He was uncovering a big, overstuffed armchair covered in midnight blue twill. Once uncovered, he dragged it into the empty but renovation implements room and positioned it in the center.

On the way back, he shrugged off his jacket and threw it on the banister. Then he came to me, walked around me, pulled off my trench, tagged my purse, threw my coat on his and hooked my purse straps around the newel post.

After doing all of this, he grabbed my hand, strode to the chair, sat and then tugged my hand again sharply until I went off-balance. His hands went to my waist and he guided my body until I was seated in his lap.

I didn’t protest any of this not because I didn’t want to but because I was coming to terms with the fact that, obviously, Hector was fixing up his own house.

This affected me deeply, for two reasons.

First, for as long as I could remember, my father had a personal groomer who came to the house every two weeks. She trimmed my father’s hair, gave him a clean shave and finished off with a manicure. My father’s fingernails were perfectly clipped and shone so brightly it was almost like he was wearing a coat of clear polish. As far as I knew, he never picked up anything but a fork, a pen, a book or a golf club in his life. Never a hammer or a paint brush. Never. He’d also never operated anything with a cord except, perhaps, his razor (though, I must admit, I’d not familiarized myself with his personal hygiene).

In fact, most every man of my acquaintance was much the same.

Second, because of the above, when I was seventeen or eighteen I had this stupid, silly, girlish, in the very, very back of my mind daydream that one day I’d find a real man. A man so unlike my father as to be his antithesis. A man who was strong enough to take me away from my horrible life living in my beautiful but cold ivory tower with bad people swarming around me like killer bees. We’d fall in love and he’d whisk me away, we’d buy some junker bungalow that we’d fix up, intermingling our renovation efforts with having and raising a plethora of children who we would spoil rotten and love to distraction. Often we’d cease our duties, laughing at each other, paint dabs on our cheeks and dust in our hair, while our children frolicked amongst our jumble of restoration paraphernalia.

A jumble that looked an awful lot in my head like the house I was sitting in at that very moment.

That dream died ages ago; in fact until just then, I’d forgotten I’d even had it.

“Sadie?” Hector called.

I gave my head a little shake and looked at him.

“What?”

“You looked miles away.”

I wasn’t miles away, I was right there.

In fact, my whole life, I never felt as right there as I did at that exact moment.

“Are you fixing up your house?” I couldn’t help but ask.

He looked around at the abundance of evidence of this very fact obviously scattered around us, his mouth twitched and his eyes came back to me.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Oh,” I said softly, not knowing what else to say but for some reason I could feel my heart beating in my throat.

One of his hands slid slowly up my back, the other arm came to rest across my lap.

“You okay?” he asked, his eyes doing a scan of my face.

No. No, I was not okay. It hit me that I didn’t even know what “okay” felt like. I’d never actually felt “okay”.

At that precise moment, however, what I felt like was asking Hector if I could paint his living room. And that, I figured, was probably seriously not okay.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Sadie,” he said softly.

I focused on him, noticed he was watching me closely and I wondered what he saw.

“What did you think of me when you first met me?” I asked before I could think better of it.

His fingers were warm on my neck and he gave me a gentle squeeze.

He didn’t hesitate with his answer. “I thought you were beautiful and I thought you were cold.”

This didn’t offend me, a lot of people thought that way because I wanted them to think that way, so I nodded.

“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.