and her family behind, but she had also been terrified to leave the club where three Masters had taken turns at playing with her along with a few other subs. She had been afraid she wouldn’t manage to find someone else who would be able to give her what she needed. In the end, she had found even more than that.

  “Take this,” he said and handed her the studded collar. “This one is for you to wear at the club. So everyone will know.”

  Her hands were trembling as she held the collar almost reverently. It felt heavy, but she was sure that, once it sat around her neck, the weight would be perfect, light enough to be comfortable, heavy enough that she’d always be aware that it was on her. She ran a fingertip along a row of jewels, imagining what they would look like around her neck, how they would glitter eve
ry time she moved.

  She pushed herself off his lap and knelt on the floor between his legs, presenting the collar back to him in her open palms.

  “Sir?” she said softly, asking for permission to speak.

  He ran a hand through her hair, pushing her bangs away from her forehead. “Yes, Sheila?”

  “Will you…will you put it on me?”

  He smiled, but a hint of hesitation pierced on his lips. “In a minute,” he said. “If you still want it.”

  Rachel felt confused; hadn’t she told him already that she wanted it?

  “I don’t want you to wear my collar only at the club,” he continued. “I bought this one—” He showed her the choker-like collar. “—for you to wear outside these walls. I don’t want to have to wait until I can come to the club to see you or be with you. I want you to move in with me, and for us to be more than Dom and sub. I want us to be…together. Would you like that?”

  His face held more hesitation than she had believed he could even feel. For a few seconds, Rachel couldn’t breathe.

  She had never wanted this, never dreamed of it the way she had dreamed of wearing a collar. She knew what was possible and what wasn’t, and she prided herself on not allowing unattainable goals to tarnish the simpler, more reasonable ones that she could reach.

  Her life had always been neatly separated down a line only she knew existed. On one side, she was a normal young woman; ‘vanilla,’ some people called it. She had a job, an apartment, friends she saw regularly in restaurants or at parties. The parties she attended on the other side of her life were altogether different. For those, she wasn’t Rachel, but Sheila, and somehow, while wearing a name that wasn’t hers, she was still more truthful to the person she really was inside when she knelt at a Master’s feet and accepted what he offered her, pain and pleasure alike.

  She had hidden that part of herself ever since she had realized it existed, and no one who knew her as Rachel knew or even suspected that she liked this, needed this. Being Sheila allowed her to get it without risking anyone finding out about her less-than-mainstream preferences.

  What Master David was offering her now wasn’t simply a collar, or a mutual promise that they wouldn’t play with others. What he was suggesting was to bring her two lives together.

  Could she do that? Could she take that risk? If she lived with him, the people who knew her as Rachel might get peeks at Sheila, might even guess what her relationship with David was like, and then what? What would they think, what would she do, what…

  She took a deep breath to calm her accelerated heartbeat and raised her gaze to look at him again. As soon as she met his eyes, she knew. This was it. This was the moment when her life changed, when she reconciled the different parts that made her who she was—or accepted that she would forever be broken. All she had to do was say yes and forget her fears. It was usually easy to do for Master David, but this time, it was different. This time she could say no. She just didn’t want to.

  Another deep breath steadied her nerves and she nodded.

  “A nod is not an answer,” Master David said, and the reproach that would normally have thickened his admonition was remarkably absent.

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” she replied automatically, then took a deep breath. She could do this. It was the right decision, the answer she had been waiting to give forever, it suddenly seemed. “Yes, Sir,” she started again, and she sounded even more certain than she felt. “I would like that very much.”

  His expression was one of relief, and she realized how worried he had been that she might say no. His hands were trembling when he leaned closer to slide the second collar around her neck.

  Smiling at Master David, she raised her hand to touch the circle of leather on her neck, the proof that they were now linked, and murmured, “Rachel.”

  A brief frown crossed his features. “What?”

  “That’s my name, Sir. Rachel.”

  He nodded his understanding and smiled back. “Thank you, Rachel.”

  For the first time in longer than Rachel could remember—maybe for the first time since she had realized where her preferences lay—she felt at peace, complete. She wasn’t worried about getting what she needed or finding someone who could give it to her. She wasn’t even worried about someone from her ‘normal’ life finding out about this, or at least not too worried. Everything would be fine; her Master would make sure of that.

  * * * *

  This time, rather than returning to the dining room and the voices she could hear there, Daisy sat in the living room, curling up her feet beneath her on the sofa.

