A few more glances later, I knocked back my margarita and beelined to the nearest elevator. There was a rush of bodies that passed me as they exited the elevator, and I raced in, hitting the “closed door” button like a gamer trying to get a combo. The doors slid closed, and I felt my shoulders ease back with the knowledge that another person wouldn’t be able to see or feel the energy rolling off of me like riptides. The walls and ceiling of the elevator were lined with mirrors that I avoided. I didn’t need to see myself to know how flushed I looked. I was more afraid to see the desperation lurking in the depths of my brown eyes. When I relaxed into the cold metal of the elevator—ignoring the icy steel piercing my shoulders and back like tiny icicles—the doors jerked and slid open to reveal him waiting just on the other side.
The air in the elevator was electrified—still, stagnant, and dry. It wasn’t the desert that created this feeling that my body was hovering just above the floor. Was it static? Was it the energy that passed between us like two magnets whose sole purpose was to connect?
He entered the elevator, eyes transfixed on mine as if he could measure my thoughts. I supposed he could. Just being in the elevator said everything he needed to know. He stepped closer, just inside the doors, and my eyes only dropped down when I saw that large fist of his slap the “close door” button as if he’d done this regularly. Perhaps he did. I wouldn’t put it past him. He had a body made for fucking, and this was the Chuck E. Cheese of playgrounds.
With a soft thud, the doors announced their closure and he pounced. One rushed step forward and he was on me, pushing me into the back of the elevator so hard I thought my insides would combust. That large hand wrapped around my neck, pulling me into his seeking lips. His other hand ripped off my sarong just as his lips closed down around mine, sucking me in like vacuum. He sucked my tongue, and I could have climbed his body right then and there with how needy I was. He kissed and nibbled around my mouth, extinguishing all the breath that surfaced, leaving me panting and scrambling, but not for breath. What I wanted was more. No, I needed it, more than the breath I was missing. I had missed him.
Every thought of why I shouldn’t have been in that elevator, let alone with him, vanished, snuffed out as surely as the breath I couldn’t seem to hold onto. Like hanging on the ledge by nothing but my fingertips, it was useless.
Pinned to the wall, my legs dangled uselessly above the ground. As Joel sucked at my neck and clawed his way down my body, I looked up and saw our reflection in the mirrored tiles of the ceiling, watching the way his shoulders bunched beneath his tight blue shirt while he gorged on my skin. No wonder I couldn’t spot him. He blended in with the uniforms the rest of the staff wore. Although, had I seen him walk by me, there was no way that body could slip past without garnering a second glance.
I moaned his name, aware of how my breasts vibrated against his chest with that one syllable, one word. Joel wore his restraint like a thinly veiled armor, the slight tremor of his chest displaying the lust he could barely contain. I knew what he was waiting for. It was the same thing that stopped me from climbing him right there in the elevator—the elevator could stop at any time before making it to the ninth floor.
Clutching his hair, I held him in place, taking control. If we were doing this, I wanted to be present and participating for every bit of it because as soon as the moment washed away like ships set to sea, I knew I would be done.
I was quenching a thirst; that was all. It was just something, anything to hold me over. The throb may have started between my legs, but every day I woke up, it seemed to consume more and more of my body until it seemed like if my chest were open you’d be able to see the bruising with your own eyes.
“I’m trying to keep this decent, but god I want to worship your pussy with my tongue and taste the juices I know are already waiting for me. Do you feel the heat?” He took my hand in his and I watched fascinated by the difference in the size of our palms. I forgot what it felt like for him to do something as innocent as hold my hand, but there was nothing innocent about what he was doing at that moment. He shoved my hand and his between my legs, and I felt the inexplicable heat that washed over our hands like steam rising from manholes on a New York winter day.
“Tell me that’s for me. Tell me I’m not alone in this. I need you,” he groaned, and I felt the weight of his body finally give way to mine, relinquishing all of the torment that he’d endured at my rejection of him.
The elevator slowed and it was as if time stopped as the doors peeled opened. Joel looked at me with an intense need in his eyes. A look that one night wouldn’t be able to snuff out. This was all I was giving him, so before the doors could close I took his hand in mine and escaped, dashing out into the corridor that stretched endlessly before us.
“You’ve got thirty minutes.”
The words had barely left my lips before he was yanking me down the hall to room 913.
“You’re killing me with the time limit, but I can make my pretty bird sing in less than five minutes. I’ll make do.”
He searched his pockets for the key card and I handed over mine—the one he sneakily passed me, much like he’d done everything. I felt my lips fall into a smirk, and his green eyes gleamed like brilliant rainbows in a drop of dew.
“Strip and get on the bed,” Joel said in a voice that could be felt more than heard, and boy did I feel it. It licked up my ankles, across my skin, circled my hips, and made my nipples pucker.
Once naked, I eased back on the bed watching the lion pace his cage. Joel looked like he was measuring just what to do next—now that he had me exactly where he wanted me.
“Thirty minutes starts now.”
Joel whipped off his clothes, tossing them to take up residence somewhere on the floor where my bathing suit resided. He dived onto the bed between my spread knees, his tongue spearing straight for my core. A couple licks in and I’d already felt the web of muscles spanning my legs and pelvis snap tight. The muscles clenched with every bit of strength my body possessed, coiled until I thought my body would knot. It was the most exquisite pain I’d ever experienced—a euphoric feeling that made me want to laugh and cry. I hovered there on that precipice, quivering against his tongue that teased and ravished me until I thought I was delirious. His mouth closed down around me, and it came. The release. The unsuspecting orgasm crashed through me, and I yelled something resembling a death-cry. I was never happier to be alive than at that moment with Joel lapping between my legs.
I watched him beyond my pelvis and when my orgasm subsided and I, once again, found the breath that had escaped me, he rose his head just enough and winked at me. The arrogant bastard knew what he did to me. What he did to all women, I presumed. I couldn’t act indignant. I needed him, and despite his cocky attitude, he needed me, too.
“I would hate for you to waste all thirty minutes down there,” I said trying my best to hold the same amount of cockiness that he conjured so easily. I wasn’t sure it was a success, seeing as how breathy and desperate my voice sounded in a room that mirrored breathy and desperate.
When we entered the suite, I didn’t spend much time looking at the furnishings, but now with the first orgasm out of the way, I could see beyond the tunnel of seduction. This room was made for one-night stands, but then again maybe I was seeing through sex-colored glasses. Everywhere I looked seemed to have a smoky haze. The fabrics were too soft, the room too quiet—something about it made you want to whisper. This room was to travelers what Joel was to women: the ultimate seduction. And the combination of the two made me feel like a whole new woman.