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 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).