Page 1 of Single Mom's Daddies
1
SAFFRON
This costume is goingto be the death of me.
I tug at the plunging neckline for the third time since walking into the frat house, but the lace bodysuit has no mercy. Every inch of me is on display—cleavage, thighs, waist, all wrapped in fishnet and black mesh that clings like it’s vacuum-sealed.
The makeup is extreme, even for me. That’s what I get for letting Lolita do it for me. My whole face looks like a black-and-white butterfly. Not sure why she chose that, when the rest of me looks like a lacy street walker with a butterfly fetish.
My shorts are a joke. Just enough denim to hide what’s legally required and not an inch more. Add the heels, the mask, and the sheer sleeves, and I look like a sexed-up masquerade doll dropped into a sea of sexy nurses, bloody angels, and guys who think wearing a sheet toga counts as effort.
The music is pounding—some remixed horror movie theme with a beat that makes the floors vibrate. The house smells like spiced rum, Red Bull, weed, and sweat. I’m pressed against a wall in thecorner of the living room, pretending to enjoy my drink while fighting off a rising panic.
I don’t belong here.
Or I didn’t. Until now.
Across the room, just past the fake cobwebs and fog machine haze, stand three men dressed in black. Not frat boys. Not drunk idiots. Not even in costume.
Just…black.
Pressed shirts, dark jeans, polished shoes. All three wear masks, sleek and simple, morePhantom of the Operathan the cheap Halloween store stuff the rest of us are wearing. No feathers. No glitter. Just matte-black curves and hard edges.
They aren’t talking to anyone. Aren’t moving much. Aren’t drinking. But they’re watching.
Me.
My spine tingles. One of them tilts his head slightly, and my breath catches. Even across the room, I can feel him looking through the mask like he sees everything—the nerves, the loneliness, the tight-clenched desire I’ve tried to bury since the moment I walked in here.
He lifts his glass in a casual, almost lazy toast in my direction. The back of his hand has a tattoo. I can’t make it out from here. The colored lights make it hard to see any details from this distance.
The other two have it as well, whatever it is. Matching ink. I’ve always liked tattoos on guys. Lolita calls it a fetish, but she calls everything a fetish.
Still, my nipples pebble under the lace, and I have to press my thighs together to fight the pulse of arousal that hits me like a sucker punch.
They know I’m looking. And they like it.
The one in the middle sets his drink down. The others follow. One taps his thumb against his thigh like he’s keeping time to a different rhythm than the music thudding through the floor.
Then they vanish. One second they’re in the crowd, and the next—nothing.
I scan the room wildly, like I’ve lost something, heart hammering too loud to hear the bass. I twist toward the hallway, then the back patio. Damn?—
“Looking for us?” a deep voice purrs just behind my ear.
I jolt.
The one who spoke stands a breath away. He’s taller than I expected. The mask makes him unreadable, but his jaw is strong, and the voice—God, that voice—gravel and silk, like whiskey poured over smoke.
His fingers pluck the plastic cup from my hand and toss it to the floor. He murmurs, “You don’t want that.”
A second man steps in on my left. He’s leaner, with slightly broader shoulders and an accent when he speaks—a soft, lilting hint of Russian beneath polished control. “We’ve been watching you.”
The third doesn’t speak. Just presses in at my back, tall and still, radiating heat. A hand strokes my bare thigh, slow andpossessive. Another slides the strap of my bodysuit down over my shoulder.
I should say something. I should tell them to back off.
But my lips are parted, breath unsteady, and the slick between my thighs is proof that my body’s already made the decision.
