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

I move to the couch and sit, looking out through the panoramic window at the dusk-draped city. He texted me a picture of this view this morning, while I was sitting in his kitchen having breakfast. That feels like a really long time ago now. It should be good to finally be here, with him, looking at this view. But everything’s so weird and strained that it isn’t.

Maybe this was all a huge mistake.

Logan pads around the rippled glass partition and sits down across from me. He’s only wearing jeans. Barefoot and shirtless, he should be less intimidating, but he doesn’t need the armor of clothes to intimidate. His formidable will is more than enough. He’s not smiling, but his eyes are hot and intent. That look makes me sit up straighter. His dominant presence makes me want to kneel.

“Do you remember the things Mrs. Black said to me?” he asks.

I nod as I replay everything he told me about Mrs. Black in my mind. “Yes, Sir.”

“You’re Mrs. Black. You’re angry. You’re boiling with grief. You want someone to blame. Today, that someone is going to be me. We’ll go through the interview and when you begin ripping at me the way she did, I’m going to tell you to stand up and take off that robe. You refuse. When I insist, you try to leave. I catch you, throw you over my shoulder, and carry you back to the couch where I spank the ever-loving fuck out of you. Got it?”

I nod again. This is much more along the lines of what I thought we were going to do, and I’m good with it, as long as there’s no more of that horrible, hollow sex.

“Ready, Sir.”

I see tension flow out of him like the tide going out. He doesn’t slump—Logan never slumps—but some of the hideous tightness he’s been carrying drains away. I wasn’t aware of it before, but maybe that’s why I kept rubbing his back; subconsciously, I could feel him carrying all that tension.

Logan stands and I follow suit. He holds his hand out to me. “Thank you for coming to meet me, Mrs. Black. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Wrapping myself in grieving bitch, I give his hand a cursory shake before I sit and cross my ankles, the way a woman wearing heels would. Logan didn’t tell me what she was wearing, but I imagine her in a straight skirt and pumps.

“My lawyer advised me not to come today,” I say, regurgitating what Logan told me. “But you said you don’t believe my husband’s death was due to food poisoning. Why?”

Her words sting my mouth. She loaded each word with venom, seeking any little opening to spit her poison into. My chest begins to ache, not just from Mrs. Black’s grief, but with sympathy for what Logan must have felt, facing this woman.

“Pink Pearl is paying me to find out what really happened to your husband,” Logan responds, clasping his hands between his knees. His knuckles blanch with tension. “That’s what I do. Can you tell me about your husband? His lifestyle?”

“His lifestyle?” I gather as much poison into my mouth as I can, remembering that this was one of the things she said to wound him. “I think you know more about his lifestyle than I do. Are you part of it? Do you practice this, this lifestyle?”

Logan nods. “Yes.”

I can see how much that one word cost him to say. He didn’t describe her expressions during the interview, but if she was scornful, contemptuous, how did he endure it? It’s hard enough for me to talk about my kink with him, and he wants to live it with me.

“I never knew,” I say, repeating what Mrs. Black told Logan. “I was married to him for nine years, and I never knew. He kept it a secret from me all that time. Do you keep it secret, too?”

“No, not anymore. But I certainly never told my parents while they were alive.”

He really did admit very personal things to her. My heartache for him swells to a burning, snarling thing behind my ribs.

“Can you tell me about your husband’s two assistants?” he asks. “What kind of relationships did they have with him?”

“Sexual relationships, you mean? That’s what you’re implying, aren’t you? That my husband was having deviant sex with his assistants?” I go off-script a little because other than saying she’d snapped at him when he’d suggested her husband might be having an affair with one, or both, of his assistants, Logan didn’t tell me about this part in detail. But I don’t think it matters. From the bunching of the muscles in his forearms, I think we’re about to hit the tipping point. He kept his cool during the real interview, but he’s about to unleash the beast in our role-play.

“I wasn’t implying anything, and you need a lesson in manners. Stand up and take your robe off.”

I curl my lip at him, the way I imagine an indignant woman would. A woman who didn’t feel his command reach down inside her and squeeze. “Have you lost your mind? This interview is over.”

He sits back and rubs his palms on his denim-covered thighs. “The interview is over when I say it’s over. Stand up and take your clothes off.”

“No,” I spit at him. “We’re done here.” I bounce to my feet, brushing off my imaginary skirt, and turn on my heel, preparing for a dramatic exit.

Logan allows me to take two steps before I hear him move behind me. And when he moves, he really moves. I know he was in the military and he keeps himself in serious shape, but damn is he fast. A man that big shouldn’t be so nimble. He catches me before I take another step, slinging me up over his shoulder. I end up with my ass in the air, his forearm an iron bar across my thighs. My instinct is to relax, to drape