Page 12 of Stolen Bases

She grins like she knows something I don’t. “I came with—”

A commotion near the hostess stand pulls Talia’s attention away from our conversation.

Her smile slips as she mumbles, “Shit.” She shifts in her seat, looking uncomfortable.

“Problem?” I ask, curious about her squirrely behavior.

“Yeah, my sort of ex, or whatever you want to call the tool, just showed up.” She takes a nervous drink of her water, her hand shaking.

My hackles rise at the change in her demeanor. I look back, noticing a tall lanky guy with sandy-brown hair gesticulating with the hostess. The slimeball lays it on thick, giving the woman in front of him what he probably thinks is a smoldering smile but is rather a lecherous grin.

I hate slimy guys like that.

“Bad break up?”

“We only went on a few dates, but…” She bites her lip, and I can’t help staring at her mouth again.

“But what?” I ignore the urge to pull that juicy lip between my teeth.

“Ugh. I’ve never spoken to anyone about this,” she admits, tugging at her braid.

“You can tell me. I’m a vault.” I cross an X over my heart like a kid on the playground making promises. If that guy laid one finger on her, I might knock his teeth out.

She ducks her head and drops her voice. I tilt my head down to hear what she says next.

“Fine. I don’t know why I’m telling you, but I need to get it off my chest. That guy works with my brother. He asked me out, and he seemed … nice. We went out on a couple of dates. The last time, we went to a club for some event he was invited to for work. That night, he not-so-subtly hinted at us having sex. I flat-out told him it wasn’t going to happen. He said ‘cool’ and offered to grab us another round of drinks.”

“Why do I get the sense that I’m not going to like what happened next?”

Talia laughs, and the sound hits me like a line drive to the gut, stealing all my breath. Why does that keep happening?

“Because he’s a dirtbag.” She’s so casual, shrugging the incident off like this has happened before. How many pieces of shit like this guy has she dated? “Anyway, when Kyle—that’s his name, by the way—hadn’t returned to the table, I figured he got stopped by someone he worked with. It was getting pretty late, so I went looking for him. Turns out, he ditched me to find someone who would have sex with him. I caught him going at it with another woman in the back of the club.”

Okay, I’m definitely going to punch this fucker in the face. “What a fucking cheating douche.”

“Kyle is a douchebag, but he didn’t technically cheat.” Guys like that always get away with shit on technicalities.

Glaring at her, I respond to her asinine excuse. “Babe, he took you on a date. To me, that’s a verbal contract that you leave with the person who took you out on said date, unless there are extenuating circumstances.” I arch a brow at her.

She bites her bottom lip again, holding back a smile.

That’s my queue to continue, “Said verbal contract implies that he will also keep his dick in his pants and not put it in another woman’s pussy.”

I regret using the word instantly. Now, all I can imagine is how tight and wet Talia’s pussy would feel wrapped around my cock. The big guy below tries to break through his jean jail.

Not now, you stupid dick.

“Sorry. That was crass. My mother would kill me for speaking like that in front of a lady.”

Talia throws her head back with a laugh, her body shaking as she breaks into a giggle fit. She wipes her watery eyes as she lays her warm palm on the back of my hand. “Oh. My. God. Thank you. I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.”

“It’s not funny, itty bitty.”

Where the hell did that come from?What kind of voodoo does this woman yield?

Ignoring the nickname, hoping she doesn’t think too much of it, I keep talking. Maybe she won’t notice. “That guy can fuck right off for doing that to you.”

She shrugs it off, taking a sip of what I assume is lemon water. “Still not cheating.”

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