Chapter 16
“Have you learned anything, Mr. Hernandez?” Cyan swayed across the dance floor.
Les did not like the glares her boyfriend was giving him. This was an open floor dance class. It wasn’t like Les was making a move on Cyan. He was only there because he wanted to talk to Tori, but she was a no show.
“Your staff doesn’t like cookies. Everyone is counting calories. Madyson will only allow herself one bite of fudge tart. One bite, and then she makes some comments about having to punish herself with the gym or going for a run.”
“Yes, she is very strict with herself. She has a very high level of self-control.”
“Yeah, maybe. But she isn’t the only one. Do your guards also model or something? Because they were almost as concerned about their abs.”
Cyan chuckled. “I believe you are seeing the result of social media expectations and cultural stigmatism more than anything else.”
Les shrugged in time to the foxtrot. “You relish food, and Viktor, who I can only imagine is carved out of granite, puts away multiple meals at a time.”
“Please, Mr. Hernandez, you know we do not have the same metabolism as regular people. That would be like comparing your physique to any of the other cooks. It simply isn’t reasonable. Now, other than being obsessed with diet culture, what have you got for me?”
Les hummed. “Let me put it this way. If anyone on your staff has chlamydia and needs antibiotics, they all need antibiotics. And so does the hotel manager, Mark.”
Cyan cleared her throat and looked over Les’s shoulder, but she did not stumble or skip a beat.
“Explain.”
“I’m pretty sure Mark is banging Madyson,” he said.
“Well, that’s not particularly professional. Okay, and the rest of it?”
“Your guys all seem to be banging Madyson. You’ve got two that I think aren’t, but they are very aware the rest of the guys are.”
“I only have five men on this trip,” Cyan said with clipped tones.
“You have five, and Viktor has two. And the hotel staff is talking about the revolving door on your assistant’s bedroom. She isn’t being particularly discreet except for times with Mark. Which bites, because I liked him.”
“You don’t approve of him having relations with my assistant?” she asked.
“If he wasn’t married, I wouldn’t care. And I don’t care if she is sleeping with everyone on the hotel staff. It bothers me that he made a commitment to someone he is supposed to love, and he isn’t keeping that. And that I found out, and I feel like an accessory to his infidelities. How am I supposed to have respect for a person like that? How am I supposed to hold his judgment as having value anymore?”
“And you are faithful to your mate? Mr. Hernandez?”
“When I take a mate—” he shuddered slightly at the word— “I will be fully dedicated to her.”
“Are you fully dedicated to our little Tori?”
“Tori isn’t my mate. I think you should dance with Viktor. He looks as if he wants to tear my head off and piss down my open throat because I have dared touch you.” Les stepped away from Cyan.
She chuckled. “You should see your face when anyone is dancing with Tori. Good evening, Mr. Hernandez.”
Les shook off Cyan’s words. He pushed out through the double doors into the night air. He needed to cool off. Tori wasn’t his mate. But it sure felt like she should be.
The rain continued in a never-ending downpour. It had been 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, and she glowed with a soft beckoning golden light.
Les sat on his bike and watched her. How had he 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 being tagged online, not hanging out at the Agave Grill.
He knew exactly what he had done. Was she mad at him for the kiss? Or maybe she’d found someone who actively appreciated her in the past week. 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 stupid. Making him one big idiota. Why the fuck had he been fighting the inevitable?
For all appearances, she seemed like she was having a grand time kicking and splashing about. It was late, and he almost hadn’t shown up for open-floor ballroom dancing tonight, too afraid to face her. Too afraid, but he had to see her, so instead he showed up late, and now he stalked her from the shadows, waiting for her.
Why was Tori dancing alone in the rain in the tiny park around the town gazebo? It was too wet to be out. She hadn’t been in the class earlier.
Leaving his bike, Les ran with large loping steps, as if he could dodge the raindrops. The smell of kitchen grease that had clung to him all day wouldn’t even wash out of his hair from all the rain.
