“Hey, baby girl. You all ready—”

My daughter didn’t let me finish my question before she squirmed in my arms and asked, “We aren’t leaving yet! You didn’t forget, did you Daddy? You have hair class tonight so you can learned all about how to make my hair pretty.”

“It’s learn, not learned,” I corrected her out of habit. I chuckled at my daughter’s exasperated sigh, but then my attention shifted to the sexy teacher I’d helped into the building when she struggled a little with lifting her tote bag off the floor. “Maybe we should help your teacher get set up since you’re so excited for this class.”

Lynn’s blue eyes darted over to the woman and widened. Her voice was soft as she asked, “Are you gonna teach my daddy how to do my hair?”

“I sure am, sweetie.”

The smile she aimed at my daughter was soft and sweet, making her even more stunning. Lynn had inherited my keen eye for observation and wasn’t one to keep her thoughts to herself, so I wasn’t surprised when she turned to me and whispered loudly enough for most of the room to hear, “She’s really pretty, Daddy!”

With her dark hair hanging down her back about an inch past her bra line, wide brown eyes fringed with the longest lashes I’d ever seen, plump pink lips that were begging to be kissed, round tits encased in what looked like it might be a pale, lacy bra from the glimpse I’d gotten when she bent over, and the perfect ass her jeans showed off; the sexy teacher was more than just pretty. Judging by the looks the other dads were giving her, including the married ones, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.

She was too damn gorgeous for her own good. And mine too. My eyes locked with hers as I answered my daughter. “She sure is.”

Lynn continued in the same whisper-shout, “Do you think she can make my hair as pretty as hers?”

“Your hair is already as pretty as mine. Prettier even.” She hefted the bag up onto the round table closest to her and started to pull a bunch of girly shit out of it. “But I can help your daddy with things like putting it up in the perfect ponytail or maybe even a French braid if he has enough patience to learn how.”

“Ooh! A French braid!” Lynn wiggled out of my hold and smiled at both of us, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “That’s what I want Daddy to learn! He can do it. I know he can ‘cause my daddy can do anything if he tries hard enough.”

Those big, brown eyes of hers took on a wicked gleam that had my cock pressing against the zipper of my pants. “I’m sure he can.”

I willed that fucker back down, stunned that she’d gotten such a strong reaction out of me in front of my daughter. I was the boss of my cock, not the other way around. Except when I was around this woman apparently—and I didn’t even know her name yet. If that wasn’t a sign of how out of practice I was when it came to women, I didn’t know what else could be. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to back away and let one of the vultures circling us swoop in and steal the sexy teacher away from me. I just needed to brush off my dusty flirting skills and put them back to work to keep her focus right where it should be. On me.

“He definitely can.” I flashed her a grin that grew wider when a hint of pink swept across her cheeks. Then I set my left hand on my daughter’s shoulder. “This is my baby girl, Lynn.”

“I’m not a baby anymore, Daddy. I’m in kindergarten now,” she huffed.

“Definitely not a baby anymore,” the sexy teacher agreed with a smile.

“You’ll always be my baby girl no matter how old you are,” I told my daughter before switching my attention back to the woman whose grin was as wide as mine had been a moment ago. “And I’m Leo.” I held out my right hand. When her palm slid against mine, it felt like it belonged there. The color in her cheeks darkened, and I had a hunch it was because she felt the spark of our chemistry as much as I did.

“I’m Carrie.”

“Carrie,” I echoed softly, enjoying the sound of her name on my lips.

“Yeah,” she sighed, her hand tightening around mine.

“Can we help you like Daddy asked, Miss Carrie?” Lynn piped in, bouncing on her toes in excitement. “Then we can get to all the fun stuff even faster!”

Carrie tugged her hand out of my grasp, and I reluctantly let it go. “Sure you can, sweetie. How about you take these”—she pulled out a gallon-sized, clear bag of hair elastics in a variety of colors—“and give four of them to each of the girls for their daddies to use when we do ponytails and braids? Do you think you can do that for me?”

“Yes, I can count way past twenty. Up to a hundred sometimes,” Lynn boasted as she took the bag from Carrie and darted over to another table.

We both watched her give one of the other little girls four hair elastics, after digging through the assortment to make sure each one was a different color. Once we were convinced she could handle the task, Carrie turned to me. “Can you set out all the blow dryers, flat irons, and curling wands?”

She lost me somewhere in the middle of that. “I’m not sure what a flat iron or a curling wand is, but I think I can handle it.”

“You’re in charge of anything with a cord,” she explained.

“Perfect.” I nodded. “If it needs electricity, I can definitely figure it out.”

We made quick work of getting everything set up for the class, and then I spent the next hour watching Carrie interact with the girls. I liked how she gave each one her full attention when she was helping perfect a ponytail or fix a braid. What I didn’t like was how often she had to deflect the attention of one of the dads away from flirting with her and back to their daughter’s hair.

I was aware of everything Carrie did, even when I was focused on Lynn’s hair, and I didn’t miss a single time when one of those bastards tried to steal her away from me. Because, yeah, as fucked up as it sounded since I’d only met her barely more than an hour ago, it felt like that’s what they were doing. Going after my woman.

So even though Lynn was thrilled I had perfected the art of the ponytail and braid, I was antsy as hell by the time the class ended. Luckily for me, my baby girl ran over to say goodbye to one of her friends and gave me the opportunity I needed to take the first step in staking my claim over Carrie.

She’d just finished packing up her supplies, and I hefted her tote bag up over my shoulder before she could pick it up herself. “Oh!” she gasped. “You don’t have to help me carry all that back to my car. I can handle it.”

“It’s not a big deal. I’m headed the same way since I’m parked right next to you,” I reminded her.

“Right,” she drawled. “I knew that. I guess I’ll just say thank you then.”

“You doing anything Monday night?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have any plans yet.”

“You wanna show me your gratitude, you can let me buy you dinner.”

Her brown eyes went wide as she titled her head to the side and her dark hair spilled over one shoulder. “Like...on a date? But what about Lynn?” she asked as her gaze searched the room for my daughter.

“You got something against single dads?” It’d be odd if she did considering she setup and taught a class to help them do their daughters’ hair, but I’d learned the hard way that women made crazy decisions all the time.

“Of course not! My favorite man in the world is one.”

I took a step back, my eyes dropping to her bare ring finger as my brows went high.

“Not a husband or boyfriend or anything like that. I meant my dad,” she hurried to explain.

Lynn came barreling towards us, and Carrie’s voice trailed off. The three of us headed out the door together, and I put Carrie’s bag on her backseat before I got my daughter situated on her booster seat in my truck. When I swung back around to the driver’s side, Carrie was waiting for me.

“Give me a call when you get the chance, and we can talk about those dinner plans on Monday,” she offered, tugging my hand out and jotting ten digits on it with a black pen. It was an old-school move and cute as fuck.

“You marking me as yours?”

“I guess you’ll have to call me and see,” she laughed, moving around her car to climb into the driver’s seat.

It’d better be a yes since I fully intended to mark her right back as mine. And I planned on being damn quick about it, too. Even after seeing how Nico was with his wife, Sophie, I never believed his stories of what the Mayson’s called “the boom.” I’d figured he was fucking with me about how the guys in his family had all known the instant they met the right woman. Or that if it was true, I assumed I was too jaded after what Jenna had pulled on me to ever be able to even consider letting myself react to a woman the way he’d described. But fuck if I didn’t understand exactly why they called it the boom the minute Carrie crashed into me.