Meant to Be Mine

by Lisa Marie Perry

  “What does that mean?”

  “Never mind. Oh, they’re looking at lube. I know a thing or two about that. Come here.”

  The shelves offered option after option. Lined neatly were gels, liquids—

  “Oil. Water. Silicone.” Joss pointed as she spoke. “A few things to consider, ladies,” she said, addressing them all. “Oil-based lube is kryptonite to condoms. If you’re in water, avoid water-based lube and go for something silicone. For the most part, water-based won’t irritate, but if you or your partner has sensitive skin, try”—she plucked from the shelf a bottle marked TESTER and squirted some onto her fingertips—“this gem. It’s hypoallergenic and gives the skin a really silky texture. Feel.”

  The others put out their hands and each received a dollop squirted into her palm.

  “Nice, right?” Joss put it back and took down another tube. “The skin on your hand is different than your vagina, of course. It’ll take some experimenting, but your guys should like that.”

  Crickets.

  Paget looked around incredulously. “Are we all single? No one in this room is getting any action? There’s something very cruel about that.”

  “Improvise, then. Toys. Fingers. Produce?” They laughed and as Paget and Caro moved on, Joss pressed a bottle into Sofia’s hand. “Set this aside for yourself. Your longshoreman should appreciate it. Oh, and since you stocked their flavored line, you’re going to want to take some time to taste them.”

  There went her plans for a yummy gooey cookie for dessert. Lube-sampling after counting out the register and sending the others on their way sounded naughty…and sexy.

  Caro left, wishing them many horny customers, and Sofia sneaked upstairs to check on Tish once more.

  “Reopening Blush feels like a good thing,” she confided, scratching the dog under the chin. “Do you think Luz would approve?”

  Tish puffed out a breath through her nostrils, and her all-knowing silver eyes pressed shut, then stared directly into Sofia. Not at her, but into her soul, and the dog claimed her place in Sofia’s heart.

  “This mascara’s waterproof, but I’m not going to cry.” She sniffled and used the excuse of pet dander to wash her hands and wad a towel that she gently dabbed to her nose and the corners of her eyes. “I miss her so much.” Finnegan and Ellen didn’t care—Sofia’s health problems had run her father off and her mother hadn’t even tried. But Luz’s love was transparent and had followed Sofia wherever she went.

  “I have to go,” she told the dog, “but I’ll see you at lunch.”

  She returned to Blush a half hour before opening. A familiar man stood just inside the door.

  “Our first customer? Too early, but we won’t turn you away,” she said, automatically reaching out to pat his arm teasingly. Hesitating at the last moment, she folded her hands.

  Javier Bautista could be as closed-off and enigmatically intimidating as Tish. But both were her guardians, her friends, even though neither would admit it.

  “I’m not here to buy anything, querida.” He curled his fingers in a give me your hand gesture and surrendered a stone.

  “This belonged to Luz?” she asked.

  “No, it was my mother’s, from a charm bracelet. That’s a moonstone. She said the charms gave her good luck.” He shrugged. “I don’t think they did, but luck’s how you perceive it, isn’t it? Anyway, the place looks damn good. Luz would raise a toast to you.”

  She smiled and hugged him before he could dodge her. “That means everything. Thanks.”

  Not leaving out the others, he tossed a skeleton key to Paget and put a penny in Joss’s palm. “Buena suerte.”

  “A penny. Something tells me it’s the least valuable of the three,” Joss said, turning it again and again until he laid his hand over hers.

  “That’s one way to look at it. There’s a legend stuck to this penny, says a man was shot but wasn’t killed ’cause it was in his breast pocket. I don’t believe that, either, but Mom said hanging on to it made her feel safe. If it does that for you, then it’s the most valuable.”

  “Okay.” Joss sealed her lips, and for a second it looked like she was holding his hand tightly, but as Sofia approached for closer inspection, he stepped away and sought the door.

  When the jingling bell announced his departure, Sofia held up her stone. “Good luck. Think we need it?”

