Mal shoulda known. He’d had experience with the type before. The girls who look all angelic but are actually quite the opposite. The ones who are all sweet and demure around their parents, but turn into hellcats the minute they are alone with their prey. Hell, he’d gotten his cherry busted at the hands of one of them. And she was a preacher’s kid to boot. Colonel’s daughter, Miss Katie, was no different. Sashayin’ past all the enlisted guys with that hip wiggle, chest thrust up and out. Knowin’ all too well just how long it had been since a one of ‘em – includin’ him, sad to say – had a taste of anything remotely like that. Heels and skirt just a tad too high and blouse an equal amount too low – not enough for the old man to notice, but he and the other fellahs surely did. It was the contents of that blouse upon which Corporal First Class Malcolm C. Reynolds was contemplating as he leaned against one of the jeeps in the motor pool. He’d drawn the short straw and got stuck with motorpool guard duty during the fancypants ball for Miss Katie’s 18th birthday. All them young buck officers getting’ to eat fine food and dance with Miss Katie and her friends, while he got stuck with K-rations, cold stale coffee and having to keep a watchful eye on the colonel’s prized jeep lest it get even a single smudge on it’s blinding wax job. He was of a certainty that even though the odds of any of them young buck officers getting a chance to actually undo any of the lacings holding Miss Katie in her party dress were about equal to his, they at least got better surroundings in which to contemplate their lack of luck. Mal shifted his weight and took another swig of the cold coffee. It was gonna be a long night. At that exact moment, the object of his fantasies appeared in the doorway. Said fantasy was done up in an ankle-length pale turquoise silk cheong sam with a matching silk flower artfully perched atop a blond head. Strappy sandaly things in a silk fabric to match the dress that featured a slit running all the way up the leg. Mal was humped. And not in any manner of a good way. Hell, she’s prolly just comin’ down to lord it over the poor enlisted grunt. Still, it was likely in his best interest to at least act the part, lest some story get back to the old man about him bein’ all disrespectful to his darlin’ daughter. Mal snapped off a smart salute. “Miss Katie, you lost?” She sauntered closer, rose perfume following in her wake. Looked Mal up and down and seemed to like what she saw. “Why, what makes you think that, Corporal…?” “Reynolds, Miss Katie. Corporal Malcolm Reynolds out of Shadow, here valiantly guarding yer daddy’s jeep against all incursions.” She ran a perfectly manicured blood-red fingernail across the hood. Mal made a mental note to buff out the smudge left behind before the old man came down to fetch his vehicle. “Well, you seem to be doing an excellent job, Corporal Malcolm Reynolds out of Shadow. My daddy would be pleased. You deserve to be rewarded for your efforts.” Mal could kick himself as he felt the blush starting at his collar and working upward. “Thank you, Miss Katie. I pride myself on excellence.” She cocked that pretty blond head at him. “I just bet you do.” And then she did something that Mal knew meant he was headed for serious trouble. She bent over the jeep, spreading the upper half of her body across the hood and leaving Mal unable to look away from that perfectly rounded and completely forbidden backside covered in turquoise silk. Then she did something even more alarming, if that was at all possible. She started to hike up the dress, revealing a set of perfect stems. Mal’s eyes damn near bulged out of his head. When she lifted the dress even higher, to reveal a pair of sheer thong panties the same color as the dress, Mal could feel something else beginning to bulge. Down, boy. Old man’ll have your head on a platter, you even think about… “Uhhmm…Miss Katie? What if your daddy sees you like…yeah.?” Miss Katie turned her head to peer at Mal over her shoulder with a coquettish wink. Definitely not helping matters. “Oh he’s so drunk, he probably doesn’t even know I’m missing.” “Surely somebody’s be lookin’ for ya? One of yer young swains?” “They bore me. All bowing and scraping. Not like you, Corporal Malcolm Reynolds out of Shadow.” That barely covered backside started to gently sway back and forth. Mal could barely resist the urge to grab a hold. “They pretend like this isn’t what they want. But I know they do. You aren’t like them.” “That so?” She started humming. In time to the backsway. Which, much