  In the original floor plan for the cottage, this had been the dining room, while the next room was the living room. Her parents had fallen in love with the view, however, and they had switched the rooms, installing all the furniture in this new living room so that it faced the French windows. Through them, through the wide spaces between the guardrail’s supports, she could see the glimmers of moonlight on the ocean. Her gaze wasn’t looking that far, though, remaining instead on the balcony, on Woods and Rachel, both of them very still as they sat on the iron armchairs across from each other.

  She could still hear the others in the dining room, even though the conversation was quieter now. They were discussing Alicia, speculating on what she might have seen that had caused her to leave to go visit Ben at the hospital. A couple of them expressed the thought that it was more than time for their two friends to finally get together, and Daisy felt a little vindicated; after all, she had been trying to push Ben and Alicia together for months.

  Of Daisy’s small circle of friends, Alicia was the one whose loneliness had taken the most extreme form with her visits to blood bars and vampires, but she wasn’t the only one who had been craving to find a meaningful relationship. Maybe that was why their group was so close-knit, Daisy thought absently. They told each other tales of first dates gone wrong and set each other up for blind dates. And when nothing else worked, they spent a few hours together, like tonight. Joan and Brad’s happiness together was the exception to the overall rule. And as for Lydia and Jack—

  “Daisy?”

  Startled out of her thoughts, Daisy almost jumped at the sound of her name. She turned to the entrance of the living room to see Cathleen standing there, the cordless phone in hand. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure if you were outside or what so I picked up. It’s Alicia.”

  Daisy accepted the phone with a word of thanks and a smile.

  “Hello? Alicia?”

  “Daisy!” Alicia’s voice was so shrill that Daisy pulled the phone away from her ear reflexively and still heard every word. “He said yes! I invited him for a date, and he said yes!”

  A bubble of laughter burst on Daisy’s lips. “Of course he said yes. Didn’t I tell you he would?”

  On the other side of the glass, Woods jerked in his chair. Remembering what he had said about noise being enough to end a vision sometimes, Daisy grimaced and resolved not to be so loud again.

  Alicia’s voice also dropped to a more reasonable level when she said, “I know you did, but I was so scared. And now I’m so happy. It’s going to work between us. I’m sure it will.”

  For a moment, Daisy wanted to remind her that she had a reason to be so sure; after all, Alicia’s vision had been about her relationship with Ben, she had admitted as much. How much did she remember, though? She had been the first to go to Woods that evening. Had she talked about her vision with anyone—with Ben, maybe? If she had, she would have forgotten most or even all of it right away.

  “I’m happy for you,” Daisy said, deciding not to bring up the vision again. “I wish you two all the luck in the world. And I want it on the record that I told you so!”

  The road ahead might still be arduous for her friends, Daisy thought as she and Alicia exchanged goodbyes, but in the end, she was confident they would get there. She had
been convinced that Alicia and Ben belonged together for years.

  Since she had the phone in hand, Daisy decided she would call her family and give them her wishes for the New Year early. She cast a quick look to Rachel and Woods before she dialed. Woods had shifted again in his seat, while Rachel remained extremely still. Neither seemed to have been bothered by her phone call.

  She knew her parents were hosting a dinner for her siblings and their spouses, so she called there. When she had finally agreed to her friends’ request that she contact Woods on their behalf, she had immediately thought of having the soiree on New Year’s Eve, and if she was totally honest with herself, it was in part so that she would escape being teased by her siblings at the dinner table. Now that she was the only one of them who was single, both her brothers and her sister seemed to have made it a competition between them as to who would introduce her to the man she would eventually marry. She loved her siblings, but the teasing was growing old.

  The phone rang twice before her father picked up with a cheerful, “Happy New Year!”

  “Aren’t you a bit early, Dad?” she asked, grinning.

  “Daisy! How are you, honey?” Before she could answer, she heard him call out away from the phone, “Everyone, say ‘Happy New Year’ to Daisy!”

  A chorus of voices dutifully repeated, “Happy New Year, Daisy!” and she couldn’t help but smile even more widely, feeling a rush of warmth toward them all.

  “Happy New Year to all of you,” she said, then asked, “Is everyone there?”

  “Everyone but you,” her father said. “Is there anything left of my wine reserve?”

  She chuckled. “Like you always say, Dad. It’s there to be enjoyed.”

  His harrumphing didn’t fool Daisy; after all, he had told her which bottles her friends might enjoy the most.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed suddenly. “You missed the announcement. You’re going to be an aunt again!”

  Thinking of her sisters-in-law and her sister, Daisy took an educated guess. “Helen?”