by Frost, E J
I give her my cell and the house landline. “I know you’ll appreciate this, my little and I are about to do a scene, so I won’t be taking calls for the rest of the night.”
“I totally understand. This doesn’t quite sound right, but it’s been nice talking with you.”
“It’s been nice talking with you, too, Laurel. Have a good night and I’ll look forward to speaking with your owner.”
After we say our goodbyes, I tap off the burner and sit staring at it.
Laurel’s not the stalker. I’d bet my life on it.
Then who is?
I think hard for a moment, then fire off an email to Rick.
* * *
I rock Emily, the floor-to-ceiling chains I have her cuffed to creaking with our combined weight. Forward and back, our bodies moving as one. I’m still inside her, her sphincter gripping the base of my softening cock. Whispering in her ear, I praise her, for taking a flogging for the hour it took to cleanse me of Miranda’s poison, for taking an ass-fucking as aftercare. She murmurs wordlessly as I rock her, her head lolling against my shoulder, limp in my arms.
I rock us until my leg twinges, and I’m reminded off all the things I still can’t do, like pick her up and carry her to bed.
Weakness. Lack of control. It comes flooding back with the bitterness of bile.
Emily lifts her head. “Daddy, are you okay?”
I drop my face against her nape, take deep, cleansing breaths of the smell of her skin. Sweat and sex. Earthy and dirty and good. “Yeah, sweetie. Just frustrated I can’t carry you up to bed.”
“Can’t we sleep down here? It’s nice and cool.”
That’s not a bad idea. I can manage the couple of steps over to the bed. I withdraw from her and wipe us both up with baby wipes before I pop the snaps on her cuffs.
She relaxes back against me. I sweep my free arm behind her legs, lift her against my chest and wait for a moment while I get used to the weight and pressure of her in my arms. When I’m confident my leg will hold us, I step over the booster step I had her standing on for the flogging and fucking, and carry her over to the bed. She winds her arms around my neck and looks up at me, not down. Her big, baby eyes are still a little glazed from the intense sensations I’ve given her, but there’s no fear in them. She trusts her daddy. Despite my injury. Despite all the uncertainty I’ve brought into her life. She still trusts me.
I settle her in the bed, remove her cuffs, and clean us up some more. I turn off the lights, then crawl in next to her and pull the thermal blanket we keep on the bed down here over the both of us.
“Bath and a bedtime story aren’t looking too likely tonight, little girl,” I whisper to her as she snuggles into my side.
“That’s okay, Daddy. Would you tell me a story instead?”
I kiss her temple. “Sure, beanie. What story would you like to hear? Beauty and the Beast?” I’m fairly sure I have that one memorized.
“Would you tell me the story of how you and Miranda met instead?”
A grunt escapes me. Why would she want to hear that?
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh.” She nuzzles into my shoulder.
“Okay.” Still not convinced it’s a good idea, I try to think of the most sanitized version I can tell her, but the words don’t come. I insist on absolute honesty from Emily. Giving her less cheapens what’s between us. I won’t do that to her.
“It’s not the best story,” I warn her. “It doesn’t paint either of us in a very good light.”
She squeezes me with the arm she has across my chest. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Am I trying to hide it from her? Am I ashamed of my history? Remembering Laurel’s bravery, her insistence on “owning” her past, I clear my throat. “Where do I start?”
“Once upon a time,” Emily supplies.
I chuckle despite myself. This is what I love about my little girl. This sweet playfulness that lights up every corner of my soul. This is what I’ve missed in every other relationship. This is why I need her so much.
“Once upon a time, there was a Dom named Logan.”
She gives a breathy giggle. “A knight, Daddy. A dark knight.”
“Ah, right. Logan the Dark Knight lived in a big city that had lots of clubs and parties where he liked to play naughty games. He got a certain reputation.”
“Uht-oh,” Emily coos. “A bad reputation?”
“Probably,” I admit. “He was known for two things: flogging and one-night stands.”
