Gloria was close to laughing when her gaze swung to her brother. She said something to him in Spanish, his body grew tighter and Ines and Tia started giggling.
“You do that,” Hector said, his voice as tight as his body, “there’ll be retribution.”
“Bring it on,” Gloria returned, still smiling and not at all scared of Hector’s threatened “retribution”.
Then they hitched their bags over their shoulders, waved at me calling, “Hasta luego,” and they were gone.
Hector let me go and I watched him lock the door behind them. He flipped the light switch and came back to me. Throwing his arm around my shoulders again, he turned me and guided me up the stairs.
“What did she say at the end, before she left?” I asked as we walked up the stairs. I felt weird with his arm around me like that so I put mine around his waist and immediately didn’t feel weird anymore.
“She told me she was gonna tell Mamá you’re here.”
Since, apparently, Blanca knew he was spending the night at my house, I didn’t know why this was a big deal.
“Why is that a big deal?” I asked.
“She tells her, you’ll find out,” Hector said ominously.
Oh no.
We went back to his room, I crawled into bed while he put his gun away and then he joined me, moved into me, turning me so my back was to his front and his arms were around me.
His heat seeped through me and I started to relax, feeling safe, snug, comfy, lovely when he called, “Sadie?”
“Yes?” I replied in a sleepy voice.
“Gloria gets you in the hot tub with her posse, they have any bright ideas, you ignore them and go your own way.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means Gloria, Ines and Tia make Indy and Ally look like amateurs.”
I blinked in the darkness. “Now, what does that mean?”
“Indy has her own police code,” Hector informed me.
Oh my.
* * * * *
I woke to a cold thus, I knew, empty bed.
I rolled, looked at Hector’s side but, sure enough, he was gone. I sat up, pulled my hair out of my face and looked around the room.
No Hector.
Then I realized I had to use the bathroom.
I slid out from under the covers, walked out of the room and down the hall, looking into empty rooms, two more bedrooms (neither of them refinished, one unused save to store more stacked boxes and furniture, the smallest one being utilized as an office), one bath.
When I got in the bathroom, I noticed Hector had already renovated it. A handsome, what looked like top-of-the-line (but what did I know, I was no plumber) bathroom suite and lots of warm, Mexican tile up the walls, cobalt, mustard yellow and terracotta designs against a buttery-cream background.
I did my business and walked down the stairs in search of Hector. I found him in the kitchen.
At the sight of him, I stopped in the doorway.
He was still wearing his cutoff pajama bottoms but he’d added a dark-gray, long-sleeved, skintight thermal. He was standing by the sink on the opposite side of the room, his side was partially turned to the counter, hip resting against it, eyes looking out the window over the sink, coffee cup held aloft but forgotten in front of him.
His mind was on something.
I stared at him and thought for the millionth time that he never looked better.
The kitchen had not been renovated and it looked like an extension of the restoration efforts. Paint brushes and drying rollers lying out on rags on the countertops, buckets on the floor, bags filled with I didn’t know what stacked in the corner.
I must have moved because Hector’s eyes sliced to me, his thoughtful face warmed and he demanded softly, “Come here.”
As if guided by their own personal brain, my feet moved me toward him as I watched him put his mug on the counter. When I got within reaching distance, one of his arms came around my shoulders, the other one around my waist and he curled me into his heat.
His head came down and he gave me a soft, sweet kiss (with tongues) that lasted until my arms slid around his waist and my body melted into his. Then his head lifted.
“You want coffee?” he asked quietly.
Robbed of speech by the kiss, I nodded.
Before he could move, there was a clamor from the other room. A loud clamor.
Our bodies grew tight in unison before we heard Blanca call, “Hola, mi hijo! Dónde estás?”
“Fuck,” Hector muttered.
I stared in horror at Hector’s set face.
“Hector!” Blanca shouted.
“Kitchen!” Hector shouted back.
Oh no.
Someone, please tell me Hector didn’t just tell his mother our whereabouts.
