Tori blinked those large green eyes up at him. Her plump lips were ready for more of his kisses. She was breathless and slightly flushed.
He smiled, knowing that was the expression he would see when he made love to her. His balls proved they could get tighter. His body had been trying to tell him she was the one for weeks, and his brain was too stupid and only catching up now. He had never wanted to make love to a woman so much before. And not only sex, he had a desire to merge with her and worship her, and care for her forever. This hurt beyond a case of blue balls, creating a wrenching pain in his chest.
He closed his eyes and let out a long ragged sigh before he got back to the task at hand—getting Tori to a place of safety.
Les rotated, wrapped an arm over her shoulder and led her into the bar.
“Sorry, fellas, this one is mine. You’ll have to find your own goddess.”
He guided her through the doors, and panic punched him in the gut. Scanning the crowd inside, he found her friends and helped her into their booth.
“Some asshats were harassing her out side.”
“Oh no, not that nice guy Tad and his friends?” Ali asked.
Tori shrugged.
“Yeah, well. He’s not so nice. Don’t let her walk home. I don’t trust guys like that.” Les patted Tori on the shoulder, leaned down, and kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll be okay now. I’ll see you later.”
Like a coward he left her there and made a beeline straight to the first girl who looked like she gave blow jobs for a hobby, without bothering with names.
***
Tori sat, numb, trying to recall exactly what happened. The only thing her mind could grasp was Les had kissed her. And it wasn’t merely a kiss. He’d branded her with his mouth. She placed her fingers over her lips to make sure they still existed and hadn’t been burned off. Yes, he’d kissed her, and not five minutes later, his arm was draped over some other woman. A woman who looked like… it didn’t matter how she looked, did it? The point that was driven home like a hot railroad tie through butter was that she didn’t look like Tori. She was thin and tan and dressed to expose her figure. Which, to be fair, was exceptional. She had everything that Tori did not, and that included Les.
How could he walk away from a kiss like that? How could he return to his normally scheduled programming? A pat on the shoulder and a see ya later? Didn’t he realize how absolutely perfect and earth shattering that had been?
Tori started to shiver.
“Hey.” Ali rubbed her shoulder. “Are you okay? You’re all shaky.”
“I’m not feeling good. I’m going to head home.” Tori slid from the booth and placed her purse on her shoulder. She froze, watching Les and his bar buddies all laughing. His arm was firmly draped over girl du jour.
Tori’s friend said something about dropping her off on their way to the Spigot since this place was dead tonight. They were sick of tourists, anyway. Instead of listening to them, Tori replayed the kiss over and over.
She wasn’t actually scared of the frat-pack, mostly annoyed. And then Les had swooped in like some movie star action hero, all tall and clad in black. He’d looked at her with the most amazingly sexy expression she had ever seen on his face, hooded eyes, half a grin, and then… BAM. Fireworks and sizzle and panty evaporating hotness.
Tori waved absent mindedly as she got out of Ali’s sedan, climbed the stairs, and let herself into her apartment, all in a daze.
She sat in the middle of her couch, purse still slung over her shoulder. Fingers barely touching her lips, lest they somehow erase the memory of his kiss. But not just a kiss, a kiss with a capital K. Every time Tori thought he was done, Les had redoubled his efforts. And he had exceptional efforts. But then he’d patted her on the shoulder and found another girl.
She slumped to the side, letting gravity pull her down.
She woke up with her purse digging uncomfortably into her side, her face smashed against the seat of the couch and her fingers were still on her lips.
She was alone, and would always be alone.
The sob that escaped her throat shook her entire being.
Les could walk away from that kiss because he never had, and would never have, feelings for her. Tori was a grade-A imbecile. She’d let her crush on him get out of hand, because she hoped there might actually be something to his smiles and the way he flirted.
She found it hard to breathe through gasping sobs. There was no one there to ease the pain, to stroke her back and tell her it would be all right. Once she gulped down her tears, she staggered into the kitchen area, opened the freezer, and searched for an emergency carton of double dark chocolate. Nothing, not even booze, since she’d downed that after dance class. And no twenty-four hour stores within a reasonable distance to fill the void.
