Daddy Issues Read online

  “You’re still too stiff,” Stevens ob­jec­ted. “Re­lax.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “This is just so weird. I’m a grown wo­man—I shouldn’t be sit­ting on any­one’s lap.”

  “Andi…come,” Salt said in my ear. And then I felt his long, mus­cu­lar arms en­fold­ing me, draw­ing me closer so that the side of my body was pressed to his broad chest and my face was against the strong column of his throat.

  “Salt!” I pro­tested but I made no move to stop him.

  “Just be still, Andi,” he mur­mured in that deep, com­mand­ing voice of his. “Just breathe.”

  I wanted to squirm or protest but there was a note of au­thor­ity in his tone that I didn’t dare to dis­obey. With a sigh, I closed my eyes and tried to let my­self re­lax.

  After a mo­ment, I found that I didn’t have to pre­tend any more. It was nice sit­ting in Salt’s lap. He was big and warm and com­fort­ing and his af­ter­shave smelled like the ocean. Not a trop­ical ocean though—some­thing cold and rugged like the Baltic sea… I real­ized my thoughts didn’t really make sense but then I de­cided I didn’t care. I liked the feel­ing of be­ing so close to my part­ner, of be­ing held and pro­tec­ted by him.

  Shouldn’t like it so much, whispered a little voice in my head. You know you can’t trust this feel­ing—you can’t trust any man to really pro­tect you. You have to look after your­self, Andi!

  I knew it was true and yet for a little while, at least, I wanted to pre­tend it wasn’t. Wanted to pre­tend that Salt’s arms really were the safe haven they seemed to be and re­lax against him, feel­ing the mo­tion of his breath­ing, and tak­ing in the warm scent of his skin.

  “That’s good. Very good,” Stevens’ voice was hushed, as though he was afraid to break the spell that had some­how fallen over me. “Now, De­tect­ive Salt, touch your Baby­girl.”

  “Touch her in what way?” Salt asked flatly. I could al­most see the frown on his face.

  “Firmly…pos­sess­ively…pro­tect­ively. Touch her in such a way that any other Daddy who hap­pens by will know she is yours without a shadow of a doubt.”

  “Very well,” Salt rumbled.

  I tensed again for a minute in his arms, not cer­tain what to ex­pect. But then I felt Salt’s hand on my hair, strok­ing gently but firmly, caress­ing me in the most sooth­ing way ima­gin­able. At the same time his other hand came to rest on my thigh. He cradled me against him, hold­ing me close in a gentle but un­break­able grip. Not that I wanted to break it.

  “Mmm…” I sighed con­ten­tedly and snuggled closer to him. Maybe this as­sign­ment wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  Salt seemed to think so too.

  “This is good, Andi…my little mishka,” he mur­mured. “I like hold­ing you like this.”

  “I like it too,” I con­fessed in a low voice. I snuggled even closer, shift­ing my bot­tom on his lap. Sud­denly I felt some­thing hot and hard pok­ing my hip. Was this turn­ing Salt on? Giv­ing him a hard-on?

  For a mo­ment, I froze. It should have freaked me out and it did…a little. But not quite as much as it should have. I felt sort of com­pli­men­ted ac­tu­ally. Still, we couldn’t just ig­nore it.

  “Um…Salt?” I mur­mured, shift­ing again.

  “Sorry.” He shrugged. “Can­not help it. You are too beau­ti­ful and too close and so my body re­acts.”

  “It cer­tainly does,” I muttered back. The lump was now un­der my ass and it seemed to be grow­ing every minute. God, what caliber weapon was he pack­ing in his trousers?

  “Does it bother you?” Salt asked in the same low, in­tim­ate tone.

  “I…guess not,” I said hes­it­antly. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to make you…you know, re­act.”

  “There is noth­ing to apo­lo­gize for,” Salt as­sured me. “Just re­lax, Andi. Wig­gling all over like a little fish makes it worse.”

