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

I really like the way she calls me “sir” without prompting. Although I understand she may want to call me “Daddy” at some point, hearing “sir” right now feels familiar and reassuring. It also reinforces my impression of her training.

She rises, a little unsteadily, and smoothes her hands down her sides. What I took for a white silk dress is a short-sleeved tunic, worn over a straight black skirt that stops above her knees. Conservative.

One of my mother’s expressions comes back to me. Neat as a pin. I’m not sure now neat pins are, but it fits the woman in front of me. Standing in her black ballet flats, she’s maybe five-five. I’ll be able to rest my chin on the top of her head. Small, but I like small. Being able to overwhelm my subs physically is a huge turn-on. I always missed that when I was with Mir.

Maybe I won’t have to miss it anymore.

I rise slowly and let her take in my height, my size. She doesn’t flinch, and her pupils widen.

“Leave your books but bring your handbag,” I tell her. I don’t want anyone robbing her while I’m making her strip in the toilet.

“Yes, sir.” She reaches back behind the table and draws out an oversized, black suede bag. As she reaches for the bag, her skirt stretches over a heart-shaped ass. I’ve always been a leg and ass man. Very, very nice.

“Give me your hand.” I hold out mine. Hers, sliding into it, is ice cold. “Are you scared, baby doll?”

Her breathing quickens in response to the endearment.

“I’m, uh, this just isn’t how I thought today was going to go,” she says.

“What did you think was going to happen when you came here advertizing for a Daddy-Dom?” I ask, leading her through the busy hall, following the signs for the toilets.

She turns a spectacular beet shade. “The last two times I tried face-to-face were wash-outs. Speed-dating is not my forte.”

Kinky speed dating. I chuckle at the thought. “I haven’t tried it.”

“Well, there’s a session in two hours, if you want to.”

I saw it on the expo agenda, and wasn’t tempted. “Let’s see how it goes in the bathroom.”

The color washes out of her face and she stumbles a step. “Is this, um, an audition?”

Whoops. That was not the right thing to say.

“No, baby doll. There’s no need to be nervous about it.”

“Okay,” she says, but, clearly, she is. Some performance anxiety there.

I cast around for something to set her at ease. “Tell me about the dungeon parties you’ve been to. Did you do scenes?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of scene?”

“Impact play. Mostly spanking, some flogging, some caning.”

Good. We could get by just on impact scenes if she can’t handle more than that. “Did you have sex?”

“No. It wasn’t that kind of relationship. He just topped me.”

“Really? Huh.” I know some tops don’t have sex with their bottoms. Topping for me is sexual, very sexual. I hope it is for her, too, or we’re going to have a problem. “You were okay with that?”

“At first. In the long run, it became really confusing and frustrating. I don’t think I’d want to do it again.”

Thank God for that.

I reach the door marked for the toilets and lead her through. Down a short hallway, there are ladies’ and men’s’ rooms separated by a handicapped door. With a glance around, I lead her into the handicapped bathroom. It’s a single cubicle, light glaring off the stark white tiling, but it’s private and there’s much more space than we’d have in a toilet stall.

I close the door and lock it so no one walks in on us. Her indrawn breath tells me I’ve made another mistake, and when I turn around, I find her standing on the far side of the bathroom, near the sink, twisting the strap of her handbag between white-knuckled fists.

She feels trapped.

I tuck my hands into the pockets of my jeans and shuffle a step away from the door. Her eyes track the clear exit route.

I lean back against the tiled wall to make myself even less threatening and wait for her hands on the strap of her bag to relax, which they do after a few seconds.

“Before we do anything else, I think we need to establish two things.”

She smiles hesitantly. “What things?”

“Have you always had a safe word in the past?”

She nods.

“I think we should have one, starting now. How does ‘airplane’ work for you?”

Her smile widens, showing the tips of pearly teeth. “That would be great.”

“Second thing is your name. We’ve established Victoria Cage isn’t your real name, and that you don’t want to say your real name in the middle of the expo, which makes plenty of sense, but I need something to call you.”

“Oh.” Her grin turns sheepish. “My name’s Kathryn.”

I watch her for a moment. She’s avoiding my eyes again, and there’s a gloss of sweat along her throat. I don’t think her name is Kathryn, but I have plenty of time to test that theory later. She might have good reasons for not telling me. If she doesn’t, that’s lie number two and I’m going to spank the shit out of her.

I shift against the wall, getting comfortable. “Daddy wouldn’t call his little girl Kathryn, would he? He’d call her Kathy.” A slight shake of her head. Not Kathy. I thought she’d like the Wuthering Heights reference as an author, but maybe I should be appealing to her baby girl side. “Or Kitty.”

She nods.

Better. The nickname feels natural. I’m settling into my groove, finding the things that set her at ease. “My name’s James Logan, but I go by Logan.”

She nods again and I realize she’s probably seen my name on the medical records I gave her, but the reminder doesn’t hurt. It’s all about building rapport.

“I think we should establish one more thing,” I say. “Just this time, no touching. You can look at whatever you want, but hands off.”

“Oh, um, okay. Do you . . .