“Hector, please,” I whispered, my voice a mixture of begging and demanding, “Please… fuck me.”
I watched his eyes grow dark then his head slanted, his mouth took mine in another wet, hungry kiss and he did as I asked, wild and rough, until, minutes later, almost at the same time, we both exploded.
It was hard and hot and so overpowering, I moaned deep into his mouth as my body convulsed beneath his.
It took what seemed like forever to come down, tremors coursing through me as I concentrated on Hector, his body still pressing into mine, his breathing on my neck, going slowly from heavy to soft.
His weight bore down on me and I realized, to my surprise, that after the intensity of what we just shared, I felt even more snugly, warm, safe and comfy than I ever had before when I was with him (which was to say, ever in my life).
And, obviously, that was saying something.
That was, I felt more snugly, warm, safe and comfy until he spoke, his voice deep, husky and utterly satisfied.
“This is who I wanted to find, the girl from that night. I knew she was fuckin’ in there, I just didn’t know I’d have her this soon.”
It felt like he’d shoved an icicle in my heart.
No.
Please.
No.
That was not me.
There were loads of Sadies but that wasn’t one of them.
Was it?
A brazen hussy, throwing myself at him and begging him to fuck me?
The Society Slut who went slumming?
Did he think that was me?
Was that what he wanted?
I didn’t want him to want that.
Then it hit me.
The rose on his back which he wanted to put on his arm.
He had the broken heart from Belinda to remind him not to let the desires of his body cloud his judgment.
He had the skull to celebrate taking down my father.
Neither of these things were good, loving, comfy, snugly, warm things.
They represented a hard earned lesson and the victory of a hard fought, dangerous battle.
Maybe the rose didn’t mean what I thought it meant.
Or, more accurately, what I wanted to believe it to mean.
Maybe the rose represented another challenge.
Maybe I was right weeks ago when he was in my hospital room.
Maybe he was with me to finish the job, the job he started that night in my father’s study and would have finished if I hadn’t walked away from him.
The job of conquering me.
That night, I’d walked away from him, disdainful and bitchy, leaving him hard and wanting, and he’d been furious, furious enough to call me a cock tease.
Maybe it was payback time.
Well, he just paid me back. He’d spent a night paying me back.
And that was all he was going to get.
He could have his rose now and he could remember, every time he looked at it, that he won.
I knew he felt my change when his head came up.
He called softly, “Sadie?”
I looked at his throat and even I heard the change in my voice, betraying (damn and blast!) my feelings.
“I need to shower,” I told him, my voice soft but tight.
Hector’s body went tense. “Mamita, look at me.”
My eyes moved to his.
His were searching.
I had no idea what mine were.
Then he murmured, “She’s gone.”
Well, that told me what he saw in my eyes.
“I’m right here,” I lied in order to cover. I’d think about this later, maybe when YoYo was lying beside me in bed so I’d have something else to keep my snugly, comfy, warm (if not safe, I didn’t expect a pug could keep me safe).
Then again, I’d kidded myself when I thought Hector wanted to keep me safe.
He was just like everyone else, after something, using me to get what he wanted.
I watched as he shook his head and looked like he was getting annoyed. “You’re gone.”
I tried to soften my features, to make him believe he still had me until I was well away from him and somewhere safe.
“No, I’m not,” I replied.
At my words, he no longer looked like he was getting annoyed, he looked like he was definitely annoyed and I guessed my efforts at softening my features didn’t work.
“Don’t lie to me, Sadie.”
Well, now he sounded like he was definitely annoyed too.
Then he clipped, “Why?”
Yes, definitely annoyed.
“Why what?”
“Where’d she go and why’d she go?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about.”
I decided it was time to try a stare down.
This failed.
Then I decided to try something new and pushed at his shoulders. “Hector, get off. I have to get to work.”
This failed too.
“You have to fuckin’ talk to me,” he returned.
“About what?” I asked, fear and desperation making my tone short and clipped.
Hector stared at me then he muttered, “God damn it,” as he gave up and rolled to the side.
I lost his weight, his warmth and the connection of our bodies.
I felt this loss somewhere so deep, so important, it penetrated like a blade, changing something, something crucial to my world, severing it in a way I knew would never heal.
“At least tell me you’re on the pill,” Hector finished and the wound intensified, the severed edges of it cauterizing because I knew then.
I knew.
He wanted no connection to me. Once this was done, whatever challenge he’d set for himself was won, he wanted no connection. Once he had his fill, he’d be gone and, like my Mom, like my father, like any friend I’d ever had and both my ex-boyfriends, I’d lose him too.
“I’m on the pill.” I whispered then rolled, wondering if I could make it into my clothes without dying of mortification.
I barely got to my side, definitely not up on an arm, before he tagged me at the waist and yanked my back into his heat.
His mouth at my neck, he warned, his voice low and angry, “Whatever Sadie I’m talkin’ to, all of ‘em have to know, this isn’t done.”
My heart sunk.
I was afraid of that.
