Page 13 of Take the Bait

The women chatted casually and took their sweet time peeing, reapplying make-up, and speculating about who was discreetly hooking up with whom tonight.

Every second felt like a week as the women relaxed and analyzed the party, sharing their observations and tidbits they’d overheard. So this was why women always seemed to make restroom visits in groups! They were having their own girls-only parties in here.

At long last, they finally trailed out of the bathroom. Silence fell once more.

Deeply suspicious of another gaggle of women waiting outside to pounce as soon as he showed himself, he held his position for several more long, uncomfortable minutes. Long enough to play back that smoking hot kiss she’d laid on him before she’d abruptly withdrawn from it and from him.

He’d made some mistakes in his life, but this had to go down as one of the biggest. He berated himself every way he could think of for being a fool until his rock-hard erection finally began to subside.

She’d been even sweeter and sexier in his arms than he’d imagined. She’d felt like silken sin. Hell, she’d practically purred as she rubbed all her luscious curves against him. Okay, that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t exactly been a passive participant in the kiss, either, and he’d been doing plenty of rubbing of his own. Speaking of which, her mouth and her body had been soft and eager, all restless movement and welcoming heat, drawing him in with blatantly carnal intent.

Crap. He was getting hard again just thinking about those blow job lips and big, dark, sex kitten eyes.

She’s. Off. Limits.

Right. Tell that to his dick.

You’re. An. Idiot.

All he had to say in response to that condemnation by his inner voice was, no shit, Sherlock.

He took a deep breath and commenced mentally reciting the criminal code pertaining to professional ethics violations. Sometimes, it truly sucked having as good a memory as he did. It usually came in handy as a lawyer. But right now, it wasn’t doing a blessed thing to take his mind off how bad he wanted to get into the sassy, forbidden panties of one Miss Dani Wellford, Esquire.

People at the party must be wondering where he’d gone off to. They would probably figure he was boinking one of the paralegals in a supply closet. Which wasn’t an entirely unfair assumption based on his past few years of social life.

He was the first to admit it surprised him that he’d grown tired of playing the insatiable playboy stud. It had been fun when he was a horny, immature prick fresh out of law school.

In retrospect, he was damned lucky he hadn’t accidentally gotten himself trapped into marriage by a real or fake baby scare. He would have done the honorable thing, of course, if he had gotten a woman pregnant.

Truth be told, he hadn’t had sex in nearly three months. Not since he broke up—reasonably politely, considering—with an interior designer from the Upper East Side who’d turned out to be just a wee bit more married than he liked his sexual partners. At least she’d been discreet and hadn’t wanted to ruin his reputation any more than he’d wanted to ruin hers.

He didn’t stop often to ponder his relationships with women, and he’d never done it while hiding in a ladies’ room, but he had to say, his personal life was a bit of a shit show.

He sighed as he unfolded his cramping legs and stood up. For a person who’d demonstrated extraordinary discipline and resolve in distancing himself from his parents’ sordid past, pursuing a great education, excelling in law school, and becoming a topnotch litigator, he’d sure managed to fuck up everything else in his life.

It was one thing to sow some wild oats—okay, whole fucking fields of wild oats—in one’s youth. It was another thing altogether to become someone who lived like some horny frat boy for one’s entire adult life.

It was high time he manned up and took control of himself and his libido. He needed to start acting like the kind of man his grandparents had raised him to be. The kind of man he’d always envisioned himself becoming.

He’d vowed never to turn violence upon a woman…but had he been harming his many conquests in a different way? Had he been treating them with the same disrespect and lack of recognition for their humanity that his father had?

The thought made him recoil in horror.

He wasn’t his father. He would never hurt a woman.

But did that include treating women with respect and recognizing them as more—much more—than sex objects?

He knew exactly how his grandfather would answer that if he were still alive.

He sighed. I’m sorry, Pops. I’ll do better from now on. I promise.

But first he had to sneak out of this damned bathroom without getting caught.

He peeked around the door of the stall like a felon making a prison break. The bathroom was still empty. One hurdle down.

He crept to the hallway door. This was the trickiest moment. He couldn’t afford to be seen strolling out of the ladies’ room by anyone.

Rueful, reluctant humor bubbled up in his chest at the absurdity of his predicament. He had to give Dani credit. She’d nailed him big time, trapping him in here like this.

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