“Let me go,” I demanded.
“Not a chance,” Hector returned instantly, the blank look disappearing as his eyes flashed with annoyance. Then he said what I personally thought was bizarrely, “Spent a year hopin’ you’d give me the opportunity to try this. Now that you have, I’m gonna take it and we’ll see how it plays out.”
Before I could ask what he was talking about or demand him to let me go again or, better still, tear out of his arms and make a run for it, one of his hands slid up my back into my hair, his head lowered, I opened my mouth to protest and his mouth was on mine.
I put my hands to his shoulders to push him away at the same I pulled my head back but his head came with mine, his tongue slid inside my mouth and (damn and blast!) my Sorceress of the Antarctic disintegrated right on the spot.
His heat hit me (and another kind of heat hit me in other places) and my hands stopped pushing at his shoulders. I went up on tiptoe, my casted hand curled around his neck, the fingers of my other hand slid into his thick hair.
Apparently unable to control myself, I pressed into him and kissed him back.
This was one of his urgent, fiery kisses. The ones that tore through me, taking all reason and rational thought with it and leaving me with nothing but the heat and the desire to lose myself completely in the kiss and in him.
Right when it was getting good and, later, when I thought about it, when I knew that he knew that he had me right where he wanted me, his mouth broke from mine. He lifted his head barely an inch but he kept me locked to him.
His eyes were as fiery as the kiss and back to intense and they scanned my face quickly before he said, “Now that my Sadie is back, I’ll tell her that I’ll be at the gallery to pick her up and take her to the hospital to have the cast removed. I don’t give a f**k if Bex is there, mamita, you aren’t f**kin’ goin’ without me and I won’t be pleased if you make me look for you. I’ll also tell you that tonight, we’re goin’ out to dinner, just the two of us. We’re gonna enjoy the goddamned meal and after we’re gonna have another talk. If I’m not at the gallery to pick you up at closing then I’ll be here at the house at seven.”
I was breathing heavily and trying to sort out my thoughts when he continued.
“You do somethin’ stupid, Sadie, Buddy, Ralphie and I’ll have a conversation and we might have to rethink your situation and you may not like what we come up with. But I’m tellin’ you this, I’m keepin’ you safe and you agreed to let me take care of you and that’s what I’m f**kin’ gonna do whether you like it or not.”
Then without another word he let me go.
I teetered a bit without his arms around me and his body to lean into and before I got myself sorted, he’d walked around me without looking back.
When I turned and stared into the living room doorway, he was nowhere to be seen.
After a couple of seconds, I heard Ralphie ask from the kitchen, “Is she okay?”
“She will be,” was Hector’s very firm and also very annoyed answer.
I closed my eyes.
This was not going well for me.
Not at all.
* * * * *
I stared at my exposed wrist and felt a weird sense of calmness settle in me.
My wrist looked kind of strange but the cast was gone.
I only thought about the cut on my face when I saw myself in a mirror or noticed someone’s gaze on it. I could forget it, sometimes lately for hours.
But for the last five weeks, the cast was a second-by-second reminder of what Ricky Balducci did to me.
And now it was gone.
I pulled in a deep breath as I let the calm settle. One more step toward healing. One more step toward the time when I might go whole days or even weeks without remembering.
“Sadie, girl,” Bex called and I looked up at her and I couldn’t help it, I smiled.
Bex and I were alone in an exam room. They’d taken the cast off then a physical therapist had shown me some exercises to strengthen my wrist. He gave me a squeezy ball and some leaflets filled with instructions and diagrams. He left and the nurse had gone off to get the paperwork for me to sign and then we could go.
Hector was there but outside the room talking on his cell.
As Hector told me, he showed up at Art at ten to two (double-parking again) just in time to take me to the hospital. In preparation (because I figured Hector would do as he said and I was not wrong), I called Bex and asked her to meet us there.