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

the table if I bite hard enough to draw a little blood?”

She shivers. Not off the table.

“That would be fine,” she murmurs.

Yes, it would. Very fine.

“Can you travel?” I ask. “Do you have a passport?”

She nods.

“A job you have to get back to on Monday?”

She shakes her head, her plait swishing over the silk of her blouse. “I’m self-employed.”

“What do you do?”

Her sign says, “no financial support required,” but doesn’t specify why not.

She reaches down beneath the table, draws out another book and offers it to me.

“The Laird’s Lost Lamb.” I read the title overlaying a picture of a half-dressed woman swooning in the arms of a beefy, kilted man. “By Victoria Cage.”

“That’s my pen-name,” she says, her voice firming. “I write historical romances.”

Bestselling Author, the book jacket also says. I guess she doesn’t need a daddy’s financial support. “And your real name?”

She swallows, her pale throat working. “Could I write it down? I’d rather not say here.”

Here at a BDSM expo. Fair enough.

“It can wait,” I tell her. “Your sign says no permanent attachments. Why not?”

“I did it once.” She shrugs one shoulder. “It didn’t work out. I’m not up for it again.”

“Divorced?” At her nod, I ask, “What do you want to know from my end?”

“Are you married? I don’t do cheating.”

“Not married. This might help.” I pull a folded sheaf of paper from the back pocket of my jeans, smooth it open and offer it to her.

Those bright hazel eyes scan the first page curiously. “Thirty-five. Single. No communicable diseases.” Her finger traces down the page and stops. I know what she’s seen, and wait for it. “You’ve had . . . a lot of sexual partners.”

Diplomatic. The number’s over five hundred, and I know that can be a turn-off, which is why I’m up front about it.

“I like sex,” I tell her frankly.

“Are you, um, afraid of commitment?”

“No. Turn the page.”

She does, and reads silently for a minute. “You’ve been with the same sub for five years. She’s very . . . complimentary.” She lifts her eyes to mine; her pupils have contracted to tight black points. “Is it over?”

The second page is a letter from Miranda. It’s over a year old, written as a bona fide for a European club I was trying to get into. I included it so it doesn’t look like I’ve got some kind of “one and done” rule, and because Mir detailed my experience as a top.

“Miranda’s married,” I explain. “She was all while she was my bottom. Her husband knew about us. She said he understood what she needed from me.” When the rubber hit the road, that turned out not to be entirely true, like so many of the things Miranda told me. “They decided to try for a baby. I didn’t want there to be any questions or complications, so I stepped back.”

All true. As far as it goes. Without the mess, the anger, or the pain, of the way we actually broke up.

“Did they succeed?” she asks.

I nod. “Miranda’s due at the end of September.”

“And after the baby’s born?”

If you’re not looking for anything permanent, sweetheart, what’s it to you?

“It’s over,” I say.

Very, very, very fucking over.

“You obviously weren’t monogamous when you were with her.” She flips back to the first page and rests her fingertips on the black print. I can’t see what’s under her fingers, but it’s probably that number. A number that’s clearly bothering her. “Or you were really, really . . . busy before her.”

That gets a chuckle out of me. “No, we weren’t monogamous.” Mir wasn’t ever monogamous with me, so I wasn’t monogamous with her. It salved what little pride I had left every time she left me to fly back to her husband. “I saw her fairly infrequently. A few days every month or so, when she could get away. Do you need monogamy?”

She shakes her head without meeting my eyes. “Not as long as everyone’s honest. I don’t want any jealousy or weirdness. I’ve done all that.”

I let it slide, because we’re just getting to know each other. But that was a lie, and if she lies to me again, there will be consequences.

“Okay, in the interests of being honest, I’d need your undivided attention for a couple of weeks. I have a business trip planned. I need my bottom with me.”

“How long?” she asks.

Ten days, but if it goes well, I might want her to stick around.

“Say two weeks,” I tell her. “You’d have your own room, your own time. But I’d need you available to me several times a day. There’d be scenes. In public. We wouldn’t have a lot of time to get to know each other first, so I need someone experienced. Your sign says you are.”

And the way she responds to commands speaks volumes.

She swallows again, then nods. “Five years. But, um, one year was mostly online.”

“That’s okay.” I’ve never done much in the online BDSM scene, so her experience there might be useful. “Are you okay with doing scenes in public? It wouldn’t have to be full sex.”

“I’ve been to dungeon parties,” she offers.

“That’s fine, as long as you’re okay with me displaying you in public.”

She nods, but doesn’t look at all certain. I think we need to put that to the test.

“Would you come to the bathroom with me?” I ask.

Now her eyes lift to mine. They’re wide, maybe frightened. “Uh, now?”

“Yeah. I’d like to see you.” And I need to know if she really is okay being naked in front of strangers. Or at least, in front of this stranger.

She presses her lips together, and for a second, I’m afraid she’s going to refuse.

How much I don’t want her to catches me by surprise.

“Trust has to start somewhere,” I say, lowering my voice so it’s deep and soft. I want to soothe, not scare, her. “A good girl would go to the bathroom like her daddy’s told her. Are you a good girl?”

She releases her lips, white teeth scraping across