Page 12 of The Hitman

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“Vorresti dell’acqua, signore?”

I wake with a start to find a strange woman standing over me. Instinctively, my hand moves to my back, searching for the gun I normally have there. I panic for a second when my fingers grasp at nothing but air. Eventually, my brain catches up with my eyes. It takes a few seconds, but soon enough, I recognize the woman above me as the waitress from the restaurant. Well, I recognize her tits. She has a bottle of water and a glass on a silver tray in her hands, a smile on her face, and a hungry look in her eyes. I realize why as her gaze travels down my body.

I’m hard. Well, half-hard. Just a little belated morning steel. Nothing major. I’m not trying to show off or anything, but like I said, I like to be admired, and the look in her eyes isn’t a terrible way to wake up from my little siesta.

“Si. Grazie,” I croak as I sit up in my chair.

She tears her eyes away from my cock just long enough to place the water and glass on the table next to me before dragging her gaze back to my lap. This one is good for my ego.

“If there’s anything you need, sir…” She doesn’t finish that sentence with words, but I get the gist when she licks her lips and waits patiently for me.

“I’m in the junior penthouse,” I tell her. I make sure that the word ‘junior’ doesn’t stick in my throat, but it’s a struggle.

Her smile lifts. She flutters her inky eyelashes. She’s pretty, but to be honest, even if she wasn’t, her breasts are amazing, and I’m on holiday to fuck and relax. I’ve wasted enough time not doing those things.

“Si, signore,” she whispers before turning and sauntering away.

“Perfetto,” I whisper to myself.

I open the bottle of water and drink deeply. When I stand from the lounger, I feel light — and not just because I’m not packing a few kilograms of pistol in my belt for the first time in years — but because no one here knows who I am.

Some men in my line of work love to swagger around town like their dick is bigger than the fucking Eiffel Tower, and their balls are dragging on the floor. They enjoy throwing their weight around figuratively and violently. They drink up the deference that comes with the don’s cover because they need it to survive. I don’t, and thankfully, neither does Salvo. I don’t need people to cower when I walk into a room; I need them to be so afraid of me that they cower when I’m not there, a small but important distinction.

I live half in shadow in Naples. Everyone knows who and what I really am, even if they’d never say it with their full voice. But here I can walk in the sun, naked without my guns, and feel more anonymous than ever, and that is intoxicating.

I dive into the pool and feel refreshed as soon as the water fully engulfs me. I swim a few laps from one end of the pool to the other. My muscles stretch as I glide through the water, and the rest of the world disappears. For a few moments, I don’t worry that there’s a scope trained at my head or a bomb behind a potted plant. I feel free, and I can’t even remember the last time I felt that way.

When I surface on the far side of the pool, I’m panting for air, muscles that I don’t normally use are burning, and the sun is beating down on me.

I cross my arms over the ledge of the pool. Most of the pool chairs are empty, but I come face to…feet with adorable, dainty white-painted toes, muscled calves, and thick, light brown thighs. The woman lying on the chaise in front of me is wearing a bright white bikini under this deep red gauzy…thing that makes the half-hard rod between my legs stiffen. It’s a good thing I’m in the water because my cock is threatening to escape from the waistband of my briefs. In fact, I should stay in the water to hide myself, but I don’t. I love legs. Long and trim, short and thick, and everything in between, as long as they look like they’ll feel good wrapped around my waist or head, and these legs look exactly like that.

I plant my palms on the side of the pool and lift myself out of the water with my eyes fastened on those legs for the duration. I slick my wet hair back from my face as I walk toward those legs and the curvy body they’re attached to; the curvy body of a woman reclining on a lounge chair with a glass of wine in one hand and a large pair of sunglasses covering most of her small round face. I stand over her, wet and dripping, almost wishing that I hadn’t just given the waitress an open invitation to my room. Almost. Maybe the waitress will get a look at these legs and be willing to share; this is the holiday of dreams.

“Can you move? You’re blocking my sun,” she says with a scowl. I watch as her eyebrows come into view over the upper edge of her sunglasses. In contrast, she’s much less enamored of me than the waitress. That shouldn’t turn me on, but it does. People are complicated. Her scowl deepens the longer I stand over her until finally, she pulls her glasses down the bridge of her nose with a single, elegant finger. She’s definitely not as taken with me as the waitress.

A shame. My dick is very interested in her.

“My apologies, tesora, I was just so captivated—” I say, exaggerating the depths of my accent.

She cuts me off before I can fully demonstrate the way my tongue caresses English vowels. She rolls her eyes before pushing her glasses back onto her face. She waves her hand dismissively. “So not interested. You can’t even imagine hownotinterested I am.”

I laugh despite myself and turn and walk away. Beautiful legs or not, I’m not on holiday to waste time with a woman who’s not interested in me. But I’ll be here for a week. Maybe next time, I think, as I feel her eyes on my ass.

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Zahra

I spend the day drinking by the pool.

Maybe not the best decision I make, but I said yes when Ryan asked me to marry him, so it isn’t the worst either. Besides, the disrespectful eye candy breaks up the monotony. I can’t even remember the last time a man has flirted with me so shamelessly. Actually, it’s entirely possible that a man hasneverhit on me so boldly. After I started dating Ryan, I started to feel as if I was living in a glass case and slowly suffocating. Actually, that’s generous. I felt invisible while dating Ryan. The only people who ever seemed to see me were his rabid fans. Even he didn’t notice me as intensely as they did.

But the hairy Italian man in the tiny swim trunks notices me. I don’t want anything to do with him, but God, I love the attention. I love the attention so much that I forget that my life is a mess and that this isn’t a regular vacation. When I’m done day drinking, I head into the hotel restaurant to eat a real meal like an adult, and I almost feel like a whole, functioning — slightly tipsy — human being for a few hours.

That is until I head up to my room. I shower, change into one of the many sets of sexy lingerie I packed and open another bottle of wine. Whatever. Don’t judge me; this is my Not Honeymoon. I crawl into bed, and that’s where I make the mistake.

I start crying again. I don’t mean to, but I do, and I can’t stop it.

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