Lucky Star: A Hollywood Love Story

by Rebecca Norinne Caudill

The movies.

  That’s when I remembered we’d never gotten around to discussing the drama of my work day as it related to the excitement of his.

  “Congratulations by the way. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” he murmured, rolling onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. I thought he’d have more to say – after all, this was his big break, something he’d worked toward for years – and I would have said something about his lack of excitement, but when I heard a weighty sigh leave his body I bit my tongue. That was not the good kind of sigh and it worried me. I wondered if he was going to tell me what the problem was or if I was going to have to drag it out of him like I always did. For as great a listener as Cameron was when other people needed a shoulder to cry on, he had a heck of a hard time talking about his own problems. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever heard him complain without me having to coerce him into it.

  I scooted over and laid my left arm across his body, set my chin on his chest, and glared at him. “That was not the happy kind of sigh I want to hear you make when you’re in my bed.” I gently bit his nipple to make sure I had his attention. “Start talking mister.”

  He darted his eyes from the ceiling to my face and smiled. I swear my heart nearly stopped right then and there.

  “I like this a lot, you know. There’s no awkwardness,” he began, a clear changing of the subject. “You’re still you, and I’m still me, and despite what happened last night”—he dropped a quick, distracting kiss on my forehead— “at the heart of everything we’re still best friends.”

  “Of course we’re still best friends,” I replied, wondering when he was going to let me steer the conversation back to the subject of his newfound stardom. “What did you expect?”

  “Truthfully?” He appeared to be giving my question some thought. “I’d never thought we’d come to this, but so I’d never let myself hope. But then as I watched you walk out out of your office toward me, I expected you to punch me in the nuts and tell me to go fuck myself.” He laughed and rubbed his hand along the light stubble that decorated his jaw. “

  “I’m pretty sure I did tell you to go fuck yourself.” I was actually quite proud of myself that when I’d first seen him standing by my car I hadn’t immediately melted at his feet. “And speaking of punching, you need to go to urgent care because that looks terrible.” Gently I touched his bruised hand.

  “It’s fine,” he said in a manner that suggested he was not going to get it looked at.

  Why he refused to see a doctor, I had no clue, but to prove just how fine it wasn’t, I squeezed his hand no harder than I would an avocado when testing its ripeness. That is to say, not hard at all.

  “Holy fucking shit Sarah,” he yelled, his whole body clenching in spasms of pain, as he jumped off the bed and landed nearly across the other side of the small room.

  Hearing Cameron’s shouts, Duke ran into the room and howled, adding his own commentary to the debate over Cameron’s injured hand.

  “Shut up Duke!” he yelled back.

  At this, Duke stopped howling, cocked his ears, and dropped his head and slunk out of the room. Poor Duke. He loved Cameron more than anyone else – including me – and this was the first time Cameron had ever said an unkind word to or about the damn dog. The fact that he was taking his anger out on my poor besotted canine made me want to break his other hand.

  “Don’t you yell at my fucking dog!”

  “Don’t you yell at me!” he screamed back, turning to face me as he clutched his bruised fingers.

  “I wouldn’t have to yell at you if you weren’t being so pig-headed!” I hollered back before realizing how utterly idiotic we both sounded.

  I also realized he stood in front of me completely naked, the first time I’d seen him completely nude in the full light of day. He stole both my breath and my words and immediately I forgot what I’d been about to say. How could I not have? Everything about him was pure perfection, especially a particularly weighty nine inches I couldn’t tear my eyes from.

  Cameron caught me ogling him and laughed self-consciously. At the same moment he realized I was staring at him, his thick dick decided to get in on the action. “Umm …” he muttered, looking around the room to find something he could cover himself with.

  I took pity on him and tossed him a robe that hung on a hook to my right, just outside the bathroom door. It was a shame to cover up such bodily perfection, but it wasn’t fair for us to stand around fighting while he was in nothing but his birthday suit while lacy underwear and a cotton camisole covered my own flesh.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled, wrapping the fluffy, pale pink robe around his body and tying the satin sash in a loose, awkward knot.

  Smirking, I noted, “Pink is definitely your color.”

  When my remark caused his skin to turn several different shades of the hue in question in about three seconds flat, I almost felt bad for teasing him. Almost, but not quite.

  Our shouting match suspended, I plopped down on the bed and waited for him to join me. Instead he paced the room collecting the clothes he’d tossed this way and that the night before. I definitely needed to set aside some drawer space for him so he didn’t turn my bedroom into a disaster area. I wasn’t super finicky about my space but one thing I absolutely hated was when clothes were piled on every available surface.

