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“I should shower,” I said slowly, sitting up with an arm covering my breasts.

Phillip was concealed in only a few places with a thin sheet, and his beautiful body glistened under the dim light like the man was a damn Adonis. “You don’t have to run off the minute we finish.”

The urge to taste the salty wetness of his skin hit me out of nowhere, but I ignored it and swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Well, this isn’t more than just sex, right?” I swallowed around a lump forming in my throat, hurt by my own words. “No reason to cuddle and pretend otherwise.”

The lines in Phillip’s face deepened as I stole a blanket and wrapped it around myself, suddenly feeling modest. “Oh?” he murmured, eyes straying.

If I didn’t know better, it almost sounded like he was surprised I’d say so.

Glancing at him, I brushed back my matted red hair. “That’s what you meant earlier when you asked if I was ready for this to be something, right?”

An emotion I couldn’t identify distorted his face for a second before it was gone. Then Phillip wove his fingers together behind his head and hummed low in his throat, eyes lifting to the ceiling.

When he didn’t say anything else, I took that as my cue to leave and headed for the bathroom to shower. But his expression stayed with me the entire time I washed away any remnants we’d been together.

24

Pre-Game

“ARE YOU WEARING IT?”

I smoothed down the skin-tight, two-tone dress, still hiding in the bathroom. “No.”

“I know you are. Come out here and show me. I don’t know why you didn’t just dress out here,” Phillip called out through the door, his tone teasing. “I’ve seen everything, anyway.” He wasn’t wrong, but it felt different somehow.

I fixed the messy curls waterfalling around my bare white shoulders, for some reason feeling more naked than I did in bed the previous night. Dark eyeshadow brought out the blues, greens, and yellows in my eyes, and the red lipstick was a color I’d never bother to wear of my own volition.

It felt like I was playing dress up.

I’d done it all with the manipulative insistence of the man outside the bathroom door. He’d swindled me into thinking he had a real gift, and it turned out to be a dress two sizes too small and a night out to god-knows-where. My stupid ass thought it was a pretty dagger, or maybe a good burger. Not this demeaning, wrapped-up gift of misogyny. Asshole said it was to celebrate my birthday. But where exactly were we celebrating, a strip club? Not that it would surprise me if that was where he took me.

In our line of work, dressing in provocative attire was as normal as the daggers we carried. Even Phillip styled his attire to lure women and men in some kind of way. Like our weapons, it suited a purpose. And on intel gathering, it was practically a necessity, especially in the case of honey-trapping. But that didn’t mean I wanted to wear the stuff when there wasn’t any reason for it. I’d be worrying about my ass showing all damn night.

Still, the very idea that Phillip had chosen it with me in mind made me want to put it on just to see what sort of face he’d make when he saw me in it. At the end of the day, a part of me wanted to please him, even if it meant wearing misogyny personified under verbal protest. I mean, men chose clothes for women they had every intention of taking off, right? I wasn’t exactly averse to an after-dinner night-cap if all it required was me walking around in this ungodly tight thing. Honestly, I was sort of banking on it. At least in that case, my efforts wouldn’t be in vain.

Unfortunately, the other night was more of a palate cleanser than a full-course meal. I wasn’t satisfied. Part of me wondered if I ever would be satisfied where Phil was concerned. I still thought about sex constantly, especially without reprieve from the sex god who’d first introduced me to amazing pleasure I could literally get drunk off of.