Sometimes small-town living wasn’t best suited for her needs. She dug through her purse and pulled out her phone. She was out of ice cream, so texting her closest friend was the logical step for dealing with her broken heart. She focused on her thumbs through the watery haze of her vision. Things suck, I really need to talk to you, won’t you please text me back. I’m having a really hard time.
She texted Ali next.
Nothing.
She tried her again.
Tori stared at her phone. How could the woman who was attached by the retinas to her phone not see the message and text her back? Hell, Ali was even guilty of texting mid-sex.
She texted Erin.
Hey I’m having a hard night and could use a friend.
If you need me so much why did you text Ali first? The words stabbed into her chest. She gasped, unable to form thoughts beyond pain. Breathe damn it. The text stung as much as if Erin had actually slapped her.
I thought Ali would have her phone out. It was hard to see through the tears. Tori had to send the message twice, since the first one was incoherent with typos.
Yeah, well she didn’t answer you for a reason.
Tori gaped at the words on her phone. She understood them perfectly. They were in English, the only language she spoke. But they didn’t make any sense.
Her phone chimed and a new text message scrolled up. WTF we have other friends you know, stop being so needy.
If Erin’s text had been a slap, Ali’s text was a full-blow knock out. Tori’s head reeled.
She stared at the message, too numb to reply, to react. The phone fell from her fingers.
Tori slogged down the hall and into her bathroom. She turned on the shower to full blast, full hot, and stepped in. She toed the dial down a step below scalding before crumpling to the floor of the tub. Her body quaked under the torrent of hot water. Tears and misery mixed with the shower, all washing down the drain together.
Tori was cold and stiff, and the ache in her heart barely outdoing the ache in her body. She had turned the water off at some point, but she had spent the rest of the night in a crumpled heap in the tub. She crawled out of the bathroom, not even trying to stand. Light from her windows told her it was morning. She found her phone on the floor, glanced at the screen that showed Erin and Ali had messaged her repeatedly.
She didn’t care. She didn’t even care that it was nine-fifteen and she was late for work.
She called her boss.
“I’m not coming in.”
“Aw, Tori, you feeling okay?”
“I just woke up, and…” Her voice croaked, her throat raw from all the crying.
“You do sound rough. Go back to bed and feel better. Check in with me later about tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
Tori left the phone on the floor and crawled to her bedroom. She stripped out of the wet clothes and slid under her thick comforter. Blessed, dreamless sleep claimed her once more.
Chapter 11
Les hadn’t slept a wink. He couldn’t get the feel of Tori off his lips. The smell of her out of his nose. The feel of her off his skin. And he didn’t want to. But he didn’t want to just lay there with the memory of her. He needed h
er.
He couldn’t kick himself enough for being a complete chicken shit and ditching her with those girls. But the intensity of it all had shaken him to his foundation. She was his friend. Friends were for drinks and laughs, not for kissing. And damn, the girl could kiss. Just remembering the feel of her lips against his, and his dick wanted to play along. It was as if the fleshy appendage had a brain all its own. All he had to do was think about Tori and he was awarded with pants full of steel rod.
When he’d kissed that other chick? Instant limp dick. He had to artfully dodge her grabby hands until he bowed out on the evening. It was time to leave before little blue pill jokes started circulating. His cock wasn’t having it if it wasn’t Tori.
His heart seemed to freak out the closer it got to her normal delivery time. Not that she was ever there at a set hour, but he could usually count on her showing up about thirty minutes or so after he arrived at work. And not that he should expect her. After all, she hadn’t been in for a week and hadn’t even delivered the lavender. The crash and burn expanded from his chest to his gut when she didn’t show. He knew he had fucked up, her absence confirmed it.
He peered around the wall separating his workspace from the back door. Karen was making her typical noiseless foray back and forth from the truck.
