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

said we’re going to, um, have sex before lunch. While I’m still wearing Stanley. I love orgasms from your fingers but your penis is so much better. I really want that, Daddy.” A shiver runs all the way through her. “I really, really want it.”

“You do, huh? Better work on earning another reward, then.”

Her face turns as pink as her bottom but her arms squeeze tight around my waist. “I will. I’ll be super-good.”

She is. Angelic, even, as we pack our beach bags, grab a quick breakfast on the Lido deck and wait in line to disembark. She’s bright-eyed and chatty but not so much it gets on my nerves. Her quirky little observations keep me smiling. Such a cutie.

There’s evidently no port in Cabo, so we’re loaded into small boats and ferried to Tender Dock. Our boat is just for people who have signed up for the ship excursion to Playa Coral Negro. The excursion leader, a curvy brunette equally as bouncy as Tina-the-Cruise-Director, uses the bumpy ride in to brief us. It sounds more like a military invasion than a trip to the beach as she talks about transports and rendezvous points. Still, it should be worth it to be on a beach that has shade, as well as private cabanas, one of which I’ve already reserved.

I’m more convinced of the worth of the excursion when the bouncy brunette deals with passport control and we breeze through the port in record time to a waiting fleet of mini-buses. Even in the shady terminal, the mid-morning heat is fierce. I appreciate the air-conditioned bus as we wind around the bay.

I put Emily in the seat by the window so she can see the sights. With the fake cold blasting down on us, I don’t have to worry about overheating her. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and press my cheek against her temple to share her enjoyment of the view out across the marina. Even churned by boats, the water’s a deep azure that you don’t see on the Hudson or East River.

“Pretty, huh?”

“Beautiful,” she breathes. Then she tears her eyes away from the scenery and looks up at me. “What should I call you now?”

I kiss the tip of her nose. “Good girl for asking. My name when we’re in pubic. Daddy only if you feel safe and comfortable. I’ll miss hearing it if you don’t say it all day.”

She grins. “Okay.”

“What color would you say that water is?” I tip my chin at the marina.

She regales me with synonyms for blue, along with their etymology and symbolism, which have me and the people in the seats around us chuckling the rest of the way around the bay.

Playa Coral Negro is a long, golden crescent of sand, dotted with a few boulders, which cast no more than a sliver of shade. Not exactly what I’d consider a “shaded” beach. But there’s a line of Tikki-type fake trees staked into the hard sand that provide some shade, and our cabanas, easily distinguished from the other umbrellas and cabanas that litter the beach by their hot pink hue, are cool and surprisingly spacious. Within the four canvas walls, there are two sturdy, wooden, padded loungers and a table for our beach bags.

“Want a dip in the water first? You’ll stay cooler if your bathing suit’s wet.”

Emily’s as little used to this heat as I am. Sweat’s beading along her forehead under the brim of her hat and her cheeks are flushed from more than wearing Stanley.

“Yes, please, Daddy.”

She looks around after she says it. Because I plan to be right at hand, and because I really will miss hearing it if she doesn’t call me Daddy all day, I reassure her, “No one’s listening. You can call me whatever you want in here. But if it’s not respectful, I can draw the curtains and . . .” I tap my belt meaningfully.

“Yes, Daddy.” She giggles as she unpacks towels and spreads them on the loungers. I draw the curtains so we can both undress. She takes off her sailor dress and spreads it over the back of a lounger so it doesn’t get wrinkled. As I pull off my shirt, I catch her tugging the boy-shorts of her swimsuit down so they cover the scars on her upper thighs.

“You look adorable,” I say, drawing close and smoothing my hands down her arms. “Don’t be self-conscious. Look, Daddy has scars, too.”

She’s seen my scars before: appendectomy when I was in the Navy, a couple of lumps on my back where I’ve had moles dug out because my Anglo-Irish skin doesn’t like sunshine as much as the rest of me, rippled road rash on my right shoulder where I got stupid racing a motorbike when I was old enough to know better, and the long, white slash across my ribs that she hasn’t asked about yet but I know is going to spark an unhappy conversation when she does, because that’s where the bullet from the Edinburgh dungeon’s embezzler grazed me.

Fortunately, she doesn’t ask, just smiles at me. When I take her hand and run towards the water, she races alongside me, squealing gleefully.

We play in the water until the sun’s a burning beach ball high overhead. Some of the other Pink Pearl passengers get a game of volleyball going, made all the more interesting when the excursion leader gives us the thumbs up and most of the women take off their tops. When we get overheated from volleyball, I drag Emily back into the water, and when I can tell she’s getting tired from fighting the strong current, back onto the beach where I show her how to build drip castles. She creates an empire of sculpted sand and shells while she tells me some wild story about pirate treasure hidden in a pit on an island off the coast of Maine. I’m not sure if this is something she’s read or something she’s making up, but it’s a compelling story. We’re