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.
When she spotted him, Tori halted mid-splash, and the hard lines around her soft mouth dropped away. She inhaled sharply.
Les stepped closer, and Tori back-stepped away. She stepped to the side, and he cut her off. She tried again, but he was there. She stopped, no longer moving. Slowly, he slid his hand down her arm and captured her hand. It was cool from the rain. Compared to his, her hand was tiny and soft. If he had danced with her before, he would have known, been prepared for her hand in his. He wrapped his other arm around her shoulder before sliding it down her back and began a slow step, step, slide together.
There were no smiles, no laughter, nothing. She wouldn’t look at him. His gut bunched. He wanted her in his arms properly. He tightened his embrace, bringing them closer. Tori continued to look away. They moved to a rhythm that Les felt fit the symphony of the falling rain. She was so perfect, but sad. He had done that. He knew it. If he could have changed his stupidity, he would have.
They moved along the sidewalk in a slow waltz. Tori started to step away, Les redirected her, so they turned like planets orbiting each other until she was pressed against his chest. Slowly, Les dipped his face toward hers.
Tori threw her arms up, shrugged away from Les, and continued to kick at the water. “No, I can’t.”
“What’s going on?” Les asked.
“I’m hiding.” She pushed her hands out, as if she was pushing him away from her head. She walked away.
“In the middle of the town in the middle of the night? That’s not very hidey.” Les followed her. He reached out, grabbing her wrist.
She turned and faced him. “I am invisible. No one can see me. Anyone who does ignores what they see and keeps on with their own self.” Tori flung her hand up in the air with a dismissive wave, breaking his hold on her. “Hiding in plain sight. It’s easy when nobody cares.” She glared at him. Her eyes were red and puffy.
Les felt her pain in the center of his chest. He struggled to find his voice around the burning lump in his throat. “You’re soaked. You need to go home and dry off before you get sick.”
Tori laughed, bitter and full of daggers. “I have an iron constitution. I’ll be fine.”
Iron rusts.“Can we at least get out of the rain, so I can talk to you?”
Tori made a growling noise and stomped toward the gazebo.
Les followed her up the steps into the gazebo, which only offered protection from the rain, not the chill seeping into his skin. How did he begin to tell her how he felt? “I thought we were friends.”
“I did, too.” Tori slumped onto the wrought iron bench that someone had dragged into the center. She stared at her toes as she tapped her soggy sneakers up and down. They made a squelchy noise.
Her voice grew quiet, and she wouldn’t look at him. The lack of eye contact felt physical. “Yeah, well, I’m done being the friend who gets ignored when someone better comes along. I’m done being convenient, being the friend no one calls unless they can’t find anyone else to hang out with. I’m done being told ‘well I do have other friends you know,’ when I ask if they are busy. I’m tired of being the perpetual third wheel. And I’m done with allowing myself to be tucked away into the friend zone because I can’t seem to get attention any other way. I’d rather just be alone than constantly hurt by my so-called friends.”
“You have friends here Tori,” he started
“Really? Who? Bella and Emily have proven time and time again that I am nothing but a nuisance. My best friend from Davis hasn’t texted me or called me in years.”
“What about the ladies at the dance class?”
Tori let out a long sigh. “I’m not friends with them. They are my grandma’s age. They eat dinner at five and on the nights they aren’t in dance class they are in bed by eight. It’s not the same.”
“What about Karen? You’re always sticking up for her.”
“I stick up for her because I don’t think people should make judgment calls about something they don’t understand. I don’t understand her, but that doesn’t mean I have to treat her differently than any other coworker.”
Les stood in front of her at a complete loss. What could he say? Everyone that he knew she knew could be explained away. He sat on the bench, propping his elbows on his knees.
