Surrender

by K. M. Scott

  During lulls, my mind traveled back to my first conversation with Stefan that day I’d interviewed for the bartender job and his offer of a membership. Maybe I could take advantage of Kane’s part of the club, but what fantasy would I want to live out?

  By the end of the night, I’d set myself to figuring out what my fantasy was and I’d convinced myself I deserved the title of Most Boring Woman On Earth. Over and over, I’d wracked my brain to think of what I could ask for in a fantasy room, and each time I came up with something, it was either incredibly mundane or ridiculous. I doubted Kane and his people could help me secure a position at a good university. Obviously, whatever I thought I was, first I was an academic—a boring academic. God, I was the queen of dull!

  Then my mind would swing to an idea so wild that my cheeks would flush with heat. Kane’s offer for me to come see him replayed in my mind, weaving itself into my thoughts on possible fantasies. Did he ever partake of the good times in his part of the club, I wondered. What would he be like alone with me in a room devoted to sexual pleasure? I’d heard rumors from some of the other bartenders that unlike Cassian and Stefan, he had a dark side. I didn’t see it, though. I could imagine him being super Alpha and possessive, maybe even domineering, but he worked too hard to be restrained for me to believe when it came down to it he was a sexual freak.

  But then again, maybe that’s why he was so restrained all the time.

  “You look a million miles away. Everything okay up here?”

  I turned from the spot on the bar that I’d been cleaning as I considered what to do in a fantasy room and there stood Stefan right in front of me. Flustered that he’d caught me daydreaming, I hurriedly threw the rag aside and pressed a smile onto my lips.

  “Just lost in doing my job, I guess. What’s up? Why are you up here?”

  “I wanted to check on you and make sure you were okay. Members sometimes get a little wild up in this part of the club. Everything good?”

  “Oh yeah. Making lots in tips from happy people either dying to get into their rooms or even happier people coming out after their time is up.”

  “I meant to come up earlier but things got pretty busy downstairs. Lola said she loved the money up here but prefers the front bar down there.”

  The mention of Lola’s name made me bristle with anger, and I shrugged in the hopes that my lack of interest would make him change the subject. “I bet. You’re not up here, so of course she wouldn’t like this bar more. I like it just as well as the front bar, but then again, I don’t need to have the approval of my boss with every damn drink I pour.”

  Okay, that came out a little bitchier than I’d intended. I saw by the look on Stefan’s face that my rudeness had surprised him too. He settled his dark gaze on me and in a nicer tone than I think he’d ever used on me, he asked, “Something wrong? Did Lola do something?”

  I shook my head and waved him off. “No, it’s nothing. Thanks for asking, but I’m good. I’m just going to get things cleaned up here and head home.”

  He nodded and then took a deep breath in, releasing it slowly. I thought for a moment he would reprimand me for not getting along with yet another person I worked with, but instead he leaned over the bar until his face was no more than a few inches away from mine and looked up at me with those deep brown eyes that at that moment nearly made me melt.

  “I thought maybe we should talk about the other night.”

  “I think firing me because I wouldn’t have sex with you in your office is grounds for a lawsuit, Stefan,” I said half-joking. I knew what night he was referring to.

  “Not that night, Shay.”

  I looked away, unable to handle that doe-eyed puppy dog look he was using on me. Jesus, he could be sweet when he wanted to be. “I know. I was kidding. Sort of.”

  “Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll come back up so we can talk.”

  I didn’t want to talk about that night or anything else with Stefan. Something about Lola turning on me made me feel vulnerable. I nodded to let him know I’d stay, but as soon as he walked away, I hurried to finish up my work and get the hell out of there.

  Being alone with him to talk about when we had sex wasn’t a good thing when I was so weak.

  * * *

  ONLY LOLA still remained downstairs by the time I got back, and there was no way I wanted to spend any more time talking to her when I had Shay waiting for me on the fourth floor. Before I could slip into my office unseen, though, she followed me in, closing the door behind her.