* * * * *
“Wait here a minute,” Hector said, his still-annoyed gaze slicing from me, to Shirleen then he walked to the door that led to the inner rooms of Nightingale Investigations.
I looked at Shirleen who was sitting behind the reception desk. Her gaze was resting on the door closing behind Hector. Then she looked at me and her brows went up.
* * * * *
I’d spent the day keeping busy.
After the fantastic “fuck me” sex, and the heartbreaking incident afterward, getting ready for work at Hector’s house was an eensy bit uncomfortable.
This was because Hector was seriously angry (I didn’t know what he had to be angry about, I wasn’t using him as a difficultly procured notch on my bedpost after which I’d tattoo something on my arm (I didn’t know what I’d tattoo to remind me of Hector but I was thinking a black panther because that’s the only thing that would do him justice)).
I knew he had his anger in check because he wasn’t throwing cell phones into margarita pitchers (or the like). However, I also knew he barely had it in check so I decided to stay well out of his way.
This proved the wrong decision. The more I tried to avoid him, the less he seemed in control of his anger. I didn’t understand this reaction, but (for obvious reasons), I didn’t ask.
He dropped me off at the brownstone and I thought, considering his temper still hadn’t cooled, that would be that. However, that wasn’t that because he kissed me at the door.
Yes!
Kissed me!
This was not like any o
ther kiss he’d given me. His fingers drove into my hair, cupping the back of my head, tilting it up and using it to pull me forward. I fell into him, my hand at his chest, and his mouth came down on mine hard. It was an angry kiss and because of that, so hot and intense, it stole my breath and my ability to stand on my own two feet.
When my hand was clutching his shirt at his chest, my other arm was wrapped around his waist and my torso was plastered to his, his head came up and he scorched me with a Hector Glare.
“Ten to four, I’ll pick you up at the gallery. Don’t make any fuckin’ plans tonight,” he ordered, his voice deep, low and vibrating with unhappy emotion.
Before I could remind him about YoYo’s arrival and my plan to be there when we got the dog, he was gone, leaving me swaying unsteadily in his wake.
“Holy Hot Blooded Latinos, sweets, what on earth was that all about?” Ralphie asked, wide eyes on the door.
My head was beginning to pound. Three nights of interrupted sleep and weeks of intense emotion were getting to me. After all that fantastic sex (four times!), I should have been relaxed and lose enough to do gymnastics. Instead, I was wound up tight.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I told Ralphie.
And I really, really didn’t.
“But –” Ralphie started.
I shot him a pleading look. “Please, please, Ralphie. I need quiet. I need peace. And, above all, I need time to get my head together.”
Ralphie snapped his mouth shut, looking at me closely. I knew he was dying to know what was going on. Instead, he nodded and, to my shock, he left me alone all day to get my head together.
And get it together I did.
I formed several plans of action.
Depending on what Hector’s next move was, mine would be a move to do one thing.
Protect myself until I could disappear.
And off to Crete I’d go. I’d tell Bex where to find me, she could tell Detective Marker how to get hold of me if the police needed me, but, other than that, I was gone.
As for finding my Mom, well, Lee Nightingale wasn’t the only private investigator in the world. There were others. I’d hire one of them, find Mom and bring her to me and she and I would eat souvlaki and pita bread (or whatever) and I’d work my way through all the Greek men on Crete who took my fancy but I wouldn’t give a single one of them my heart.
No fucking way.
My heart was for me and me alone and, obviously, my Mom (when I found her), and Ralphie and Buddy, who I’d keep contact with of course, and, maybe, Daisy and the Rock Chicks, if I could manage that without the involvement of Hector.
As for Hector, I knew the Ice Princess didn’t work, so I settled on another strategy. I knew it would cost me but I was willing to pay the price.
There was going to be a New New Sadie. I was calling her Pretend Sadie and she was going to protect me.
It would make it easier in the long run, even though it would be far more difficult for the short one.
But I could do it. I lived twenty-nine years with my father pretending to be someone I was not. I could live a few weeks guarding my heart from Hector “Oh my God” Chavez.
And guard it I would.
* * * * *
At ten to four, Hector picked me up from the gallery.
I was kind of hoping that he’d cool off by the time he came but one look at him told me this was absolutely not the case.
So be it.
I could work with that.
There was only one hitch on the way to the Nightingale Investigations offices. They were just around the corner from Art, maybe two blocks away. Still, Hector drove it and as we approached the entrance to the garage, I audibly sucked in breath.
I’d forgotten about the garage.
My last time in the garage had not been a happy memory.
I wasn’t ready to go back there again.
Hector heard me, he muttered, “Fuck,” under his breath, pulled out of his approach and rounded the block, parking on the street.
With effort, I forced my body to relax.
Before getting out, his hand wrapped around my neck and he turned me to face him. He was leaning toward me but not as close as he normally got. I noticed this and it made something ugly twist inside me, something which I firmly set aside.
“I didn’t think, the garage –” he said to me, his eyes were masked but his voice was soft.
