The elevator becomes our cage and our liberation simultaneously.
Jake doesn't need to respond, he just acts. His mouth finds mine with weeks of suppressed hunger, and I taste rain and desperation and everything we've been denying since Manhattan closed around us like a fist.
"Fuck the rules," he growls against my lips. "Fuck all of it."
His hands grip my soaked blouse, pulling me against him with force that makes my spine hit the elevator wall. The impact sends a jolt through my body—not pain, but awakening. Like I've been sleeping for weeks and finally remembered how to breathe.
I sink to my knees.
The elevator floor is cold and hard beneath my legs, but I don't care. Can't care. Not when Jake's breath catches like I've wounded him. Not when his hand finds the handrail to stay upright.
"Adison—" My name breaks in his throat.
I work his belt open with fingers that remember this. Remember him. The buckle clinks against the metal wall as I free his cock—thick and hard and straining toward me like his body knows exactly where it belongs.
"Let me," I whisper, and then my mouth closes around him.
The sound he makes is guttural. Raw. His hips jerk forward before he catches himself, and I take him deeper because I want all of him. Want to feel his composure shatter like it's shattering me.
"God—" His hand tangles in my wet hair, gripping hard enough to sting. "Your mouth. Fucking perfect."
I work him with my tongue, hollowing my cheeks, finding the rhythm that makes his thighs shake. The emergency lighting casts everything in strange shadows, and somewhere in the back of my mind I know cameras might be watching. Know we could be caught any moment.
The knowledge makes everything sharper. More desperate. More alive.
"Adison." His voice is wrecked. "I'm going to—you need to stop or I'll—"
I don't stop. Take him deeper instead, feel him pulse against my tongue as his control finally, completely shatters.
"Fuck—" His hand tightens in my hair. "Adison. Adison."
My name becomes the only word left in the language.
Then he's pulling me up, spinning me around before I can catch my breath. My palms hit the elevator wall—cold metal that shocks against my overheated skin.
"My turn," he growls against my ear.
His hands yank my skirt up, shoving my soaked underwear aside without bothering to remove it. I feel him hard against me again already—recovered, desperate, demanding.
"Tell me you want this." His breath is hot on my neck.
"I want this." The words come out broken. Honest. "I want you. Please, Jake—"
He drives into me from behind.
The stretch is everything—that fullness that makes my vision blur, that sense of being claimed completely. The cold metal beneath my palms contrasts with the heat of him inside me, and the combination sends sparks shooting through my nervous system.
"So tight." His voice is gravel against my shoulder. "So fucking wet for me."
"Don't stop." I push back against him, taking him deeper. "Don't ever stop."
He doesn't. Sets a brutal rhythm that makes me brace harder against the wall. Each thrust drives the breath from my lungs. Each withdrawal leaves me empty and aching for more.
"You're mine." He bites down where my neck meets shoulder—hard enough to mark. "No matter what we have to pretend out there. This is real. This is ours."
"Yours," I manage. "God, yes. Yours."
The pleasure builds like a wave I can't outrun. His hand slides around my hip, finding the swollen bundle of nerves between my thighs. His fingers circle roughly while he continues to pound into me from behind.
"Come for me." His command is barely a whisper. "Let me feel it."
The orgasm rips through me without warning. I cry out—too loud, too obvious, but I can't stop the sound tearing from my throat as my walls clamp down around him.
"That's it." He groans, rhythm stuttering. "That's my girl."
He follows moments later, shuddering, spilling inside me while my name falls from his lips like a prayer. His forehead drops against my shoulder, both of us breathing like we've run for miles.
The elevator lurches.
"Shit—" Jake pulls out of me fast, both of us scrambling to make ourselves presentable. My fingers fumble with my skirt. His hands yank at his zipper. Everything is wet and disheveled and obviously, catastrophically just-fucked.
The doors slide open.
Maria stands there.
Her eyes widen—taking in my destroyed blouse, Jake's still-uneven breathing, the obvious aftermath written all over both of us. Then she slams her eyes shut with the speed of someone who has seen far too much.
"I'm so sorry!" She spins around, one hand covering her face. "I thought I heard—the elevator was stuck and I—I'll just—"
She disappears down the hallway before either of us can respond.
Jake and I stand frozen in the elevator.
Still breathing hard. Still damp from rain and exertion. Looking at each other with expressions caught somewhere between mortification and exhilaration.
A laugh bubbles up in my chest. Inappropriate. Uncontrollable.
"Did that just—" I can't finish the sentence.
"Yeah." Jake's mouth twitches. "That just happened."
The doors begin to close between us and the empty hallway.
He catches them with one hand, holding them open, and meets my eyes with something I haven't seen in weeks. Something that looks like the man I fell in love with in Texas.
"Worth it," he says simply.
I take his hand. Step out of the elevator together.
"Completely worth it," I agree.
Maria has vanished entirely—probably to her room, probably to contemplate career changes. We'll deal with that tomorrow. Deal with everything tomorrow.
Tonight, we're just us. Wet and laughing and finally, impossibly real.