Page 15 of Lady and the Hitman
Was this delusion?
Or was it the most honest thing I’d done in years?
I stood at my dresser, fingers grazing the edge of a black lace thong—then stopped.
No.
Not tonight.
No barriers. No pretense.
I let the panties fall back into the drawer. No bra, either. Just the towel around my hair and skin that smelled like sex and soap.
I padded barefoot through the townhouse, dimming lights, checking locks, trying not to glance at the clock every five seconds.
I told myself I wasn’t waiting.
But, of course, I was.
I just didn’t want anyone to know.
Not my mother. Not the neighbors. Not the world I’d built from my words and my values and my curated image of what modern feminism should look like.
God, what would people say?
What would they think if they saw me like this—primed and wet and trembling for a man I didn’t know, a man I’d invited not with a name but a need?
What if someone found out?
What if Mina told someone?
I flinched at the thought, then shook it off. No. She wouldn’t. She knew better. She knew what exposure meant. She understood that some hungers had to be protected like secrets or they’d be devoured by the world before they ever got to bloom.
This wasn’t for anyone else.
This was mine.
The shame. The silence. The soaking anticipation between my thighs.
All mine.
I sat on the edge of the bed again, back straight, heart pounding.
Three days.
It had been three days.
I listened to the wind outside.
To the creak of the wood floors.
To the sound of my own breath.
And I waited.
5
Ididn’t hear the door.