“Haven’t seen you for a while.” He took a bushel of onions from Penny as she stepped inside.
“Nope, not since Tori took over this shift. I miss seeing all the people, but I can’t say I miss the delivery work.” Penny grunted to emphasize the difficulty of the task.
“I saw her last night and wanted to ask about a special order, but it was off hours. I didn’t want to talk shop, and I figure she didn’t, either.”
“She called in sick this morning, sounded rough. But let me know what you need and I’ll pass it on. I know she has some secret resources for your flowers.” Penny smiled.
“Would you let her know I really appreciate all the fresh lavender?”
“Good, she had a bit of a time getting hooked up with the right grower for that. I’ll let her know.”
“Also, I’m going to need more flowers. I’ll take whatever she can get her hands on.” It was so hard to talk shop when his body roared at everything that could be a double entendre. He wanted to get his hands on Tori, not her flowers.
Penny waved and left, her delivery complete. There was no visit, no smiles, no laughing, no Tori.
And Tori wasn’t feeling well.
It was still pretty early. As soon and the soup was ready, he would run some over to her apartment. Chef should be able to do without him for the fifteen minutes it would take him to make a delivery to her apartment.
***
Sleep was Tori’s friend. She didn’t have to worry about the stresses of work or the two-faced, back-stabbing actions of her so-called friends. And she didn’t have to think about Les. Not that she was sick, but Tori had found cold medicine always put her to sleep with no dreams, and right now she didn’t even want Les worming his way into her subconscious.
She spend her days off numb and asleep as much as possible. Her sick day kicked off her weekend. Three miserable days in bed. Alone. A thick haze surrounded her when she returned to work. She barely cared anymore if the farmer’s markets were a success. There would always be something threatening the security and viability of her job. A job that was not necessary to running the farm or selling exclusively to commercial clients. A job she loved, except for that Sword of Damocles bit where Penny couldn’t be certain if she would get the grant to cover Tori’s salary.
Of course the rain wasn’t helping, either. It started seriously raining during Tori’s second day in bed. The pitter patter against the roof lulled her into a deep, numbed-out sleep. So it had been great during her sick days, but trying to manage a rain or shine farmer’s market wasn’t doing her attitude or mood any good.
She dragged her body through the day and finally up the stairs to her little apartment.
She needed to text Sam, but today texting wasn’t enough. She sat with a thud on her couch and opened her laptop. It trilled as it started up. A few clicks later, and Tori stared at a photo of two smiling young women about to make their way in the world. That had been the plan, hadn’t it? She hadn’t even known Sam was sick. The bald head didn’t give it away. She had just thought Sam was a badass, because she was. Tori hadn’t known until Sam was too sick to hide it.
Day one at U.C. Davis and Sam had strode into their dorm room with her head half shaved and the other half dyed blue. Tori stood there, self conscious in her cobbled together, plus-sized, fashionista-on-a-budget outfit, and stared doe-eyed at her new roommate. She was punk and ballsy, everything Tori was not.
Sam’s gazed traveled down then back up Tori’s outfit. “We are either going to be best friends for the rest of my life, or we’re going to hate each other by the end of the week.”
“I vote friends?” Tori replied hesitantly.
With a laugh, Sam dropped the laundry basket of belongings on the empty mattress and flopped down on Tori’s newly made bed.
“Samantha, I keep telling your father to have the mini fridge delivered, but he—” An older woman stopped talking as soon as she was all the way in the room. She looked at Tori and then at Sam kicked back on the bed. “Samantha, get off that girl’s bed.”
“Mom, meet my new best friend. What’s your name?”
And they had been best friends for the rest of Sam’s short life. She had known, of course. But she’d wanted to be a normal kid and do normal things, like go to college. Sam had graduated, barely. That last year had been tough. Tori had seen the inside of the cancer treatment center more that semester than she had the inside of a classroom.
Sam had been a badass up until the very end.
