Daddies Brat

Book Title: Her Filthy Protectors

India

The apartment is silent.

I pause. Listen. Was that the front door? My mind spins with a million possibilities.

“Piper?”

No answer. I glance at the clock. I’ve been sitting here for three and a half hours straight.

“Piper?” I call again, but still no answer.

Sharp spurts of adrenaline needle through my body. I’d been in a deep focus and suddenly jerked out at the sound of…I don’t know. But the skittering of chills shooting up my spine has me on high alert.

My fingers still overtop my keyboard. At the moment, I’m home alone. My roommate is out with her boyfriend on her one night off from serving drinks at Club Sapphire.

I straighten my glasses and push up from the chair. Aches and pains ripple through my legs and shoulders from sitting in the same position. I brush the momentary discomfort away and strain my hearing, my breathing falling to barely anything. I wrap my fingers around my phone and walk to my bedroom door. When the sound of a rattling knob doesn’t come again, I let out a tight breath.

“It’s nothing, India. Breathe.” Just someone who’s confused my apartment for theirs. The rattling stops and a door down the hall slams closed a few seconds later.

I flick my eyes to the time on my phone screen. Yeah. It’s a little after six. It must have been a neighbor coming home and got their place mixed up with mine. Cool it.

A string of nasty emails and calls from an unknown number has me skirting the edge of crazyville. The fact they’ve turned threatening has me doublechecking the deadbolt on the front door.

With it secure I sag against the solid oak slab of wood. Paranoid and on edge is the very definition of my existence lately.

My phone dings with the arrival of a new email and I jump nearly dropping the damn thing.

“Damn it!” I let out a hard breath and hover my thumb over the unknown notification. In recent experience, it’s never good when a name or face doesn’t come with the email or text.

“You’ve been locked away in here too long, my friend.” Jumping at every little sound is a good sign I need some sunlight.

My temples begin to throb with signs of a headache edging its way into my evening. “And now I’m talking to myself.”

I look at my screen again debating. “Ya know, not today, Satan. Hard freaking pass.” I just can’t right not now. I darken my screen. I can only swallow so much negativity in a day. First, was my father breathing down my neck to give up on my project and come back to the office for ‘real’ work that needs my attention. Then I spent half my working hours getting my computer to stop showing me the blue screen of death.

And now this email probably holds another nastygram. Not a lot of people want me to succeed with my current project, which only makes me drive myself harder. I’ve devoted hundreds of hours of my life to it. Which is only one of the many reasons I can’t walk away.

I don’t know how long I’ve been holed up in my apartment. A week? Two? No clue but it’s starting to feel like years. Beige anything right now looks grayish and old. I take in the bland walls I’ve been meaning to decorate with some selfie shots and family photos since moving in a year ago, but a lot has happened since signing the lease. My heart gives a squeeze.

But damn. Has the sofa always looked that dirty?

I mentally add another to-do on the list of things needing my attention after I wrap up this code writing.

With another long night ahead, I make my way to the kitchen and flick on the coffee maker-something my best friend and roommate keeps on around the clock with a fresh brew of dark roast from the second her night shift ends at the club to the moment she heads out again. And when she’s gone, I take over.

All-nighters are a common occurrence for me and there’s no chance of that changing if I don’t finish this code. I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this either.

But it’s a moot worry. I can’t stop until I’m done.

I push at the rim of my glasses and check the state of my hazardous hair in the reflection of the microwave door. I cringe. Yep. Rats nest bun.

“Lovely.” Thank God no one will see me like this. I should grab a shower while the coffeemaker does its magic.

My mind tumbles over my work. For months now I’ve yet to fill in the gaps any hacker worth their weight could find in five seconds flat once they make it past the first level firewall.

And that is what stumps me. I lean my forehead against the cabinet. “Grr. What am I missing?”

Encrypting multiple layers of security isn’t a walk in the park. It is more like a mad dash across an open field while unseen enemies take pot shots with sniper rifles from the tree line. In other words, this code has a wideopen target sitting in the middle of it and I need to eliminate it or lose years of development. My brother might have been the brains behind its original form, but I’ve taken it to a whole other level in the months since his passing.

I toss my glasses on the counter and rub at dry eyes. I have to get this right. I know I can. I just need to-my phone pings cutting my thoughts off. There’s a familiar sexy dark-eyed man’s picture popping up on my screen.

I shake my head and tell myself no, but I still smile.

Tomas. Sexy, mouth-watering bad boy Tomas. Nine years my senior and totally not for me. Nor are his two friends.

Tomas’ million-dollar smile and swirling ink covering his arms are distracting enough, but it’s his wicked ability to make me come with his tongue on my clit in less than thirty seconds that has me reaching for my phone.

And then there is Maksym and Stefan. Totally breathtaking at kissing but mind-blowing at fucking me into the next universe. That’s just the pure truth of it.

Their raspy accents ghost over my senses as if I can hear them even now as I stand alone in my kitchen.

The memory of their lips and hands on my skin has my eyes falling to the box on the end of the kitchen counter. It’s been there since the day they called and said they had to leave on business.

Whatever that means. They aren’t into talking about themselves. And I haven’t asked much to begin with.

I trace the tip of my finger over the black edge of the box with an unfamiliar label across the side. I did a quick google search and the number of dildo variations this particular shop sells is mind-blowing. Piper didn’t stop teasing me for a week. And there isn’t a day that goes by that she isn’t begging me to open it already.

Truth be told, I haven’t had the balls to open it. Once I do, I don’t trust myself not to beg them to come home.

Home. Like they belong to me and I to them.

Piper would love that. She loves a good romance story. But I don’t need a man-or three-stealing my attention from where it needs to be. What I need is to get my head screwed on and stop daydreaming of fantasies.

It was by chance I met them and now I can’t forget them no matter how hard I try. After weeks of convincing, I finally agreed to a girls’ night out with my best friend. I can still recall the teasing tone in my friend’s voice that night.

“When in doubt, add more dick,” Piper had said the night when all three invited me for drinks at their table.

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