“My friends…” she started. “No. Not my friends. I have never made friends easily. I try. I really do. I make sure I’m understanding and respect other people’s foibles. Unfortunately, that tends to land me with people who are only my friends because they think they can get something from me. And when I don’t meet their expectations, when I can’t be used to their advantage, I am disposable. I put up with a lot of crap so that I can feel like I have friends. And you know, it still catches me off guard every time it happens.”
“You aren’t disposable.” Emotion sat thickly in Les’s throat.
Tori turned her gaze to him. He looked over at her. The impact of her emotions felt like a brick landing on his chest. She stared at him, waiting. He sat there like the idiot he was with his mouth hanging open. Les tried to say something more, but words stuck in his throat.
“I don’t think anyone does it on purpose, but…” She shook her head, stood, and walked to the edge of the gazebo. “They don’t think about how their actions impact anyone but themselves, and I deserve better. I’m done. I don’t think I can be your friend anymore.” Without another word, she disappeared into the rain.
Hot pain paralyzed Les’s body into place. His soul longed to follow her, but she had pierced him with a spike straight through his guts and into the ground. He felt as if all his blood left his body in a rush. He reached up and touched his face at the unfamiliar sting of tears. How many times had he called her gorgeous to her face and then spent the rest of the night chatting up some other woman? How many times had he found her for a good conversation full of laughter after it was clear he wasn’t going to get laid that night? How many times had he been a complete jerk to her, only thinking about himself, and not that he was leaving her to walk home alone or to sit by herself at a table because her friends had dumped her for some guy?
And the one time he’d kissed her, it had felt like she was the very air he needed to live, but he’d deposited her with the very people she told him weren’t her friends like a gutless wonder, coward supreme.
Les collapsed forward, burying his face in his hands. He’d watched those assholes deliberately hurt her and never once clued in to the fact that he had been hurting her time and time again.
Everything had changed the night he’d kissed her, and not for the better. He convinced himself he’d done it to protect her. It was better to walk away from the mate glow before anything happened, before attachments were formed and emotions were involved, before he hurt Tori. Too fucking late. He was a coward, and she was the one who’d ended up getting hurt.
Tori quietly closed the door to her apartment. She flipped on the light and stood, dripping, taking in the lonely home. The stack of the last few boxes to unpack, even after all these months, lurked in a corner. Maybe they were just already packed for her next move. This town felt like a mistake. Les’s behavior confirmed all of it.
Her heart was hollow, empty. When she’d been younger, raging in the rain had always relieved the pressure and frustration. Tonight, it had cemented her grief into a permanence she felt in her bones.
She sloshed her way down the short hall to her bathroom, not bothering to take off her shoes. She would need to get a cat or two if she was going to embrace the truly single and lonely lifestyle. Would her landlord allow pets? How much would a pet deposit cost? Did she really want to get a cat if she was seriously thinking about moving? It wasn’t like she had job security, since her job might disappear in a few months.
Tori leaned down and tried to untie one of the wet shoelaces. They were stuck, swollen together with water. She’d toed off the first shoe when she heard a loud banging on her door. It wasn’t a tap or a knock, but a pounding demand to be let in.
Les, no doubt with hurt feelings. He wasn’t the type to accept that his actions had consequences. He wouldn’t believe that she was merely reacting to how he and others had behaved—no, how she had been allowing others to treat her.
She took her time pulling her second shoe off. Let him stew. By the time she returned to the living room, the banging changed in nature to a rhythmic dull thud, paired with a moaning plea. “Tori, please let me in.” She pictured Les banging his head against her door.
Not even a full week ago—had it really only been a few days? It felt like years—she would have been giddy at the prospect of Les at her front door late at night. Now she was just tired. She pulled the door open and walked away from him. “Stay there.”
Les shivered inside her door. She tossed a towel at his feet. “Drip on that.” She leveled a glare at him.
“I’m an asshole.”
Tori couldn’t agree more. She scoffed. “Tell me something new.” She leaned on the counter by her kitchen sink, arms crossed, the living room between them.
“You stopped smiling at me.”