  “I think we need to talk,” I said, interrupting his search for his underwear. He turned and looked at me over his shoulder and I almost broke out laughing, the sight of him clad in pale pink from neck to knee too funny for words. My guffaws had clearly piqued his pride so instead of continuing to tease him, I stifled any further giggling and held my tongue.

  “Yeah, I think so too. Let me get dressed first?” When he rose he clutched a bundle of clothes to his chest. When he marched into the bathroom, it struck me odd he hadn’t felt comfortable enough to dress in front of me given he’d had no problem undressing in front of me the night before. I wondered if his sudden reluctance had anything to do with his changed demeanor once I’d brought up the movie.

  Oh fuck, what if that’s not it at all? What if in the light of day he’s regretting everything that happened last night and all that talk of friendship this morning was my clue? A clue I’d completely missed until now?

  My stomach lurched and I swear I felt a literal pain in my chest, the thought of him walking away from me again more than I could handle.

  For several long months I had suffered in silence, my love for Cameron something I never dared hope he would return. And then for one glorious hour I had seen – felt – how good it could be between us only for him to go destroy the moment. If he thought for one minute he was going to do that to me again he had another think coming. I loved Cameron with all my heart, and I would do just about anything to be with him, but I wouldn’t let him toy with my heart in the process. To quote the great Meatloaf, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”

  When almost twenty minutes later I heard the shower turn on, I cursed him. Pulling on a pair of yoga pants and a thin black tank top that wouldn’t show my nipples through the fabric without a bra. As I twisted my hair into a topknot, he emerged from the bathroom and looked around the room before his eyes landed on me.

  “I’m going to make us some coffee, okay?”

  “You know where it’s at.” I tried to keep the irritation from my voice but failed. “Be my guest.”

  I didn’t want to be angry at his latest mood swing, but I could feel myself gearing up for a fight. The more I considered my reaction, the more I realized that I still harbored some amount of resentment toward him for what he’d put me through this past month. I had no idea how things had shifted so quickly between us this morning but the tide had shifted once we’d started yelling at each other.

  I walked to the kitchen to find he’d started the coffee and set out a bowl of food for Duke. The dog had quickly and easily forgiven him even if I maybe hadn’t. I watched my two best friends – man
and beast – and despite my aggravation of a moment ago, felt a surge of warmth in my heart. Sure, just a few minutes ago I’d wanted to tear Cameron a new one, but now? I wanted nothing more than to hug him to me and never let go. Now who is being emo? I thought.

  Regardless of what he’d said when we first woke up, I sensed his thoughts – talk of nothing changing, how it was still the two of us as we had always been – weren’t entirely true. In the span of thirty minutes we’d gone from perfection to … not perfect. Now there existed a tension that had never been there before and I couldn’t figure out why that had changed. How had we altered so much so quickly? There was no reason for us to have started the morning yelling at each other, no reason whatsoever for Cameron to have retreated into himself yet again. Feeling worried and dejected, I hoped we hadn’t fucked things up before we could even truly begin.

  Cameron hadn’t looked my way since I’d entered the room but I knew he sensed my presence in the doorway. Finally, his rub down of Duke complete, he glanced up at me and I felt the earth swing on its axis once again.

  “I liked waking up here,” he said, interrupting my inner monologue.

  “You wouldn’t have known it,” I responded, my voice flat.

  “I think I panicked.”

  “No shit you panicked. But why?”

  “I dunno,” he said, standing up and leaning his long, lithe body against the counter.

  As far as I was concerned he hadn’t answered my question so I didn’t speak. “I dunno” was not a sufficient answer.

  Then he added, “Things were so perfect. I woke up and you were smiling at me and all I felt was this deep, profound sense of rightness.” He smiled and my traitorous cheeks warmed at the happy expression on his face. And then it fell. “I’ve wanted to be with you for so long but it seems like nothing has gone the way I thought it would.”

  He eased himself away from the counter and came to stand in front of me, putting his large hands on my bare arms. At the contact of his skin against mine, my stomach dropped to somewhere around my knees and my heartbeat accelerated. This man could control my body without even trying; just one slight caress and I was ready to melt into him.

  “I didn’t think there’d be any surprises since we know each other so well, but I also hadn’t counted on messing things up so monumentally. Now I feel like every interaction we have is laced with your anger.”

  He put a finger over my lips to keep my interruption at bay.

