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

accept. But I know he’ll offer something crazy like taking out a line of credit through his company. I don’t want that. I just want him to tell me I’m doing the right thing selling the house before the fucking debt collectors knock on the door. And if I’m not, maybe he’ll have another idea. Because I’m all out.

I also want to talk through the branding scene I have planned for Emily. Although I told her I needed her pain before I gave her a Lazy Baby Day, the truth is the branding is a reward for her, too. Only another sadist like Niall can understand how giving my bottom such intense pain could be a reward. Niall constructs scenes the same way I do, building from the psychological outwards to the physical. He’ll understand the connection I’m cementing with the brand, as well as my need to mark Emily, and her need to be marked. He also has a bottom who has some of the same self-worth issues as Emily, although you’d never know it from meeting Shaan, so he’ll have ideas about how I can work that into the scene.

Since Niall’s not around, I rise and leave the girls to their chat, which is moving rapidly back and forth between Emily’s kitty and a book they’re reading. I kiss Emily on the top of her head again, run my fingertips between the cat’s ears and head out into the yard.

I scuff through the grass, which is getting a little long, to the old apple tree. My mother made hard cider every year from its dull, green-gold apples. Emily’s researched it and told me it’s a Golden Russet apple tree, which, evidently, has some historical significance. For me, the tree is full of memories.

My first kiss was stolen behind the tree’s concealing trunk. Kathleen Sweeney. At our Memorial Day barbeque when I was twelve. Her braces cut my lip; I spent the rest of the day tasting blood and mustard from the hot dog she’d been eating. Reeling with the belief that I’d suddenly, somehow, become a man because of that first kiss.

I smile at the memory as I reach up and put my hand on the stump of a branch, broken by Lizbeth when she was nine as she tried to climb the tree. I bolted across the yard to catch her. I broke her fall, and my wrist. While I sat in the doctor’s office getting a cast, she wrapped her thin arms in a death-grip around my waist, shivering and sobbing quietly. She didn’t stop until I was able to put my freshly plastered arm around her, dry her eyes, and tell her I was okay.

I felt a hundred feet tall and got a hard-on that didn’t go away for two days.

Nothing has felt as good as taking care of my sister felt, not until I started topping Emily. Before Emily, I felt a shadow of that greatness. Sometimes strong, and sometimes nothing more than a ghost. Being with Emily brought those feelings back full force. So strongly, they resurrected all my guilt, too. What kind of big brother wants not just to protect his baby sister, but also to spank and fuck her? I had to exorcise that specter and taking it out on Emily did not feel good.

I glance back at my baby girl, sitting at the table, talking animatedly to her friend while dangling the little feather toy for the cat, who is batting at it with his white-tipped paws and purring so loudly I can hear him out in the garden, even over the traffic noises from the street.

Smitten cat.

Almost as smitten as me. I still can’t believe Emily fell for me after I took my guilt and anger out on her. But she’s right that it’s bonded us, maybe in a way nothing else could. I’ve let Emily in further, let her see more of me and my true feelings, than anyone I’ve been with.

Maybe that’s why my relationship with Miranda failed. I felt like I’d accomplished something when we hit the one-year mark. None of my other relationships came close to that mythical mark, and I’d begun to wonder if there was something wrong with me that scared women off after a few months.

But duration and depth aren’t the same thing. I was with Mir a long time, but I never let her in as deep as I’ve let Emily. I demanded trust from my bottoms, and I did my damnedest not to breach their trust, but I never gave it in return. I made them open their souls to me, but I didn’t trust them with my own demons.

Only my little girl, who seems fragile, but is made of platinum and Kevlar beneath her curls and big eyes and shy smiles.

Thinking about Emily conjures my imp. Her arms slide around my waist as she presses against my back. Her cheek rests between my shoulders.

“Hi, Daddy,” she murmurs.

“Hi, baby girl.”

“What are you thinking about? You look sad.”

I pat the broken branch. And give her the whole truth. “Lizbeth broke this branch when she was nine. I caught her as she fell and snapped my wrist. She clung to me and cried the whole time I was getting a cast on it and only stopped when I put my arms around her and told her it was okay. Best feeling I can remember.”

“Mmm.” Emily squeezes me, encouraging without judging.

“I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. Looking for it every time I topped. I haven’t found it again. Not until I started topping you.”

She rubs her cheek between my shoulder-blades. “Do you think that’s because of what happened on our second date?”

“I think it’s because I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”

“Really? More than Miranda?” she breathes.

“Much more. First of all, Mir never gave me all of herself, so I couldn’t give her all of myself. Second, Miranda and Lizbeth hated each other on sight. If I’d told Miranda anything