The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

I’m her Dom, not her therapist, but I know we’re going to have to deal with the source of her pain eventually. It’s not something I can ask her about. Not yet. Not while her trust is still tentative. But I’ll get us there, one baby step at a time. It’ll be worth the effort. I can already see the prize at the far side of the minefield. I saw it tonight when she came up from her trance. That shining prize, Emily’s heart, is pure platinum. She’ll never cheat, never lie, never betray the man she gives herself to. She’s wrapped her heart in mines and barbed wire because she’s given it before and had it handed back to her in pieces, but once she trusts me completely, she’ll be mine.

Then I’m going to collar her.

Her deep vulnerability over her bunny made me so mental to reassure her that I broke out her collar days before I intended to even show it to her. I ordered it after our first date, though. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but deciding to collar her after that insanely good first date? I’ll buy that.

And she wants to be collared already, whether or not she realizes it. The look in her eyes when I took it off tonight nearly undid me. She wanted it back immediately. Despite what I told her, which I only said because I didn’t want to come across like some psycho who collars his bottoms after the second date, she’s already thinking of it as a collar. Good girl that she is, she wanted her collar back. That’s exactly what I want her to feel. I want her to want her collar, need it, crave wearing it so badly that she forgets the pain of her past. I want her to feel worse than naked without it. I want her to feel skinless. One big, exposed, throbbing nerve. Which is already how I feel around her.

I’ve admitted things to her I’ve never admitted to anyone. I feel more intensely around her than I’ve felt since I was a ball of hormones and confusion as a kid. I almost broke down tonight when she admitted her calorie-counting to me. She tried to hide it when we were in New York, but whether it was the debacle in L.A. or just the slow building of trust between us since, she trusted me with it tonight. I felt like fucking Superman in that moment. I haven’t felt like a hero in a long time, certainly not since leaving the Navy. But I could hear the snap of my cape when I was holding her.

I want to keep my cape. I want to be her hero. If that means I have to survive a couple of landmines and tear myself up on some barbed wire, so be it. That platinum heart is going to be mine.

* * *

The beeping of my phone pulls me out of a dream involving Elektra Natchios and power tools. She’s screaming, “Drill me, Daddy. Drill me!” when I jerk awake.

I disentangle myself from Emily, who gives a little whimper at the loss of my warmth, and roll over to check my phone. Mir sometimes forgets about the time difference and calls very early in the morning.

Not this time. It’s my alarm. Oh seven hundred California time. We’ve slept for over nine hours, and, as far as I know, neither of us even twitched.

Time to get up. I haven’t managed to keep us on schedule since we arrived in L.A. That’s on me. Control starts at home. If I can get back on my own schedule, then I can get Emily on track.

I slide the pillow I was sleeping on, still warm, against Emily’s back and tuck the covers around her. Despite her chirpiness yesterday, I don’t think she’s a morning person and she might get another hour of sleep if I don’t disturb her.

Grateful for the cabin’s thick carpet, I move quietly around the suite, gathering my running gear and a bottle of water from the stock in the bar’s fridge. Housekeeping has left me almost as much water as they have soap. I guess they think I’m chronically dehydrated as well as very dirty. I scratch a quick note to Emily and leave it on the covers next to her, so she’ll know where I am, then let myself out.

When I return forty minutes later, dripping from a three-mile run around the deck in heat that’s already more intense than August in the City, Emily’s exactly where I left her. I smile at her sleeping figure as I go to shower and shave. Playing with her will be a sweet reward for my morning exertions.

She taps on the bathroom door as I’m toweling off. “Daddy, I’m just going to my own cabin for a minute.”

I can guess why; I’m tempted to make her use my bathroom. None of her bodily functions disgust or repulse me, and she’s going to have to get used to my handling of the most private spaces of her body. But I don’t want her to think I’m pushing the boundary into watersports or scat-play, which I know are hard limits for her. There’ll be plenty of other opportunities for her to get used to me handling her ass.

“Five minutes, baby doll,” I tell her. “Then you’re back in my bed, naked and waiting for Daddy.” I check my watch. “Playtime starts at five of eight.”

I hear her eagerness clearly through the door. “Yes, Daddy.”

She skips away, her feet pattering on the carpet, and I grin at my own reflection in the foggy bathroom mirror.

She’s back in my bed, under the covers, big eyes full of light as she watches me emerge from the bathroom, right on time.

“Morning, baby.”

“Morning, Daddy.”

“Sleep well?”

“Like a log. I didn’t wake up once. Did you?”

“Nope. Not until the alarm.” I move to the dresser and take