Page 118 of Lady and the Hitman
That got a laugh out of me, even though it felt a little too on the nose.
“I just ...” I hesitated, then gave up pretending I wasn’t going to spill. “It’s been a few weeks. He’s flown me places. We’ve had these incredible dinners. He makesme feel like I’m the only thing he sees when we’re together. But?—”
“No sex?”
I blinked. “What?”
“No sex?” she repeated, lowering her voice just enough to make it more dangerous somehow. “You mean, like, not at all?”
Honestly, how does she know these things?
I shook my head slowly. “Not since the night at his house.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wait. You’re telling me this man—this literal god of dominance—has flown you around the country, made you come in, what, elevators and alleys, looked at you like he’d burn the world to keep you warm … but hasn’t actually had sex with you again?”
My cheeks flushed. “Not once.”
“What the fuck, Zara?”
I let out a helpless breath and dropped my forehead into my hand. “I know. I know.”
“Is he a monk now? Taking a vow of celibacy mid-seduction?”
“I don’t think so,” I mumbled, though the doubt had crept in before.
“Well, then what? Is he testing you? Punishing you? Is it like … a slow-burn kink thing?”
“I think he’s waiting.”
“For what?”
I lifted my head. “That’s what I don’t know. But I can feel it. Like a string pulled tight between us. The more I hesitate to be seen with him in Charleston, the more he holds back. It’s like he’s giving me time, but it’s costing him something.”
Mina’s brow furrowed. “You think he’s trying to make a point?”
“No,” I said. “I think he’s trying to make me make one.”
The table between us went quiet. In the distance, someone laughed, the clack of a keyboard echoed against the brick wall. But all I could hear was my pulse, pounding in my ears like a warning I didn’t want to decode.
“What would happen,” Mina said finally, “if you just said yes?”
“To what?”
“To all of it. To being with him. In public. In Charleston. In real life.”
“I’d lose everything.”
She looked at me evenly. “Would you?”
My throat tightened. “Maybe not everything. But enough.”
“Or maybe you’d finally be living for you.”
Before I could answer, the lights flickered.
We both looked up.
“Power surge?” Mina asked, glancing toward the front windows.