“Naughty dark knight.”
“Yes, he was very naughty. Now, one night he’d been playing games with a certain saucy wench—”
“Was her name Miranda?”
“No, a different wench. We’ll call her Saucy Wench, because I’m not sure I remember her name.” At her giggle, I nip her nose. “The knight had been playing with Saucy Wench for over an hour and she was a very happy wench. There was a good-sized crowd watching, including Saucy Wench’s Master, who didn’t like to flog her himself, but was happy to fuck her for aftercare, and a wicked enchantress, who we’ll call Miranda.”
“The Mir-Witch,” Emily murmurs.
“You better not call her that, little girl.”
“Of course not, Daddy.”
I can hear the grin in her voice, little monkey.
“The Mir-Witch was very bold and interrupted the knight’s scene to demand that he flog her, too.”
Emily huffs. “Rude.”
“Uh-huh. The knight thought so. So instead of doing a scene with the Mir-Witch, the knight clapped her in irons and left her there until the club closed.”
“Serves her right.”
“Yeah, the knight had the right idea. Too bad he didn’t stick with it. Saucy Wench went home with her master, who got the benefit of how worked up Saucy Wench was, and the knight was left very horny. So, when he released the Mir-Witch and she begged him again, he took her back to his castle. Not the knight’s best idea.”
Emily giggles. “Was the knight thinking with his little head?”
“Speaking of saucy wenches.” I flick her ear. “Anyway, it should have just been a one-nighter, particularly after the knight found out she was Mrs. Mir-Witch. But the Mir-Witch was persistent. She came to the club again and pestered him for scenes and went home with him and the knight found it harder and harder to say no to her.”
“Wow, that was some spell the Mir-Witch cast on the knight.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, it was. So that’s how the knight met the Mir-Witch. Not the most auspicious beginning, huh?”
Emily wriggles against my side. “No less auspicious than meeting at a kink expo.”
I slip my hand under her chin and tip her face up so I can capture her mouth. When she’s breathless and wriggling, I let her settle back against my shoulder. “Most auspicious beginning ever.”
She giggles into my neck. “And I didn’t even have to cast a spell on you.”
“You have definitely cast a spell on me, little girl.”
“Expelliarmus, Miranda,” she murmurs.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, Daddy.”
“No, I don’t think I’m going to let you get away with that. Tell me what that meant.”
Emily shifts around against my side for a minute, until I poke her in the ribs. She sighs and says, “It’s that spell Harry Potter always used to take his opponent’s wand away.”
“I remember,” I tell her, when her pause stretches. “What’s that got to do with Miranda?”
“I keep wishing I could just wave a wand at you and knock Miranda right out of your heart—”
My sweet little girl.
“Let’s be clear, Miranda is not in my heart. The more time I spend with her, the more I kick myself for ever allowing her a place in it, but she’s definitely not in my heart anymore.”
“The pain’s still there,” Emily murmurs.
“Yes, it is,” I admit. “She’s not making it any
easier, either. You know when she was going on about Maine lobster at dinner? We had lobster the weekend after Thanksgiving last year, at some little bed and breakfast in Kennebunkport where we holed up for three days while it snowed. Now I know she’d already had her IUD taken out. I could have gotten her pregnant that weekend. I hate every memory from that weekend now. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to eat Maine lobster again.”
“Daddy,” Emily breathes, sliding her hand up my breastbone and rubbing gently.
I close my hand over hers. “Sorry, baby girl. I shouldn’t unload all over you. We’ve had a good night, haven’t we?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about deep stuff.” She squeezes my fingers. “If she’s hurting you, I want to know so I can make it better.”
She lifts herself on her elbow and leans over me, her face a pale oval in the darkness. She plants kisses on my chin and jaw, before pressing her lips to mine.
I let my little girl kiss it better.