I was standing, in Hector’s t-shirt, in Hector’s arms, in Hector’s kitchen and Blanca (from what I could hear, carrying rustling bags) was headed our way.
My body prepared to flee. Hector’s arms went tight. Blanca filled the kitchen doorframe.
She stared at us a second then shouted as if we were across a football field and not across a room, “Hola!”
I was robbed of speech again, now for a different reason.
“Mamá, Sadie and I want a quiet morning.”
“Bah!” Blanca exploded, bustling in and dropping six (yes, six!) bulging King Soopers bags on the counter. “Sadie needs breakfast. Do you cook, mi hijo? No, you do not cook. Hola Sadie.” She smiled at me and then started to pull food out of the bags.
I watched as the food was revealed and I noted no breakfast-type items. It looked more like she was planning to stock the cupboards before the government announced rationing.
I found my voice. “Um, hola Blanca.”
I felt Hector’s eyes on me and I looked up at him. He was smiling.
Yes, smiling!
I shot him a glare. His body moved with laughter. I did not think this was funny. Instead, I found it mortifying. I pulled out of his arms and put some distance between us.
I’d never been caught in the morning by someone’s mother. If I had dared to bring my boyfriends to my father’s house and they wandered around in their pajama bottoms, my father would have had them executed (this might be a bit over the top but my father really didn’t like to share me and he had loads of suffocating ways to make that terrible fact perfectly clear).
Therefore, awake for approximately ten minutes, I found myself caught in a new predicament and I had no idea what to do.
New Sadie, however, surprisingly knew exactly what to do.
“Can I help?” New Sadie chirped to Blanca.
“Coffee. Black,” Blanca answered.
Still annoyed at him, I shot another glare at Hector and then started opening and closing cupboards to find the mugs. His hand slid around my waist, pulled me into his side, he reached well beyond me and opened the cupboard over the coffeemaker. It was filled with mismatched mugs. I turned my head to give him another glare but this effort failed when his mouth hit mine for a touch on the lips. Then he let me go.
I shrugged off his kiss and got down to the business of coffee. I was in the middle of finishing mugs for Blanca and me (and Hector, who slid his cup beside mine when I was pouring) and wondering how on earth I was going to get through this latest trauma (in a t-shirt, no less!) when I heard a man’s voice call out, “Chavez?”
“Christ, is there a sign on my door that says come, the fuck, in?” Hector muttered.
I noticed at our latest visitor Hector instantly lost his good morning mood and it was Blanca’s turn to shoot him a glare.
But my eyes flew to the kitchen doorway, wondering who this was now (and also wondering why my life couldn’t be the eeniest bit easier) when Hector moved across the room and out of the kitchen.
“Café, mi hija,” Blanca reminded me and I stopped staring at Hector’s departing back and brought her coffee to her.
“What else can I do?” I asked as I heard male voices in
the other room, they were getting closer and my eyes went back to the door.
“Do you cook?” Blanca asked.
“Not really,” I answered somewhat dishonestly. I’d never had to cook much but I did know how to make coffee and toast which was something.
“I’ll teach you,” Blanca assured me, moving around the room, putting away food and pulling out cooking implements.
I was feeling a weird, happy glow at Blanca offering to teach me to cook when Hector walked in. He was followed, to my horror, by the tall, handsome, dark-haired Ren Zano wearing a tailored suit (and wearing it really well, by the way), making me acutely aware that I was wearing nothing but Hector’s t-shirt and a pair of dove gray satin panties which, luckily, you couldn’t see as the shirt hung to mid-thigh.
Please, someone tell me, just… plain… no.
Ren’s eyes scanned the room, coasting across Blanca with a quick, “Mornin’,” and then coming to a halt on me. His face gentled and without hesitation he walked to me, smiling.
“Sadie,” he said softly.
“Ren,” I replied.
To my shock (because he’d never done it before, not once), his arm slid around my waist and he pulled me to his body in a hug. After he was done with the hug, his arm loosened but didn’t let go. I arched back over it, hands on his chest and looked up at him.
