Page 456 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection

Maude nods. She looks doubtfully at the vent. She’s wearing a black leather skirt suit and four-inch heels. Getting up into that vent, much less crawling down it, is going to be a challenge for her.

“If I speak to him from here, can he hear me?”

“Possibly. It’s an air vent but it’s not making that much noise.”

“Right.” She squares her shoulders. “I’ll try to talk him out from here. Call me if there’s trouble.”

I nod and head off to the Stocks. It’s a short walk but I pick up company. As soon as I start off, Dana and Austin follow me. As we walk down the hallway toward the Nursery, we bump into Max and Cynnie coming toward us. Max takes one look at my face, reverses course, and falls in beside me.

“What’s happened?”

“Emmy and Georgie crawled into a damn duct during the Hunt and haven’t come back out.” As I say it, heat crawls up the back of my neck. My little girl is not safe. “My Daddyness is not happy.”

Cynnie pushes between me and Max and links arms with us in a shower of glitter. “We’z can’t have unhappy Daddyness,” she says. “Lez find them.”

She begins to skip, which forces Max and me into a jog to keep up with her. My Mad Hatter costume isn’t built for jogging and the toys tucked into various pockets bang against me unpleasantly but I keep pace. A bruise or two is a small price to pay for getting to my baby faster.

As we open the door to the Stocks, I hear Emily shout, “Stop it!”

My blood freezes, then rushes through my veins, pounds through my ears.

I break away from Max and Cynnie, accelerating into a sprint, which gets me around the corner and pushing through a group of people standing on the far side of the room, near an open armoire. I assumed the armoires in the dungeon held play equipment, although I admit I haven’t investigated this one. There are some sheets and towels lying on the floor near the armoire, and a group of maybe ten people.

“Emily, come to me,” I growl.

She pushes between the bodies and all but leaps into my arms. Her eyes are full of tears. “Make them stop. They’re scaring Georgie. He’s too frightened to safe word.”

I hug her tightly with one arm and shove two people out of my way. I barely take note of who is around me until I see Georgie. He’s standing, trembling, his paws over his mouse-face. The bottoms of his fursuit are around his ankles, baring his pale legs and a loin-cloth with a cock-cage poking out of it.

I put my little girl down, keeping my body between her and the crowd, and kneel to pull up Georgie’s fursuit. Emily helps me find the tiny snaps that fasten it to the top. When we have him covered, Emily wraps her arms around him. I turn to the group.

Bull’s standing behind me with his arms crossed over his chest, a flogger dangling from his wrist. There are a few faces I don’t recognize around him but too many that I do. Franco. Shedo. Emmett. Al. Naz. Drew.

“What the bloody hell’s going on here?” I ask.

“Georgie and Emily came in the middle of my scene,” Bull responds, nodding at the Stocks where Al’s submissive, MacKenzie, is pilloried. “It’s a closed scene. They have no right entering. You know the rule.”

I do know the rule about submissives entering closed scenes. They’re fair game. I grind my teeth. My brain scrambles for an exception and latches on to a thin one.

“In case of emergency, any submissive can enter any space in the club and seek help. Emily, did you make it clear you and Georgie were in trouble?”

Silence behind me.

I look over my shoulder and find Emily worrying her lower lip with her teeth. “Not exactly, Daddy.”

“In her defense,” Al says. “We didn’t give her a chance. Their appearance was unexpected.”

“Georgie is on loan to Maude,” Bull says, his voice rough. “I had every right to demand proof that the terms of the loan were being observed.”

I grind my teeth. There’s clearly shit going on between Maude, Georgie, Bull and his trio that I don’t know about. I haven’t heard fuck all about a loan, although that’s not an uncommon way to deal with submissives who are playing with more than one Dom. The club keeps a register of subbie loans but I admit I haven’t checked it in over a year, not since I started dating Rachel.

I don’t want to get into the middle of their drama. But I’m also concerned that I just scared a vulnerable submissive half-to-death by playing with my little girl without thinking about the impact it might have on him.

Swallowing my pride and my irritation, I bow to the group. “I apologize for the interruption to the scene. It was my fault that Emily and Georgie came through the passageway. I didn’t consider the impact playing with Emily might have on Georgie?—”

“So, would you say that’s a consent violation, Master Logan?” Drew asks with a smirk.

Rob and Emmett may have the best hair in the club but Drew’s not far behind. He’s a good-looking bloke all around. Wavy, dark blond hair carefully styled. Lightly tanned despite the cold weather. Runner’s physique. Ridiculously cut jaw. He’s dressed formally: black tuxedo pants with a satin stripe, burnt-orange waistcoat over a white dress shirt, black bow-tie undone and hanging loose around his strong throat. It all looks good on him.