Page 31 of The Hitman
I whimper.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells me. “He didn’t deserve you.”
His hand brushes against my thigh, and I jump. I look down my body and marvel at just how short this dress is. I hadn’t thought about that. Or maybe I had, who knows. Anyway, his hand is so close — too close? — to my pussy as his fingers caress the soft, ruffled hem.
“How do you know that?”
“Because no man who would make you cry deserves you,” he whispers.
“Would you?”
His lips drag across my cheek. “Would I make you cry?” he asks.
I nod. My mouth is too dry to speak.
“Probably,” he admits and then corrects himself. “Certainly. I’m not a good man.”
I turn to him and look him in the eyes.
He smiles at me, but he looks almost sad. Or maybe that’s just honesty.
“Why do you think you’re not a good man?”
“Because I am not. And that is perfectly fine. You don’t need a good man right now.”
“I don’t?”
His hand moves under the hem of my dress, and his fingers traverse the seam of my thighs. I spread my legs for him. He pushes his hand between my legs with a filthy smile.
“No, tesora,” he whispers. “You need a man to remind you that whoever he was is beneath you. You deserve better than him. Better than me.”
“How do you—” I whimper and squirm in his hold. Or at least I try to, but his arm tightens around my waist, holding me still as he caresses my pussy through my wet panties. “How do you know that I deserve better than you?”
He smiles at me again in that same sad or honest way that I can’t decipher.
“Because,” he starts to say, but then stops.
13Giulio
There aresome sounds that I know in my blood. The heavy, hacking laughter my nona made after a few too many glasses of wine and a cigarette. A very sharp knife cutting through the crust of freshly baked bread. My mother’s singing voice tinged with the remnants of tears. A breaking bone. The sound of a gun cocking.
“Zahra,” I whisper. It takes all the energy I have not to shove her to the ground or throw her over my shoulder and run. I force myself to suppress that unexpected desire I feel to protect her because it would be dangerous. Running away with her won’t solve the real problem at hand. The answer to her question is like a cloud hanging over us, but she can’t see it.
How do I know that she deserves better than me? Easily, because my entire life is nothing but danger, and I can’t run far enough away that it won’t find me. Or her.
“Yes?” she whispers.
“You need to do as I tell you, tesora,” I say, our lips almost touching.
She shivers, and I wish so much that she hadn’t. I also wish that I didn’t have to take my hand away from the warm heaven between her legs. Last night, there wasn’t anything I wanted more than to get my fingers between her delicious thighs, but now that they’re there, I can’t enjoy the feeling of her smooth skin.
“When I let you go, I want you to walk back to the tasting room. Walk. Whatever you do, do not run. And don’t turn around, no matter what you hear.”
I watch as her eyes clear, and the lust fades to confusion and then fear. Her eyes are big and deep brown and terrified. Beautiful. Heartbreaking.
“What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you that.” There isn’t enough time to tell her what I think is happening, but I also don’t want to confirm her darkest fears. I don’t want to tell her that whatever’s hiding in the vines should be afraid of me, and so should she.