Eyes on my face, he murmured, “Beautiful as ever.”
Oh my God.
He’d never done that before either! What was that all about?
I searched for the Ice Princess.
The Ice Princess never much liked coming out around Ren (although, of course, she did) but this time she flatly refused.
That was why New Sadie asked, “Are you well?”
“Yeah,” he returned.
I smiled at him. “Good.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth then his lips formed a grin. “Jesus, Sadie, never seen you smile,” he remarked.
I cocked my head in confusion. “I’m sure you have,” I replied.
His eyes moved back to mine. “Trust me, I would have remembered.”
It was then I felt the electric current snapping through the room right before I heard Hector, his voice not happy, saying in the form of a question but meaning it in the form of a demand, “Zano, you wanna step back?”
I realized Ren still had an arm around me right before he dropped it and stepped back.
Both Ren and I looked across the room.
Hector was standing, feet planted, arms crossed, eyes dark and looking beyond unhappy. So beyond unhappy, he looked downright angry.
No, one could say he’d gone right past downright unhappy to pretty extreme fury.
Blanca had a similar expression and she was holding a wooden spoon, a wooden spoon I thought she had a mind to use for something other than cooking.
“Chavez, you know Sadie’s a friend,” Ren told Hector in a low, placating tone.
“Yeah, but now she’s a friend you don’t put your hands on,” Hector replied.
Oh my.
Why was he being so rude? This was Ren Zano we were talking about! Ren was a very nice man. There was no reason to be rude.
“Hector –” I started and Hector’s eyes cut to me. The minute I saw the look in them, for self-preservation’s sake I snapped my mouth shut.
“Coffee and we finish our talk in the other room,” Hector told Ren.
“I’ll get the coffee,” I offered quickly and jumped to get Ren’s coffee, needing something to do to keep my mind off the look in Hector’s eyes. I asked Ren’s coffee preference, hurried through the preparation and handed him his mug. He smiled his thanks, nodded to a still-frowning, closely-watching Blanca and walked from the room.
Then I gave Hector his mug, got scorched by a Hector glare that made my lungs burn and he walked from the room too.
I picked up my own mug and tried to stop my hands from shaking and my heart from racing. I took a sip and realized I also had to stop breathing so heavily. I was panting like I’d just run a race.
That’s when I noticed Blanca’s eyes were on me.
“I think I made Hector mad,” I blurted before I thought better of it.
Something flashed across her face, it looked like anger, warring with confusion, warring with compassion then she asked, “You think?”
“I…” I started, stopped and walked the five steps to Blanca. “What did I do?” I finished on a whisper.
I watched her face soften as compassion won and she put a hand on my arm. “My Hector, he’s a little hotheaded. You have to handle that boy with care. Queridita, first lesson, you don’t let a man touch you, ever. If Hector’s there to see it or he’s not. But especially if he’s there to see it. Sí?”
The light dawned. I might be fledgling New Sadie in my head but in his head, I was His Sadie. Period, dot, the end.
I nodded to Blanca.
She patted my arm and went back to cooking. I grabbed my mug and went back to sipping, finding I was so uncomfortable with the idea of making Hector angry at me that it made my heart hurt.
Ren materialized at the door and jutted his chin at me. “Sadie, I’m leaving.”
I decided my safest bet was to stay all the way across the room from him and this was exactly what I did.
“Bye, Ren,” I said on a wave.
Ren grinned at me like he thought I was funny, his eyes moved to Blanca and he said his good-byes. Then he was gone and Hector was in the doorframe, his gaze was still scorching and it was on me.
“Mamita, a word.”
It was not a request and he didn’t wait for my response, he turned and moved away as I heard the front door open and close behind Ren.
I stood frozen to the spot. Then my eyes flew to Blanca.
She gave me a reassuring wink (which didn’t reassure me) and gestured to the door with her spoon.
