Thank you, Daddy: A Brother’s Best Friend Daddy Good Girl Romance (The Good Girls)
Thank you, Daddy: Chapter 1

“Four-fifty!” I screamed over the loud bass and cat calls.

“Hey, Kat, how about you suck my cock too? How much extra would that be?” Romeo grinned, his four good teeth like brown fence-posts among the thatch of his beard. Inebriated, his swollen face took on a bright red sheen that you could use to land a 747 in the middle of a hurricane.

Drunks have a generally overinflated idea of what’s funny.

“Oh? Wow! Yeah, well, that would cost you your dick. ‘Cause, last guy that tempted me with an offer like that went home with his cock in a pickle jar. Now, you got four-fifty or have I gotta call Jesse?”

His twisted smile deflated into a puffy-lipped frown.

Nobody fucked with Jesse. Though I knew a lot of the girls here would have liked to. Just saying his name started a shiver in the vertebrae of my neck that didn’t end until I clenched my core and bit down on the inside of my lip.

Romeo tossed a nasty, wet five-dollar bill across the beer-drenched counter, along with his best drunken badass stink eye, throwing me a “Bitch” under his breath to make himself feel more like a man.

“Fucktard.” I gave him my most heartfelt smile as he stumbled back to his table of other toothless wonders, all of them screaming and waving dollar bills at Renee and Vanessa as they gyrated and bent over in their 7” platform black leather boots.

At this point in the evening, that was all they had on. Those boots and their smiles, the latter somehow still in place despite the sorry excuses for human life that walked through our doors.

One thing I’ve learned after over a year working in this shithole, you are always a bitch once you tell a guy you won’t suck his cock. It’s like magic. One second you’re the answer to their prayers, the next you’re the foulest cunt that ever walked the face of the earth.

Just one of the deep revolutionary lessons I’ve learned at Diamond Rocks.

“Jesus. What the fuck now?” I asked myself as the very same human garbage stumbled back toward the bar, bolstered by his screaming throng of cronies.

It was a slow night. There were a couple of other guys sitting at the counter, nursing their beers, but otherwise patrons were thin on the ground.

“Hey, Katrina, why you gotta be such a bitch?” Romeo slurred, apparently under the impression I wanted a conversation.

“Go sit down.” I glared back into his blotchy red face. Too many years, too many bottles and God knows what else had left a road map of lines and pit holes over what once could have been human but now looked like someone stuck a beard on a turd.

“Fuck you! Get me a shot of Jager and a Bud. You gotta be nicer to the customers, you know? You ain’t no beauty like them girls up there. They could piss in our faces, and we’d thank ’em for it.’ He glanced behind, and I wrinkled my nose at the thought that, yeah, he would thank them for that. He’d probably pay extra. ‘I’m doin’ you a favor bein’ nice to you,’ he muttered as he turned back around. ‘Fat girls need love too.”

The swinging pendulum of his tone went from fighting mad, to somehow thinking I needed his advice, to some odd joke-between-friends smile. And the horrible thought occurred to me that we might actually be friends.

Was this the closest thing I had to a friend? A turd on legs that called me a bitch if I refused to suck his dick?

I shook that thought away, reminding myself that I had friends, and they were better than Romeo. Jesse, for starters. When I was 14, my brother Kent fought for custody of me, and he couldn’t have done it without Jesse to give him a safe place for both of us to live. Jesse and Kent had been my family, and it was better than the one I’d been born into. To Jesse, I’d been like a little sister, and that came with a lot of benefits for me.

It also came with heartaches for someone who idolized him as a lot more than that.

“I bet you’re all teeth when it matters the most.” Romeo sneered, and I blew out a hard raspberry style breath.

Tonight was going to be a five shots and ten White Claw kinda night.

Pointing to his table, I pulled myself up to my full 5′ 4′, leaning over the bar to glare, then almost puked as his tongue came out to do a loop around his lips as he stared at my cleavage. I self-consciously pulled back, aware that my v-neck System of a Down t-shirt barely contained my triple-D’s. Which were real, I hasten to add, unlike most of the other females that worked here.

I held down my Chicken Nuggets and held my stare. ‘Go sit the fuck down. Or you’re out.’

Another lesson you learn doing this job, is don’t try to reason with drunks. I may just be the chubby girl behind the bar, but I’ve got some stones.

