Page 4 of Ashley
Chapter 2
When Ashley awoke, it was to an empty bed and the nearly blinding light of the early morning sun. With a grimace, she turned away from the window and groaned into her pillow. She felt like she'd been run over by a bus, no, make that a train. Her body was sore, and when she stretched her limbs, she had to bite back a whimper at the unexpected soreness. It was as if she had slept in the most uncomfortable, contortionist position available and her body had fallen asleep. Now, it had finally woken up, all the blood flooding her nerve endings and making her feel like a live wire practically humming with sensation.
"What the fuck?" she whispered to no one. She was alone in the room and had been for some time if the empty, cold feeling of the room was anything to go by. There was a certain coldness to spaces without people, and Ashley could feel it in the walls of the bedroom. No one had been here for hours, well, except for her, but she'd been dead to the world and she certainly didn't think she qualified as a living human woman. If anything, she felt like she'd been stepped on and then scraped off the bottom of someone's shoe. She felt wrung out, which was oddly comforting. Where her normal ball of anxiety and stress lived, there was nothing. She rubbed a hand across her forehead and squinted in the too bright sunlight. If only her newfound sense of release didn't come with a side helping of melancholy. She furrowed her brow and gingerly sat up. It wasn't remorse; she'd wanted last night and every last thing that had happened to her with all of her heart and soul. She let her breath out in a whoosh as she remembered exactly what the night had entailed. Her, on her back, with the man she'd somehow taken to calling Daddy leaning over her, his hands hungrily pulling her sundress higher and higher until he was sliding down her body and settling in between her thighs. She shivered, remembering how he'd held her hips firmly pinned to the bed beneath large, calloused hands while he devoured her like a starving man.
Ashley licked her lips and forced the thoughts of her passionate night out of her head. She was thirsty, and why was it so bright? Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she moved to shut the curtains but froze when she saw two tall glasses of water sitting on the bedside table. A couple of aspirin sat next to the water, and curiously, there was a candy bar. She raised an eyebrow at the sweet but eagerly reached for the first glass of water and drained it in a matter of seconds. She paused when reaching for the second and snatched up the aspirin because, come to think of it, she did have a splitting headache, which surprised her, seeing as she'd only managed to drink two cocktails the night before.
"Lightweight," she murmured to herself and downed the pills and glass of water before standing on shaky legs. She shuffled forward, head down and eyes averted from the bright sunlight, and had only just jerked the curtains shut when a knock sounded at the bedroom door.
"Daddy?" The hopeful question left her mouth before she could stop herself and Ashley blinked in surprise. Shaking her head, she rubbed her temples and yanked on a spare robe from the guest closet. She was definitely hungover, or still drunk, for that matter. It was the only explanation for feeling like she did, for saying what she'd just said.
There was no reason for her stranger to be at the door, not when the room was devoid of his presence. The only proof she had of him was a sore ass and the bruises that were blooming over her thighs, but even as she thought these completely logical thoughts, there was a tiny part of her that held on to the hope that she would open the door and come face-to-face with a set of stormy gray eyes. She hesitated, hand an inch from the door handle, before another knock prompted her to reach forward and swing open the door.
"Hey, sleepyhead!" Natasha practically bounced on her toes with a bright smile and a plate of waffles in her hands.
"Oh hey." Ashley forced a smile to her lips and gave her friend a weak smile. "Morning."
Natasha froze and raised an eyebrow. "Morning?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.
Ashley nodded and moved back toward the bed with a sigh before flopping down on it and pulling the covers up to her chin. "Yes, good morning," she said, stifling a yawn and eyeing the waffles. "Are those for me?"
"You're sad," Natasha said, ignoring her friend's question and bustling forward.
"I just woke up. What are you talking about?"
Natasha set the plate on the bedside table and turned to her friend. "What happened last night?"
A flash of being held down by her stranger, one hand fisted in her hair while the other curled possessively around her neck while he fucked into her from behind, flitted through Ashley's mind's eye but she cleared her throat and smiled blandly at Natasha.
"Nothing," she lied.
Natasha crossed her arms. "Liar."
Ashley flushed and nodded at the waffles. "Can I have my breakfast, please?"
"Yes, after you tell me what happened last night."
"Nothing happened last night," Ashley insisted, but she could only carry her lie so far with Natasha looking at her like she was, like she knew Ashley was full of shit and she wasn't afraid to call her on it.
Natasha opened her mouth, and Ashley blurted out what she knew her friend would eventually pull from her. "I slept with someone!"
Natasha smirked. "I knew it." But then she reared back with a frown. "Is that why you're sad? Who was it? I'll have his balls."
"I don't know who he was, and he's not why I'm sad," she insisted, though her voice sounded weak and tinny to her ears. She didn't even believe herself, so she wasn't surprised when Natasha snorted and sat on the bed beside her.
"Tell me who it was, and I'll make him pay. Did he hurt you?" she asked in a voice far calmer and more deadly than the petite woman had a right to unleash. There was a steeliness in her friend that told Ashley she was capable of carrying out her threat and if she wasn't, there was the matter of her fiancée, Silas, who was more than equipped for the task.
Ashley jerked back, hands fisting in the blankets around her. "No! He didn't hurt me. Last night was good."
"Then explain now."
"It was just different."
"Different, how?"
She blushed, thinking of all the things she'd done last night, all the new things she'd done and said while under the spell of the man she'd been with. There hadn't been a thing she would have denied him. Not when he'd made her feel like he had. Everything had been intense, beautiful, so perfectly erotic that she'd felt like it had been a dream. She winced, moving to the side, the soreness between her legs telling her it had all been real, so she ducked her head and gave Natasha a shrug.
"Just different," she mumbled.