  “Well, if you decide you don’t want yours, give it to me,” Paget said, sliding the skeleton key into the pocket of her tight pants. “I’ll take all the luck I can get.”

  Joss didn’t answer. She stood there, gazing at the windows, once again turning the penny.

  At nine o’clock sharp, Sofia flipped the sign to OPEN, and the next few hours were an erratic flip-flop between pandemonium when visitors descended—few shopping, some refusing to venture past the tamer front room, most storing tidbits to feed the rumor mill—and frustrating quiet when there was no activity but porn on the television in Vices.

  The first pregnant customer to cross the threshold made Sofia do a double take. “Hannah, hi.”

  “Hi. I was checking to make sure you’re treating my friend Paget all right. Of course you are.” Smiling, she waved to Paget over the throng of customers and turned a circle in the sunshiny gold-and-white splendor. “Love the upgrades.”

  “You were a customer?”

  Hannah’s dark curls tumbled forward as she dropped her chin. “If Luz had offered a loyalty club, I’d be a platinum member from the condom saga alone.”

  Well, well, well, Abram Slattery. You know my dirty laundry and I’m about to know yours.

  “My husband’s libido’s on Red Bull or something lately,” Hannah said. Clearing her throat, she glanced around nervously—vulnerably. “He calls me beautiful, but I don’t see that when I look in the mirror.”

  “If intimacy makes you uncomfortable—”

  “It’s not exactly that. I like that Abram still desires me. I was scared he’d stop, that he’d…step out.”

  Would pregnancy alone plant that kind of insecurity in a woman as confident as Hannah? Sofia studied her and detected a slight frown that wasn’t quite confirmation but close enough.

  But Hannah wasn’t searching for consolation or support. She wanted to shop. “When Abram and I make love, we switch positions a lot, so I want some ideas for late-term pregnancy sex.”

  “Know what, Hannah? Let’s start with you. We don’t have much maternity lingerie, but browse and think about what makes you feel sexy.” She offered her elbow to the woman, who looked ready to topple forward from the weight of her baby bump.

  Later, when Hannah headed to the boutique’s exit with a damask-patterned shopping bag, Sofia felt a sense of victory. Not because she’d sold the woman two teddies, a pregnancy porn DVD, and warming massage oil, but rather because laughter touched Hannah’s eyes when she ate a nipple tart and hope brightened her smile when she took an Au Naturel business card from the counter and said she’d consider Sofia’s suggestion to schedule a consultation with Caro for a maternity boudoir session.

  “I’d better see you at the Fourth of July picnic,” Hannah said, bumping the door open with her butt. “Hot Dish is catering the barbecue. So come early and eat, and I promise I’ll understand if you slip away to watch the fireworks from a certain longshoreman’s boat.”

  Wait. What? “No, no, Hannah, it’s not—”

  “Later, hon.”

  Jingle!

  “—what you think.”

  *

  Curiosity could be detrimental to a man who seemed to find trouble without even searching for it. Aware of this, Burke had only himself to blame for angling his truck on Society Street at the peak of night.

  Cape Foods stared down at him like a reproachful parent. Its papers had his signature on them, but the building owned him. If he were to unlock the door and go inside tonight, he’d empty his stomach right in the middle of the gutted space. After Deacon had died and the man’s final expenses called Burke home, he
’d gotten rid of everything but the structure, but he could close his eyes and see it as it’d been before—three registers, the owner’s office on the right, a customer service counter on the left and a stock room in the back.

  More familiar with its features than he was with the tats in his skin, he’d never forget the store as long as he remained chained to it through ownership papers. Yet he couldn’t let it go.

  Torturing himself this way was penance, in the same vein as scrubbing and sweeping the market for no pay had been. What he’d earned in tips he’d pocketed—it was how he’d saved the cash to buy Sofia an iPod for Christmas one year—but he’d never collected a dime from Deacon Wolf.

  He’d worked, cooked hot dinners, and escaped when he could. The boarded-up tunnel underneath Cape Foods had been a safe haven for him, a place to hide.