I pulled in my lips, put down my mug, took a deep breath and searched for Hector who was not in the living room, not in the cluttered other rooms but upstairs, in his bedroom. He was waiting at the door and the minute I cleared it, he threw it to.
Blooming heck!
He opened his mouth but before he could say a word, I launched in.
“He’s never touched me before. I swear it. It weirded me out!” I cried. “Honest to God, I wouldn’t even call him a friend. More an acquaintance. The Ice Princess always protected me from people getting near. When he hugged me, I tried to call her up but she was just gone. She keeps disappearing these days. Even when I need her. I’m used to having her around. I know you cannot imagine but, Hector, believe me, it’s beyond annoying.”
I stopped talking when I noticed that he’d stopped looking angry. Instead, his eyes had warmed and his mouth was doing the fighting-a-grin thing.
I replayed what I said, my hands clenched into fists, my eyes closed tight as my body went stock-still and waves of embarrassment flowed over me.
I’d done it. Now he knew everything.
How did I let that happen?
He was going to think I was absolutely, certifiably, insane.
Then I found myself snatched into strong arms, my soft body colliding with his hard one and his face went into my neck. I opened my eyes as he turned me and started walking me backward toward the bed his arms still locked around me.
Well, maybe he didn’t think I was certifiably insane. But I was beginning to think he was.
His mood swings were just bizarre.
The backs of my legs hit the bed, he stopped us and his mouth moved to my ear.
“Mamita,” his voice was rough with what sounded like laughter and something else altogether, “you think you could handle my mouth between your legs without freakin’ out?”
The legs he wanted to put his mouth between turned to water.
“What?” I whispered.
His head came up, his eyes were burning into mine (now, in a different way) and my breath caught at the sight.
“I gotta have a taste of you and I gotta watch yo
u come, I don’t…”
My fingers at his waist dug in and at that second if he let me go I’d collapse in a puddle at his feet.
“Your mother is downstairs,” I breathed.
Hector’s mouth came to mine. “The walls are thick.”
“She’ll wonder what we’re doing!”
“No she won’t,” he returned.
“I won’t be able to concentrate.” I kept trying.
I felt his mouth smile against mine. “Mi corazón, you won’t need to concentrate.”
Oh my.
That got a stomach pitch.
Even so, I kept at it. “I can’t, not now. Maybe later.”
His mouth moved away an inch. “Yeah?”
Oh my God!
What had I done now?
I had to keep at it. My hands went to his shoulders, my heart skipped a beat, I ignored my heart and nodded.
Before I could go back on my promise, he kissed me quickly and muttered, “Pack a bag, you’re spendin’ the night again. We’ll try it, you can’t deal, we’ll stop and watch a movie.”
“Okay,” I said but my stomach was twisting, my heart was in my throat and I was having difficulty breathing. This was partially panic but it was also partially anticipation and I wondered which one would win that night.
Hector watched my face and his arms got tight. “Sadie, seriously, you can’t deal, you tell me, we stop,” he repeated in a way I knew he meant it.
The partial panic disappeared and before I thought better of it, I leaned into him, tilted my head back further and smiled.
His face warmed, his mouth descended, he gave me one of his slow, sweet kisses (with tongues), my toes started curling, we heard a muted, “Hola! Anyone home?” and Hector groaned his frustration in my mouth.
His head came up briefly but he leaned back in, gave me a quick kiss and told me, “Get dressed, mamita, that’s my sister Rosa. Gloria’s been busy.”
I did not think this was a good thing and the look on Hector’s face confirmed it.
He let me go, I watched as he grabbed some clothes and then left the room.
I dressed but while I did so I heard two more “holas” (one male, the other female) and I searched for my Ice Princess thinking maybe just a hint of her would get me through breakfast with the Chavez Family.
My Ice Princess was feeling lazy so by the time I was dressed (all but my shoes, barefoot was the only way to go or I’d look like a snooty, Rich Bitch Freak), I knew it was just me, Sadie, who was going to face Hector’s family.
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