Page 34 of Lady and the Hitman

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“You asked for this, Zara. You said yes with your whole body before you ever opened your mouth.”

I slipped the straps from my shoulders.

The dress pooled at my feet.

I stood there naked in a public dressing room with a curtain cracked wide enough to be scandal and not quite wide enough to be stopped.

And he watched me like I was something holy.

“Put your dress back on,” he said finally. “No panties. Nothing else.”

I did.

Each movement felt like a performance now. Every inch I pulled it back over my body, I did for him.

“Next,” he said, voice low and even, “you’ll walk two blocks east. There’s an alley behind the wine bar. You’ll find a small gate. Unlocked.”

My pulse spiked.

“What’s there?”

“You,” he said. “On your knees. Against the wall.”

My thighs clenched.

“Touch yourself,” he said. “Just until I say stop.”

My breath hitched.

“In public?”

“In shadow,” he said. “But yes.”

A pause.

“Do you trust me?”

God help me.

“Yes.”

“Then go.”

I walked.

Past couples clinking glasses. Past music and neon and the hum of ordinary life. But nothing about this was ordinary. Not the throb between my legs. Not the wet heat soaking through the dress. Not the knowledge that he could be anywhere—ten feet away or watching through a screen—controlling everything.

I found the alley. Found the gate. It opened with a soft metallic creak.

Inside, warm walls. Faint music. Shadows.

“Stop,” he said.

I faced the wall.

Put my hands flat against it.

The breeze lifted my hem.

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