Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step. Liz Talley

gotten her blouse buttoned up and tucked back into her skirt. “I have to go. I have to get some work done, especially if I’m not working late tomorrow night, because I’m having dinner with you.”

      He handed her the bag of first-aid supplies Lucy had brought back from the store and said, “You’re really not going to let me play doctor?”

      “I don’t think that would be wise,” she said, heading for the door, not quite able to believe what she’d already done today with him or what he might expect after the obligatory dinner date tomorrow night.

      He watched her go, stopping her just as she reached for the door handle, his body wrapping itself around hers, trapping her between him and the door.

      “Maybe one of those suits without any underwear? What do you say, Jane?”

      “That you’re crazy.”

      He dropped a little kiss on her cheek and then backed up and let her go.

      Lainie stared at Jane when she walked into the office an uncharacteristic hour and fifteen minutes later than expected.

      “What?” Jane asked. “Was I humming?”

      Or grinning like a woman who’d nearly had sex with Wyatt in his office, or one who was contemplating all the sinful behavior she might partake with him the very next evening?

      “Did you get mugged?” Lainie asked.

      “Oh!” Jane touched the scratches on her face and grinned. “I forgot. I hid in a bush.”

      Lainie looked skeptical. “Why?”

      “Because there was no other place to hide,” Jane explained.

      “Does this have something to do with that man? The amazingly reasonable one?”

      “Oh, I don’t think he’s all that reasonable, really. He’s actually.”

      Outrageous. Wicked. Gorgeous. Jane sighed happily, then remembered where she was. “I can’t talk about him now. I’m so far behind, and I need to get out of here early tomorrow. I have a date.”

      “A date? With him?”

      Jane nodded.

      “Has he…done something to you?” Lainie prodded, looking worried.

      “Done something?”

      “Drugged you, maybe? You’re really not acting like yourself, Jane. You haven’t been since you met him. And there are all sorts of things men can put into drinks these days to get women to do anything they want. This is serious.”

      “Wyatt Gray’s never had to drug a woman in his life. They probably line up for the chance to give him what he wants.”

      “And that doesn’t…infuriate you?”

      Jane thought about it. At one point, it would have. She knew that. But it seemed she’d discounted the whole bit about what the women might want in this situation. Women could be taken advantage of, certainly, and they often were. Jane knew from experience with the women who came to her seminars. But she didn’t think Wyatt took advantage of women. She thought he just enjoyed them, and they enjoyed him.

      She wanted to enjoy him and very much wanted him to enjoy her.

      “I think I may have been a little harsh in my judgments about men,” she admitted.

      Lainie started dropping things, everything she was carrying, actually. A coffee mug, some papers, little pink message slips for Jane. Flustered, she hurried to pick them up, then looked at Jane as if she’d grown three heads in the last five seconds.

      “What has that man done to you?” she asked.

      “I know most men are jerks. Believe me, I do. It’s just that, not all of them are. There must be some decent men out there. Some who can be trusted in…certain…limited…situations.”

      “You want to go to bed with him,” Lainie guessed.

      Jane felt heat coming into her cheeks. “I’m allowed to have a sex life—”

      “I know. You just never have before. Not in all the time I’ve known you, I bet.”

      Jane clamped her mouth shut, thinking back to exactly when she’d hired Lainie. Had it been that long? She wasn’t going to answer that.

      “Just be careful, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt,” Lainie said.

      “I won’t. I know exactly what I’m getting into. I certainly know that nothing lasting will ever come out of this, and that I’m not his usual type, which has made him more interested than he’d normally be. But I know that in the end, we’ll just go our separate ways, and that’ll be it.”

      “And you’re fine with that?”

      She sighed. “I wouldn’t say fine with that, but I’m an adult, and like you said, I get lonely at times. Wyatt’s here, and I’m here, and he’s…he’s…he’s the sexiest man I’ve ever met in my life, Lainie. I’m thinking about going to dinner with him in one of my power suits with no underwear. Does that sound…normal?”

      “Not for you,” Lainie yelped.

      “No, I mean for a woman not like me. A woman who likes men. Really likes them. And really likes sex. For that kind of woman. Would that kind of woman do that?”

      Lainie sighed. “Jane, are you sure he didn’t drug you? Maybe I should come along on this date, just to make sure he doesn’t…that he isn’t…you know? A bad guy. Or we could run a background check on him. You have that friend on the police force. Just in case. How about that? A background check and a credit check. You can’t be too careful.”

      “Yes, you can. I’ve been careful too long. And I’m done with it,” Jane declared.

      She was going to dinner without her underwear, after all.