Page 13 of Lady and the Hitman

And just like that, my imagination betrayed me.

I pictured it—him, whoever he was, stepping out of his clothes in the golden haze of late summer. Bare skin gleaming with water. Muscles taut beneath the sun. Standing there in the Hughes family nursery like some kind of sin, framed by vines. My father probably pruning zinnias ten feet away while I tried not to combust.

The image was obscene.

And beautiful.

And so wildly inappropriate it made my ears burn.

“I don’t think it’s that kind of thing,” I managed, voice thinner than I wanted.

“Well,” she said, amused now, “whatever kind of thing it is … don’t hide from it, honey. Life’s too short.”

“Okay,” I said quickly, cheeks blazing. “I should go. Got some writing to finish.”

“Mmhmm,” she said, still smiling. “Just don’t forget—you’re allowed to be happy, too.”

When I hung up, the silence fell hard. I let it fill the corners of the room.

And then I remembered.

The first time I’d felt this way.

I was nineteen. Sophomore year. Philadelphia had been bitter cold that fall, the kind that makes your bones feel like glass. I’d been wearing fingerless gloves and a parka that didn’t quite zip over my hoodie, and he’d been leaning against the wall outside the library with a cigarette.

I can’t remember his name. Just the look in his eyes when I said something smart, and he smiled like he wanted to ruin me for it.

We’d ended up in his apartment. An attic walk-up with slanted ceilings and stacks of records in milk crates. He was older. Tense. Rough around the edges in a way that made me nervous and high at the same time. He was tall, too—easily over six feet—with a body that didn’t just look strong, but was capable. Muscular, dense. Built like he did real things with his hands. There was nothing soft about him. Not his voice, not his jaw, not the way he looked at me like I was a question he already knew the answer to.

He’d grabbed my wrists when I touched him, pushed me back into his sheets, and whispered something I still wasn’t brave enough to write down. I remember the way his hand slid up my thigh. The bruises that bloomed like violets on my hips the next morning.

It had scared me.

Not because it had hurt, but because I had wanted it to.

I’d broken things off after that. Told myself it was unhealthy. Unsafe. I’d gone back to boys who quoted bell hooks during foreplay and called it emotional literacy.

But that moment—those hands—never left me.

And now here I was, barefoot and flushed in a Charleston townhouse, heart racing at the sound of a passing car.

Waiting for it again. Waiting for more.

I walked to the door.

Put my hand on the knob.

Listened.

Nothing.

I stepped back. Pressed my palms to my chest. I could feel my pulse there—steady but loud, like something alive was stirring beneath the surface.

And for a moment, I swore I smelled something unfamiliar in the air.

Leather.

Smoke.