Rock Chick Regret (Rock Chick #7)(88)

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 c**k 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 f**k 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 f**kin’ 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 “f*ck 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.