“That’s okay,” I replied quickly.
He didn’t let me go and his eyes scanned my face.
“Who’s with me now?” he asked.
“Me,” I answered immediately.
His eyes narrowed. “Which ‘me’?”
“Me, me,” I replied, as if there had always been only one (hardly!).
This answer didn’t make him happy and that’s when he got as close as he normally did.
I held my breath and braced (it was a good thing too).
“If I didn’t know it was worth it. If I didn’t know from what happened last night and, whatever the fuck you thought it was, mamita, what happened this morning. And if I didn’t like your hands in my hair holding my mouth to you, the smell of your fuckin’ perfume when I’m buried inside you and the way you lose that tight-as-shit control over every fuckin’ move you make when you get excited and you use your nails and teeth on me, I’d give up, because, mamita, you are one serious pain in the ass.”
I hadn’t planned for a speech like that (I ask you, who would?). Nor had I planned for how it made my heart race (damn and blast!), my stomach pitch (more damning and blasting!) or the area between my legs to tingle (damn and blast it all to hell!) or, contradictory to all this, how it made me want to give him a good sock in the gut. So I thought my best bet was to pull in my lips and try to look ashamed of my pain in the ass behavior.
This didn’t work. He shook his head in an annoyed way, let me go, we got out of the Bronco and walked up to the office.
However angry he was, he held my hand the whole way, now, how bizarre was that?
* * * * *
I took in Shirleen’s raised brows but pretended I didn’t see them.
Shirleen saw my pretending and thought it was bullshit.
“All right, tell Shirleen, what in the fuck is goin’ on?” She lifted her hand and her thumb jerked to the door Hector just walked through. “That boy has been in a foul mood all day. Now, foul moods aren’t unusual with Hector, he’s moody but he’s edgy. A boy’s edgy, you gotta give him room for the moods; it comes with the territory. If he’s good at his job, would put down his life for the boys and he ain’t difficult to look at, like Hector, you do things like that. But this is different. Everyone’s been givin’ him a wide berth all day. Even Luke, Vance, Lee and Mace and those boys ain’t scared of nothin’.”
I had to admit, I kind of felt better that badasses Luke, Vance, Lee and Mace also thought Hector’s “foul” mood was worthy of wide berth and I wasn’t a total wuss.
I looked at Shirleen and realized she actually expected an answer.
“Um…” I hedged.
“Ain’t no ‘ums’ with Shirleen. He’s pissed way the fuck off and you look like, like… I don’t know what you look like but somethin’ ain’t right.”
“Well…” I started then I stopped.
She waited.
I stayed silent (really, what could I say?).
“That’s it,” she announced. I watched as she stabbed a button on her phone with a frosted-apricot fingernail and I heard a dial tone coming from the speaker. Then she hit another one and the speed dial engaged and a rapid succession of tones could be heard then a ring then two then a voice came on the line.
“How’s it hangin’, sugar?” Daisy answered the phone.
“Shit’s gone down with Hector and Sadie. Sadie’s standin’ here, cat’s got her tongue and Hector’s gone electric,” Shirleen declared and I was also quite pleased I wasn’t the only one to feel Hector’s angry electric current, it made me feel less of a freak.
“Oh shit,” Daisy’s voice said.
Boy, she could say that again.
“Powwow. Fortnum’s. Tomorrow at noon. We’re gonna get this shit sorted,” Shirleen decreed and I felt panic seize me as I hadn’t planned for this either.
“But, I –” I started and Shirleen’s hand whipped up, palm out to face me and, since she was scaring me a little bit, my mouth snapped shut.
“Gotcha, I’ll get the phone tree activated,” Daisy’s voice said.
Phone tree?
The Rock Chicks had a phone tree?
Battle stations!
“Really, I –” I started again but stopped when Shirleen’s brows snapped together (so much for my puny battle stations) and Daisy’s voice came over the phone.
“No back talk, comprende?” Daisy warned. “Be there or face Rock Chick consequences.”
I had no idea what Rock Chick consequences were but, then again, I didn’t want to know.
“Oh, all right,” I gave in.
How bad could it be, a powwow?
I’d survived worse, heck, I was surviving worse at that very moment!
The door opened and Hector came through.
“It’s time, mamita,” he announced.
See what I mean?
“Tomorrow, noon,” Daisy’s voice reminded me.
“All right,” I responded, making my slow way toward Hector who was waiting for me, holding open the door.
“Noon,” Shirleen repeated to my back.
That back went straight, my head whipped around and, for the sake of my pride, I snapped, “All right!”
This, for some bizarre reason, made Shirleen grin.
“Well, all right,” she muttered through her grin.
Blooming heck!
Why was my life so difficult?
Chapter Sixteen
Uglier and Uglier
Sadie
“Have a seat, Sadie,” Tom said on a welcoming smile when I entered Lee Nightingale’s office for the second time in my life.
They were all there, Tom, Eddie, Lee, Hank and Vance. They were all standing and they were all looking at me with carefully closed faces.
Oh boy.