Her brow furrowed and she cocked her head back. He hadn’t actually said that? “You followed me home to tell me I should smile more?”
Les sighed. “No, but I… I’m stupid. I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you never thought that teasing me or giving me”— she made air quotes with her fingers— “half a chance would be hurtful. That’s just it, Les.” She bit the inside of her lip, willing the stupid tears to not start. That was why she had been out in the rain, so the water from the sky could mask the water on her face. Who had she been hiding them from? There had been no one to see. No one to care.
She closed her eyes and let the tears fall. Let Les witness what his so-called friendship really did to her. “I’m an afterthought. I’m good enough for now until something better?—”
“No!” The sound was a rough bark. “You aren’t an afterthought. I wasn’t teasing when I said you had a cute ass. And you are beautiful. I’m the idiot who didn’t realize your smiles kept my heart beating until it all stopped. I’m not sure how to read you. It’s all mixed signals.”
“Mixed signals? Oh my God, Les, you have no clue about mixed signals.” Her voice changed, the sneer audible in her tone. “Hey, let me walk you home, only to jump in the first car when some chick honks her horn and says wanna party?” She wiped at her nose and sniffed. “I’ve been pretty damned obvious, and each time I try, I’m reminded that you’re only interested in being a friend, nothing more. And you’re a crappy friend at that.”
“Huh?” The confused look on Les’s face hurt more than angered Tori.
“I asked you out on a dinner date. You blew me off and then acted like it was no big deal that you forgot.” Tears blurred her vision, and she could no longer see his face clearly. “You come to that damned dance class, and you won’t dance with me. But you make sure to hang around afterward to walk me home and tell me I look cute and that you can’t wait for the next time.” She couldn’t form words anymore. She pressed the heel of her palms into her eyes.
“The other night when I kissed you—” Les started.
She didn’t want to listen to him anymore. It was all lip service. “Shut up, Les.” She tried to growl, but it came out in a sob. “When you kissed me, I realized that I never would be anything more to you than that funny girl who is a good sport who you don’t mind hanging out with because I don’t scare away other women. You kissed me and then you walked away.”
They stood in her apartment, dripping at each other. Tori no longer had the energy to glare at him.
Les raked his hand through his wet hair. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to kiss you again all week. I hadn’t realized how much I looked forward to your smiles and blushing when you made your deliveries and flirted with me.” He walked in a tight circle, staying on the towel, obviously frustrated. “Look, can I come all the way in? Or do I have to just stand here dripping?”
Tori slumped against the counter. She closed her eyes slowly before nodding.
He was cold to the touch when he placed his arms around her shoulders. His hand stroked her hair that was already starting to curl against the weight of the water holding it down. She leaned her forehead against his chest. His leather jacket was slick with wet and cool on her burning skin. She hadn’t realized how bad of a headache she had until that moment.
Les curled his cool fingers over the shell of her ear and along the bottom of her jaw. He lifted her chin, tilting her face toward his.
Tori opened her eyes in time to watch Les lower his lids, his impossibly long eyelashes rested against his cheeks as his face descended toward hers. His lips were as cool as the rest of him.
She knew she should resist him. But she still wanted him so bad it ached. She closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss. His lips were soft and pressed against hers. She caught the plumpness of his lower lip with her teeth. Fireworks crashed in her head at the contact. Her head no longer throbbed with pain. Instead, she felt his smooth lips sliding across hers, his tongue caressing hers. Chills raced down her limbs and curled her toes. His lips would temporarily retreat, only to press more fervently against her. Her stomach was nothing but dancing nerves.
Les’s hand caressed the side of her face. “Jesus, Tori you’re burning up. How long were you out there?”
She moaned at the loss of his lips, and as the pounding returned to her head.
“Let’s get you some meds and then out of these wet clothes.”
Tori pointed to the cupboard with the glasses and the ibuprofen bottle.
