Lance led me by the hand from the bar. We hailed a taxi, and left.

The tension was enveloping us like a blanket. We didn’t say a word in the back of that taxi. We just held hands, staring out at the city streets as they whizzed past.

The bell hop opened the hotel door for us, and then we were in the elevator. Suddenly, Lance punched the console, and the elevator lurched to a stop.

“What are you doing?” Had he gone crazy?

He didn’t say a word. He simply grabbed me, pushing me against the wall. I could see our reflection in the mirror opposite.

He bent down, putting his hands on my legs, then snaked them up underneath my dress. I gasped, arching my head back. He really had gone crazy.

He found my panties, and simply pulled them down. I felt the wetness coursing through me.

He took a condom out of his pants pocket, tearing at it recklessly. Then he grabbed me, hitching my dress up. I wound my legs around him.

When he entered me, it felt like nothing I had ever experienced. He was as hard as a rock, and fit inside me like a glove. He pinned me to the wall, and started moving. Oh God, it was divine.

I could see us in the mirror opposite, me pinned with my legs wrapped around him, Lance with his trousers around his ankles and his buttocks grinding into me. It was so goddamn sexy I almost came there and then.

I tried to slow myself, though. It was too good not to.

I could feel him getting close. He pulled the top of my dress down, so that a breast popped out. He latched onto the nipple, sucking and pulling as he ground harder into me. The sucking on my nipple was tilting me over the edge. I wouldn’t be able to last much longer.

Suddenly, he gripped me tighter, sucking hard. He let the nipple pop out of his mouth just as he came, grunting loudly.

My spasms started at the same time. I came so hard I hit my head against the wall of the elevator, but I didn’t even feel it. He slowly released me, and I slid down the wall, dazed.

Sweet Jesus. It had all happened in a matter of moments.

Lance put his arms around me. “How are you feeling?” he whispered, biting my ear. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

“Amazing,” I whispered back. “How on earth did you know that I’ve always wanted to do it in an elevator?”

He laughed. “Intuition,” he growled.

We set our clothing right, then he turned to me. “Ready to keep travelling?”

I nodded, still fogged with the afterglow.

He punched the console, and the elevator started moving upwards again, stopping at the next floor. The door opened, and an older couple stood there, looking puzzled.

“That sure did take a long time,” the woman said to us as they entered.

“We’ve been punching the console for over five minutes,” the man said.

They both looked at us, but we didn’t answer. I could feel laughter bubbling up inside of me, so high that I could barely contain it.

I sneaked a peek at Lance, and could see that he was barely holding it together. A grin was twitching at the corners of his mouth. Don’t look at him, I commanded myself, as the laughter threatened to spill out.

Thank God, it was our floor. The doors opened, and we both stepped out, collapsing in laughter against each other as the doors closed on the shocked faces of the couple.

It wouldn’t stop. The laughter kept coming like a stream.

He picked me up, carrying me to the door of the room. He managed to get it open, and he threw me on the bed, collapsing on top of me.

I had never been so happy in my life.

* * *

I woke up the next morning to see sunshine streaming through the windows and Lance opening the door to room service. I blinked, trying to shake away sleep.

I glanced down at myself underneath the sheet. Completely naked. I couldn’t remember taking my clothes off.

Oh, yes. That’s right. Lance had taken them off me, before removing his own and sliding into the bed beside me. We had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, still laughing about the couple in the elevator.

Another memory surfaced. In the darkness of pre-dawn, Lance waking me with kisses, the whole length of my body. We had made love slowly, aching for each other. I had fallen asleep again after another mind-blowing orgasm.

Lance wheeled the trolley into the room.

“Breakfast, my lady?” He asked, pulling the lid away to reveal an array of goodies: eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles…it looked like he’d ordered everything off the menu.

He poured me a coffee, bringing it over to me in the bed.

“Thank you,” I whispered, sipping at the scalding liquid. It felt good, energising me.

“You sure do look good first thing in the morning, Miss Gemma,” he said, staring at my breasts. The sheet had slid down when I’d sat up to take the coffee.

I blushed, pulling the sheet up. It was hopeless; it kept sliding back down.

“There’s no need,” he whispered. “I like to look at you. Don’t hide yourself.”

I blushed deeper. What would happen, now? We’d had a fantastic night, despite the incident in the restaurant, and the sex had been simply out of this world.

But I was a big girl, in more ways than one. I knew how things worked. What happens between the sheets, or even in the elevator, is no indication of how things would be in the cold light of day.

“Let’s be tourists,” Lance said, breaking my reverie. “After breakfast, I’m gonna take you to all the sights in the Big Apple. Have you ever seen the Statue of Liberty, or climbed the Empire State Building?”

I shook my head. A delighted smile was starting to spread across my face.

“Well, then, this is what I propose for the day,” he said. “We are going to see all those things and more. We are going to eat dodgy hotdogs from a street cart, and snack on pretzels. I want you to wear your most comfortable clothes. No more hobnobbing down those exclusive streets – we are going to experience the real New York. What do you say?”

I nodded, slowly. It sounded amazing.

“Okay, well let’s get started on this breakfast, then.” He got up from the side of the bed, and walked to the trolley.

I stared after him.

It was then that it hit me like a brick falling from above, knocking me sideways with the force of it.

I loved him.

I always had.

I was as deeply in love with Lance Starling as it was possible to be with another human being.

The question was, how did he feel about me?

Was I just a sexual diversion to him, or, I shuddered at the thought, a challenge? His best friend’s girl that he had always fancied. Did he see me as a trophy, another prize to claim in the ongoing competition between him and Jack?

I felt the love, probed it in my mind. It was everything; it was the real thing. How I had denied it for so long was a mystery to me. Once it had made itself known, it was so obvious it blinded me.

But what about Lance?

Was I, as he claimed, a real woman to him? Or was I simply another notch on his SEALs belt?