Page 29 of Hannah and the Hitman

“I’m not interested in her family,” I told him over Jimmy’s head. “I’m interested in Hannah.”

“Sure, but right now?” he countered.

“What’s the emoji again for fucking?” I asked, ignoring him. My thumb scrolled through the options. Would Hannah like that or was it too much, too soon? She’d admitted she wanted to be railed. I’d admitted I wanted to rail her. Hmm. Was there a railroad track emoji? That would work. Or would she have no clue what it meant?

Both men stared at me.

“Emoji for fucking? I have no idea. I’m not a college coed,” Dax grumbled, seriously annoyed.

“There isn’t an emoji for it,” Jimmy offered. He seemed to be sweating a little less now that Dax wasn’t making snipping sounds with the shears. “You need to use the OK hand sign and a pointer finger together. Or the eggplant and water droplets. Or a peach.”

“What’s the water droplets for? Jizz?” Dax winced. “I’m guessing, Jimmy, that you’re single because I don’t think any woman’s going to want that emoji in a text.”

“Jesus, not jizz.” Jimmy shook his head. “It’s to indicate a wet pussy. Or that she squirts.”

Squirts? That hadn’t come up in the book Hannah and I had read on the plane, but I wasn’t ruling it out in others in the series. I wondered if Hannah had ever squirted before.

Bad thought. No. I didn’t want to think of her with another guy, especially one who got her to do that. It made me fucking furious. If anyone was going to make her come so hard she squirted, it was going to be me.

Challenge accepted.

“Fine, no water drops. What would you say to a woman you’re interested in?” I asked Jimmy.

“Seriously?” Dax sighed, running his free hand down his face and sighed. “Interested? Next, it’ll be dinner and a movie. Kissing and making out and second base bullshit. We’re cutting a man’s finger off and you’re talking like a fucking teenager.”

I didn’t disagree. I needed help and not the kind from a mental health professional. I’d never had to talk to a woman before. Sex had always been transactional, light on the conversation. Nothing more. I was a decent looking guy. I had money. I’d never had to do more than crook my finger to have a few hours of fun. Often enough, I never even got the woman’s name. She never went to my apartment. Rarely went to hers.

Did it make me an asshole? Not when expectations were set up front. There were women who were only interested in a quick fuck, who didn’t want personal history to go along with a skilled dick.

Hannah was different. The pull I had to her was unexplainable. The air between us was literally electrified. Why her? It made no sense, but I didn’t give a shit. I wanted to fuck the hell out of her, no question, but I wanted more than that. I wantedher.I never imagined the whole picket fence thing before, but if Hannah was standing behind that fence, I was game. Thus, the stupid-ass texting questions.

“My advice?” Dax offered. “Skip the fucking emojis. Like I said, you’re not a coed.”

Jimmy swallowed hard, his eyes bouncing between me and Dax like a ball at a tennis match. “I have three ex-wives,so I’m not the best one to ask.” He looked a little more afraid. “I don’t want you circling back to me if it doesn’t work out.”

“How about this?” I asked Jimmy, leaning in and meeting his anxious gaze. “You help me come up with something good to text my new girl and I’ll keep my friend Dax here from taking that finger today. I can’t guarantee he won’t return though.”

Dax groaned and dropped the shears on the desk with a clatter.

I thought I saw tears in Jimmy’s eyes. Dax’s too since he wasn’t going to complete the job he’d been hired to do.

“Deal.”

16

HANNAH

Hi

I got the text and wondered who it was from, then shrugged it off as spam. Scammers were getting better and better these days with their creative texting to get someone to reply. I’d fallen for the I’m-your-friend scam once and received so many texts about winning an electric drill set, I’d wanted to switch phone numbers.

So I blocked it and went back to work. At a tap at the front door, I looked up laminating a book at the workstation in the back room. Dan, the mailman, held two boxes stacked one on top of the other and gave me a little finger wave from his grip at the bottom. I saw him every day on his route, and we’d gone to high school together.

I went around the desk and opened the door for him.

“Hey, Hannah. Take the top one, will you?”

The way he was struggling, they looked heavy. Before I could tell him I was a weakling, he leaned his upper body forward to tip the top box toward me.