The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection

by Frost, E J

  “Thank you, good girl. Are you okay with everything for tonight? I’m sorry I dumped a dinner party on you last minute. With Miranda here, that probably wasn’t Daddy’s best idea.”

  “It’s all good.” She nuzzles into my shoulder. “Cooking will keep me busy and away from the Mir-Witch—”

  “Emily, no,” I say sternly.

  “Oopsie.”

  She did that on purpose. Little monkey.

  “Paddle or cane?”

  “Whatever will relax you more, Daddy.”

  She definitely did it on purpose. That’s topping from below, since she’s goading me to discipline her, but I understand why she’s done it and it’s not a threat to our power exchange.

  “Ten with Belphegor, but you can come, since I know you did it to relieve Daddy’s stress.”

  She replies with a soft giggle that I feel against my chest more than hear. “It’s really tough being the baby of a daddy who knows her so well.”

  “It’s really great being a daddy who knows his baby so well.” I slip my hand under her chin and tip her face up so I can kiss her rain-misted lips. “Thank you for being my little girl, Emmy.”

  She smiles up at me. “You’re welcome. Ready for a drink?”

  “I am. Better make it hot so I don’t catch a cold from sitting out in the rain with my crazy baby girl.”

  She giggles and slides off my lap.

  After a cup of tea, Emily serves me one of my favorite breakfasts: baked beans on toast with a poached egg and grilled tomatoes. It reminds me of the “full English” breakfasts Mum used to make, only much less likely to give me a heart attack. I know Emily’s made it because it’s my favorite. I can see she wants to wait on me this morning, sneakily setting the breakfast table while I’m in the toilet, and washing up as she cooks so there are just plates and cutlery to wash up afterwards. I hand-feed her the oatmeal with almonds and blueberries that she’s made for her own breakfast to show my appreciation, then drag her upstairs with me once the dishes are done, and give her a more-playful-than-painful ten with my silicone paddle. Lower cheeks pinkened, I lead her into the shower and fuck her against the cold tile until her upper cheeks glow, too.

  I leave her, sated and grinning, in my office to spend the morning writing while I head off to the lab where Miranda’s having her paternity test.

  It’s only about a mile to the lab, so I grab a brolly and walk. My stride’s strong and my leg only twinges on the last flight of stairs up to the lab on the fourth floor of a brick building on East Thirteenth Street. Maybe Hendry will clear me for squats with weights tomorrow. It’s really getting up my nose that I can’t carry Emily around.

  The other thing that’s really getting up my nose is already sitting in the lab’s modern, cream and green reception. Miranda’s color-coordinated with the room, in a light green, sleeveless dress patterned with roses, and a broad-brimmed straw hat, which presumably keeps off the rain as well as the sun. She’s flipping idly through a magazine as I enter and give my name to the young man seated at the receptionist’s surround. Miranda sets aside the magazine and pats the empty chair next to her.

  I briefly consider sitting across the room, but a stab of guilt propels me into the chair next to her. How can I teach Emily to be a bigger person if I’m not one myself?

  “Good morning,” I say, trying to unknot my jaw and unclench my teeth. “Sleep well?”

  Miranda waves a languid hand. “Jet lag. I’m not here long enough to acclimate to this time zone. I should be asleep still, but this was the only appointment they had on short notice.” She gives an exaggerated yawn. “I’ll nap this afternoon.”

  All the rest of the day, with any luck. Don’t pregnant women need a lot of sleep?

  “Breakfast at the hotel all right?” I ask, just to keep from falling into an awkward silence.

  “Nothing special.” She smiles and curls her fingers around my arm. Fuck, I thought I’d gotten the message across about not touching me. “Do you remember breakfast at The Rye? Those maple baked beans with Cumberland sausage. Divine.” She licks her lips. “Mmm, I must go when I get back. Honestly, Lo, don’t you miss eating real food? You were always such a foodie.”

  I slide my arm out of her grasp. “I’m still a foodie and what Emily makes is real food. I wasn’t amused by the cheap shots you took at her last night, Mir.”

  She scoffs softly. “Chia seeds? That’s hardly real food, darling. Please don’t tell me you’ve gone keto.”