“I miss you so much.” Tears streamed down Tori’s face. Cancer sucked. Tori had wondered why she couldn’t Skype with heaven. If Sam had been released back into the universe as a being of light and energy, why couldn’t she text? Texting was just energy. It didn’t matter that it had been three years. It had been three long years without the best friend she had ever had.
“I need to talk to you, to someone. I did it. I don’t know if you’ve been getting my texts or not. Remember how we said that adorable little town in Napa Valley was the ideal place? I’m here, I promised that I would do it, and I did. But nothing is working out. Remember that guy I told you about? Les, the hot chef?” Tori ground the heel of her palm into her face. “I need to get over him. But I don’t know how. At least he doesn’t hate me like Josh does. Sam, he just sees me as another fat girl. You know, I’m safe to call cute, I’m good for a laugh, and I won’t have any expectations or something. Other women have no compunction hitting on him if I’m around. I’ve let myself get shelved in the friend zone. The friend zone sucks. I need out, and I know that the out I want isn’t what’s going to happen. How do I un-crush on someone who isn’t bad? I cannot think of any reason to dislike him or find him unattractive. Sam, he wears a kilt. As much as I want to just step back and put that distance there, every time I see him it all comes rushing back. What am I gonna do?”
Tori got off the couch, wiped at her face some more, and headed over to her refrigerator. She opened the freezer and pulled out a pint of ice cream. She had eaten a lot of it in the past few days and drunk a bit too much vodka. She was already almost out of the bottle she had just purchased, and this was her last pint of fancy gourmet gelato, Madagascar vanilla with roasted coconut and salted caramel. She had finished the toasted marshmallow s’mores pint last night.
“Okay, I’m back with reinforcements.” She tipped the carton and the bottle toward the photo of her and Sam. “I think I might have to move. The job is being all weird, and those girls I was hanging out with are really mean drunks. They are ‘we wear pink on Wednesdays’ mean. I think I already knew that, but I was desperate for a friend. It’s been really lonely without you.”
Tori continued to talk to her friend, d
rinking straight from the bottle and eating her ice cream. When the pint was empty, she swirled the last of the vodka into the carton and drank the creamy spiked remnants.
“I’m drunk. So I’m going to go to bed now. You need to figure out how to text me back at some point. I’m kinda of tired of this friendship being all one sided. I know, I know, you can’t help it. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”
Tori closed the laptop and staggered to bed. She was going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow, but right now, she didn’t care.
Chapter 12
The rain continued in a never-ending downpour. It had for days. Tori stomped in puddles, her crisp chambray work shirt a sodden mess. Her hair hung uncharacteristically straight, unable to defy gravity in the rain. Her wet clothes clung to her shape, her beautiful bountiful shape.
How had Les never realized what she would have felt like in his arms? God, desire stabbed just from watching her. Funny, now that he wanted her, she had firmly put herself off limits. Her recent actions had made that clear. Not showing up for deliveries, not responding to tweets, not hanging out with her friends at Carnita Joe’s.
What had he done? Was she mad at him for the kiss? Or maybe she’d found someone who actively appreciated her. Something Les had failed to do. Well, the object of her affections was one lucky guy. Too bad Les had been too stupid to realize how he felt in time to do something about it. Well, his body had known, but his brain was S-L-O-W. Making him one big idiota. For all appearances, she seemed like she was having a grand time kicking and splashing about. It was late, and she hadn’t shown up for open-floor ballroom dancing tonight, and he’d been hoping for a dance, or all of them.
So why was Tori dancing alone in the rain in the tiny park around the town gazebo? Something wasn’t right.
He ran with large loping steps, as if he could dodge the raindrops. The smell of kitchen grease that had clung to him all evening washed out of his hair before he made it the half block.
He stopped in front of her. His gaze took in her furrowed brow and sad eyes. Her soft bow-shaped lips pursed tight in an expression of concentrated rage. He wanted to tease her, tell her she looked like a little kid out here in the puddles, but the look on her face made it clear she was not in a teasing mood.
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