“Everything okay with you? You seem off tonight.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Good night, Kane.”
Before I could get into my office, Lola was right there by my side possessively running her hand over my bicep. “Hi, Kane! What’s up? We never really see you down here.”
“Not much. Had a good night so I figured I’d come down to see Stefan here. You headed out?”
With a big smile, she said, “Not yet. Stefan and I have to have a meeting first, but then it’s straight home to bed for me. A girl needs her beauty rest.”
Instantly, I saw the look of recognition in my brother’s eyes. He touched Lola on the arm and chuckled, “Well, give me a few moments with him and then he’s all yours, okay?”
“Okay. Stefan, can I wait in your office?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll be in in a minute.”
Lola closed the door behind her and Kane roughly pulled me toward the front bar. “I think I know what’s going on, but you know what this will do if Shay finds out.”
All the anger and all the frustration of not finding a way out of the whole Lola-Shank mess exploded out of me. “For months, you’ve been telling me I have to keep her happy. Even when I understood, you kept telling me, hammering it into my brain as if I was too stupid to understand. I got it. Cash hasn’t been able to find anyone to replace Shank for what we need, so I’ll do what you’ve lectured me about over and fucking over!”
“Don’t do this, Stefan. Don’t listen to all those times I said to keep her happy. Listen to me now. You do this and whatever you have with Shay will be ruined, even if she doesn’t find out, which she probably will from Lola herself. Don’t do this.”
“I don’t have a choice. Do you think I haven’t tried to find a way out of this? Cash and Olivia are getting married in a few months. He’s finally happy. I can’t let my fuckup with Lola ruin that. I can’t do that to him again.”
“Holy fuck! That’s what this is? You think whatever you’re going to do with her is going to make what you did with Rachel all better? Cash forgave you, Stefan. Let it go. You two have a thing for living in the past, but this is going to ruin you and Shay.”
“I can’t let this Shank problem ruin his happiness, Kane. If I could find a way out of this and still know the club would be safe, I’d be at Shay’s right now, but there’s nothing I can do.”
I pulled my arm from his grasp and walked away as he repeated his warning about what would happen if I went into my office, but I wasn’t listening anymore. As I closed the door, I heard him walk up the stairs and leave me to deal with the mess I’d made.
Seated behind my desk in my usual position when Lola and I got together, I stared at her as she sat patiently waiting for me. “What’s up, Lo?”
“My father told me he came to talk to you the other day. I promise I didn’t ask him to, Stefan.”
I didn’t know what she expected me to say. Thank you? Was I supposed to say thank you for not directly telling your father to threaten the happiness of everyone around me even though the end result was the same?
“Are you mad at me?”
Yes. No. I didn’t know who to be mad at.
“I’m not mad, Lola.”
Her eyes filled with fear. “Yes, you are. I can tell. You never call me by my full name. Not since the first time we were together. You’ve always called me Lo, but now you’re calling me Lola.”
“I’m not mad.”
She walked around the desk and slowly turned my chair so I faced her, exactly the positions we’d been in the last time we were together. Bending over, she brushed her lips against mine. “I thought you liked me, Stefan.”
I wanted to push her away into the wall to get her away from me, but even as my hands raised to do that, I knew I owed this to Cash. He deserved to be happy, and at last, I could do more than just give empty apologies for all the terrible shit I’d put him through.
“I do, Lo. I like you,” I said quietly, knowing those words would be all she needed.
She dropped to her knees and looked up at me like what she was about to do would please me. Licking her lips, she slid her hands up over my thighs until they met at the top of my jeans. For a moment, everything seemed to stop and I realized I wasn’t even hard. Then slowly, she opened my pants and ran her hand over my boxer briefs that still hid my unwilling cock.
“I’ve missed this,” she cooed as she reached in and stroked me until I reached semi-hardness. My cock was even weaker than the rest of me.
Just as I began to close my eyes to push the image of her going down on me away, I saw her look up at me and smile. “You’re going to love this so much you won’t want to be with whoever she is ever again.”
Her mouth slid over the head of my cock until she’d swallowed it all and I was nudging the back of her throat. In true Lola fashion, she went to town on me like her next breath relied on my enjoying the blow job she was giving me. Not that what I felt mattered. I just needed her to be happy so she told her father and he kept helping us.
Kane’s words rang in my ears, blocking out much of the sounds Lola made as she slurped and sucked up and down my cock. At some point, I vaguely had a feeling that something in the room had changed, but with my eyes squeezed tightly closed, I didn’t see the door open in time.
Lola did, though, and quickly bobbed her head up. “Shay! What are you doing here?”
Every part of my being rushed back to consciousness and my eyes flew open to see Shay standing near my desk staring at the horrible scene in front of her—the horrible scene of the man who’d just told her he loved her a day earlier now receiving a blow job from another woman.
Everything seemed to go in slow motion. Lola jumping up to explain, as if it wasn’t perfectly obvious what we were doing. Me stuffing my cock back into my underwear and zipping up my pants. Throughout it all, I couldn’t tear my gaze from her eyes so full of pain. I’d seen the look in them before.
In Cash’s eyes that night he found me fucking his wife.
She ran out without saying a thing, and I pushed Lola out of the way to catch up with her. I didn’t know what I’d say, but I had to say something.
I caught up with her just as she reached her car. As she opened the door, I grabbed her, not thinking of anything but stopping her before she left me forever.
“Shay, let me explain.”