  “I’m not on any specific diet. And my cholesterol’s low enough that I can have bacon again, so don’t knock the chia seeds. Or anything else Emily makes. She’s a bloody good cook and I won’t have you belittling her efforts.”

  Miranda rolls her eyes. She knows I hate that. Disrespectful gestures used to get her ten with Belphegor. I see seven months without any discipline has let her slide back into her old ways. It makes my palm itch for my paddle.

  I push the itch away. I’m no longer in a position to correct Miranda, and my palm should be more than satisfied right now, between the long session last night with the floggers and this morning with the paddle. If Miranda really works me up today, I’ll make time for another session with Emily tonight.

  My little girl, who gives me anything I need.

  That thought allows me to smile at Miranda. “I don’t care if you and Emily like each other. Might be better if you don’t. But I won’t have you digging at her the way you did last night. If you want to come back to the house today, that’s okay, but cut the shit.”

  She scoffs again. “What’s there to like? She acts like a child and has as little interesting to say.”

  I look at the woman who thinks my little girl is childish and uninteresting, laugh to myself at how wrong she is, and say, “Then don’t talk to her. I’m good with that. We’re having some people from the club over tonight for a High Protocol dinner. You’re welcome to stay but it won’t be as my submissive, just so we’re clear.”

  “Will Emily be serving?”

  She’ll be serving me. Miranda can serve herself. “Mm-hmm.”

  “That sounds like fun. I haven’t done anything in the lifestyle since I last saw you.”

  “You must miss it,” I echo back to her.

  “I miss you,” she says. “It was never about the lifestyle. It was always about you, Lo.”

  I could tell by the way she was trolling kinky sex clubs when we met.

  I shove that not-at-all-bigger-person-thought aside and am spared a response when the receptionist calls Miranda’s name.

  The procedure itself is quick, professional and as far as I can tell, painless. The nurse does an ultrasound to check the baby’s position and I see what might be my daughter for the first time. A lot of fuzzy white and gray blobs on the screen, but it’s recognizably a baby, sucking her thumb. My chest tightens and I offer another quick prayer that those white and gray blobs do not contain my DNA.

  Once she has the baby’s position, the nurse rubs a little numbing gel on the side of Miranda’s distended belly, plunges a small needle into the numbed spot, fills a syringe with yellowish fluid, and withdraws the needle. She blots the dot of blood away with a square of gauze, sticks a plaster over the spot, and then it’s over except for the wait.

  * * *

  Despite the wedge sandals she’s wearing, and her heavy belly, Miranda’s still a good walker. She doesn’t complain about the length of the walk, or the persistent drizzle. Probably reminds her of England.

  My house is full of the sounds of feminine laughter when we enter. Three heads pop up over the back of the sofa. Two dark brown and one blonde and blue.

  “Hello, girls,” I call to them from the hallway as I take off my shoes.

  “No girls here, just us wimmin,” Daisy calls back.

  “Hey, bro,” my sister, the second dark brown head, waves before going back to what looks like a glass of white wine. I see they’re having a boozy lunch.

  Emily climbs over Daisy, who is sprawled on
the sectional part of the couch, and slips over to me, soft-footed and adorable in a flowered playsuit and her pink-and-white striped thigh highs. I wrap an arm around her shoulders and kiss her forehead.

  “All okay?” she asks, looking up at me.

  “Yes, sweetheart. My sister and Daisy descend on you while I was out?”

  She nods. “Lizbeth can only stay a few hours. Maisie’s having an allergic reaction to the bedding at camp, so she can’t stay overnight. Lizbeth has to leave before rush hour to pick her up. Daisy wants to go shopping after lunch, but I said we’d need to wait to see if that was okay with you.”

  I kiss her again on the forehead. “Yes, baby girl. You girls enjoy your retail therapy.”

  She looks up at me and for a second there’s something in her eyes. A shadow. An edge of something. I’m not sure what it is.

  “Emmy?”

  She smiles quickly. “I, um, heard back from Scotland. I’ve got an offer of forty-two thousand.”