“I wanna drink.”

I got a whiff of the quintessential sour, nicotine-highlighted odor that came with so many of these guys.

“Sit your ass down. No more drinks.”

The music pounded against the club walls that always had this slick, wet look, like they were as sweaty as the men that surrounded the stage, but I knew dear Romeo could hear me just fine. Jesse was watching, I could feel it. He knew I could handle myself, but there was only so far things would go before he appeared next to me.

‘Get me a fuckin’ drink! You want me to cut you, bitch?’

‘Cut me? What, you think you’re a gangster now?’ Hollow laughter overtook me. Dropping my chin to my chest, I choked back the belly laugh on a cough.

‘Don’t you fuckin’ laugh at me!’ He spat.

A glint in the light drew my eye. The swing he made at my face went so far wide it may as well have been aimed at Renee or Vanessa. I was laughing at his pathetic attempt, but before he could try again, a familiar giant wall of muscle was next to him.

I gave him a smile with all my teeth. “Time to go.”

I tipped my head to the side on a sarcastic little pout as the slow realization came over him that I had backup. Before he could step away, his wrist was twisted so hard I heard bones scrape against other bones, and the knife clattered to the floor.

“Like the lady said,’ Jesse murmured, his voice a baritone like hot, brandied coffee. ‘Time to go.”

He stood 6’6” of pure muscle, a rock solid, ex-Green Beret. He was unflappable. Intimidating, not just in form, but in presence and demeanor, even with a slight limp from a knee injury that ended his military career. In fact, in some ways the limp just made him seem more dangerous.

But even so, alcohol can work wonders for some guys’ self-esteem. After a few beers and a couple of shots of Jager, they think they’re able to take on someone like Jesse, when they should be thanking their lucky stars they still have all their remaining teeth.

“Get offa me! This fuckin’ bitch needs to get me my fuckin’ drink.’ Romeo did his best to stand straight. ‘I’m with my buddies over there, so don’t fuckin’ mess with me, man.”

“Time to go. Last chance to use your own legs.” Jesse’s voice was clear and flat as he crossed his massive arms over the flexing pecs under his stark white t-shirt.

I could see it coming. So fucking predictable.

“I’m not going nowhere, azz hole! Me and my buddies’ll kick your azz.”

Don’t do it. Oh, please, don’t…

I mean, yes, please do. I want to see this.

Romeo turned as though he was going to walk back to his table. I don’t think any of his buddies had noticed what was going on. They were still drooling over the girls on the stage, oblivious or deliberately ignoring the whole altercation.

Then, like a cartoon, he swung. Offering his best roundhouse punch that seemed to move in slow motion, the movement upset his center of gravity. As he teetered, his enormous belly weight and the copious amounts of alcohol he had ingested conspired to gyroscope him like a careening truck into the nearest table.

Jesse was a monster, but his reflexes were feline like. He was four steps in front of the punch even before the giant Weeble got started.

“Stupid motherfucker,” I heard him growl even over the pounding music.

He caught Romeo’s arm before he could use it to cushion his fall. Empty glasses were swept from the tabletop to shatter into shards on the floor, before Jesse swung him around with the force of his own drunken inertia. A palm on the back of his head slammed his face onto the bar, grinding it into the beer-slick wood with such force, it bounced my boobs in my shirt as I leaned on the long wooden counter.

I knew better than to get involved. My job now was to step back and keep an eye on the girls dancing. If things got too hot, I would give them the signal to stop their dance and get their asses backstage.

Blood was trickling out of Romeo’s swollen nose, and before he could center himself for any more fight, Jesse had his hand behind his back in a half Nelson.

He was pushing him through the door before his four friends even noticed what was happening.

“Night’s over, asshole. And if you ever want back in here, you’ll replace the words to apologize to the lady.”

‘Her?” He spat my way. “She ain’t no– Fuck!’

I stifled a laugh as Jesse accidentally-on-purpose tripped Romeo in the doorway, pulling his arm up and back and throwing his forehead into the door frame.

Romeo’s face hit the ground next with some help from Jesse, and I watched as Jesse straightened himself up, brushed imaginary dirt from his shoulders and flexed tattoo-covered arms, his dark crew cut glistening under the flashing strobe lights.