  Sofia had been a hornet, gentle to look at but fierce when anyone threatened her colony. And that colony was a tiny one, just her and Luz and Finnegan. He had no colony to protect, and none to protect him—until Sofia.

  Eaves made him out to be the monster, but all he’d been was prey—the true monster a man he called Dad.

  Sofia knew Deacon as the decorated war vet who ran the neighborhood market and had given her peppermint candies from the time she was old enough to come toddling into his store. She didn’t know the impact of his fists or that Burke had learned to patch drywall and replace windows by repairing the damage his father left on the house in the wake of his rampages.

  The church congregation knew only that choir singer Melody’s little boy stopped coming to service and had chosen drugs over the Lord’s grace—but not that a Saturday-night beating meant he’d be nursing his own cuts and cracked bones at home on Sunday.

  The school knew he had a brain but squandered his potential with petty fights—but not that every brawl featured the same man who put food in Burke’s stomach and always paid the bills on time.

  The vilest way Deacon destroyed his son was to let him stay alive. So in the solitary instance when Burke had landed a fist on his father’s jaw in defense and Deacon had pointed a gun at Burke’s forehead, he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

  You killed Melody. I could empty this chamber into you and send you straight to hell, where you belong.

  Burke had pissed his pants, wept for his mother, and the next day he’d taken his first toke of weed. He’d been fourteen then and had made the decision to never raise his hand to his father again. But neither would he let Deacon wreck him. Burke’s life was his to wreck, and he’d come mighty damn close to accomplishing that.

  Burke shuffled backward on the sidewalk. He could reach down and lob a flowerpot at the window, but the demons would be set free to float in the darkness.

  It lay in the past, and he’d managed to hold it there until Sofia started hounding him about selling the building. If she knew, maybe she’d back off. Or maybe she wouldn’t if it stood in the way of her ambition—and that would hurt more than he cared to realize.

  With a simple “Fuck you, Dad,” he set Deacon Wolf aside and started walking again.

  Head down, he didn’t invite the smiles of strangers or acknowledge the tense regard of people who knew him and didn’t like the man he was.

  Remnants of a burst balloon rolled under his boot and he looked up at Blush. As late as it was, the place must be closed. Black velvet ropes held with gold posts designated a short path to the door. Hanging over it was a banner with GRAND REOPENING printed in a flourish. The mannequin orgy was slightly different—they were still naked, but all except the one in the white robe wore party hats.

  Surrendering to a chuckle, he sought the other window. Every molecule of his being shot to attention. It was as though he forgot where he was going and what was important.

  On the other side of the glass was Sofia, wearing a black dress and stockings, standing on a platform arranging strings of golden icicle lights against a midnight backdrop. He’d recognize her slender form and the soft curve of her ass a continent away. The lights’ twinkle reminded him of fireflies. A pair of mannequins sat side by side under a blanket, and surrounding them were wads of some white gauzy fabric.

  The previous display to scandalize this window had been hazily familiar. This one brought him back to their night at the lighthouse.

  Was that her intent? Was this a message meant for him?

  Sofia turned to pin a string in place, and when she paused at the sight of him square in front of her, she didn’t return his wave.

  Disappearing from the window, she appeared at the door and he heard the twisting of locks.

  “Y’all working late?” he said, stepping inside.

  “Just me. We closed at nine. Paget’s shift ended well before that, and Joss is upstairs making fresh treats for tomorrow. And I’m dressing the windows. There’s leftover pink champagne in back. It’s all very Zen right now.”

  “Want me to go? You sound tired.”

  “No,” she insisted, laying her hand on his chest. “Stay. If that’s what you want, I mean.”

  “Are we still doing this, Sofia? You’re acting out fantasies with mannequins in your windows and I’m waking up every morning hard with you in my head. For what, though, if we’re still dancing around this?” He indicated the space between them. It wasn’t a lot. If he bent forward just a few inches, he could taste her mouth and he’d have something pure in his life again.

