Chapter 3 – Ashley #3
The dam breaks for the third time. My walls spasm violently around him in a tight, crushing release.
With a loud, animalistic groan, Samuel drives inside me one last time and freezes, his head burying into the crook of my neck as he releases his own heavy, burning warmth deep inside me.
He shakes against me, his chest heaving as he pours himself into my tight heat, holding me so close I can feel the frantic, wild hammering of his heart against my ribs.
We stay like that for what feels like hours, tangled together in the quiet of the penthouse as our breathing slowly returns to normal.
When he finally pulls out, a soft, tired whimper escapes me. But Samuel doesn’t let me go far. He immediately pulls my limp, exhausted frame back against his massive chest, wrapping his heavy arms around me and pulling the duvet over us both.
My body is entirely spent, every muscle humming with a deep, blissful ache. I rest my head against his tattooed chest, listening to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart.
As the heavy weight of sleep begins to pull me under, I realize that for the first time in my life, I don’t mind not being the one in control.
I should shower. I’m sweaty, and the drying, sticky heat of our release is drying between our thighs, but my limbs feel like lead.
I can’t even bring myself to open my eyes.
The heavy, warm scent of him wraps around me, and before I can make a conscious effort to move, the darkness of sleep pulls me completely under.
When my eyes snap open, the shift in the air is immediate.
The warmth is gone. The heavy, reassuring weight of his arm draped over my waist is gone.
I roll over, blinking against the bright morning light filtering through the curtains. The other side of the bed is cold. The room is dead quiet, save for the hum of the air conditioning.
Samuel is gone.
I sit up slowly, my gaze sweeping the penthouse. There’s no note on the nightstand. No folded piece of paper, no scribbled phone number. Nothing.
Just an abrupt, hollow silence that makes the vivid, bone-shattering intensity of last night feel like a fever dream. The contrast between the suffocating heat of his body hours ago and the sterile chill of the room right now is sharp, disorienting, and flat-out jarring.
Then I look down, and a different kind of shock hits me.
I’m clean. The sticky discomfort from last night is completely gone, replaced by the cool, dry sensation of fresh skin. On the nightstand beside the bed, my clothes have been neatly, meticulously folded—my emerald dress, my undergarments, even my heels are placed side-by-side on the floor.
He didn’t just leave. He carefully wiped down my body while I was dead to the world, cleaning me up the same way he dominated me hours before.
A heavy silence hangs over me as I process the gesture. It’s a bizarre, intimate contradiction. He cared enough to tend to my body, yet he didn’t care enough to stay until I opened my eyes.
The initial flicker of surprise in my chest is instantly snuffed out, replaced by a cold, rising wave of irritation and outright anger.
I don’t do emotional vulnerability. I don’t sit around and cry about a man not holding my hand in the morning. I don’t frame this as a heartbreak or some tragic, unrequited romance. But this? This is a complete breach of respect.
To me, his silent departure isn’t mysterious, and it sure as hell isn’t romantic. It’s dismissive. It’s the act of a man who got exactly what he wanted, treated me like a high-value transaction, and slipped out before he had to face the reality of the morning after.
He took the control back the second I closed my eyes, and my pride—the fierce, unyielding pride that keeps my empire running—absolutely rebels against it.
I throw the duvet aside, stepping out of bed with a tight, rigid posture.
“Fucking asshole,” I mutter to the empty room, my voice flat and devoid of tears.
I refuse to linger here. I refuse to pace this room, staring at the sheets, wondering where he went or why he left.
I gather my folded clothes, step into the bathroom, and turn the shower on as hot as it can go, letting the steam fill the room as I scrub the last lingering traces of his expensive cologne off my skin.
By the time I step out, wrapped in a plush hotel robe, I’ve already categorized the entire night.
It was a mistake. A momentary lapse in judgment. A physical itch that needed scratching, and nothing more. It does not deserve another second of my thoughts, and it certainly doesn’t deserve my energy. I won’t give Samuel the power to affect me beyond this point. He’s a ghost.
I get dressed quickly, my movements sharp and practiced. I slide my phone into my clutch, step into my designer heels, and walk out of the penthouse without looking back once.
By noon, I’m back in my office, staring at a stack of international shipping manifests, my fingers flying across my keyboard as I reply to emails. My posture is perfect, my voice is steady, and my authority is unquestioned.
This is my kingdom.