There was only one thing left to ask Garrett. I was worried he’d answer no and even more terrified he’d answer yes.

I set my empty glass down and glanced out the window before turning my attention back to him. The last of my wine had failed to move the lump of excitement lodged in my throat.

“Do you still want to do this?” I asked, heart pounding. Under the table, my hands fluttered in my lap, restless and excited.

“Yes, I still want to do this,” he said without hesitation.

“Should we go over the rules one more time?”

A slow smile spread across Garrett’s face. “Only if you need to.”

“I don’t.”

He rose from his seat and came to pull mine out for me. After helping me into my coat, he rested a hand at the small of my back and guided me from the restaurant. Conversation was quiet, minimal, during the drive to my hotel.

We swept through the lobby, headed straight to the bank of elevators. I barely noticed the rich marble gleaming under my feet or the huge glittering chandelier suspended fifty feet above. It was all I could do to maintain my composure.

Garrett pushed the call button. Other people gathered around, all waiting to go up. I tried to imagine what each of them was returning to in their rooms but all that came to mind was what I had waiting for me.

The elevator announced its arrival with a chiming melody. It took a moment for the people inside to exit and another moment for our companions to move in.

We ended up in a back corner. The elevator filled taking ever more of my personal space with it.

Garrett slid his hand into mine and leaned his face to my shoulder.

“Full crowd,” he whispered, his hand giving mine a quick squeeze.

Most of the guests got off before the fifteenth floor. As soon as we passed the twentieth, we had the elevator to ourselves.

The car started up. I turned and pulled the emergency stop jerking us to a halt and setting off an alarm.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“This is the only chance we’re ever going to have to be alone together. I want it to last more than sixty seconds.”

The alarm went quiet. Under the elevator buttons, the emergency phone rang. I answered it.

“Hi, sorry, my mistake.”

I listened then spoke. “Thank you. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

The elevator started up as I replaced the receiver. I pushed the button marked 24.”I thought we were on 25,” he said.

“We are. I’m going to send my husband a text message saying you want to take me out dancing first and that I’ve made you agree that we will only stay out one hour before coming to the hotel,” I said.

A wry smile turned the corner of his mouth up. “And, then?”

“Then, we get off one floor early and spend one hour, alone together.”

There! I’d said it!

My heart trip-hammered.

Above the doors, the number 23 lit up. I wished I could blame my trembling on the elevator but it ran smooth and silent.

The double chime of an impending stop announced that his time to decide had run out.

I expected the doors to hiss but they opened with almost no sound.

Garrett held his thumb on the door open button.

“Is that a no?” I asked, the first flutter of panic stirring in my belly.

“Ladies first,” he said.

Garrett relaxed, his thumb coming off the button holding the door open. I stepped into the hallway and pulled my phone from my purse.

“Wait until we’re in the room to send him the message. I don’t intend to waste a single second,” he said.

I tried to answer but nothing came out. I nodded instead, indicating that he should follow.

I led us down the hallway, in the opposite direction of the room where Chris sat waiting one floor above us. The thought sent prickly shivers through me.

At the end of the hallway, I stopped in front of a door and slid my key card from my purse.

Garrett stripped it from my fingers and opened the door with a flourish.

“Madame,” he said.

I’d made certain there was an expensive bottle of champagne on ice in easy view. It took longer than usual to type out the message to Chris because my hands were shaking.

Garrett popped the cork at the same moment I hit send. He handed me a glass, took my phone, and turned it off.

“Now, we are alone.” He slipped my phone into his inside jacket pocket.

“What about your phone?” I asked.

“I turned my phone off the moment we sat down for dinner.”

I sipped my wine and thought about that.

“So, what now?” he asked.

It took two hands on my glass to keep it from shaking. “You have to ask?”

His face grew serious. “Ladies first.”

Lightning zapped through my belly and grounded itself between my thighs. I finished my wine and started toward him.

The faint spice of his soap grew stronger the closer I got. I hesitated, suddenly shy. Instead of kissing him, I reached for his tie. Cool silk tangled around my fingers as I gathered it. When I had taken out enough slack, I tilted my face up to his and pulled him down by his tie.

His mouth, warm and firm, touched mine.

I sucked in a small breath.

He took my open mouth as invitation. His tongue flitted across my lips before sliding between them. I tasted sweet wine and the smoky vanilla of the whisky he’d had at dinner.

My empty wine glass fell to the carpet. I let go of his tie and wound my arms around his neck. I couldn’t get enough of his mouth.

He groaned as my kisses intensified.

Garrett wrapped his arms around me, one hand between my shoulders, the other at the small of my back.

“Is it greedy to wish for more time?”

“Very.”

His fingers found the zipper tab between my shoulders and drew it down. I had to stop kissing him to get my dress off.

Garrett hung his jacket on a chair back then slipped his tie off and began unbuttoning his shirt.

Greedy, so greedy, for wishing there was time to undress him myself. I wanted the time to ease his tie from his neck, enough time, perhaps, for him to blindfold me or bind my wrists with that expensive length of silk.

His belt buckle jingled as he worked to undo it.

“Take all that off.” He waved a hand in my direction. “I don’t want to waste time on decorations,” he said.

With only a bra and stockings to remove, I finished undressing first. That gave me the opportunity to watch him reveal his cock.

Undressed, Garrett reached out. When I gave him my hand, he drew it straight to his cock.