  His body had wanted hers—so badly—from the moment he’d spotted her at the cemetery. At the lighthouse she’d gazed at him openly, not blaming him for the guilt hugging his shoulders.

  The dumb choices he made to protect her weren’t in vain—she’d been worth it all along.

  “I’m not tired. It’s a mixed-feelings sort of day.”

  “I want to stay.”

  “You do?”

  He didn’t hear the words, just watched her mouth form them. “Yeah.”

  She led him through to Vices, and he stared at the sway of her hips in that snug, satiny dress the entire way. Hanging out here with hardcore porn on the TV was going to test the mettle of his restraint. Not mind over matter—mind over erection.

  “Level with me, Sofia. How can all of this stuff not get to you?”

  “It’s merchandise. I’m running a business. The creeper we caught trying to use a toy in a dressing room kept everything in perspective.” Still, she looked from him to the male-on-female anal sex on-screen and clicked off the TV. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t need a video to teach me how to get that done.”

  Sofia’s slim neck rippled as she swallowed. “Oh.”

  “There’s some very sexually explicit dessert in that case,” he commented. “Your friend Joss have something to do with this?”

  “Yeah—help yourself. I was taste testing flavored lube, and I’ve got to monitor my sweets intake anyway. But you’re welcome to it. The Venus piercing’s edible.”

  An edible pierced vulva. Burke had witnessed the northern lights, watched a hurricane nearly capsize his boat, and survived an attempted hijacking at sea—but now he’d seen it all.

  If that crooked smirk was any indication, his discomfort amused her. “Something funny?”

  “All the naughty things are getting to you. It’s adorable that you’re nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “You are. So careful. Polite.”

  Nervous. Careful. Polite. He would erase those words with a single sentence of honesty.

  He concentrated on getting to her, on getting nice and close. Flared pupils dominated her brown eyes; the rise and fall of her chest quickened. Grazing her earlobe with his lips, he said frankly, “Sofia, there’s only one pussy I want to lick in this place, and it ain’t covered with frosting.”

  She slapped a hand over her mouth, then curled her fingers. “That was filthy.”

  He nodded. “But you’re not telling me to go.”

  “I’m…” Her arms fell, one then the other, as she walked backward to
ward a pair of slim doors marked DRESSING. “I’m not.”

  He tried to remind himself. Mind over…What?

  Fuck it—the past, the future, and everything in between that made sense. Opening one of the doors to a room with mirrored walls, she offered him a gift—her trust.

  Advancing on her and walking into her outstretched arms, he sighed. “Jesus. Sofia, be sure. Are you sure?”

  “It’s you, Burke, so I’m sure.” When she wet her lips, he took the invitation.

  Their tongues collided and her heat filled the coldest parts of him. Keeping his mouth occupied, she dragged up his shirt, then broke away to whimper, “Take it off. I need to touch you.”

  Complying with her desperate command, he stripped it off and pitched it.

  She kissed his neck as she hooked her fingers into the waistband of his jeans. Teasing him, pressing along his shape, she unbuttoned the fly and lowered the zipper. “These next. Take them off.”

  “Nah.”

  “What?” Confused, on the borderline of crushed, she searched his face. “I thought we—”

  “Turn around and hold up your hair.”

  Sofia spun, and with her back to him she faced a mirror. At every turn, every angle, was their reflection. Hesitant fingers gathered the dark, silky sheet, though some strands managed to slip away.

  Beautiful.

  Untying the knot at the top of her dress and taking down the zipper, he revealed her pale olive skin. She shivered, letting her hair fall. He kissed her shoulder blades, knew his bristly jaw scoured her.

  “It tickles, your beard on me,” she said with a halfhearted giggle. In the mirror he could see her hands gripping the front of the dress to her breasts—to her scar.

  Moving his mouth to her ear again, he said, “Just because you said you were sure before doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. Tell me to stop and I’ll take my hands off you. No questions.”

  She said nothing, seeking him in the mirror and parting her lips as her hands relaxed on the dress.

  From behind Burke took both of her wrists and outstretched her arms, and the dress dropped as if it’d fainted from her body.