Negotiation: Daddy P.I. 0.5, E Frost [best thriller novels of all time txt] 📗

me laughing all the way home yesterday. I watched a couple of those ‘People of Walmart’ videos last night. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.”

She smiles and soft color rises to her cheeks. “I have an entire library of embarrassing stories.”

I reach across the table and take her fingertips in mine. I slide the pad of my thumb across the edges of her pink-painted nails. “How about you share a fantasy instead?”

Her pupils immediately widen. Score.

“Yes, sir, but—”

We’re interrupted by the waiter. I order for us both, watching the flush spread down Emily’s throat as I do.

After the waiter leaves, I pick up her hand again and stroke her knuckles with my thumb. “You were saying?”

“Before we were so rudely interrupted?” She smiles at the cliché, but then her smile fades and a little line appears between her brows. “My fantasies can be a little, um, dark.”

I start to say that nothing’s too dark for me, but that’s not true. I have limits of my own, which we’ll discuss if and when they become relevant. Instead, I squeeze her fingers. “I’m good with dark.”

“Okay.” She worries her lip with her top teeth for a moment. “There’s this one. I haven’t told anyone. It’s about a princess in a castle—”

“I play the princess?” I ask, to inject a little humor.

She sticks the tip of her tongue out at me. That tongue. I’m going to clamp it before too long. “The castle is stormed by a knight dressed all in black. He takes the princess hostage and-and—” She pauses. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

“I’m liking everything I’m hearing so far,” I say, to encourage her. “Is the Black Knight good to his hostage?”

She shakes her head.

“Mmm.” I can see where this is going. I stretch my legs under the table to relieve the pressure growing between them. “Does the Black Knight force the Princess?”

She nods and breaks eye contact, blushing brilliantly. “In front of his men, so everyone knows she’s his. And he makes her serve him. Like his slave.”

I can think of all kinds of service the Black Knight could force the Princess to give him. My balls throb so hard a hot wire shoots up into my belly. “Is she a good little slave?” I ask, watching her reactions closely.

She shakes her head again. “She runs away. He goes after her and catches her and punishes her for escaping.”

Fuck, yes. I’m loving this fantasy. There’ll be flogging and face-fucking and so many sweet tears. “Does he put her in chains?”

Her eyes flash up to mine, pupils hugely dilated. “I hadn’t thought . . . yes, yes, he does. On her ankles, so she has to shuffle around when she’s doing chores and she can’t run away again.”

Fuckyesfuckyesfuckyes. Then I do a mental run through my catalogue of toys. Cuffs. Spreader bars. No ankle manacles. How is it I have no fucking ankle manacles? Do I have time to make some before we fly? I should have bought a pair at the expo. I remember them being on display. I focus for a moment, and with the recall that got me through a year of N.Y.U. while nursing a permanent hangover, I remember the shop name printed on the tablecloth under the manacles. Here’s hoping they have overnight delivery.

“Once she’s chained, does she accept being his?” I ask, to see how her fantasy plays out.

Emily opens her mouth to respond, then snaps it shut as the waiter returns, bearing our appetizers. Her blush puts Times Square to shame. While the waiter arranges the plates in front of us, I tap my finger to my lips. Emily, watching closely, sits silent until the waiter leaves.

“Wait,” I murmur to her.

“Yes, sir,” she whispers.

“Before you eat, we say grace and you ask for permission.”

She squeezes her eyes closed and when she opens them, they’re wet.

“Too much?” I ask, keeping my voice low and soothing. I’m very, very much enjoying dominating her all the time, but we haven’t discussed whether she’d accept that, or whether she’d find it overwhelming.

“No, sir.”

Sounds like she might be receptive to it. The thought of dominating her full-time sends another hot zap through my blood.

“Good girl. Bow your head.” I use a simple, secular grace that I remember my great-grandmother using to bless the table, since I’m not sure about Emily’s religious preferences. When I finish, she lifts her head and watches me with over-bright eyes.

“Sir, may I have permission to eat?”

“Yes, you may.”

She smiles, her lower lip trembling, picks up her utensils and begins cutting up the white slivers of fennel into small bites.

That’s a job I want.

“In future,” I say conversationally, “Daddy will cut up his little girl’s food. And I want to see you chew each bite ten times.”

She puts a bite-sized piece in her mouth, chews carefully and swallows. “Yes, Daddy.”

There it is again, and this time I’ve got her number. I let her eat for a while before I say, “Going back to this fantasy, does the Princess ever accept being his?”

“I haven’t really thought that far. It’s just the early scenes that I’ve thought through when I, uh, when I’ve thought about it.” Her cheeks flare again, brighter than the glowing red that’s banding the sky above our heads.

This is something she’s fantasized about. A hot and dirty rape fantasy. My sweet, filthy baby doll.

“What do you think?” she asks.

I love that she wants my input constructing her fantasy.

“I think that after she’s kidnapped by a rival knight and the Black Knight rescues her, she might realize that he’ll always protect her and she might let herself love him a little.” I’m pretty sure that’s the plot of one of those Excalibur-type movies, but hey, I’m not the author here. “But she might not admit it to him, just to keep him on his toes.”

With a beaming smile, she nods.

“I also think this would be a spectacular fantasy to play out on the cruise,” I tell her. “There’s a medieval-themed dungeon