Page 19 of The Hitman

Just as I’m certain that she’s gone and resolve that I should leave too, the door wrenches open.

“Fuck you,” the woman says once we’re face-to-face. And even without her big sunglasses, I know it’s her. I would recognize those lips anywhere.

* * *

Zahra

“You?” the man from the pool says. I watch as his face transforms from frustrated rage to shock and then…arousal.

“You?” I echo, my body already responding to him like I did earlier at the pool. What are the fucking odds that the same man who’s been preening for me at the pool for two days is staying in the other penthouse suite? And what are the odds that he’d show up at my door when I’m at my weakest and most pathetic? “What are you—?” I can’t even finish that sentence for so many reasons.

On the one hand, I’m feeling…warm in so many places, mostly from arousal, but I’m also annoyed because this man — this sexy, hairy man — was just pounding on my door like the fucking police,andhe’s interrupting my nighttime routine of drinking wine and crying.

Whatever the odds, I’m horny and pissed. It’s confusing, to say the least.

“What are you—?” he starts, and then his sentence cuts off just as abruptly as mine did.

I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I do know that he’s staring at me — looking me up and down like he wants to strangle me. Or fuck me into next week.

Or both.

My pussy and thighs clench at the thought, and that’s as disorienting as the lust. The newness of these emotions… Yeah, Ryan and I never traversed these boundaries.

But bitterness aside, I know that I need to pull myself back together. I have to. It was dangerous to be this close to him — and want him — by the pool; it’s even more dangerous to feel whatever the fuck these feelings are with no other rooms on this floor besides ours and a lot of privacy to behave in ways I know I shouldn’t.

I frown at him so hard my cheeks hurt. I may not speak Italian, but I’m very certain that he’d just been calling me everything but a child of God, and I focus on that, not — if anyone is wondering — the bulge tenting his shorts. “What the fuck do you want?” I’m finally able to spit at him, channeling some of the venom I feel for Ryan and aiming it toward him.

And do you know what this cocky motherfucker does? He has the nerve to grin at me — much like he had earlier today — as if he knows the flint in my voice is false. The arrogant asshole.

“I want you to stop fucking crying,” he says in a calm voice that almost erases the rage I’d heard when he’d been yelling at me just seconds ago.

“Fine. Noted. Got it,” I say, and try to close the door on him.

He stops me. And then his eyes dip to my chest. I watch as that grin — that sexy fucking grin — widens, and he licks his lips like a Cheshire cat.

What are the odds that this horny bastard would show up at my door the same night I decided to dip into my honeymoon lingerie? High, apparently, because I watch as this man runs his wet tongue over his lips, taking in all the flesh that this very expensive teddy shows off. My shoulders, my legs, even patches of skin under lace inlets, and if I move too quickly, my bare ass. There’s almost as much skin on display right now as by the pool, but maybe it’s worse that the lingerie leaves some of my skin to the lacy imagination; more for him to see and guess about.

There’s more I want him to see and touch with the tip of that wet pink tongue, I think.

This is a mistake. I know that, even though it doesn’t feel like one exactly. Well, not like other mistakes I’ve made. I’m not sure what itdoesfeels like, though, but definitely more right than wrong.

When he finally speaks, it’s in a whispered, seductive tone. “What does a beautiful woman like you have to cry about?”

“I didn’t realize tears had an aesthetic,” I say, rolling my eyes.

I try to close the door again and then jump as the palm of his left hand slaps against the wood.

And then I shiver.

I blame Ryan for this thing I’m feeling, somehow. But Mr. Tiny Swim Trunks doesn’t even let me wallow in that.

His eyes meet mine, and he licks his lips at me again as if he can taste me on his mouth. Or he wants to.

He wants to. “Invite me inside,” he whispers.

His accent is so thick each word feels heavy as it falls from his lips and travels the short distance between us. His voice is so deep that I can feel it tickling the sensitive skin along my inner thighs and circling my nipples.

“No,” I whisper, but there’s no conviction in that soft breath. I know it, and so does he.