Porn Star(35)

It’s for the show, but I melt. “Say hello?”

He grins and nods and then presses his lips around my lower one.

“Hello,” I say, breathless when we part again, and I suddenly don’t care if it is just for the camera because it has the same effect on me either way. And damn, the effect is amazing.

“I brought a picnic again.” He sounds apologetic. “It’s just so hard to obtain permits for most public places. Especially when I don’t have any intention of behaving.”

“Sounds good to me.” He’s the only thing I’m interested in putting in my mouth anyway.

He pulls out into traffic and then reaches over to lace his fingers in mine. “The picnic? Or not behaving?”

I shrug and smile coyly, partly for the camera, but mostly because I’m afraid if I speak, the only thing I’ll want to say is hello a few more times, or a thousand.

Logan doesn’t tell me where we’re going, save that it’s a ways out of town but totally worth it; he drives north and east, and two hours later we’re pulling off Templin Highway outside Angeles National Forest onto a wide gravel shoulder.

“Good. We’re alone.” He gives me a quick peck before turning off the engine and gesturing for me to get out of the car.

Logan sets up our picnic on the hood of his car, and even with his handheld a distinct presence, our meal of sushi and tsukemono paired with plum wine is absolute perfection. Between popping California rolls in our mouths, we kiss and make out like any two normal people who are attracted to each other and are newly going out.

Is that what we are—normal people? When I’m with him like this, and he’s touching me, and my blood is boiling in my veins, I actually believe we might be.

When the sun has set and we’ve finished both dinner and the bottle of wine, I realize why he’s brought me to this spot. “The stars,” I gasp. “They’re so clear here.”

“Impressed? Hint—you should say yes.”

My smile is so wide, I’m sure I look like a dork. “Yes.” I lose myself in the sky above me, searching out the patterns I know best, identifying their pinpoints silently in my head. Polaris, Orion, Rigel, Betelgeuse, Antares…

“Stay here.” Logan slides off the hood and disappears behind the car. I hear the trunk pop and a minute later he returns with a tripod. After extending the legs, he sets it on the ground, facing toward the hood of the car, and I swear my temperature rises a whole degree in anticipation of what he’s planning to film next.

I sit up, propping myself on my elbows, and watch him.

He can feel my gaze. I’m sure of it. But he doesn’t react to it, and as he begins to fasten the camera to the tripod, he glances behind him at the horizon and nods. “What stars are those?”

I follow the line to find the two brightest lights at the end of it. “They’re actually not stars at all. That’s Jupiter,” I point to the one higher in the sky, then at the lower one, “and that’s Venus.”

“Planets, then. Are they always that close to each other?”

“No. And they’re not really close. It’s an illusion. Venus is our closest neighbor and is about the same size as Earth. Jupiter is far away, but since it’s so big, it looks the same size at this distance. As the Earth rotates, they can look like they’re closer or farther apart depending on how the horizon lines up.”

I realize my scientific explanation probably sounds serious and bland so I add, “My father says they’re the lovers Layla and Majnun, immortalized forever in the sky. The two have been dancing nearer to each other all month. Later, they’ll get so close they’ll look like they’re kissing.”

Apparently done fiddling with the camera, he straightens and moves toward me. “Kissing’s nice,” he says. Then he leans down to kiss the inside of my knee.

Electricity shoots through my body like a bolt of lightning. “Yes.” Does my voice sound as thin to him as it does to me? “Especially because Layla and Majnun never actually touched on Earth.”

“That’s tragic.” His fingers graze the spot he kissed then begin trailing the line of my leg.

I shiver. “Very.”

“Tell me about them.”

“Well.” I take a breath, using the sky to center myself, to focus on what I’m saying instead of the blistering scorch of his touch. “The story dates back to seventh century Persia with Qays, the son of a wealthy and powerful descendent of Muhammad known as a Sayyid. When he’s just a boy, Qays meets Layla at school and they immediately fall in love.”

“As boys do.”

“As boys do.” Goose pimples skate down my arms even as I try to ignore what this boy is doing. It’s hard to think while his hands—both of them now—caress a pathway up the inside of my thighs.

But he urges me to go on, so I do. “Qays is so inspired by his love that he writes her endless letters and poems and songs and then recites them on the street corners for anyone who passes by to hear. Soon, the community starts referring to him as Majnun, which means madman, because his passion for Layla is so great it’s mistaken for insanity.”

Right now, I’m about to mistake my own passion for insanity because Logan’s journey has reached my panties and the nearness of his caress to my most wanting body part is driving me mad. His fingers wrap around the waistband, and I lift my hips so that he can draw the thin garment down my legs and over my sandals.