Page 223 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection

“Dude, it’s time to start waxing back here,” I say as I shave the peach fuzz from his lower back. There are definitely some longer, darker hairs that weren’t here the last time I made a close inspection of his ass.

“Fuck off. My new bitch plucks me clean back there with her teeth.”

Mac didn’t call me a bitch, and I have the sense that he wouldn’t because he’d think it was disrespectful. That makes me smile as I toss the disposable razor and wipe Edz down again.

“Well, either she’s gap-toothed or she missed a spot,” I say, just to keep digging. “Do I know the new girl?”

“Uh-uh,” Edz mutters, before he tells me all about her. She’smorethan me. She’s the best, of course, because Edz always has to have the best. When we were together—not that we ever were together, because exclusivity is for vanillas, as Edz told me a million times—that was what Edz always wanted from me. To be the best-dressed woman in the room. The best dancer. The best submissive.

I pause in setting out the ink caps to run my gloved hand over my face. I parted ways with Edz more than six years ago. I stopped trying to be the best and just started being myself. Is that where I fell down? If I’d been the best would Ten have collared me? Would Rob? Would Mac have stayed, or at least called today?

I shake myself. No one tells me what I am. For the past five years, I’ve lived strictly on my own terms. I’ve turned my skin into something I’m comfortable inhabiting every day. No one, least of all a blue-eyed silver fox who called me goddess for a scene and then disappeared, gets to tell me what that skin should be.

I pick up my machine and start on the line work and if anger fuels my artistry, then Edz will get a fierce fucking tattoo today.

When I close, I discover Edz has sent me a hundred-dollar tip, which makes me laugh. He’s such an asshole. A loveable asshole at times, but still an asshole. I split the hundred between me and Nicky, since Fareena called off again and it’s beginning to annoy me, and splurge on an Uber back to Logan and Emily’s instead of walking. It’s only six blocks, but they’re long fucking blocks when my ass is dragging this hard.

Emily greets me at the door with very red eyes. She holds her hands out for my clothes and I strip down to Mac’s T-shirt. She hands me a pair of her fuzzy socks and after I pull them on, I sling my arm around her shoulders.

“Tell me,” I say.

“Daddy punished Cappa for lying but he still won’t tell Daddy the truth.”

Damn. I know Logan’s a responsible Dom with a deep understanding of a masochist’s needs, but punishing Cappa the day after he was beaten so bad he needed sixteen stitches doesn’t seem like a good idea. And Cappa worships the ground Logan walks on, even if Logan doesn’t see it and Cappa won’t ever admit it to the man, so if Logan can’t get the truth out of him, I have no chance.

I squeeze her shoulders, not sure what to say.

I expect Logan and Cappa to be in the great room when we walk through, but the room’s empty. They don’t appear while I eat the late dinner Emily’s kept warm for me, and fuck if chicken chasseur with homemade, sourdough bread isn’t my new favorite thing. Finally, I ask.

“Where are they?”

“Upstairs. Daddy’s helping Cappa take a sponge bath without messing up his dressings.”

Good, that’s one less thing I’ll have to do before bed.

“Did you talk to your Daddy about your worries?” I ask.

Emily nods. “A little. I didn’t want to distract him from Cappa, but Daddy said we’ll have Knee Time tomorrow night and can talk it through for as long as I want.”

“Good.”

Emily’s told me about Knee Time. She kneels at Logan’s feet, they each share one thing they’re happy about and one thing they’re worried about, and then Logan can ask her anything and she has to be completely truthful and forthcoming in answering him. The idea of Knee Time both attracts and terrifies me. Complete honesty and full disclosure about anything a Dom wanted to ask me? Hell to the no. But I’ve seen how much trust Emily and Logan have. Does that come from baring your soul to your Dom on command? From knowing you have no secrets from each other? The people I’ve been closest to in my life—Bebe J, Ruby, Nicky, Edz, Ten, Rob—I’ve loved them all, but there’s no way I’d let them peer into my damn soul. And yet it stings that none of the Doms who have topped me have ever demanded, or, hell, even offered, something like Knee Time.

I shake off that thought as I help Emily clear up and do the dishes. It’s after eleven already and Logan’s really, really strict about Emily’s bedtime. He’s not going to bend his rules just because Cappa’s having a crisis.

I’m not looking forward to another night in Logan and Emily’s guest bed, particularly because I’m going to be in it with Cappa instead of Mac—who still hasn’t called or sent a single text since his lame-ass thumbs up in the middle of the night—but I figure I’m so tired that I’ll just crash out.

That plan’s shot to shit when Cappa curls up against me, wanting to talk. I hug him and listen as my eyelids get heavier and heavier. Instead of telling me the truth about last night, he tells me about how Logan has been taking care of him all day, including making him wear clothespins on his tongue for an hour after refusing to answer questions about his abuser.

Should I let him down gently? Of course, I should. But it’s after midnight, and that’s just not me, even when I’m not so tired I’m propping my eyelids open with toothpicks.

“Cap, you can yell at me in the morning for being an asshole, but you have to stop fixating on Master Logan. He’s never going to be your Dom, man. He and Emily are soul mates. He’d never fucking cheat on her and you wouldn’t want him if he did.”

“Master Logan’s topping Lucy outside the club,” Cappa says in a small voice.

He is? Fuck that noise. And why didn’t Emily tell me?

“All the more reason to move on, Cap. Logan’s topping Lucy but he’s not topping you. How much clearer could he make it?”