“Do you want to know what I think of you now?” he asked.

I really didn’t, I wasn’t sure I could take it but for some bizarre reason I nodded again anyway.

“I think you’re even more beautiful and I think you’re totally lost.”

My brows went up. “And you think you can help me find my way?”

He shook his head, his eyes went warm and I got another neck squeeze coupled with a tightening of his arm around my waist.

“Mamita, only you can find your way. I just wanna be along for the ride.”

My belly went warm and I decided in that instant, in that house with Hector, after he said those words, that before I left this life behind forever, I’d give myself one more gift.

And on that decision, I leaned forward and kissed him.

It wasn’t a peck on the lips, it was a kiss and just like the first time I threw myself at him, he caught me, instantly.

He leaned in, pulling my body across his lap as he took over the kiss. It went from Sadie Hot to Hector White Hot and I wrapped my arms around him, feeling myself melt with the fire he shot through me from his body, our locked lips and his talented tongue.

His mouth trailed to my ear and my hands yanked at his shirt until I had it out of his jeans and I could get my fingers under it, inside it and up the smooth skin and hard muscle of his back.

I turned my head and whispered in his ear, “I like the way you kiss.”

His tongue touched my neck, I shivered, felt his lips smile there and then his mouth came back to mine.

Our mouths touching, his eyes looking deep into mine, he muttered, “Good.”

Then his head slanted and he kissed me again, this time hotter, deeper, longer, making me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. Good things. Delicious things. Tingles along my skin, wetness between my legs and a belly tied up in glorious knots.

It felt so good, I squirmed in his lap and gently scored a path down his back with my fingernails, showing him (I hoped) that I wanted more.

He groaned into my mouth. That felt good too.

His arm moved from my waist to behind my knees and he stood up, taking me with him, carrying me while kissing me to the stairs, up the stairs, down a hall and into his bedroom.

I guessed that meant he knew I wanted more.

He set me on my feet by the bed, leaned over, turned on the bedside lamp, sat on the bed and tugged off his boots.

I watched him, coming out of my desire-fuelled stupor, my senses coming back to me and my mind asking me what in the heck did I think I was doing.

Then he leaned forward and down, grabbed my ankle, lifted my foot between his legs, slid off my shoe and threw it to the side. His head came up, eyes on mine as one hand held my ankle firmly, his other hand trailed up the back of my calf, moving only to his fingertips as they swept behind my knee then kept going partially up the back of my thigh before his touch fell away.

Oh… my.

He put my foot down and repeated this move with my other leg.

Before I could do a thing (like, say, tear off my clothes and throw myself at him), he stood in front of me so close our bodies brushed, the tingles had started to spread again, this time far more frantic and he pulled off his t-shirt. At our proximity, this maneuver meant his t-shirt caught under my br**sts and slid over them. I sucked in breath and reached out quickly to grab his waist and hold on because I was pretty certain sure my legs were about to give out.

He tossed his t-shirt toward my shoes and my hands tensed at his waist when I saw his chest. It was smooth, well-defined and he had a small, broken heart inked in blood red, outlined in barbed-wire black, tattooed on his inside, left pectoral.

Like someone else (an even newer New Sadie) had taken over my body, I leaned forward and put my mouth to his incredibly cool tattoo. Then I put my tongue there too.

I liked the taste of his skin. I liked it so much I slid my tongue to his nipple and that was that.

His hands came to my shirt, he whipped it over my head, dislodging my mouth from his chest and he tossed that aside. His arms locked around me, my head went back, his head bent and he kissed me.

This kiss, I could feel right away, was not under his control. It was even hotter, deeper and so urgent, I felt it stirring in me. My body responding wildly, I shoved my hands under his arms and wrapped them around him as tight as I could.

Still kissing me, his hands slid down my bottom, pressing me deeper into him so I could feel his hardness against my belly and at the feel of it, a thrill raced through my entire system.

When his hands moved back up, his fingers found the skirt’s zipper and tugged it down then he shoved my skirt over my h*ps until it fell to my feet.

His arms went around me then, he fell back to the bed, me on top of him, he rolled me to the side so I was on my back, his mouth on me everywhere, my neck, behind my ears, down my throat, across my chest. It felt good, it felt tremendous. I thought there was nothing better in the whole world until his lips closed over the dove-gray satin of my bra right where my nipple was.

I felt his tongue through the satin then he sucked deep.

Waves of pure goodness shot from my nipple to between my legs and my hands slid in his hair.

“Oh my God,” I breathed. “Do that again.”

He did as I asked, it felt even better than before and I arched into him, wanting more. His hand slid down my belly, into my panties, between my legs, I felt his fingers on me, sliding through the wetness…

And I froze.

Unbidden, unwanted ice water filled my veins. I clamped my legs shut and my fingers fisted in his hair.

The desire knotting in my belly vanished, it was panic in my belly now, sheer and mad, and my only crazed thought was escape.

His hand froze, his body stilled and his head came up but I didn’t look at him.

I let him go, rolled, dislodging him and his hand and put a knee to the bed to launch myself away. I got about a foot before he tagged me and dragged me backward into the heat of his body.

“Let go!” I screamed in a voice so shrill, so full of terror, it hurt my own ears.

“Sadie, calm down,” he whispered into the back of my neck as his arms wrapped tight around me, one at my stomach, one at my chest, pulling me into his hard body. “You’re safe. We’ll stop.”

“I have to go,” I demanded.

I felt his gentle, “Sh,” at my neck and I saw his hand reach out, nab a blanket at the end of the bed and pull it over my body.

I was trembling head-to-foot regardless of his heat and the blanket. Trembling so violently I could swear I felt the bed shaking with it.