Finally, the table of guys he was with took notice.

Like M-80’s going off in succession, each one stood up in turn, stumbling and bumping their way toward Jesse in some kind of comic four stooges’ sketch.

“Jesse, watch out!” I shouted just as the first guy threw himself the final yard toward his target, a punch half connecting with the back of Jesse’s head.

The girls on stage glanced my way with appealing looks, but they were in no danger. Hell, I doubted these guys were much of a danger sober. Still, Renee and Vanessa gave me pissy looks for not waving them off. Every chance they got, they were backstage, filling their noses with whatever candy was their flavor of the week.

I should have felt sorry for them, but I didn’t.

They all treated me like shit, so I figured they could just keep dancing, even if no one was around to throw money onto the stage or tuck it between their offered tits.

It took less than two minutes for Jesse to get the un-happy customers out the door, and nobody had to call the cops, so that was a win. It was always a rush when things got hot, but it happened so regularly we all just took it in stride.

I secretly loved watching the fights. I knew I was safe, and watching Jesse was like watching an Olympic gold medalist win their event every time. Calm authority radiated off him, and when his powerful body went into gear to do what it did best, it was a sight to see.

Every ounce of his power was focused, each muscle moving in perfect coordination with the next.

It wasn’t just raw power, either. Sure, he could bench press a locomotive, but he could outwit a fox too. When most people see a giant, tattooed mountain of muscle like him, they immediately size him up as all brawn and no brains. It worked to his advantage, and he liked to have the advantage.

Only, I knew him. I knew my pseudo-stepbrother better than anyone. I could always see the gears turning behind the dark, deep eyes, set either side of a nose that was just the right amount of crooked from when his convoy was ambushed.

A month later, he was back out there.

Nothing scared him. Nothing I had ever seen, at least.

His broad frame was layered with rolling muscle, stretching each perfectly-white t-shirt he wore like a uniform every night. Every-single-night. A brand-new t-shirt, worn 505’s, and his well broken in custom-made Wesco Harness boots.

The only time I had seen him wear anything else was nearly three years ago.

He’d put on an Armani suit to be a pall bearer at my brother Kent’s funeral, after an accident when Jesse was home on leave claimed my brother’s life. I half wished I could remember that day better, because Jesse must have looked good in that suit. Truth was, he looked good in anything. He always had, ever since I could remember.

As a goofy teenager, when he was my brother’s best friend, I wrote his name over and over in my diary. I was too shy to meet his eyes, but I already knew I would never want another man in my whole life.

Even back then, I knew that Jesse would ruin any other men for me.

That thought hit me, and while he and the other guys got the bar straightened up, I snuck myself a triple shot of Grey Goose and slammed it back. It was a little early for me to start that heavy, but no one was looking, so I figured I’d get it while the gettin’s good.

It didn’t take long before new faceless, nameless customers started filtering back into the bar. They filled the empty tables, and Vanessa and Renee took their breaks to be replaced by Helena and Cara, wearing identical bras and thongs that would last only until they figured they’d made as much in tips as they were going to before showing some more skin.

As soon as the fight was over, Jesse had limped toward his office. One of the guys had spilled a beer on his shirt, a dark stain spreading from his hard, flat abs across his chest. Of course, it would be replaced by another white t-shirt, but he could never stand to wear that one again. He wouldn’t even wash it. It would go right in the trash.

My stomach gave a little flutter thinking about him as I watched the girls dance and served a new set of shitty customers. Jesse and Kent had been best friends since 2nd grade, when Jesse pushed him off the slide and they duked it out on the playground. I guess that’s how guys make friends sometimes, because they had been like brothers ever since.

When things at home finally came to a head, and I got taken out of Mom and Dad’s house, Kent was already living with Jesse. Jesse’s parents had been killed in a helicopter crash on a training exercise, and he’d inherited everything. The moment he turned 18, he gave my brother all the help he could to get custody of me. With Jesse’s help, Kent fought for me in court and won the right to be my legal guardian.

That was my big brother. He had always looked out for me and took his responsibilities more seriously than our parents ever had.

And Jesse had happily taken on the same role. But, the way I felt about him sure wasn’t the same as I did about my brother.

I moved in with them, and Jesse became my brother number two. The man I could never have in the way I really wanted.