Page 252 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection
Mac steals a shrimp and wolfs it down, then fans his tongue and pretends to gulp down water while the people around us laugh. I pop back a shrimp while I laugh at him. It singes my sinuses briefly, but it’s got nothing on Bebe J’s five-alarm chili, and I enjoy every bite.
After asking me for a “butt status update,” which has me laughing, Mac leads me down the block to a hookah bar. I’ve never been to one; never even contemplated going to one. They seem like gathering places for creepy old guys to smother in clouds of carcinogens while they play games with little pegs. And not the fun kind of pegs, either. But I’ve got it all wrong. The hookah bar turns out to be a really nice bar with a seating area on the sidewalk, shielded from the street by wooden screens. Mac unleashes those blue eyes again and we get seated outside next to a heater on wicker couches. Mac orders us a pot of Turkish tea and a “Lebanese Splash” hookah. When it arrives, he pulls me onto the couch next to him, which just about fits bothour butts, slides his arm around me, and taps the funny little hookah pipe against my lips.
Holding his eyes, I take a draw off the pipe. My own eyes go wide when I get a strong hit of mint. The smoke’s smooth and I exhale without coughing. Mac takes his own drag off the pipe and blows out a series of smoke rings.
“Good job, Gandalf.” I laugh delightedly.
He leans in and blows the last smoke ring against my lips, which fills my nose with mint. He licks into my mouth to share the flavor with me before offering me the pipe again.
We share the hookah between kisses and attempts to teach me how to blow smoke rings. I cannot get the hang of the exhale-inhale-exhale needed to form the ring and end up snorting smoke out of my nose, which has Mac chortling.
Is there anything better than sitting outside on a cool fall night, warm under the arm of my Dom, sharing quiet time and kisses and laughter with the sounds of the city flowing around us?
Once the hookah’s spent, we sip the slightly bitter, black tea out of pretty glass cups. Mac plays with some wisps of hair that have escaped from my dreads, tickling my ear with them. “How are you doing, bold girl?”
“Good, sir.” It feels natural to use his title, even out in public. Maybe it’s his age or the way he wears authority like a suit, but no one around us blinks an eye when I call him sir.
“Will it bring the tone down too far if I ask you a few questions about today? Want to just stay focused on our date?”
I tip my head into his shoulder. “No, sir. I’m good talking about it. Thanks again for everything today. It really—” I clear my throat before I choke up. It’s the smoke, nothing to do with all the feels Mac’s giving me. Nothing at all. “It made all the difference today.”
Mac wiggles the tip of his pinkie finger inside my ear, making me shiver and giggle. He strokes my neck with the backs of his fingers, catching at my day collar and tugging lightly, before returning to the caress. “I want to talk about your collar, too. But first, Logan and I were talking about how to track the skinhead down. Have you had problems with them before?”
“No, sir. There are a couple of skinheads who have come in for tattoos, but as long as they don’t ask for a racist design, we give them what they ask for and we don’t have any trouble.” I shrug. “I don’t even know why anyone wanting a swastika orWeiss Machtor whatever would even come to me. There’s a guy on East Eleventh who will do anything, no questions asked.”
Mac’s blue gaze sharpens. “What guy?”
“He calls himself Mad Bob, but I think his real name is Robert Iggleston. His place is called Shameless Studios. It’s not the same guy, though. He’s got tons of tattoos on his hands. You can’t even see his skin."
“Is he a skinhead?” Mac asks.
I shrug. “I don’t think so but I’ve only ever seen him wearing a bandana under a backwards baseball cap. He thinks he’s Eminem or something.”
Mac snorts. “And he’ll do swastikas?”
“He’ll do anything. And make a mess out of it. I can’t tell you how many people have come to me for a correction or cover up of something he’s done. On top of everything else, the guy cannot spell. He sent some poor guy away with ‘respect’ spelled R-E-P-E-C-T. It was a disaster.”
Mac chuckles. “Worse than my mermaid?”
“Nothing is worse than the flounder with boobs, sir.”
“Your mouth, girl. I think it’s time to teach it some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”
I tip my head back and nip at the hinge of his jaw. “As long as you spell it right, sir.”
“You ready to go? ‘Cause I am more than ready to claim that ass.”
I shiver against his side. “Yes, sir.”
I expect the talk about my collar to wait, but once we’re in the taxi on the way back to my place, he puts his arm around my shoulders again and flicks the leather circlet with his thumb. “Who put this on you, girl?”
“Master Logan. I finished my training under Master Damon, but he resigned before my collaring ceremony so Master Logan put it on me and gave me the rules of the collar.”
Machumphs.
Is he going to demand I take off my collar? Sure, Logan put it on me, but it’s notLogan’scollar or anything. It’s mine. It’s the daily symbol of my submission, and belonging, and everything else that being part of Blunts means. “I’m, uh, pretty attached to it, sir.”
“I hope so. I’d be disappointed if it didn’t have meaning to you. I’m just processing how I feel about you wearing a collar Logan put on you. I wouldn’t ask you to remove it, but how would you feel about adding to it?”
