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

about my feelings about Lizbeth, she’d have used it against Lizbeth somehow.”

“I’d never do that, Daddy.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’m happy you and Lizbeth are friends, and I know that’s because you made a big effort with her. I appreciate it.”

Winning my sister over wasn’t an easy task. Lizbeth inherited whatever overprotective gene made me a Dom. Whenever she thinks my health or happiness are on the line, she goes into banty hen mode. Her face-offs over the years with my girlfriends, including Miranda, are the stuff of family legend and 9-1-1 calls. Lizabeth was wary with Emily at first, having seen so many women come and go in of my life, but my little girl brought her around, the way she does pretty much everyone she meets.

“Why does it make you sad?” Emily asks.

This is my opening. To tell her about the extent of my medical bills, and the debt collector’s threats, and selling the house. But that’s not what this moment is about.

“I never gave my bottoms my complete trust. I demanded everything and didn’t give it back. That makes me a lousy Dom.”

Emily’s hands flatten on my stomach as she presses close. “Or it might make you a good Dom, just one that focused so much on what your subbies needed that you didn’t always get what you needed. Matthew called that ‘service topping.’ Is that right?”

“Uh-huh. Did Matthew think of himself as a service top?”

“Kind of. I’ve told you he didn’t allow physical intimacy. That was a big part of it. But it was more that he never shared with me. We never talked about him. If he’d had a bad day, he’d tell me about that, but we never talked about why he wanted what we did or how he felt. It was all about me. That made me feel good at the time, but it wasn’t a real relationship. There wasn’t any give-and-take.”

I pat the tree ruefully. “I think I’ve had a decade of not-real relationships. That’s what I was thinking.”

She presses kisses along my spine, warm through my tee. “Miranda and Rachel seem to think what they had with you was real. Maybe those relationships just weren’t everything they could have been.” She pauses to give me more kisses. “If they’d been more real, then you might not still have been looking when you found me. Please don’t be sad. You’ve got me now, and you’re the best Dom I’ve ever had, and the best daddy in the universe.”

That makes me smile into the deepening twilight. “Thank you, little girl. We do have give-and-take, don’t we? Although I feel like it’s been mostly me taking for the last six weeks.”

“That’s not true. You give all the time. You gave me the best reward ever.”

“Yeah? You like your kitty, sweetheart?”

“Sable’s great. I bet they can hear him purring in Syracuse. But it’s more than that. It’s you believing in me, that I’m trustworthy and responsible enough to have a pet. No one’s done that before. Not even my husband. He should have been my biggest cheerleader, and he never was. Not like you are.”

I turn around and take her in my arms. “I always want to be your biggest cheerleader.”

Standing in the darkened garden, with the lingering heat of the summer day and the smells of grass and flowers and baking asphalt, knowing I’m going to lose this place, everything else falls away. None of it matters. What matters is the woman in my arms. Being her biggest cheerleader.

Being her husband.

That’s never mattered to me before. I wanted to marry Miranda, but not because I wanted to be her biggest cheerleader. It was because I wanted to win. I wanted her to choose me over Colin.

What does Emily want? I’m fairly sure she doesn’t want to get married again. She told me she didn’t, right from the start. I’m not sure I can convince her otherwise. I’m not sure I should try. Is it fair for me to push her, or is that me taking again?

I could really use that chat with Niall.

* * *

I’ve only been awake for an hour and I’m already behind schedule.

Yesterday’s physical therapy, a long paddling scene before bed, and the goddamn cat caterwauling at the bedroom door for an hour in the middle of night, shattered me. I overslept, not even cracking an eye open until seven. I trained my body to wake at six when I was in the Navy, and even when I transitioned back into civvy life, I maintained the habit. As soon as I came off the pain meds, I got back on schedule and I’ve held it for the last five weeks without fail.

Waking an hour late should make me feel well-rested. Instead, I’m groggy and grouchy and dragging myself away from my beanie blanket, downstairs to the chilly basement, is more painful than anything since getting out of the San Diego hospital bed for the first time.

An hour on the treadmill and rowing machine and weights is fucking purgatory. I can’t even take out my mood on the punching bag. Anything that swings at my head is off limits for another four months.

Once I’ve pushed myself through the cool down and toweled off, I stand at the bottom of the basement stairs, sourly wondering why I didn’t put in an elevator when I renovated. My ears prick at the sound of singing.

Sounds like Queen.

As I haul myself up the stairs, I catch the words.

“I see a little silhouetto of my Dom.

Scaramouche, scaramouche, we’ll do the horizonal mambo.

Whips and chains and lightning, very, very frightening me.

Fellatio! Fellatio! Fellatio! Fellatio-figaro, suck and blow-o-o-o.”

I make it to the top of the stairs, release the handrail and put my hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter.

“I’m just a poor girl but my Daddy loves me.

She’s just a poor girl, poor little Em-il-ee.

Spare her little bottom when she goes over the knee!

Easy come, easy go, will you let her go?

Bel-phe-gor, no, he will not let