Page 73 of Lady and the Hitman

God, I did.

And I wanted more.

I wanted everything.

I wanted his cock inside me, thick and deep, splitting me open until there was no space left between us. I wanted to feel his weight above me, heavy and real and undeniable, pinning me to the towel, to the earth, to this moment that had swallowed us whole. I wanted the pressure of his chest on mine, the scrape of stubble on my neck, the brutal stretch of him filling me until I forgot my own name. I wanted to claw at his back and bite his shoulder and cry out into his mouth as he fucked me slow, then hard, then harder—until I couldn’t remember what it felt like to not be touched by him.

I wanted to be claimed. Marked. Taken.

To be as close to him as two people could possibly be.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please, I need?—”

He lifted his head, mouth slick, eyes sharp.

“Not yet,” he said.

My body wept at the words.

He looked down at me for a long, quiet moment, his chest rising and falling in that same controlled rhythm I’d seen since the beginning—measured, restrained, maddening. The sun blazed behind him, casting his face in shadow, but I didn’t need to see his eyes to feel the weight of them. I could feel them on every inch of my skin—my swollen lips, my flushed chest, the tender ache between my thighs.

“Why not?” I asked, my voice more breath than sound.

He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my cheek, the pad of his thumb lingering at my temple like he was memorizing me. “Because I want it to mean something.”

I blinked. “That—what just happened—didn’t?”

He smiled, but it wasn’t teasing. It was soft. Honest.Maybe even a little reverent. “That was for you. Because I knew you needed it.”

He sat back on his heels, letting the sun hit him full-on now—broad chest, corded arms, wet skin that gleamed like bronze. He was still hard. Still aching. I could see it pressing against his trunks, straining with tension he refused to release.

My heart stuttered. “But you didn’t …”

“I wanted to,” he said, voice low, almost rough. “Christ, Zara. You have no idea how badly I wanted to.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because if I fuck you now, here—like this—I won’t stop. I won’t be able to. And you’ll go back to Charleston thinking this was just sex. Just a vacation fantasy. You’ll put me in a box, close the lid, and pretend it didn’t happen.”

I didn’t deny it. Because I might’ve done exactly that.

He leaned forward again, hands braced on either side of me, gaze cutting through the afterglow. “You want more?” he asked.

“Yes.” No hesitation. My voice was wrecked, but certain.

“Then you’ll see me in Charleston.”

The words landed like an ultimatum.

Not a demand. A challenge.

My brows pulled together. “Is that a condition?”

“It’s the next step.”

I stared at him, heart pounding, legs still trembling from the orgasm he’d dragged out of me. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack.”