On the Way Down

Chapter Twenty

It's a night that doesn't end until long after the sun comes up.

After being in Phoenix's arms turns into the brush of his lips on my forehead and over each of my closed eyelids, and after that leads to a soft kiss that deepens into more, and after that turns into making out and exploring one another in ways I once thought we never would again, the passion between us combusts. Any hesitation or caution we had last weekend about our temporary geographic distance is abandoned in the moment, no looking back.

There's something about the way our bodies fit together, like two perfectly interlocking puzzle pieces. How the rhythm of us takes over, as if the years between the last time and now evaporate into nothing and linear time becomes a fable. The feeling of falling headfirst into an endless ocean of him and me when I look into his eyes and he gazes into mine, and the pleasure that ripples through me and grows until I'm clutching onto him, fingernails against skin, surrendering to sweet release.

It was always good with us, but somehow never quite as good as it is now in this current incarnation of who and what we are. Primal. Instinctual. Two souls made of stardust finding their way home.

Us.

There may be things we're still uncovering from the time between the relationship we once had and what we have now, but I don't regret our decision to take things to this level already. And hours later, when we lie together in bed, Phoenix holding me, his body curved around mine, I take comfort in the once familiar sound of his deep and even breathing as he falls asleep.

For my part, I'm almost afraid to close my eyes in case I wake up to find myself at home in L.A. and discover that this night and the weeks that led up to it were all just a dream. But eventually my eyes shut on their own, and slumber pulls me into its dreamless depths. When my eyes next open and wakeful reality comes into focus again, Phoenix's arm is still draped across me. He must see or feel me stir, because he holds me closer and buries his face in my hair.

"Good afternoon." His voice is muffled, but I hear the softness in how he speaks. My heart is already dangerously close to bursting right out of my chest. Waking up in Vegas has never been like this.

"It really is."

It's a cheesy answer, and I don't care, because it's the truth. I could stay like this for an eternity, snuggled into him, our legs and arms tangled together, with nothing else we need to do and nowhere we have to be. That's exactly what we do for a few tranquil minutes, neither of us speaking, with only the sound of the fan from the central air and muted daytime noises from outside as a backdrop to the quiet.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"It was noon when I woke up, so later than that."

His lips glide over my ear and then find my neck. I sink even more into the feeling of him and the cocoon of his body against mine, torn between staying positioned as I am and letting him continue, or taking bolder physical action invoked by the fire he's already managed to spark at my core again. We may never leave this bed.

My stomach turns out to be the decisive third party in the situation when it emits a quiet growl. I nearly laugh at how it's this, of all things, breaking into the moment, but I'm also not self-conscious about it. Everything about right now has the comfort of the years we already knew each other this way, and God, it's blissful.

"Should I make us something to eat?" Phoenix's hand drifts down to rest on my stomach.

"Mmmm. Would that mean we have to get up?"

"Just for a while, so we don't get too hungry, or hangry. Then we can do whatever you'd like."

"I never get hangry," I protest.