* * *
Ten scimitars digging into my right foot wake me. I jerk upright, nearly throwing my poor baby doll off the bed. A shadow pounces from the end of the bed onto my left foot. There’s a second’s delay before my damaged nerves register another ten tiny needles puncturing my flesh.
“Sable!”
The cat freezes in the act of impaling my foot. Then he dives off the bed and disappears with a flick of his white-tipped tail.
The ringing silence that follows is broken my little girl’s giggle. “Sorry. I must have left the door open when I went to the bathroom.”
“I notice he didn’t skewer your feet.” I flop back onto the bed with a groan.
“Yours are bigger targets,” Emily observes, snuggling back against my side.
“Don’t get comfortable,” I grumble. “You’re in the doghouse for leaving the door open. Possibly literally, once I have the use of my feet again.”
“What if I give you a good-morning blow job to show how really, really sorry I am?”
I’d forgive her pretty much anything for a good-morning blow job. Fuck, I love those. “Depends. What time is it?”
There’s a clock on the wall to my right, with slightly luminescent numbers, that I could probably see if I turned my head, but I’m too relaxed and sleepy, now that the adrenaline rush from having my feet impaled has passed, to move.
“Ten of six,” Emily says, before she settles her head back on my shoulder.
“Your cat would make the perfect sadist’s alarm clock if it was your feet he was sinking those daggers into.”
“So mean, Daddy.” She nips my shoulder.
“Get to work, little girl. And keep those teeth covered. I will tan your ass black and blue if you bite me this morning.”
She keeps her teeth covered and swallows and hums and holds me down her throat for thirty blissful seconds at a time until I give her a submissive’s best breakfast. I cuddle her back to sleep and spoon her until I’m sure she’s dreaming before I rise to work out.
Her fuzzy assassin stalks me from machine to machine, and if I play up to the dagger-wielding monster by dangling a towel off the treadmill for him to bat at, well, Emily’s not there to see how soft I’ve gone.
Since we’re both up and active, and I want Emily to be as well-rested as she can be before she has to face another day of Miranda, I take the cat upstairs with me when I finish and put out a dollop of the stinky, tinned, cat food in his bowl. Sable sets into it like he hasn’t eaten in years, which makes me chuckle as I watch.
Before I head up to take a shower, I check to see if Rick has responded to the email I sent him last night after interviewing Laurel. He has, although not without a grumble, either to the expense of flying Laurel and her fiancé to the City and putting them up for several days, or to the difficulty of listing all the women he’s had sex with.
The list is long and contains some surprising names. Names I recognize from the media, names from our circle of friends and acquaintances, girls I vaguely remember from our high school. Rick really gets around. Emily, Lucy, and Justine are practically the only women we both know that he hasn’t had sex with. The list includes Daisy, who I thought had better taste, and his own manager, which is pretty stupid because even Rick must know you don’t shit where you eat.
I read the list several times, but none of the names jumps out at me. There’s no Evonne. The closest is an Evelyn with two question marks after her name, indicating that Rick doesn’t know her last name or her address. Then there’s a dash and the notation “club in LA.” That notation appears a lot on the list. I have no idea how we’re going to track this woman down if she’s one of Rick’s random hook-ups.
I re-read the list. Emily thought the Little Box of Horrors was about Rick’s relationships with women, and I’m inclined to agree with her. Somewhere in this list might be the name of the woman who made it.
I fire off the list to Max and ask him to see if he can find any history of stalking by any of these women. Then I call Manny.
Manny’s the same kind of early bird I am. He’ll have been up for an hour already. He answers the phone on the first ring, tells me that he handed Rick off to Sadler, a guy he’s subcontracted body man work to before, and that the interview with the Castillos didn’t net us anything. Terri Castillo was less forthcoming in front of her husband, and Pedro Castillo wasn’t admitting much of anything.
“Nothing about Laurel Radford?”
“Mister said he didn’t know who she was. Missus had gone mute by then.”
