by Frost, E J
“How often?” I ask with a shrug, keeping it light and casual.
“Not often. He didn’t have a problem or anything.”
Not sure I agree. “So, once a week? Once a month?”
“A couple of times a month maybe. Weed more often if he was having a tough week.”
I nod as though what she’s said is inconsequential. “Did he ever have an adverse reaction to anything?”
“No. He got the munchies from weed. Peanut butter was his thing.” She smiles sadly. “He’d go through a whole jar of peanut butter after a joint.”
Taking advantage of this woman’s grief twists the knots in my guts tighter; I give her a minute before I ask, “Did he have someone he bought from regularly?”
“A dealer?” She glares at me. “No, of course not. He got the prescriptions from his doctor. Everything else was casual.”
Which tells me Mr. Black was not adverse to buying illegal drugs from a stranger. Something I’m very sure Mrs. Black’s lawyers would not want her telling me. Something she wouldn’t tell me if she was thinking instead of mourning. Enough. I’ve gotten what I need.
“Mrs. Black, this has been very helpful. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me.”
She sits back and works her mouth for a moment, as though she’s just realized the things coming out of it were not what she intended to say. Her eyes harden and I have to ball my hands into fists to keep from grabbing her and putting her over my knee.
This is the moment, the moment of wounded defiance, the moment right before tears, that brings all my instincts rushing to the fore. Now, right now, is when she needs discipline the most. Just like my little sister, with her crazed headlong rush into adulthood. I wanted to grab her, pin her down, and spank her until everything held still. I needed to hold her in the moment until she gained enough perspective to see all the things she was doing wrong. All the things that threatened her safety. I need to hold Mrs. Black in that moment, too. To break through the wall she’s putting up and let her grief pour out.
Instead, I have to let her erect that wall, plate it with steel, while my balls twitch and my palms sweat. She’ll never be vulnerable around me again. Maybe not around any man again. And I have to sit, and watch, and when she rises with a sneer of derision, let her go.
After I close the door behind her, I check my watch. Emily will be on the way to the airport by now. Maybe even there, if the traffic isn’t bad. She’ll be checking her bags, starting the plod through security. I don’t want to distract her from the important business of making her flight, but I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to talk to my bottom more. All I need is to hear her voice for five minutes.
But that’s a selfish-bastard thing to do, particularly when she’s going through the inconvenience and irritation of a trans-continental flight for me. If her phone goes off in security, they might confiscate it.
Instead, I dial my sister, Lizbeth, and when it goes to voicemail, Miranda. It’s evening her time. She should be up no matter what shift she’s on.
She picks up on the second ring. “Darling, how are you?”
I squeeze my eyes closed. I hate when she calls me that. I didn’t like it when we were together, and I hate it now that we aren’t.
“Tough day,” I tell her, opening my eyes and pacing to the suite’s huge picture window. I take in the panoramic view of the city. There’s so much twisting inside me, it’s hard to take any pleasure in the scenery, but it gives me something to look at. “I had to interview a widow.”
“Oh, my poor darling. I know how much those upset you.”
“Yeah.” This was stupid. Her sympathy feels false and sickly. I should make an excuse and hang up.
“Tell me all about it,” Mir coos.
“There’s nothing to tell.” There’s a lot to tell, but none of it is going to be to her. “It just reminded me that life’s short. Carpe diem, you know. How’s everything? How’s the baby?”
“She’s wonderful. Did you get the ultrasound I emailed you?”
I didn’t see the ultrasound, because I’ve stopped opening Mir’s emails. This call’s reminding me why. “That’s great. Have you decided on a name yet? Jennifer still the top contender?”
“No, silly darling. That was last month. Now it’s Augustine.”
I hate that name. Mir has her fucking pretentious moments, and this is one of them. “I’m still rooting for Trudy. That’s a name you don’t hear much anymore.”
