This getting her to fall in love with him wouldn’t just be easy, it would be as enjoyable as spending a lazy day on the beach of the Mediterranean—his favorite way to escape the pressures of his life. If this morning was any indication, he’d never need his vacation getaway again. All he’d need was a few minutes with his head between Lola’s legs.
When Lola finally looked up from her guitar, he snagged her gaze, feeling the magnetic pull. She ran her fingers through her hair then gave a quick wave of her hand in greeting. “Hey, guys, let’s take five.”
The three members of her band, aptly named Wicked Muse, murmured their assent as she set her guitar down and descended from the stage. She bit her lip and plopped down on a stool on the other side of the bar from him. “What’s up?”
Him.
“Nothing. I wanted to check on—”
Her phone played P!nk’s “So What,” and she slipped her cell from a clip on her skirt. She checked the display and held up a finger. “One second.”
He nodded. Curious, he stuck around to eavesdrop, still polishing the same three glasses.
“Hi. No, it’s fine, you caught me right before my first set,” she crooned in a tone he’d never heard her use before. Sickly sweet like cotton candy, it gave him an immediate toothache. It was the voice his mother used whenever she wanted something from her newest husband—usually something insanely expensive. “My last set ends at eleven,” she continued. “How can you miss me, Jon? We hung out a few days ago.” She giggled like a silly school girl. Made sense since Jon was old enough to be her father. Braden didn’t understand what she saw in the loser.
How could she have come apart in his arms this afternoon then make plans to go out with another man?
He watched her nibble on a nail as she listened to Jon. This wouldn’t do.
“Excuse me, Lola?” he said, taking her hand from her mouth. If she was going to nibble on anything, it was going to be him.
“Just a sec, Jon,” she said. She glared at him. “What?”
“We’ve got work to do after your last set. You were gone all day, wasting what precious time we have to teach you everything you need to know. I do the restaurant’s weekly ordering tonight, but if you’d rather go out on a date—”
She yanked her hand back and held it up in front of his face to stop him from talking. Instead, all he could think about was how he wanted a replay of this morning. His blood heated and rushed south. Her eyes widened and her pupils dilated, fixating on her hand. She quickly dropped it to her lap and the tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her upper lip. He didn’t have to guess she was also thinking about this morning.
She remained gazing at him as she returned to her phone call. “Jon, I can’t make it. I’ve got a couple things to do here. Yeah, I agree, it’s not in my job description. Yep, the boss is an ass.”
He frowned at her and she stuck her pink tongue out at him. The woman better be more careful with that tongue because he was two seconds from sucking it into his mouth.
She hung up the call and stared at him. “I gotta get back to work.”
“Break a leg.”
She slid off the bar stool and walked back to the stage, her hips swaying back and forth and her skirt swishing at her ankles. It was winter, but you couldn’t tell by her clothes. Tonight, she was dressed in a gold and turquoise skirt and a gold tank which scooped low enough to give everyone a view of her lovely cleavage and part of the tattoo covering her right breast—a vine of some sort.
He continued his usual duties in the restaurant, checking on the kitchen and talking with the customers. Since it was Sunday, he didn’t have to worry about business calls, so he stayed out of his office, affording him the opportunity to keep an eye and ear on Lola.
The customers were typically a sedate crowd of married couples and dates rather than the Saturday night bar-hoppers. That’s why it shocked the hell out of him when one of his regular couples got up during one of Lola’s slow songs and started bumping and grinding against each other on the makeshift dance floor in front of the stage.
Lola kept on singing, apparently oblivious. A few of his wait staff stopped to watch, and two collided because they’d been watching the couple rather than where they were going. Dirty dishes crashed to the floor. It was loud enough that the amorous couple should have stopped, but they kept on, kissing frantically, their tongues dueling like swords. He hated to spoil their fun, but he ran a dignified establishment, and he didn’t want their public display of affection to offend the other patrons.