  “A-hem…” Stevens cleared his throat and I real­ized I had com­pletely for­got­ten he was there. I’d been so caught up in be­ing close to my part­ner, be­ing held in his arms, that everything else had just slipped my mind.

  “Yes, Dr. Stevens?” Salt asked him poin­tedly. “You have cri­ti­cism of our tech­nique, per­haps?”

  “Only to say that if you want to fit in at the In­sti­tute, you’ll have to make things a little more sexual,” the pro­fessor said mat­ter-of-factly. “This is a highly sexu­al­ized en­vir­on­ment you’re go­ing into. You have to make the people you meet really be­lieve you’re into each other.”

  “How sexual are we talk­ing?” I asked, sit­ting up and frown­ing at him. “Be­cause Salt and I don’t…”

  “Like to do sexual things in pub­lic?” he fin­ished for me. “I’m afraid you’re go­ing to have to get over that.”

  “I was go­ing to say that Salt and I don’t have that kind of re­la­tion­ship,” I snapped.

  “You don’t?” Stevens looked con­fused and sur­prised. “Really? The two of you aren’t already sleep­ing to­gether?”

  “Of course not,” I ex­claimed. “Salt is my part­ner. It’s against PD reg­u­la­tions.”

  “But the way you in­ter­act with each other…the way you’re so com­fort­able in each other’s spaces…” He shook his head. “I would have bet my ten­ure the two of you were already to­gether.”

  “Well, we’re not,” I said.

  “Well that’s go­ing to be a prob­lem.” He sighed.

  “Why should it be prob­lem?” Salt asked, frown­ing.

  “Be­cause you’re go­ing to be ex­pec­ted to act a cer­tain way—both in pub­lic and in private,” Stevens ex­plained. “Not many people know this but the In­sti­tute has cam­eras in every room and someone is al­ways watch­ing. If they see you act­ing strangely, sus­pi­cions will be aroused and you’ll never find the source of the Please.”

  “So we have to act these roles all the time?” I asked, frown­ing.

  “Every minute of every day you’re there,” Stevens af­firmed. “Or you’ll be kicked out in a heart­beat. They’re very sens­it­ive to any­one be­ing there who doesn’t be­long. A few years back an un­der­cover re­porter tried to do an ex­pose on them. I don’t like to tell you what happened to her when they found out her Daddy was ac­tu­ally just the cam­era­man her pa­per had sent with her.”

  “Wow. Not good.” I was def­in­itely non­plussed.

  “Are the cam­eras in the rooms wired for sound?” Salt asked, which I thought was a good ques­tion.

  “No, they’re not but they are con­stantly on and re­cord­ing. Ru­mor has it that Jonathan Berkley, the man who built and owns the In­sti­tute, re­views the feed from every suite each night. He is…” Stevens coughed. “Some­thing of a voyeur.”

  “Ugh!” I ex­claimed. “So he’s watch­ing all these people play their sick little games? Isn’t there a law against that?”

  “Con­sent for the cam­eras is bur­ied in the con­tract each par­ti­cipant signs when they enter the In­sti­tute,” Stevens ex­plained. “He puts it un­der a ‘safety clause.’ So there’s no pro­sec­ut­ing Berkley for that.”

  I sighed. “Fine, I guess we’ll just have to stay in char­ac­ter.”

  “You have to get into char­ac­ter first,” he poin­ted out. “And that means you need to be all over your Daddy—al­ways beg­ging for his touch.”

  Well, I didn’t know about all the fawn­ing and beg­ging but I did know I didn’t mind Salt’s hands on me. He touched me con­stantly any­way—not in a creepy way, though.

  My part­ner touched me in small ways, like put­ting his big, warm hand at the small of my back to guide me through a crowd. Or the way he would brush a lock of hair out of my face to see my eyes bet­ter when we were talk­ing. Nice touches—I liked them. The ques­tion was, how would I deal with it if those ‘nice touches’ sud­denly be­came sexual?

  “I’ll try,” I said at last.

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