  I track her oblique-speak after a second. She was right saying her condo would sell fast, but forty-two thousand is a lot less than she thought it was worth.

  “I don’t want you to sell cheap. Let’s wait a few days and see if you get a higher offer.”

  She nods. “Okay.”

  Something’s wrong. Is she regretting offering to sell her house to pay my medical bills? With my sister and Daisy and fucking Miranda watching, this isn’t the time to ask.

  Instead, I hug her and whisper into her ear. “Today, I love you the most.”

  She giggles. “Do I need to be a generous baby?”

  “You do.”

  “I can do that.” She squeezes my neck. “I made lunch for everyone. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving. Let’s eat buffet-style, huh? I want you on my lap.”

  “Okay.” She kisses the spot she likes under my jaw, then slips away toward the kitchen. My sweet girl, who gives as soon as I need her to.

  While Emily’s setting out plates and serving dishes, my sister rises from the couch and sidles up to me. She gives Miranda a cool nod before wrapping me in a hug. “Bro. How are you?”

  “Good. Leg’s really improving. Girls okay?”

  She gives me the lowdown on her twins, including Millie’s infatuation with a boy she met at camp and Maisie’s allergies. By the time I’ve expressed Uncle Logan’s strong opinion that twenty-one is plenty young enough for the girls to start being interested in boys, Emily’s calling us for lunch.

  I take in the spread as I walk arm-in-arm to the kitchen with Lizbeth. Somehow, in the time I’ve been gone, Emily’s made three different salads, including more of that chicken salad that went down so well at our play party. I beckon her to me as Daisy, Lizbeth, and Miranda take plates and start serving themselves.

  I lower my head until our foreheads touch. “Did you get any writing done?”

  “Uh-huh. The Avengers aren’t mad at me.”

  I chuckle. That little trick was inspired. “I didn’t mean for you to have to feed everyone.”

  “It’s okay. I know these recipes by heart, and I can still dictate while I’m washing and chopping.”

  “Okay, little girl. I’ll take you at your word.” I kiss her forehead. “You okay? Everything good?”

  “Yes.” There’s a tiny hitch in her speech and I know she’s stopped herself from calling me “Daddy.” I hate that she feels the need to censor herself, but she’s careful not to flaunt our dynamic in front of Lizbeth. “Do you want extra pepper on your chicken salad?”

  I chuck her under her chin. “Uh-huh. Thank you, little love. We’ll talk tonight after everyone’s left, huh?”

  She nods and smiles, but the shadow’s back in her eyes.

  We eat on the couch, with Emily sitting in my lap. Lizbeth and Daisy position themselves strategically between us and Miranda. They’re well-briefed. Their maneuvering tells me how this afternoon’s going to go. Daisy and Lizbeth are here to “rescue” Emily from Miranda. They’ll keep Emmy out shopping until the last minute. That means I’ll be on my own with Miranda all afternoon.

  Shoot me fucking now.

  Lizbeth carries the conversation, telling us all about the trip to Disney. Out of deference to my vanilla sister, I don’t hand-feed my baby doll, but we eat off the same plate, and I whisper into her ear that I’ll make it up to her tomorrow when we’re alone again, which has her smiling. Daisy throws in an occasional funny anecdote about the Kingdom of the Mouse while Miranda says nothing and pushes her food around on her plate.

  After we finish, the whirlwind that is my sister whisks Emily and Daisy off to shop, leaving me with the dirty dishes and my sour-faced ex-sub.

  I give the remote to Miranda while I do the dishes and wipe down the counters. Emily’s left me barely anything to clean up, my over-achieving little girl, so to kill time, I wash the handful of dishes and cutlery by hand and stack them in the drying rack by the sink. The counters look spotless, but I wipe them all down again. When I finish, I pick up the feather toy from where Emily’s left it on the breakfast table and play chase with her cat to burn a few more minutes before I have to face Miranda.

  Before I join her on the couch, I grab a lager. The only way I’m going to be able to endure the afternoon is with alcohol.

