When Love Happens (16 page)

They thrust and moved as if they were having sex, but there were way too many clothes in
the way. As if reading his mind, she tugged his shirt up his back. He broke the kiss long enough to pull it up over his head and throw it aside. Her mouth opened on his chest, her lips and tongue wreaking mayhem over his heated flesh.

He cupped the back of her head and brought her lips to his once more, assaulting her mouth with months of unanswered need and want. They fell back onto the bed,
and her hands splayed over his shoulder blades and caressed his back until settling on his hips. She pulled him into her as she thrust up.

Their movements grew more frenzied, hips and hands and mouths working in a desperate attempt to feel more. He tore his mouth from hers and licked his way to her breasts. She arched up against him, silently begging. Until she wasn’t silent.

“Sean.” She moaned
softly, her fingers tangling in his hair. He cupped her breast and suckled the soft flesh spilling from the top of her bra. But it wasn’t enough. He slipped his hand beneath her and she came up off the bed to give him access. With a few artful flicks of his fingers, her bra came loose and joined their discarded clothes God-knew-where.

Her breasts were small but full and round, with the most delicious
pink nipples. He pulled one into his mouth, sucking hard and wringing a cry from her throat. She curled her legs around his thighs. The sounds of him tormenting her breast and her answering cries of approval filled the room, stirring his lust even hotter. He hadn’t forgotten how this was with her, but instead of a dark, distant memory, it was present. It was real. It was more than he’d ever
dreamed possible.

Her hands came between them, and she worked to open his jeans. “Stupid button,” she slurred.

Sean lifted his head and looked down at her face. Her brow was furrowed, her lips twisted in concentration. He remembered she was absolutely crocked, and he was not
that guy
. “Tori, we should stop.”

She frowned up at him. “Why?”

“You’re drunk. As much as I’m into this—and don’t doubt
for a second that I want you like crazy—I want you to be sure you want me, too.”

“I do. Duh.” Her lips spread into a sexy grin. “I’m trying to take your pants off.”

He wanted to laugh, but he needed to extract himself from this situation before it was too late. “And I promise you can. Just not tonight.” He gently pulled her legs from around his hips and climbed off the bed.

“You’re a party
pooper,” she muttered, already sounding like she was half asleep.

He unbuttoned her pants and pulled them from her. Her muscles went limp. He picked his T-shirt up off the floor and drew it over her head. Then he pulled the covers from under her and tucked her in. She curled away from him, her deep breathing filling the room as she fell completely into slumber.

He stared down at her a long moment
and wondered what tonight had been about. After her antics of the last day, he didn’t know what was going on. Hopefully tomorrow he’d find out.

G
RAY LIGHT NUDGED
into Tori’s consciousness. She rolled to her back. The slight movement brought pain to her head and an unsettling discomfort to her insides. How much had she drunk last night? Four, five glasses of wine? Plus the beer. Gah, she didn’t know the last time she’d imbibed so much.

She blindly reached for the nightstand and the bottle of water she’d staged there
the night before. Her hand met nothing but air and then an alarm clock and then her phone, which she inadvertently knocked to the floor.

Memory flooded her mind; she hadn’t put a water bottle there because she’d gotten too drunk first. Cursing herself, she slowly opened her eyes. What time was it? Bracing herself, she turned her head to look at the clock. Eleven fifty-one. Damn, she hadn’t slept
that late in ages.

She needed water stat. First, however, she had to summon the ability to actually sit up, and right now that seemed impossible without having her head explode and perhaps vomiting.

You can do this.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and was instantly smacked with Sean’s special cologne. She opened her eyes and realized she was wearing his shirt. Straining her brain, she
tried to remember what happened. She’d flirted with him. He’d carried her into the bedroom. Then she’d kissed him.

That had
not
been her plan.

To his credit, he’d called things off before too much had happened, at least that’s what she remembered. She had no recollection of how she’d ended up wearing his shirt, which meant she’d passed out. Had he taken advantage? No, she might contend they
didn’t know each other very well, but she was certain he would never do that. And she wasn’t even sure she believed that anymore—last night they’d shared memories, he’d recognized when she’d had too much to drink, he’d taken care of her. They knew each other better than she wanted to admit.

Moving as slowly as possible, she hoisted herself into a sitting position. Once there, she waited until
the room settled down before standing. That took considerably more effort. The floor tilted, and she reached for the headboard to stabilize herself. The bed beckoned her to return, but she needed water more than anything else.

With arduous, trudging steps, she made her way to the door. She opened it and peered into the living room, but it was empty. Exhaling a sigh of relief that she was alone,
she shuffled to the kitchen, where she knew the fridge held at least a half dozen bottles of water.

Before she reached it, however, the front door opened to reveal Sean dressed in a cycling outfit. His hair was mussed, and he smelled of fresh air and sweat. It reminded her of a great run. She loved that smell.