to Mal’s chagrin was precisely matching the rhythm of the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Not to mention the throbbing of his cock. “How long has it been, Corporal?” Oh, she cannot possibly mean… “Been, Miss Katie?” His mouth was way too dry and his voice equally too rough. “Since, well, you know.” Miss Katie continued on, all the while keeping up that hypnotizing backsway. “Two months? Four? Six?” Mal’s sudden cough gave her the answer she was looking for. “That’s just too long, don’t you think?” Sweet Baby Jesus, it surely was. The very fact he was seriously considering what she had to offer confirmed that fact for him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea…” Another wink. “I’m getting bored over here. You gonna wait another six months?” To ruttin’ hell with that! In retrospect, Mal wouldn’t actually remember tossing aside his rifle, helmet or coat. Nor, actually, how he got to the point where he had grabbed a hold of that tempting backside and was pressing his aching groin into her. He did, however, remember with crystal clarity when Miss Katie started grinding against him. The old man’ll kill him for sure, but at least he’d go to his grave having gotten his wick dipped more recently than six months prior. A small part of him wished to hell there was opportunity to get the two of them completely undressed, but he was not about to press his already thin luck to the breaking point. As Mal unfastened his pants and pulled them down. , she started to pull down those wispy little underthings. He stopped her. “Darlin’, if I’m gonna catch hell for this, I might as well get t’ unwrap the gift.” And with that, off they came. Under other circumstances, Mal woulda taken his sweet time about it. Was never a fellah big on “Wham. Bam. Thank You, Ma’am.” Unfortunately, these were not other circumstances, so he had best get down to business. So with that, he eased himself home. Then there was nothing but heat and softness, her tightening down around his cock, and him being eternally grateful Miss Katie was relatively quiet-like in her responses. Last thing he needed at this moment, what with him puttin’ it to the old man’s daughter over the hood of a jeep was her howling like a demented banshee. A few more sharp thrusts and Mal couldn’t hold back any longer. He came, hard, sharp and full of pent-up physical release that had waited too long. He very carefully eased himself out of her. By the time he’d even managed to collect his thoughts enough to think about cleaning up, Miss Katie was back to being neat as a pin, looking as though she had not just had herself a rut with one of the enlisted grunts. She graced him with a blinding smile. “Thank you, Corporal Malcolm Reynolds out of Shadow. You managed to liven up an otherwise dull party.” And with that, she was back up the stairs to her young swains who had no idea what she felt like around them. As he finished cleaning up, Mal just stared after her. Once he was presentable enough should anyone come looking for him, he sank down into the desk chair to process what in hell had just happened. At that moment, the hood of the old man’s jeep caught his eye. The shiny wax job was now all smudged and smeared, thanks to recent activities. Mal sighed and picked up a rag off the desk. Once a grunt, always a grunt. Even if you got a bite of forbidden fruit. Having finished, he tossed the rag back on the desk and took a quick trip to the head to wash his hands. Came back to find the old man closely inspecting the hood and looking unhappy. Mal recalled a bit of sage advice he’d gotten from his first Sarge: “Son, whatever you do, keep the old man happy. A happy old man means a happy you.” Too late for that now. The old man cleared his throat noisily. “I don’t recall this smudge being here when I left the jeep. What do you have to say about that, Corporal…Reynolds, is it?” ‘Sir, yes sir! I must’ve brushed against it, sir. Very sorry about that! Sir!” “Well, that’ll be a month of kitchen duty, Corporal.” Miss Katie stood to one side, smiling politely at him, like he had not just rutted with her an hour previously. Figures that she’d not stand up for him. Mal oughta know not to go for the ones out of his league. He felt like a complete chump. Inara’s giggle stopped Mal in the middle of his story about his youthful indiscretions. “Am I out of your league, Mal?” He looked over at her lying next to him in her…no, *their*…bed. Grinned and tapped her lightly on the nose. “Maybe a little, bao be. But sometimes, a man’s reach just oughta exceed his grasp.”