Mir gives a delicate snort of derision. It tightens my gut almost as much as Reggie Black’s parting sneer. “I’m very fond of Augustine. Such a classic name. But we’ll see. I’ll probably go through a dozen more before September.”
“Sure, okay, well—”
“Logan, don’t be glib,” she says quietly. I know that tone. She’s about to cut my balls out from under me. “You called because you’re hurting. I know how much you open yourself up when you interview victims. You make yourself vulnerable to take in their pain. You’ve told me so. Talk to me.”
“It’s nothing.” A lie, when I promised not to lie to her. But she broke that promise long before I did. “I just hadn’t checked up on you in a while. I had a quiet hour, so I thought I’d call.”
“You had a quiet hour? You never have a quiet hour. Where are you? Are you in Europe? Can I meet you somewhere? I can still fly.”
“No.” I’m almost as far from her as it’s possible to be. “I’m in L.A. Heading to Mexico. I’m on a job.”
“Then you’re jet lagged as well. That’s a lethal combination. I’ve seen you like this before, darling. Are you with anyone? Someone you can work it out on? Do you have time to find a bottom? There are plenty of clubs in L.A. Do you want me to make some calls for you?”
I rub my hand over my face. I haven’t told her about Emily. Or any of the women I’ve dated since Mir ended things six months ago. Maybe it’s time. “I’m with someone.”
She’s silent for a moment. “That’s good. Who is she?”
“No one you’d know. I met her at a conference.”
A kinky conference. Mir doesn’t need to know that. Although she’s been a bottom almost as long as I’ve been a top, she still looks down her nose at our lifestyle. My lifestyle, since she’d never admit that she’s part of it. Kink is just a hobby for Mir. Like knitting or fucking flower-arranging.
“She’s a submissive? A service submissive?”
“Yeah.”
“And a masochist?”
“Yes.” I feel myself closing up like a clam. I don’t want to tell her anything about Emily.
“Can I speak to her? Girl to girl? I promise I won’t say anything to embarrass you. I’ll just tell her what you need.”
I need to hang up, is what I need. “She’s not here. She isn’t arriving until tonight.”
“No? Then tell me all about her, darling. What does she look like? Is she blonde and blue-eyed?”
Mir is blonde and blue-eyed. I didn’t consciously go for a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman in picking Emily, but maybe my subconscious compass was pointing as far away from my former lover as possible.
“No, she’s dark. Small. She’s kind of elfin looking, actually. Not a Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings, elf. She’s a wood elf. Like an ElfQuest elf.”
“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about when you stray from the classics, darling,” Mir says dismissively.
No, she doesn’t. Mir’s never read a comic book. Never sullied herself with anything that might reek of popular culture. Would Emily know what an ElfQuest elf is? I don’t know. She loves fairy tales, but the ones she reads are more high brow than comics. She likes Lego Batman and watches Japanese manga porn, though. I can hope. I pull the phone away from my face, flip over to messages and type Emily a quick text.
“Darling, are you still there?” Mir asks.
“Yeah, sorry, just a notification coming in on my phone.” Fuck, yes, an excuse to get off this call. “Mir, I have to go. The client wants to de
brief.”
“Of course. You’ll call me later, won’t you? I want to hear all about this new girl.”
I grit my teeth. “Sure. I might not get another break today, though. This job’s pretty full-on.”
“Business first. That always was the way with you. Take care of yourself, darling.”
“Yeah, you, too, Mir.”
My balls unclench as I end the call. That’s the last time I’m ever calling Mir after a tough interview.
Just as I’m shutting off my phone, Emily pings me back.
Are you questioning my geek credentials, Sir? Of course, I know what an EQ elf is. I have first editions. Signed.
Thank God for her. I laugh and rest my sweaty forehead against the cool window glass.
Favorite character?
Winnowill, duh.
The super-sexy, super-evil villain of the original series. A very dominant villain.
Did you want her to spank you?
Not as much as I want you to spank me, Daddy.
Oh, yes. That’s my baby doll. God, I need her.
You’re going to get your wish.