“You’re up,” he said, smiling. “Can I get you something?”

“Just water.” Her head
throbbed with a burst of pain as if to say,
what about me
? “And maybe some Tylenol or something.”

“I can do both of those things.” He shut the door and stepped inside, dropping his cycling shoes on the floor. “Here, why don’t you sit down?” His hand grazed her lower back as he guided her toward the living room.

“I’ll just sit here.” She pulled at one of the stools tucked under the kitchen bar.

He situated it for her and helped her sit. “Water and Tylenol coming up.”

She sat mute while he moved into the bathroom and then the kitchen. He opened the bottle of water and set it before her with a pair of pills. “Is that enough, or do you need more?”

“It’s fine.” She downed the pills and half the water. Her stomach protested the invasion, and she set her hand flat on the counter to steady
herself.

“You okay?”

“I’m good.”

He gave her a cynical stare. “You’re hungover.”

“Maybe.”

“Are we going back to the way things were yesterday? You pretending?”

Damn, if he was aware of that, her entire plan was in danger of crashing and burning. Operation Divorce Me needed a new phase if she had any hope of getting Sean out of her life. Her brain tried to think of something, but she was
too fried at the moment. She just kept staring at him and thinking how gorgeous he was; she particularly appreciated the way those bike shorts hugged his thighs—thighs she’d encircled last night. She’d almost forgotten how good they felt against hers . . . Reality intruded on fantasy as she took in his clothing.

Shit.

“Did you go for a ride?”

He nodded as he swallowed a long drink of water.
“With your dad. I went over there this morning to have breakfast, and he was just getting ready to go out. He invited me to join him. He’s a total rock star. I could barely keep up.”

She tried to think of how to bolster her plan, but her pounding head was making coherent thought difficult.

As if sensing the depth of her misery, he looked at her with concern. “I’d ask what we should do today,
but I think you might need some R and R.” He set his water on the counter. “We could just hang out and watch movies, if that sounds good. I was hunting around your on-demand cable this morning and saw the latest Wes Anderson movie’s available.”

She recalled that they shared a deep love of Anderson’s quirky characters. A hazy memory from last night, of realizing they maybe knew each other better
than she’d thought, washed over her. It didn’t matter. The marriage was still long distance, and being with Sean still made her think of losing Alex—didn’t it? “I’ve seen it,” she said, summoning her inner ice queen to keep him and her emotions at bay. And she had, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t watch it again. Or a dozen more times.

“Well, there are other choices.”

She heard the disappointment
in his tone and felt terrible. But wasn’t her goal to make him find her so repulsive that he’d ask for a divorce without bothering with his obnoxious TV show?

“I think I’ll take your advice and go for rest and relaxation. I might just go back to bed.”

“You should probably eat something. Maybe some toast. Do you want me to bring you a slice?” Why did he have to be so great?

For a moment, she
envisioned this as a real marriage. She drank a little too much, he took care of her, they snuggled on the couch and spent the day just sharing each other’s company. That sounded so divine . . . but then she remembered who he was and why she was trying to make him go away. He was the man she’d leaped headfirst into a lifelong commitment with at the same moment her brother had needed her to be there
for him. Their impulsive, long-distance marriage would’ve been a challenge in any situation, but factor in Alex’s suicide, and it was completely DOA.

“It’s okay, I think I’ll just snag a box of crackers.”

He went to a cupboard and grabbed one, sliding it over the counter toward her. “Here. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“I don’t need anything else,” she said wearily. “I just want to
be alone. There was a reason our relationship was long distance—I like my space.” She snatched up the crackers and her water bottle and walked back to the bedroom as quickly as her aching head and churning stomach would allow.

She hated what she was doing, but damn it, she didn’t know what else to do. He’d dredged up so many emotions, so much angst, and she needed all of it to go away. She’d
crafted a nice cocoon for herself over the past several months, and inside of it she was safe and protected. She was also aloof and lonely. And she had to acknowledge it kind of sucked.

A
FTER SHOWERING AND
trying to do some work at the apartment, Sean had decided he needed a change of venue to get his head on straight. Just when he thought he’d figured Tori out, she went and did something new
that completely threw him off. Like drag him into bed with her and then treat him like anathema.

His ride with Rob Archer had been great. He loved beer and bicycles, two of Sean’s favorite things. He also loved his family, and that alone vaulted him to superdad status. Sean missed his dad, and spending time with Rob reminded him just how much. It also eased the ache of being apart from his parents,
at least for a while.

They’d steered clear of in-depth discussion regarding Tori, which had suited Sean fine. What could he say?
I’d like to try a real marriage—I always have—and she’d rather call it quits without even bothering
. Her family would figure that out all on their own, without him spelling it out.

Another topic Sean had avoided was the television show. He wasn’t sure if Rob knew about
it, and Sean decided he didn’t want to bring it up. What if Rob was against it? Better to ensure some of the siblings, namely Kyle, were on board first.

