Page 64 of Lady and the Hitman

I turned on the shower and stepped into the spray. Hot. Cleansing. Necessary. I scrubbed my skin like I could erase the wildness from the night before, but it was in me now. Permanent.

When I stepped out, he was waiting.

Leaning against the doorframe, towel slung low around his hips, eyes hot and possessive.

My breath caught.

His body was obscene. Cut from stone and heat and something darker. Broad chest dusted with a light trail of hair that disappeared beneath the towel. Abs tight and defined, like his entire core had been carved by discipline. His shoulders were massive, the kind that made you feel small just by standing near them, and his arms—God, his arms—thick with muscle, like he could hold me down without trying.

There was a faded tattoo on his ribcage, black ink curling just under the line of muscle, but I couldn’t read it from here. It only made me want to lean closer. Read the rest. Lick the lines.

The towel sat dangerously low, clinging to the sharp V of his hips, defying gravity and my self-control.

He didn’t flex. Didn’t posture. He didn’t need to. The threat was already written across every inch of his body. But right now, he was watching me—like I was the dangerous one.

“Good morning,” he said.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was.” He pushed off the frame and moved toward me. “Then you left.”

I smiled. “You missed me?”

He didn’t answer. Just kissed me—slow and sweet and utterly devastating. Like a promise. Like an apology. Like he already knew he was in too deep.

We dressed in silence. He handed me a crisp white dress shirt—his, clearly—and I slipped it on, buttoning it halfway and cinching it at the waist with a belt. He watched me the whole time. The way I moved. The way the shirt fell against my hips. The way I rolled the sleeves.

I knew what he was thinking.

Because I was thinking it, too.

It would’ve been so easy to stay in that room. To climb back into bed and let the day pass in a haze of heat and tangled limbs. But he had other plans.

“Hungry?” he asked as he strapped on his watch.

“Starving.”

He grinned. “I know a place.”

I expected high-end. Somewhere discreet and decadent with velvet booths and unspoken rules. But he surprised me.

Again.

The car dropped us in front of a faded stucco building tucked between a pawn shop and a laundromat, with a sun-warped sign that just saidMami’s. The kind of place you’d walk past without noticing unless you knew better.

Ronan knew better.

The second he stepped inside, a chorus of Spanish erupted from behind the counter. A woman no taller than five feet came out from the kitchen and smacked his arm with a dish towel before pulling him into a hug.

“Finally,” she said. “You bring a woman.”

I blinked.

Ronan glanced at me, amused. “Mami, this is Zara.”

The woman turned to me and gave me a once-over that felt like a full-body X-ray. Then she smiled, warm and wide. “Pretty. I like her. Sit. Eat. He always looks angry. Maybe you soften him.”

I smiled, charmed despite myself.