I want to say more. I want to tell her how desperate I am to see her. How being away from her for three days has been completely miserable. I know I’m as messed up as I am right now not just because of the jet lag or Mrs. Black’s ugly vulnerability or thinking about my sister in a way no brother should for the first time in a decade. It’s because I need my little girl. I shouldn’t need her so much, after just one real date. But the scene and the sex and our time together was so good, so intimate, it opened me up in ways I haven’t been open in a long time. Texting and video-calling her during the days we’ve been apart just crow-barred me further open. Phone sex before breakfast didn’t actually give me any relief; it just dialed me up to eleven. I need her so much every muscle aches with it.
She doesn’t want me to be needy. She wants me to be in control. So, instead of raw truth, I give her coated platitude.
See you in a few hours, baby doll. Looking forward to it.
Me, too, Daddy.
I stare at those words for a long time, standing in the window of the fancy hotel my client’s booked for me, which I would never have laid out for on my own, looking out over a city built on greed and idolatry, counting down the minutes until Emily arrives.
Chapter Two
Emily
Eight hours on a plane. You’d think I’d die of boredom.
Instead, I don’t know how I’m going to get everything done.
I’m watching the seatbelt sign like Lloyd and Diane in Say Anything. If anyone asks, I’ll say I’m waiting to turn my phone on. But the truth is, despite all the traveling I’ve done, I’m a bit of a nervous flyer.
Once the light goes off, I drag my backpack from under my feet and plop it in the empty seat beside me. Where Logan should be sitting. I rub my fingertips over the seat cushion, wishing he were here.
I try to shake it off. I’ll see him in less than eight hours.
But I really want my daddy now.
I pull my phone out of my backpack, unlock it and am just tapping up the settings to switch it into airplane mode, when a woman leans over me.
I look up into her blue and white uniform and mega-watt smile.
With a guilty gulp, I tilt the phone screen toward the stewardess. “I’m just turning it onto airplane mode.”
“That’s all right, Miss Martin. Can I get you something to drink?” She holds out a tray with champagne and orange juice in real glasses.
I don’t drink much alcohol and orange juice is too carbie.
“Is there any chance I could have some tea?” I ask.
“What would you like?”
“Peppermint, if you have any. If not, Earl Grey would be great.”
“Peppermint tea coming right up.”
She flashes me that smile again and turns back up the aisle, headed to the galley. I figured she’d continue serving drinks until her tray was empty before getting my tea. Wow, that really is first class service.
I’ve never flown first class before. Between the good service, the comfy seats, and the charging plug for my laptop, I like it so far. I really, really hope the cruise line paid for it, though. The idea of Logan paying to fly me first class after only knowing me for six days makes my tummy clench.
Once I get my phone switched over, I open my photo file and thumb to the last picture I took. The picture is of Logan, sitting at his breakfast table, the morning after our first real date. He’s sleep-rumpled, bare-chested and absolutely gorgeous. At least to me. Most people looking at his picture would probably just see a big man with a night’s worth of beard.
I touch the screen, tracing the sharp curve of his jaw, the line of his muscular neck. His gaze burns into mine, even from the picture, despite being sated and lazy after twelve hours of kinky sex. Intense eyes. Black wolf eyes.
They undo me.
Thinking of those hot eyes moving over me, I squirm in my seat. The movement reminds me of the lingering soreness between my legs from this morning’s phone sex. How awesome is phone sex that actually leaves me sore?
When the flight attendant returns with my tea, I take it as a sign to stop drooling over Logan’s picture and tap up my music app. Logan sent me five playlists before he left early for L.A. He played me two of them during our first date. “Music to Fuck Emily To” and “Music to Fuck Emily Harder To” make me smile, and my cheeks burn, as I flip past them. There’s another playlist titled “Cuddle Bum,” but the thought of listening to that when I don’t have Logan to cuddle with is unbearable. I thumb to the fourth playlist, “Daddy’s Girl,” and tap it up while I put in my earbuds. One Direction’s “Steal My Girl” fills my ears and I sip my tea, happily humming along to the music Logan picked for me.