“Uh-huh.” I’m familiar with those sorts of interviews. There isn’t much Manny could have done to draw out Terri Castillo with her husband acting like a human gag. If I thought she had anything useful, I’d try to re-interview her on her own. “I think we table them for now. Laurel Radford’s not our stalker. She’s willing to work with Rick to produce some sort of statement countering EvonneBringsTheTruth’s allegations. I think we have to turn our sights elsewhere.”
“Any ideas?”
I rub my hand through my hair. “It’s a long-shot, but I think we look more closely at Dovie Donegan. She’s definitely hiding something. It could just be that she was protecting Laurel, but she’s acting awfully fucking guilty.”
“And she took the pictures of the Fire Island threesome.”
“She did.” The pictures are a common thread in all this, although the person who made the box could have just printed them off the internet. “I’m toying with the idea of showing up at her door.”
“If she calls the cops?”
“Then I whip out the pictures which have somehow made their way to the internet without Rick’s consent and let them take over interviewing her.”
Manny chuckles. “You have a fucking mean streak, hermano.”
“I’m a sadist, what can I say? Want to tag along?”
“You got it. I’m on Rick today and I’ve got a thing with Jen tonight, but Tipper’s back tomorrow and then he’s got Rick until Friday, so I’m your man.”
I’ve got to take Miranda to the airport after physical therapy tomorrow. Her flight leaves at nine, but with all the security, I was planning on setting off to the airport no later than four, so I should be back by tea-time.
“Pick me up at seven? We’ll avoid the rush-hour traffic and give her time to get home after work.”
“Assuming she works nine to five.”
“Yeah, I know that’s an assumption, but let’s give it a shot. I don’t want to give her any advance warning. Seven work for you?”
“Works for me. See you tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Manny.”
I type up another email to everyone with the next steps before going find my baby girl. While I was talking to Manny, I heard the basement door open, and Emily greet her cat, so I know she’s up. I listen up the stairs for the shower but don’t hear anything. Kitchen’s quiet, too, although the kettle’s on.
I nearly miss her as I walk past the open French doors. She’s sitting outside
on a bench near the apple tree, wrapped in one of her Ravenclaw binkies. Her eyes are closed, and her face is turned up to the sky. It’s overcast and misty this morning, a welcome break after the heat of the last couple of days. When I open the doors and step out, a fine drizzle of rain hazes my skin. Scotch mist, Mum used to call it. I walk through the wet grass, feeling the bottoms of my sweats grow heavy, and sit on the bench beside my little girl.
She turns and gives me a huge smile. “’Morning, Daddy. Can I get you tea or coffee?”
“Good morning, little love. Sure, I’ll have something in a minute. Why are you sitting out here in the rain?”
She shrugs. “I’m just enjoying the coolth.”
“The coolth?” I take her hand and squeeze her little fingers in mine. “Not sure I’ve heard that word before.”
A soft giggle just louder than the morning traffic and the pigeons cooing along the garden wall. “It’s the opposite of warmth. It’s an old word. I’ve seen it in nineteenth century novels.”
My little girl, who knows so much, but never lords it over anyone. Who can just sit and enjoy the rain on a summer morning.
I squeeze her fingers again. “I don’t say it enough, sweetheart, but you bring such light into my life.”
That gets me a full beam of a grin. “Ta, Daddy. Is there anything I can do today to make things easier for you? I know it’s not going to be a good day.”
No, it’s probably not. We won’t get the test results today, but I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. Part of me just wants to know and get it over with. Part of me is glad I won’t be around Miranda when I find out, because I’m honestly not sure I could keep from throttling her if I’m the father.
I use my hold on Emily’s hand to pull her into my lap and cuddle her close. “Just be my little girl. And understand that if I’m terse and angry, it’s not with you. And if I put you in High Protocol, it’s not because I don’t want to hear what you have to say. It’s because your submission is all that’s keeping me from completely losing my shit.”
She puts her soft palm against my throat. “Anything you need.”