  “What’s up, Lo? I’m in a little bit of a hurry, so if it’s not serious, can we leave this for tomorrow?”

  She stared up at me with big blue eyes full of disappointment. “I wanted to know if…maybe if you weren’t busy tonight, we could get together?”

  “I can’t tonight. Sorry. I’ve got something to take care of upstairs.”

  I knew she remembered Shay had worked the fourth floor bar, and her look hardened as the thought that I was going up to see her settled into her mind. “What? The club’s closed.”

  “Kane. He’s got a mess up there he needs my help with.”

  “Oh. Would you like my help?” she asked softly but there was a hint of suspicion in her voice. She didn’t believe me.

  I walked toward her to escort her out of my office. Opening the door, I shook my head. “No, it’s nothing I’d want you involved in. We got it.”

  With my hand on her lower back, I guided her out into the club as she asked if I’d walk her out to her car like I always did. Jesus, this woman was a worse cockblock than Kane.

  Just as I was about to tell her I couldn’t, we ran into my half-brother standing there watching as I gave Lola the bum’s rush. Quickly, I devised a plan to push her off on him. “I can’t, but Kane can, right?”

  Kane looked at me like I’d just committed some heinous crime, and Lola shook her head, confused. “But I thought you had to help him upstairs with some problem?”

  “I do, but while I’m upstairs taking care of things, he can walk you out and then come up to help me.” Turning to look at Kane, I hoped he’d be cool about things like a brother should be. “Sound good?”

  For once, Kane didn’t do his best dick impression and said nothing to blow my cover. “No problem, Lola. I can walk you out. Then I’ll come back and help Stefan since there’s no way he’ll be able to handle things upstairs without my help.”

  “Okay, thank you,” Lola said, giving Kane one of her cute smiles that made me think maybe she could fall for him and all my problems would be solved.

  “Great! See you later, Lo!”

  I watched Kane walk her out of the club and bolted toward the stairs to get up to Shay but remembered I hadn’t grabbed a condom from my desk in all the nonsense with Lola. Fuck! Quickly, I ran into my office and found a pack where I kept them in my office drawer, but before I could get upstairs, Kane stopped me by blocking my way out the door.

  “What the fuck are you thinking, Stefan?”

  I was thinking that Shay was waiting for me and between Lola and Kane, I couldn’t decide who the bigger killjoy was. “You’re in the way. Can we talk about whatever you want to talk about tomorrow?”

  “You know what I want to talk about. Blowing Lola off isn’t going to work. We need to be on her and Shank’s good side, and treating her like you just did isn’t going to make that happen.”

  All the happiness I’d felt after talking to Shay had all but ebbed away by now, leaving me cranky and horny and stuck talking to Kane, the last person on Earth I wanted to hang out with tonight. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was keeping me talking to him there on purpose to ruin any chance I had with Shay.

  “Kane, I told you the other day. I’m not going to be responsible for Lo’s happiness, no matter what you think. If you want her to make sure Shank continues to help us, you cozy up to her. She seems to like you, so it wouldn’t be too hard, assuming you still know what to do with your dick.”

  My ass busti
ng didn’t go over well, and he leaned in toward me to crowd my space until his face was just inches away from mine. “You made this fucking mess. Now you’re responsible for it. Maybe if you weren’t always thinking with your cock you wouldn’t have to do things with it you don’t like.”

  The look in his blue eyes made me think he had plans to fight me right there. Jesus! Why the fuck did this guy always seem to be on my ass about something. “Back the fuck up, Kane.” He didn’t budge, so I leaned in and glared at him. A few seconds of that told me he wasn’t going to give in, so I resorted to my foolproof tactic.

  I lied.

  “Fine. I’ll make it up to Lo tomorrow, okay? Now get the hell out of my way!”

