I nodded. I couldn’t have spoken if I’d tried.
“I’ll be outside at eight,” he said. “I’m taking you to work in the morning.”
He paused at the door.
“Sleep well,mila.”
Then he left.
The door shut behind him.
The silence dropped like a lid.
I lay there—naked, aching, wrapped in hotel linen—my pulse thrashing, my body still burning. I wanted to scream.
chapter
four
What the fuck?
I don’t know how long I lay there—pressed flat, lungs caged by the duvet, muscles humming with rage and want. Luka’s scent clung to my skin, daring me to scrub it off. I tried not to think about him. I tried not to think about the way he’d left me—naked and cooling, every muscle trembling, my body wound so tight it practically vibrated against the mattress. I tried to focus on work, my next meeting, anything but that voice:
Go to sleep.
Don’t touch yourself.
Not a finger.
Be a good girl, and keep your hands off what’s mine.
I could have timed it—how many seconds before humiliation became anger, how many before anger fizzed into need, how many before shame looped back around to feed them both.
I tried to stay angry. To stoke that old, familiar fire I’d used to torch a hundred boardrooms and countless bad dates. But all I could summon was the ache—low, gluttonous, relentless. I could still feel Luka’s breath in my hair, the imprint of his hand at mythroat, the scrape of his stubble on my skin. My body—my own body—was betraying me.
I’d never met anyone who could split me open with a single syllable. Or leave me hollow just by walking out the door.
Don’t touch yourself.
The fuck I wouldn’t.
I flung the duvet off. My skin itched with the ghost of his touch, every inch of me screaming to be filled, to be used, to finally be allowed to break open. He thought he could just walk out? He thought I’d just lie here, like some good little?—
No. Not a fucking chance.
I stalked over to my suitcase and yanked it onto the luggage rack. The zipper teeth bit open, and I dug through the neat strata of rolled slacks and sweaters until I found what I wanted—my discreet lipstick vibrator.
Back on the bed, I collapsed backward onto the mattress and spread my knees like I was putting on a show for the chandelier. I hated how ready I was, how little it had taken, but the moment I clicked the toy on, my whole pelvis tightened.
Don’t touch yourself.
Luka’s voice slid through my head again.
I pressed the smooth tip to my clit—just enough—and the first vibration chewed through the tension he’d wound into my nerves.
Too much. Too fast.
My hips snapped up, chasing the pressure, and I clamped a hand over my mouth—not because anyone could hear, but because the moan that ripped out of me was raw and desperate. I forced myself to ease off. Breathe. Let the cold air of the room bleed off the edge. The toy buzzed in my hand—cheap, mechanical, nothing like him—but I bore down anyway, circling my clit in the steady, mindless rhythm that always got the job done. It took less than thirty seconds. The orgasm hit hard andsharp, a single electric snap that locked my body and knocked the air from my lungs. My thighs trembled as the sensation drained away, leaving heat, breath, and the ugly twist of knowing how little it had taken.