Squeezing tight, I eased his foreskin back releasing the heavy musk of his arousal. The mat of hair on his chest crinkled against my nipples. I let go and ran my free hand up from his cock, clutching fistfuls of his curls in my fingers.

Garrett lifted me and turned toward the bed.

“I want to see you in the light so I can remember every detail,” he said.

Garrett set me down then gave me instructions on just how he wanted me to lie.

“There. Just like that. Lay still and let me look at you.”

He sat next to me, staring down at my face, my breasts, my belly, touching me everywhere with his eyes.

I squirmed under his gaze.

“Are you uncomfortable, Anna?” he asked.

“I’m not used to having someone stare at me like this.”

He ran two fingers between my breasts, leaving a trail of heat. His palm settled on my belly.

“You’re trembling,” he said.

I covered my breasts with my arms and looked away.

Garrett leaned down until his mouth was an inch from my ear.

“I’m trembling, too,” he whispered.

I turned and kissed him, grateful for his honesty.

He broke away, his eyes taking the measure of my face even as he eased my arms away from my chest.

“You don’t look anything like I imagined,” he said.

“You’re saying I don’t compare to my photographs?”

He kept me from covering myself, his hands pushing mine away.

“Stop, Anna. Photographs, emails, phone calls, none of them could ever capture the whole you. They’re just bits, pieces, digitized and sterilized. But, this is you, whole, integrated, all the bits and pieces together in one place, at one time.”

Garrett placed a light kiss on my mouth, another between my breasts.

“You’re not disappointed?” I asked.

“Do I look disappointed?”

“No,” I whispered.

Garrett kissed his way along the underside of my breast, working around to the nipple. He stopped short of the sensitive peak and switched breasts. His fingers played with the soft curls between my thighs.

He escalated his teasing, sucking a nipple at random. His free hand wandered across my legs and hip, never touching where I needed it most.

The minutes raced away, defying physics to keep time with my speeding heart. Lacking his patience and control, I pushed up into him. Garrett resisted a moment then eased away until we lay side by side. I ran my fingers across his lips.

He took my hand, keeping it close so he could kiss my palm.

“Come here,” he said, tugging my wrist

I slid my leg across his thighs and rolled onto him, both of us breathing hard. He wound his fingers through mine then let go. Garrett ran his hands up the violin curve of my waist, pushing me until I sat up.

I put my palms flat on his chest to brace myself then shifted. When his cock lay where I wanted it, I eased onto him.

He groaned and thrust into me when I gave his nipples a light pinch. His hands clamped over my hips, pushing me farther down.

I seated myself and sat still while I ran my fingers across his stomach, his arms, the warm lines of his face. His lips were hot to the touch.

“Kiss me,” he said.

The difference in our heights made it impossible for me to kiss him without sliding off his cock.

I placed light kisses against his mouth in between gasps.

His hands tightened on my hips.

“I need you to fuck me. Now. Right now,” I said.

Garrett raised his shoulders from the bed then shifted our weight so he was on top and eased his cock in. A shudder rolled through him. He kept still until it passed.

“Please, Garrett…the time,” I whispered.

He started slow, using his cock to find the places that made me moan loudest. His fucking intensified, sped up, grew urgent.

Each time he thrust he aimed his cock at a different spot, touching each in turn.

My hands fluttered across his shoulders like dazed butterflies. They settled on his face. I brought his mouth to mine.

Garrett kissed me then turned to rest his cheek against mine.

“My beautiful Anna,” he whispered.

Consciousness dimmed as the first stirrings of my orgasm gained traction. I dug my fingers into the muscles of his ass, guiding his cock to my sweet spot. My breath turned to gasping whimpers that grew louder with each thrust.

“You feel so good.”

The heavy swell of his cock pushed my orgasm to the flashpoint. It ripped toward me with its blinding, infernal heat.

The shockwave roared over me then roared past leaving me deaf and blind in its wake.

I eased my grip on Garrett’s ass, letting him go where he needed to.

He changed his angle, the new position steering me toward a second orgasm before the first had fully receded.

I concentrated on the feel of his skin under my fingers, trying to hold off until he was ready. I might as well have tried to put out the sun.

“You’re going to make me come again,” I whispered.

Garrett growled and sat back on his knees.

I hissed in surprise as he pulled out. The interruption blunted the edge of my impending orgasm, dulling it.

He pumped his fist over his cock releasing a thick stream that spattered across my belly. The second jet arced up to splash across my breasts. A single drop landed on my cheek. Garrett stroked one last time. The weak flow spilled into my pubic hair where it beaded like loose pearls. He collapsed next to me.

We lay without speaking, breath slowing, going quiet.

Garrett turned and ran his fingers through the slick pools cooling on my skin.

The throb of an unrealized orgasm beat between my thighs, insistent and maddening.

“What time is it?” I asked, hoping there was enough left for him to finish me off.

“It’s time to get dressed and go upstairs so we can do this all again for your husband.” he said. Garrett gave me a wicked smile. “And, this time, we’ll have all the time in the world.”

© 2011 Alice Gray. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Bio: Alice Gray is a freelance graphic designer with a passion for writing erotic fiction. Her work has appeared in Clean Sheets Erotica Magazine, Frequently Felt by M. Christian, ERWA’s Treasure Chest of Best Erotica for 2008, 2009 and 2010 and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. Alice lives in San Francisco, California with her husband and two young sons. To read more of her work, visit aliceblackandwhite.com.