  He gave me one final nasty glare and backed up to let me past, but not before he threatened me one last time. “Stefan, I’m not fucking around with you. Cash may have a soft spot for you, but I don’t have those feelings. We need Shank, and for good or for bad, you’re the one who has to make sure his daughter is happy. You fuck this up, and I’ll fuck you up, and Cash won’t be able to stop me this time.”

  “Fine.”

  I left him standing there outside my office and tore up the stairs hoping that he and Lola hadn’t totally ruined any chance I had to hang out with Shay again. Hitting the fourth floor, I looked down the hallway and didn’t see her near the bar. Disgusted, I caught my breath and leaned against the wall, silently cursing both Lola and Kane. Fucking A!

  A noise from one of the fantasy rooms caught my attention, and I walked toward it hoping I didn’t find some orgy. Seeing that would be like the universe rubbing my face in shit. I peeked my head in and there stood Shay looking around like she was in awe of the place.

  “I thought you left,” I said quietly as I closed the door behind me.

  “I was just taking a look around. I didn’t realize I was in here that long.”

  “You mean long enough to still be here when I returned?”

  She gave me a tiny smile and looked away. “I don’t know what to say, Stefan. I did have a good time.”

  Stepping toward her, I slid my arm around her waist and gently pulled her toward me. “And we can have a good time again. There’s nothing standing in our way, unless your boyfriend is back in the picture.”

  She looked up at me and I saw questioning in her green eyes. “He’s not.”

  “So what’s the problem? I can feel you want me like I want you, Shay.”

  “That’s the problem, Stefan. I do. But everyone else in this place does too, and I don’t like feeling like I’m one in a cast of thousands.”

  “You’re not.” Even though I’d been with Kat and Jana the night she left me hanging, as I stood there with Shay’s condemnation of my lifestyle staring up at me, I didn’t want anyone else.

  “Stefan, we had fun, but I can’t be who I’d need to be with someone like you. I just can’t.”

  “What do you mean? You don’t have to be anybody but you.”

  Shaking her head, she frowned. “That’s not true. I’m not like Lola or Mika or any of the other women you get together with here. That’s not the kind of woman I am. Every one of them seems to be okay with being just another notch in your belt. I’m not.”

  “You’re not like them, Shay. I know that.”

  “So maybe it’s best if we just leave whatever there is between the two of us where it was the other night at my apartment. Maybe we’re just too different to be anything but a one-time thing, Stefan.”

  Shay turned to leave, but I pulled her back into my arms and kissed her. “Maybe I don’t want to leave it there. Maybe we’re not so different, after all. As Lola reminded me earlier tonight, you’re leaving in a few months. Why can’t we just enjoy one another until then?”

  “Because of what you just said. Lola. And Mika. And Kat. And Jana. I may not be the poster child for monogamy. Trust me, I’m not. But that’s just too many people I don’t really even like in my personal life.”

  I didn’t know why, but the thought of any of them did nothing for me now that I’d been with Shay. And the idea that my ever being with them could mean she might not want me bothered me more than even I understood. This had all started out as a bet between me and Kane, but it had gone way past that for me now.

  “They don’t mean anything to me. I already decided not to be with Lola and Mika anymore, and that thing with Kat and Jana the other night…” I stopped talking before I said something that would only prove to Shay I wasn’t the type of guy she’d want, but I saw by the look on her face that it didn’t matter.

  “We come from two different worlds, Stefan. You’re a player, and as much as some people think I am, the reality is that as soon as I saw even just a few of the women I was lumped in with, I didn’t want to be there. That’s never going to change either.”

  I didn’t want to hear that. Never before had I not been able to change a woman’s mind, and there was no way in hell Shay Callahan was going to be the first. We may have been as different as night and day, but that was no reason we couldn’t get together.

  “We both work in this club. That’s something we have in common, right?”

  Her green eyes stared up at me, unconvinced. “I don’t think that’s enough to base having sex with a person on.”

