She didn’t flinch. She set down the cotton round and turned to face him, her lips now naked and raw from scrubbing.
She smiled, and for once, it was not for him. It was for herself.
She stared at him. Then, slowly, her unpainted lips curved into a smile—not the practiced, glossy smile she gave his business partners, but a crooked, uncertain, human smile.
“I’m saying,” he reached out and, for the second time, traced her lower lip with his finger. But this time, he didn’t admire it like a collector. He touched it like a man touching something fragile. “I’m saying I don’t want sugar baby lips. I want yours. Chapped. Bitten. Real.”
“Admiring,” he said. “The most honest part of you.”
On her last day, she stood in the doorway of his penthouse, a single suitcase in her hand. He did not beg. He did not offer money. He just looked at her mouth—bare, gloss-free, a little chapped from the winter wind—and nodded.
Her lips weren’t just red. They were the color of ripe raspberries crushed into cream, full and soft, with a natural cupid’s bow so precise it looked drawn by a Renaissance painter. When she smiled, they stretched into a perfect, teasing curve. When she licked a smear of chocolate from the corner, the gesture was so unconsciously sensual it made his palms sweat.
“Someone who is very tired of being a collection,” she whispered.
In the morning, she was still there. The burner phone was in the trash. And her lips, bare and soft from sleep, were pressed against his collarbone.
She blinked. “What are you saying?”