  Miranda’s found a cricket test match on one of the sports channels. India verses Pakistan. Always a lively rivalry. I know she’s picked cricket to please me, since she’s not an avid fan. Still, it’ll hold her attention enough to spare me having to make conversation. And she won’t start reading her book half-way through the game, the way Emily did when I took my little girl to a baseball game. I don’t think she’s ever going to be a sports fan, but I like that she can keep herself entertained in any situation. That thought makes me smile as I stretch out on the sectional and prop some pillows behind my back before taking a long draw of my beer.

  Miranda gives an exaggerated yawn and turns to lie down on the couch, lowering her head to rest on my stomach.

  “No,” I tell her, pushing her away before she reaches her goal. I pull a cushion from under my back and set it between us. When she pouts at me, I point to the pillow.

  “You’re being ridiculous, darling,” she says.

  Master Ridiculous, that’s me. “Yup. And if the tables were turned and I kept trying to touch you after you’d told me not to a dozen times, you’d be screaming harassment. But my boundaries stopped being important to you at some point, didn’t they?”

  Her pout deepens. Something tugs in my chest and I look at the telly in disgust. She always could manipulate me with that pout.

  “I’ve wanted time to talk with you, darling,” she says softly. “To explain. I feel terrible that I’ve hurt you. I never wanted that.”

  Unbelievable. “You honestly don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, do you?”

  “Lo, can’t you see it from my perspective for one minute?”

  “What perspective? Your biological clock was ticking, so that made it okay to make me a father against my will?”

  “You have no idea what it’s like to want something so badly. It was all I could think about. All that mattered. Don’t you remember those first months, when I was all you could think about?”

  It was never like that for me. I always enjoyed my time with Miranda. She’s smart, sophisticated, and witty, when she’s not being a conniving witch. We had a number of things in common besides our shared kinks and sexual chemistry. I looked forward to seeing her, but it was never all-consuming. If anything, those first few months, my focus was on my other sub, Luisa. We were pushing the boundaries of her emotional masochism to see if I could fulfill her deeper needs; it was becoming clear I couldn’t and that we’d need to find her another top. I was pretty preoccupied by that, actually, so if Miranda thought I was distracted because of her, she got it all wrong.

  “Mir, you might have felt that way at the beginning, but I never did. I’ve never let my relationships eat up that much of my headspace.” Not unt
il Emily. “And you don’t need to say any more. If having a baby was all that mattered to you, then there’s nothing more to talk about.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see her face crease, the pout becoming something like real pain.

  “Darling, it was an obsession. Haven’t you ever been obsessed?”

  I’m not sure I have. Loving Emily, wanting to marry her, is a deep, primal drive, but it’s not an obsession. I’m most concerned about what Emily needs and wants. If she tells me she doesn’t want to get married, I’ll accept her decision. It’ll hurt, but I respect her limits.

  “No, I haven’t,” I tell her. “Certainly, never enough to trample the boundaries of someone I loved.”

  “Love,” Miranda says.

  “No, past tense.” I slide my arm behind my head so I can see the outfield better. The Indian batters are knocking them deep, racking up the runs. Pakistan’s going to be hard-pressed to catch them at this rate. “I’ve put those feelings behind me.”

  Miranda makes a little choking noise, which I ignore.

  “I don’t believe that,” she says after a minute. “We were together for five years. You don’t just set aside five years of feelings.”

  Her emphasis on the amount of time we were together makes my stomach shrivel. They’re not five wasted years. Not entirely. I learned a lot about myself, and about topping, during those five years. It’s probably due to those five years that I’ve been able to mold myself into a daddy for Emily. And if I hadn’t been with Miranda all that time, refusing to commit to any one relationship, I might have missed meeting my little girl.

  Still, there’s a rock rolling around in my chest at the thought of those five, mostly-wasted years.

  “Be honest with yourself, Mir. We weren’t together for five years. You were with Colin and you saw me occasionally when you wanted kinky sex. I was with literally a hundred other women, and I saw you when you could be bothered to make time for me—”

  “That’s not fair,” she hisses. “I thought about you every day.”

  “I didn’t,” I say, honestly but probably too brutally. “I’m sorry, Mir, but it was never like that for me. I did care about you, but now when I look at you, all I feel is anger.”