Sean drove into Ribbon Ridge and gravitated toward The Arch and Vine, the Archers’ flagship brewpub in the heart of town. It seemed you could take a boy out of England, but you couldn’t take England out of the boy; when you couldn’t think of
where to go, you ended up at the pub.

He parked down the street and locked the car before heading toward the wood and brick building. A stone archway framed the door, and an old-fashioned painted wooden sign like he would expect to see back at home hung over the walk. He went inside and was struck by the interior’s charm and warmth. A large square bar sat in the center of the space, with booths
and tables surrounding it. Windows dotted two walls, and the wall to his left was covered with a detailed painting of a medieval street that could have been straight out of the Cotswolds. He smiled, feeling right at home.

“Sit wherever you like,” said the bartender loudly toward Sean. He stood behind the tap and pulled a beer, which he slid to a customer seated at the bar.

Sean went to the bar
and took one of the cushioned stools. The man came over and slapped a menu in front of Sean. “What can I get you?”

He’d tried a handful of their beers at the Oktoberfest celebration last weekend, but there were still a few he ought to sample. He studied the menu.

The bartender, a man in his sixties, leaned on the bar. “If you want, I can get you a sampler—three beers, six ounces each.”

“Brilliant.
I’ll take Popinjay, Apollo, and Shaft.” He was most excited about the Shaft, which was a stout. “The names are hilarious; who comes up with those?”

The bartender drew his beers from the tap and arranged them on a board with cutouts for the glasses. “One of the Archer kids.”

“Oh, which one?” The man looked at him skeptically through his glasses, and Sean realized that he probably thought it was
a personal question from a seemingly random customer. But was it okay for him to announce himself as Tori’s husband?

“Wait a minute,” the bartender said. “Are you Tori’s husband, the Brit?”

Sean blinked. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“I’m George.” He offered his hand over the bar and gave Sean a hearty shake. “I’ve known the Archers since they were ankle-biters. Derek was in yesterday, and he mentioned
you.”

Apparently he wasn’t a secret at all anymore. Ironic, now that he was probably on his way out.

Sean tried the Popinjay, a Belgian-style ale with a hoppy finish. “This is fantastic. Rob really knows how to craft a brew.”

“That he does. People can’t believe he still comes up with just about every beer we produce across our nine pubs.”

Sean folded his arms on the bar. “‘Just about’?”

“Once in a while an employee comes up with a good one. A few years back, he had a great assistant brewer. She came up with this incredible blonde ale—we still make Legolas at several of the pubs and everywhere in the summer.”

He chuckled. “Legolas—that’s a great name, too.”

“Alex always came up with the names. Not sure who does it now. But then, I think we’ve only had a couple of new beers this
year—one that was already in development when he died and the special one for the annual Brewer’s Fest in Portland.”

“Well, they’re sure creative.” Sean tried the Apollo next. It was extra bitter with a great foam.

“That was Alex. He was a writer—did all of the writing stuff for Archer.” He leaned over and lowered his voice. “I think he tried to write a novel, but I don’t know what ever happened
to that.” He straightened. “I guess we’ll never know. A shame.”

Sean held up the glass of Apollo in silent toast and took a drink. He’d never met Alex, but he felt as if he knew him. Of all the Archers, Tori had talked about him and Evan the most. “He has a nice legacy, though, with the monastery they’re renovating and just with his family. I don’t have any brothers or sisters. My memory could
simply fade into nothingness.” Damn, when had he turned into a maudlin bastard?

George looked at him with a curious glint in his eye, as if he were wondering the same thing, but he didn’t say so; instead he asked what Sean did for a living, and they talked about that for a few minutes.

“Did you ever watch their show?” he asked. “Eh, probably not since you were in England.”

“I’ve seen it recently,
actually. Just a few episodes. They were funny kids.”

“Oh, they were a riot, especially Kyle and Tori. They were the real stars of that show. Liam was, too, but he’s got a more serious vein than the two of them. And boy did they love it. Kyle was so upset when they didn’t renew it for another season. Tori was, too, though she tried to hide how she really felt.”

“Is that right?” Sean had the
impression she hadn’t liked the show, which hadn’t carried over to the show itself. George was right in that she shined with humor and the ability to absolutely command the spotlight. “I liked the episode where she directed everyone in a production of some kid movie that had just come out—something about ants who hired a circus to drive away the evil grasshoppers.” He was usually great with movie
titles, but this one escaped his brain.

“
A Bug’s Life
. Tori was obsessed with that movie. I remember her dressing up as the lead girl ant for Halloween that year.” George chuckled. “If memory serves, she and that bug had a lot in common.”

Now Sean remembered; the ant was a princess, who was in training to be the new queen. She was driven, loyal to her family, and eager to lead. “Yes, Tori is
a lot like that ant.” He moved on to the Shaft and closed his eyes in appreciation. “Now this is a magnificent beer.”