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

with a pair in her hand, lithe snatch-and-grab raids from the mountain of fish spread on the coffee table in front of us. She keeps taking pieces from under my nose, and I can see the sly smile she hides in each bite.

She’s playing with me. This is her little peeping back out from the very adult mask I’ve made her wear for the last several hours. She’s playing with me after I pinned her to the bed and made sure she didn’t enjoy it as I used her. After I spanked her so hard that her left ass cheek is covered with white blisters, damage I’ve never done to any of my bottoms, even when I was just learning. She’s playing with me after I admitted the darkest, ugliest secret I carry. Beyond the Hell I saw in the Navy, beyond the shitty things I’ve done when I was drunk or stupid, beyond the loss of my parents, wanting to beat and fuck my own sister is the thing that’s made me feel the worst in my entire life. I’ve never admitted it to anyone, but after knowing Emily for less than a week, I’ve admitted it to her.

I slide my arm around her shoulders. She snuggles into my side. No hesitation. No flinching.

“Communication, baby doll,” I say.

“Yes, Sir?”

The honorific makes me flinch. After hearing it from my bottoms for more than a decade, suddenly I don’t like it. I want her to call me Daddy and know we’re okay.

“I want to talk about what happened earlier.” I scratch my chin with the handles of my chopsticks. “Actually, I want to apologize.”

She lays her soft head against my shoulder. “You don’t need to apologize. I asked you to take it out on me. You did. Did it help?”

“Yes.” I released everything, all the awful tension that had built inside me. I’d be as relaxed as she is, if I wasn’t worried I’d damaged things between us. “The thing is, I’m the daddy.” I’ve been a piss-fucking-poor daddy today. “I shouldn’t need to take out anything on you.”

She looks up at me, considering. “Wow,” she says before she grabs another piece of salmon, swishes it in the plastic tub of wasabi-infused soy sauce, and pops it in her mouth.

“Wow?”

She chews carefully, ten times, remembering my rule, and swallows, before she says. “I didn’t realize you were Superman.”

“Superman,” I repeat. Is she fucking with me?

“Sure. Superman’s perfect, right? He never has bad days. He never messes up and feels awful about it afterwards. He can fix everything, even if he has to do something contrary to the laws of physics like make the world spin backwards to do it.”

She snakes her chopsticks toward another piece of salmon. I put mine in the way. I’ve had one piece and I’m not going to get a second if I don’t stake my claim.

She pouts. “You know, I’ve never liked Superman. He’s a dork.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. I’m trying to be serious and apologize for what I put her through, but she clearly doesn’t want either my gravity or my remorse. I move my chopsticks and take a piece of eel instead, while she dives for the unprotected sashimi. I survey the sushi boat, which is wholly bare of salmon. Has she eaten every piece? Little minx. At least I don’t have to worry about her getting enough Omega-3.

“Who’s your favorite?” I ask.

“From Justice League or comic book character?”

Sweet little geek. “Comic book character.”

“Oh, I was a huge X-Men fan, so, naturally, Wolverine.” She elbows me. Is she comparing me to Wolverine? The comparison stops at the name, thank you very much. “But Gambit was probably my all-time favorite. He was so cool.”

Can’t fault her taste in superheroes.

“He was,” I agree. “How’d you end up knowing so much about comics, baby doll? I thought your thing was English history.”

She lifts her eyebrows at me. “Why, because that’s what I write? I love heroic fantasy. Comics are the Illiad and Odyssey of our age. These are the stories of gods and monsters, heroes and villains, through which we pass our values to the next generation. Western society’s just forgotten how important those stories are and left them for radical subversives like Stan Lee and the Pinis and Matt Wagner to tell.”

“Radical subversives?”

“Yes,” she says forcefully, and I realize this is something my little girl has a strong opinion on. “‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ Do you think anyone in Washington wants young people believing that? If a politician actually cracked the cover of a comic book and realized what those stories were about, they’d faint. Individual responsibility, self-sacrifice for the greater good, loyalty to your tribe, acceptance and equality for people who are different? They’re everything politics should be about but isn’t.”

“Wow.”

She snorts and makes a lightning jab for a piece of tuna. “Who was your favorite?”

“Elektra.”

“Elektra Assassin? Awesome series. Did you have the individual comics? I only read the graphic novel. And did you like Miller’s Rōnin? I had trouble getting into that.”

I chuckle. Fuck, she’s such a geek. Such an adorable little geek. Who’d have guessed what lay behind the white silk bows and French poetry she wore like armor when we first met?

“Okay, I bow to your superior nerd credentials. Do you really have a signed set of ElfQuest comics?”

She flushes redder than the tuna. “Maybe.”

She does. “I have the original run of Elektra Assassin. I’ll bust them out for you when we get home. That always impresses the chicks.” At her renewed grin, I continue, “But I want to see these EQs, because if they really are signed, I’m trading my unsigned set for yours. Daddy’s privilege.”

She giggles. “I only have the Original Quest signed, but they’re the ones by Wendy and Richard Pini, not the crappy Marvel ones with the oversaturated colors.” She looks up and gives me huge, puppy-dog eyes. “Daddy, can I have the last piece of tuna?”

Hearing her call me Daddy again is such