Les handed her two pills and a glass of water. She tried to sip just enough water to wash down the pills, but he stood over her until she drained the glass.
He took her hand and pulled her down the hall to her bedroom. She should have been floating, Les was walking toward her bedroom. At some point before he kissed her, she had gone numb. Numb from hurting too much, and numb because, as Les pointed out, she was getting sick. She didn’t have any fight left. Les could do what he wanted. She would deal with the fall-out later. He kissed her again. She had no will power of her own.
He sat her on the edge of her bed and helped her out of the wet chambray over-shirt. Next, he pulled her wet T-shirt over her head. He didn’t say much, just asked where he could find a clean shirt for her to put on. If he had really meant that kiss, why wasn’t he saying anything? She was half naked in front of him and all he did was give her his back so she could take her bra off and put the clean shirt on without an audience. When she said she was dressed, he turned back around and helped her peel off her wet jeans.
“I’ll let you finish putting on your pajamas without my assistance. Do you have any sweats I can borrow? I am drenched to the bone.”
Tori pointed to her closet. “There should be some sweats in the stack at the bottom.”
Les pulled out a pair of dark sweats and disappeared into her bathroom. Tori stared at the door. She could hear grunts and thumps as he shifted around, changing. Her mouth went dry as Les stepped back into her bedroom. He pulled the tie cord at the waist and looped a knot in the drawstring. The sweats settled an inch below his hip bones.
Tori let her gaze drift up his torso. Yeah, there was a reason she had crushed so hard on him. He was entirely too good-looking, and then add charming and flirtatious. Swarthy warm skin, muscular build, broad, square shoulders. He was built like a swimmer, long and lean but with muscle definition. When she met his eyes, his expression was kindness and concern. She melted whenever she looked into those dark, dark eyes of his.
“Why are you here, Les?” She didn’t know if she really wanted his answer. She could feel the fever building behind her eyes. Beat up after days of depression and heartache, she could easily fall into this man’s arms and let herself be used.
Les pushed Tori into her bed, and he followed her, pulling covers over them both. “I’m taking care of you. I am still your friend. Even if I’ve been shit at it.”
“You’re an asshole.” Tori sniffed as Les pulled her against his chest.
“Unapologetically so. You think you can put up with me knowing I’m a grade-A idiot? I’m sorry, Tori. I honestly didn’t realize you had asked me on a date. That’s how dumb I am. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You don’t want to lose me as a friend?” She felt the hollow in her stomach return as the friend zone tried to swallow her.
“I never want to lose you as a friend.” He sighed, shifted, and positioned himself to look her in the face. “You not talking to me this week has been a real wake-up call. I don’t want to go through that again. Friends first. Lovers, partners. I never want to lose you.”
The intensity in his eyes frightened her.
“Oh.” She couldn’t hold his gaze and dropped her eyes to his chest. A smattering of chest hairs curled around the otherwise smooth skin between his pecs. “Your intentions are what, exactly?”
Les laughed. The sound rumbled deep in his chest, his naked chest, that she was snuggling against. She felt dumb, but she had made stupid assumptions in the past.
“My intentions are to get some sleep.”
Yep, misread this whole situation.She closed her eyes and dipped her head away from his line of sight. Platonic man doesn’t have a clue how to be a nursemaid without getting physical. Why had she allowed herself to get into this situation? Right, she liked him, despite all the stupidity. She still held on to a tiny glimmer of hope.
“Hopefully you’ll feel better in the morning, so I can kiss you and maybe make love to you.”
Tori’s head snapped up.
Les chuckled. “You don’t feel good, do you? You’ve missed the whole point of me being here. I think I’m in love with you. I want you to have a crush on me again, so I can convince you to fall in love with me. C’mon, let’s get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning, and this will all make sense when your head isn’t feverish.” Les reached up and behind him and snicked her bedside table lamp off.
Tori snuggled against his chest. Les said he thought he was in love with her. This had better be real and not some fever-induced dream.