Rock Chick 07 Regret by Kristen Ashley Read Free Book Online

Other, more specific parts of me ached too but I was setting that aside.
    I went to the mirror and looked at myself. Then I reached out and grabbed the sink with my good hand at what I saw.
    I dropped my head forward, closed my eyes and leaned into my hand.
    My own visage was burned into the backs of my eyelids. Two black eyes, very swollen, not shut but not pretty either. My nose was also seriously swollen but didn’t look broken (but what did I know?). And a huge white bandage was taped to my cheekbone and I knew what that hid, I’d felt the skin opening there. And I’d felt the blood.
    Monstrous.
    The door opened behind me and I heard the sound of boots. Then I felt heat at my back, just that, no touch, just his heat.
    “Sadie,” Hector said softly.
    “Go away,” I replied, even more softly.
    He didn’t go away. He picked me up again and did the whole carrying-me-pushing-my-IV-stand back into the room thing, laid me on the bed and threw the covers back on me.
    I laid back and pulled the covers high up with my good hand which, luckily, as I was right-handed, was my right one. I held onto the covers, closed my eyes and turned my face in the opposite direction of Hector.
    “ Mamita , look at me.” His voice was still soft.
    “Go away,” I repeated, my voice was still soft too.
    “We need to talk.”
    “Go away.”
    “Sadie,” he murmured gently.
    That’s when I found her, she wasn’t very far. She slid into my skin easily because normally, she lived there.
    I opened my eyes, turned my head and looked at Hector. Regardless of what had happened to me last night, what he had seen, what he’d done last night and just now and the way I looked, I was calm, assured and ice cold.
    “Go… away,” I enunciated it very clearly so there was plenty of time for the icicles to form on both words.
    It was then, to my shock (because no one penetrated the ice fortress, no one, not even my father), Hector leaned forward so close he was barely a couple of inches away. He put one hand on my pillow and the other one hit the bed low, by my waist.
    I drew in breath.
    Still with a soft voice he said, “She’s in there. Now I’ve seen her twice. Three times, if you count when you lost it in Lee’s office and nearly ripped open your palms with your own fuckin’ fingernails.”
    Oh my.
    He didn’t give me a chance to respond, he kept talking. “I know she’s in there and I’m warnin ’ you, Sadie, I’m gonna pull her out.”
    The Ice Princess, as ever, stayed calm.
    “Do I have to call security?” I asked like it was all the same to me.
    He didn’t answer. I started to stare him down and I waited for him to look away. He didn’t look away.
    Instead he said, “I know about you.”
    “You don’t know a thing about me,” I retorted acidly.
    He just smiled and I’d never really seen him smile, not full on. I’d seen him grin. I’d heard him chuckle at something my father said. But not a smile.
    It was lazy, it was slow and it was glamorous.
    Then he said, “I’ll give you time, you’ve been through hell but, when the time is right, I’m gonna pull her out.”
    At his words, The Ice Princess (who never let go), started slipping. I held onto her by my mental fingernails and pulled her back.
    “Maybe you need to get some sleep,” I suggested.
    Hector didn’t respond. He stared at me and I stared at him.
    Again, I waited for him to back down, to look away.
    He didn’t.
    So for the first time since I could remember, I did.
    My eyes slid to the side and then something even weirder happened. While I was looking away, he leaned in deeper, I felt his hand cup the back of my head, he lifted it gently and he kissed the top of my head.
    I froze.
    No one but no one but no one had touched me like that. No one, not since my Mom left. No one.
    Did I say no one?
    He left his hand there with his lips pressed against my head not for a second but for a long time.
    It felt like eternity. It felt like a sweet, wonderful, lovely