  Maybe it was my ego, or maybe it was the bet with Kane. Or maybe it was the feeling of emptiness when I thought of not ever being with her again, but I had to do something to convince her to at least give us a chance. “What if we start over?”

  “Stefan, we already started over, remember? I don’t think pretending not to know one another again is going to work.”

  She began to back away from me, but I grabbed hold of her wrist. “Wait. What if we started over as friends?”

  Shay’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. I had to admit even I was stunned I’d said that word. I’d never been friends with a female. To be honest, I couldn’t even imagine how to do that, but if being friends with Shay was the way to have a chance to be with her, then friends it was.

  “Do you really think we could be friends, Stefan? You’re a man whore and I’m a female. That doesn’t sound like a recipe for success.”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  She seemed to think about my challenge and smiled. “One of the most important parts of friendship is honesty. Can you handle that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Looking around, she nodded. “I bet you’ve been in one of these rooms hundreds of times.”

  The first test of our friendship. She did like to go big. “You’ll probably be surprised to hear I haven’t been in one of these more than a handful of times.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s not really my thing. I have my office downstairs, Shay.”

  There was a long pause and then she said, “I’m guessing I shouldn’t ask how many times you’ve used your office to be with someone, huh?”

  “Probably not.”

  Even as she continued to smile up at me, I saw the distance in her eyes. She was pulling away emotionally as the idea of me with all those other women registered in her brain. Never before in my life had I regretted what I was, but at that moment, the way she looked at me made me wish I hadn’t been that man whore.

  “It’s late, Stefan. I think I better go.”

  “Don’t. Come with me. I know a beach we can go to and hang out.”

  Shay’s face twisted into a grimace. “You don’t seem to understand how to be friends with a female, do you?”

  “I didn’t say we can go and fuck on the beach. Just hang out. That’s it. Get to know each other. Isn’t that what friends do?”

  “What beach are you talking about?”

  “Just say yes.”

  She took a deep breath in and sighed. “Don’t make me regret this, okay?”

  Taking a step toward the door, I held out my hand to take hers. “You’re going to love this place. We’ll be the only two people on the beach.”

  “How do you know?”

&
nbsp; I tugged her toward me as we walked out into the hallway. “It’s a private beach—we call it March Beach.”

  Shay looked surprised. “You have your own beach? Do Cassian and Kane live there too?”

  “No, none of us live there now. It’s where Cash and I grew up. My mother still lives in the house, but she’s in Italy until next week. It’ll just be you and me.”

  We walked down the stairs as I told Shay about how great the house was, and she asked, “You’re taking me to your mother’s house?”

  “Yeah. Come on!”

  “She won’t mind? Do you often bring people to her house to enjoy the beach?”

  I knew what she was asking. She wanted to know if I routinely brought women to my parents’ house to fuck them on the beach. Assuming I could leave out the girls from high school I’d done exactly that with, I told her the truth.

  “I’ve never brought anyone to my mother’s house since I moved out of there when I was nineteen. And not because that would mean having to meet my mother, not that I’ve ever introduced anyone to her.”

  “And it will just be us?” she asked with a hint of curiosity in her voice.

  “Well, the caretaker and the other people who work the estate are there, but they won’t bother us. It will just be the two of us enjoying the beach and the water, if you want to swim.”

  As we walked out to my bike, she shook her head. “I don’t have a bathing suit with me, Stefan.”

  The idea of Shay buck naked next to me in the water made my cock swell. I winked and said, “Then you can skinny dip. Nobody will see you.”

  Climbing onto the back of my bike, she slipped her arms around my waist and leaned in next to my ear. “You’re still struggling with this whole friend thing. Women don’t skinny dip with their male friends, Stefan.”

  I started my bike and revved the engine. Fuck, her body felt incredible pressed up against me. Turning my head, I looked back at her. “It was just a suggestion, but I’ll make a mental note of that for the future. No swimming naked with friends.”