Page 70 of Falling Like Stars

He kisses me deeply—the most deeply intimate kiss of my life, giving me everything so that I can’t help but give him everything back. I’ve never been this naked before, body and spirit, and somehow, it’s okay.

Because this is right. Everything about this is right.

Our breaths come shorter, our kisses now shallow, sucking pulls and nipping teeth. I feel him beneath me, his erection huge and hard. I slip onto the floor on my knees, my hands on the waistband of his pants, tugging. He shakes his head and pulls me back to him.

“I want to,” I say.

“And I appreciate the offer,” Zach says, “but I need to be inside you right now.”

His honest need is shocking to me. Everything about him is shocking—that he can be this full of raw animal desire and completely attentive at the same time.

Zach stands and brings me to my feet. We make our way, stumbling, staggering, kissing, into the bedroom. I lie back on the bed and take him with me. His weight on me is a perfect heaviness of masculine beauty. My hands trace the lines of his abs, his pecs, up to the lines of his shoulders. Every muscle honed to flawlessness so that he is beautiful for the world. Right now, he’s beautiful just for me.

He takes off his pants and desire rushes through me, hot as fire and stealing my breath to see there’s no part of his body that isn’t magnificent. He reaches for a condom in the nightstand drawer, then he’s poised over me, then lowering down, then sinking into me. I let out a little cry, a sound I know I’ve never made in my life: pure surrender.

Zach is braced on his forearms, moving in me with a look of pained ecstasy, his brows knit, his lush mouth drawn in a grimace of restrained need. I wrap my legs around his slim waist, locking him to me. He goes slow. Agonizingly slow, his hips rising and falling, his hard length sliding in and out of me with ease because I’ve never wanted a man so badly in my life. My hands slide down the smooth skin of his back, feeling the ribbons of muscle coil and uncoil beneath my touch.

“Please, Zach,” I beg in his ear, whispering hotly. “Please.”

He moves faster, his hips pistoning now, and the power of those muscles is all for me. The masculine perfection of his body works over me and in me to bring me closer to the edge. He hooks a forearm under my knee, changing the angle of his thrusts, and I cry out as he hits that spot deep inside me again and again. The heavy pressure builds until it breaks and then I’m flooded with ecstasy. Every muscle in my body tenses, and a cry rises behind my teeth. I’m wrapped around him like a starfish, legs and arms, one hand in his hair.

Zach makes a sound deep in his chest and I know he’s close. I push him back enough to see his face, to kiss him, to tell him yes. Yes to everything that he can give me and do to me. He pushes up on his hands, his hips thrusting a perfect rhythm until it’s broken by his own orgasm that shudders through him. The look on his face…it’s an expression I’ve never seen from him on film or TV or even in that cabin in Alaska. This release is real and it’s all for me.

I gave that to him, I think with a strange pride, and then I’m pulling him back to me and kissing him. His heavy frame slumps against me and I hold him there, unwilling to let go.

And this feeling…I’m not willing to let go of that either.

Chapter Twenty

I CURL UP into Zach, cling to him, and wait for the panic attack to hit. It doesn’t come and I breathe a sigh of relief. The guilt is just a butterfly, and right now, it’s flown away. I have a little bit of peace, but deep down, I know it’s fragile. Delicate. It has rules and conditions. I don’t know what they are and don’t want to find out. Better to stay here, tucked safely away from the world with Zach and just be.

His hand is trailing lazily in my hair, his lips brushing my forehead as I rest my head against his chest.

“Without a doubt,” he says, his voice rumbling in my ear, “that was the best party I’ve ever been to.”

I sniff a laugh and snuggle closer. I’ve never spooned with a guy or been held after sex. Zach does it as if it’s second nature, as if he’d tuck me into him and keep me safe.

“I’m surprised you’re still at the hotel,” I say slowly. “I’m not surprised that you keep your Oscar on the toilet.”

“Best shelf in the joint,” he says. “And it’s easier to just stay here. I’ve been working too much to give selling the house any kind of attention.”

I want to ask him more about how he’s doing and why he’s working so hard, but that might invite similar questions.

“What made you get into acting?” I ask instead, then peer up at him. “You’ve probably answered that question in a hundred interviews.”

“Yes, and I’m offended you haven’t seen any of them,” he says. He gives me a kiss on the nose, then settles back against the pillows. “My brother and I were eight years old. Our mom had taken us to the state fair in St. Louis where a casting agent saw us. He wanted us both, but Jeremy wasn’t interested.”

“Wait, you were both eight?”

“Jeremy is my twin brother. Fraternal, though the differences aren’t much.”

“So, there are two of you. Does the internet know about this?”

He chuckles. “Probably. But Jeremy wants nothing to do with acting.”

“What does he do?”

“Everything else,” Zach says, and his voice is full of brotherly affection. “He’s a free spirit. Does odd jobs and is always disappearing for long stretches, visiting far-flung places, then coming back with tales of his adventures. When we were kids, he was the wild child, and I was the quiet one. Acting is too much discipline for him, much to that casting agent’s dismay.”

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