Page 51 of Lady and the Hitman

No. I wanted him to watch them watching me.

Because this wasn’t just about pleasure.

It was about power.

Mine. His. Ours.

A rustle in the distance jolted me upright. I slipped deeper into the shadows. Past a faux-rock tunnel, through a long, open-air corridor, and into an exhibit that looked like the African savanna—grasses knee-high, gentle hills, and a painted sunset still glowing faintly behind the horizon.

The zoo had given these animals space to roam.

And now I was roaming, too.

Becoming the wild thing I was always meant to be.

Another buzz at my wrist.

Another voice.

His.

But softer this time.

“You were made for this,” he said.

“I’m not sure what this is.”

“Freedom,” he said. “You just didn’t know what it cost.”

A sob caught in my throat—not from fear or pain—but because he was right. I had never felt so alive. So electric. So real.

And all I had to do was let go.

Let him catch me.

But not yet.

Not quite yet.

10

Iheard it before I saw it—laughter echoing sharp and high, broken by a scream that wasn’t terror. It was pleasure. The sound ricocheted across the dark canopy overhead, bouncing off steel and stone and thick palm fronds like a challenge.

A woman had been caught.

Another followed. Then another.

Not all at once. Not close together. But the cries kept coming—staggered and breathless and wild. I imagined their bodies pinned to walls or cages or cool stone, their thighs shaking, their mouths gasping as someone—some man—took what they’d come here for.

And I knew then: it was happening all around me.

Women being hunted. Taken. Worshiped and ruined in ways they’d craved so deeply.

But I wasn’t ready to be caught yet.

Not until I’d earned it.

Until I’d teased Ronan like he’d teased me.