Page 72 of Falling Like Stars

“Who are you favorites?” I ask, flipping through the streaming services, both of us on the couch and barely dressed. “I’m curious who the actors are that a truly amazing actor admires.”

“Sam Rockwell is a certifiable genius. Shea Whigham, Viola Davis…but Daniel Day Lewis is the absolute pinnacle of the craft.” Zach shoots me a look. “This is what you want to talk about? I was thinking we could go—”

“Perfect! Here’s There Will Be Blood,” I say. “Let’s order pizza again and be lazy for one more night.”

I avert my eyes before Zach’s ultra-observant super-powers see the unease that lurks just below. I’m doing so well. Not a hint of panic, and I know it’s because I’m holding life still. It moved on brutally fast after Josh died, but now I’m putting on the brakes. Taking a time out with Zach, because all that pain is still there, waiting for me, but I’m not ready to give him up to it. Not yet.

Maybe never. Maybe I’m okay…

The pizza arrives—pepperoni and black olive—and we eat our fill. But the movie can’t hold my attention. Zach is beside me, and my body feels attuned only to him. To his nearness and presence. Moreover, there’s a part of me that’s been withering without affection for so long. Longing for the touch of a man that isn’t greedy and selfish in intention. I put myself in those shitty positions for want of that, because I never thought I could or would ever have someone like Zach.

He touches me like he wants me to feel everything.

“You don’t like the flick?” Zach asks when I fidget on the couch beside him for the tenth time.

“It’s not that,” I say. “You’re too…”

A hundred words could finish this sentence. Good. Sexy. Amazing. Wonderful.

“…distracting.”

His dark eyes rake over me. “I know what you mean.”

I slip a little slice of pepperoni into Zach’s mouth, then kiss him. The salty and savory flavor blends with his own clean taste, and the movie is forgotten. We’ve had each other a dozen times in as many hours, but it’s not enough.

I toss the pizza aside and assume my favorite position, straddling Zach, kissing him harder, deeper. Instantly, he responds, and I can feel something in his body change. His energy. The air between us is electric again, the need that’s always simmering, now ready to boil over. His hands are on me, roaming, then holding my hips and grinding me down on his erection.

“Damn, Rowan,” he breathes around our kiss. “Need you again,” he grits out, echoing my own feelings. In the next instant, he’s lying over me. Blanketing me with his strong body, muscles exquisitely honed and chiseled. His weight on me is everything I want: I feel dominated, at his mercy…the sensations made all the sexier because I trust him implicitly.

He wastes no time moving his mouth down my chin, my throat, between my breasts in his borrowed T-shirt. To my stomach, then lower until he reaches the edge of my thong.

“I love making you come,” he says. He slides my underwear off, then comes right back, putting his face between my legs.

“That’s because you’re so good at it—oh God,” I cry, my back arching with the electrical shockwaves his tongue, lips, and even his teeth are sending through me. One flailing hand finds the side of the couch, the other, his hair, and I hold on for dear life, sure I’ll float off the face of the earth otherwise.

He’s relentless, and within moments, he’s brought me to yet another orgasm. Breathing hard, I grip his broad shoulders and pull him to me. I kiss him wantonly, tasting myself, and it only makes me want him more.

“Now,” I whisper. “Please...”

He nods, his eyes dark and hooded, and starts to reach for one of the condoms we have littered around the bungalow. I stop him.

“I had a checkup a few weeks ago. Perfect bill of health and I’m on the pill.” I shift my hips beneath him, lifting my nakedness to the flannel of his pants. “I want you to feel everything.”

Zach’s eyes flare and I feel his desire for me like a hit from the most powerful drug. Because I’m addicted to what he does to me, how he makes me feel in my body but also in the parts of myself I’ve hated for so long. A craving that’s give as much as take, because I want to give it all back to him, as much as he can take.

He bends to kiss me, and I reach down to pull at his sleep pants. But a sudden thought jolts him, and he grips my hand, stopping me.

“Wait. I shouldn’t.” Zach sits up, breathing hard.

“Why?”

“Because…”

He looks away, and humiliation burns through me like wildfire. I feel as if every sordid hook-up I’ve ever had is suddenly in the room with us. I draw on my underwear, wanting to run away. “I get it,” I say, looking for my dress. “I should go. Work tomorrow...”

Zach takes my arm. “Whoa, hold on. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s ridiculous but… I don’t know what happened the morning after the Oscars. The last thing I remember is being on the couch that night, drunk off my ass. Eva threw a tantrum because I didn’t thank her in my speech. And then I woke up in our bedroom, basically naked with her beside me.”

I stare, aghast, and he looks away, misreading my shock.

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