An hour later, while I’m humming to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” my phone beeps. I’ve set several alarms to make sure I follow Logan’s schedule for the flight. This one is to remind me to get up and stretch every hour.
I set aside the journal I’ve been writing in and climb out of my seat. A few of the passengers look up when I stand, but they go back to their tablets, laptops, and in-flight entertainment after a glance. I wait until no one is looking my way before I stretch. I wouldn’t ordinarily wear little clothes when I’m not with my daddy, but I packed for the cruise before I knew Logan would have to fly out early without me. If it was cooler, I’d put a sweatshirt over my Baby Deadpool T-shirt, jean shorts, and candy cane thigh-highs, but the plane is too warm for layers.
The flight attendant walks over to check on me. She takes in my outfit and winks, then moves on when I say I’m just stretching. Maybe people in first class wear crazy outfits all the time. The only one I actually noticed was the bald guy wearing a purple satin sweatsuit and so many gold chains he looks like Flavor Flav. Compared to him, I’m dressed conservatively.
I bet the guy in the purple sweatsuit isn’t following the instructions of his Daddy-Dom, who will tan his ass if he doesn’t keep to his schedule.
With a naughty grin, after Logan’s prescribed two minutes of stretching, I sit back down and skim through what I’ve written in the last hour. My handwriting is small and spiky, the opposite of the curling, elegant, Spencerian script my mother made me practice hour after hour. The only time I ever used that script was to write out my wedding invitations and look how that turned out.
I shake away that thought before it triggers the dark, doubting voice in my head, and focus instead on what I’ve written.
Logan makes me feel treasured.
I rub my fingertips over the words, and those that follow them: a list of the things he’s done since we met at the Salt City Kink Expo that have made me feel like the most special little girl in the world. I haven’t written about the two spankings he’s given me, or our scene at his club, or the sex. I’ve written about the other things. The little things. How he buckled my seatbelt when he put me in my car at the expo and again in the limo to a
nd from his club. The toys he bought for me, including a purple butt plug he named Morris. The playlists. The huge bouquet of pink roses and a Hello Kitty balloon that arrived at my house when I returned home after our first date. Our nightly video-calls where he had me read him my favorite fairy tales before he blew me a kiss goodnight.
Little things. Lots of little things that have added up over the last six days to blow my mind.
Logan’s not a real Daddy-Dom, but he’s more my daddy than any of my Doms since Lew.
There’s a smear next to that line. A water mark from where an unexpected tear dripped onto the paper while I was thinking of Lew. Nearly five years later and I still feel guilty. All the justifications I’ve come up with over the years, many of which are written in previous pages of this journal, still ring hollow. Yes, I started a relationship with Lew too soon after my separation from Ashley. Yes, I was confused by my unexpected desire to give myself over to Lew’s control. Yes, the deranged sex, after five years of marriage without a single orgasm, turned me inside out. Yes, Lew’s demand that I be his little girl full-time terrified me.
None of it justified me running away from him, cutting off contact, refusing to talk to him, treating him as though he’d abused me.
I was inexperienced, confused, and frightened, but mostly I was a coward. The memory of the hurt on Lew’s big, bearded face as he turned away from my apartment door the last time still makes my eyes sting.
I never want to see that expression on Logan’s face.
I’m not inexperienced, confused, or frightened by my kink anymore. I know I’ve been given a second chance with Logan. I know how rare he is: a real Dom, a Dom who commands my submission, who won’t back down when I push him, and who cares as much as about my needs as he does his own. He’s a Dom I can trust. A man I can trust. If I’m brave enough.
I flip my phone back to his picture and silently promise him I’ll be really brave this time. Mary Wollstonecraft brave. Rosa Parks brave. Wonder Woman brave. I won’t hide my feelings or keep secrets. I’ll trust him not to shred my heart.