  “Just hear me out. You’re still really angry for what happened and I don’t blame you. I’m still angry with myself. But when we were fighting back there”— he gestured toward my bedroom— “this look came over your face, something I’d never seen before, and it shocked me. I realized I’ve never seen you truly angry. Sure, I’ve witnessed your road rage first hand and seen how upset you can get over something your mother has said or done, so I thought I knew what to expect when you get worked up. But what I saw when you were yelling at me just now was something entirely different.” He shook his head sadly. “You looked like you hated me, like you wanted me gone from your life and I don’t think I can live with that kind of hate Sarah”

  I was about to deny it, tell him he was wrong, but deep down inside I knew he wasn’t. Despite how wonderful the night before had been – how him admitting he loved me was one of the best things I’d ever heard – I was still hurt over his abandonment. Even though now I knew why it had happened, knowing his reasons didn’t change the fact that I’d spent the last month of my life feeling wretched and humiliated.

  “I’m not trying to be a bitch,” I said, my voice low. “I don’t want to be mad at you anymore, but I don’t know how to make that hurt magically disappear either. You’ve explained why you did what you did, but it doesn’t change the fact that it made me question my own self worth and I loathe that. Can you imagine how you would’ve felt if in the middle of making love, I jumped out of bed and left you, naked and alone, and then basically disappeared from your life without a word? Imagine, for a second, what that would do to you? To your self esteem?”

  When he tried to interrupt me this time, I stalled him by raising my hand in the universal signal for “now wait just a goddamn minute so I can finish saying my piece.”

  “I try not to feel bad about myself, ever. I’m a bigger girl and I know it. Most of the time I love my curves. Hell I celebrate them. But all I could think for those first few days after you left was that I had disgusted you. It isn’t lost on me that guys like you don’t fall for girls like me.”

  Cameron pulled me into his arms and told me, quite emphatically, to shut the fuck up.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever stop apologizing for what I did, but it never once occurred to me you would jump to that conclusion. Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve always been so self-assured. You’re beautiful, you have to know that. So what if you’re not some stick thin waif? I love everything about your body.” He ran his hands down my arms, his eyes flicking over my chest, trapped under the thin cotton tank top I wore. “Your breasts drive me wild. Sometimes I find myself just staring at them, lost in thought of what I could do to them, and then I’ll want nothing more than to lift them to my face so that I can drown in you.”

  He dropped to his knees and placed his hands on my waist before leaning in to plant several kisses over my rounded belly and up my ribcage. “Sometimes during the middle of the day people have been talking to me and I haven’t heard a word they’ve said because I’m so lost in imagining myself on my knees … worshiping you, worshiping your body.”

  He lifted the hem of my shirt and trailed kisses along my bare skin in between his words. As his hands slid up under the thin cotton fabric they left goose bumps in their wake. He didn’t stop their ascent and soon he cupped each of my breasts in his warm, gentle hands. Compared to everything we had already done to each other, the gesture was a fairly innocent one, but the combination of his thumbs caressing my nipples and the words he whispered – words that silenced my misgivings and doubt – was so erotic that I felt myself growing impossibly wet and aroused by it. My desire for him pooled between my thighs and I knew if he touched me the way I wanted him to, even through the barrier of my clothes, I’d definitely come.

  “Since that first time together … I’ve woken up at night hard for you … wanting to bury myself in you … remembering the sweet, salty taste of you on my lips, on my tongue, in my soul.”

  He licked my stomach and I almost collapsed. He trailed his hands down the sides of my body and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of my yoga pants. Sliding them past my hips and down my thighs to tangle at my ankles, he placed a provocative, open-mouthed kiss just below my belly button and then continued licking his way down my body. The sight of him crouched in front of me as he did wickedly delightful things with his mouth was something I’d fantasized about many times but never thought I’d experience. Now I had knowledge of the real thing – his tongue on my inflamed flesh, licking me to distraction – to replace those insufficient fantasies.

  I tried to hold out, to savor the feel of him between my thighs, but the expertise of his tongue as it moved over my warm, soft flesh was no match for my willpower. On my next breath a deep, shuddering gasp was forced from my lungs and a dizzying climax took hold of my body, ten thousand tiny particles of pleasure exploding out from the red curls between my thighs to dance along my dewy skin.

  When my knees gave out, Cameron scooped me into his arms and marched us purposefully to my bedroom where he tossed me onto the bed. Landing with a bounce, I caught my breath on an exclamation as I looked up to see him tearing his clothes off as quickly as possible. Once he was completely, wondrously naked, he joined me on the mattress.

  “I love you,” he growled against my lips as he buried himself deep inside of me in one driving thrust. His tongue invaded my mouth and made seductive, swirling motions that echoed the movements of his cock as he made love to both my mouth and my pussy.

  Canting his body onto his el
bows, he stared into my eyes as he slowed the pace of our coupling, languidly guiding himself inch by exquisite inch into and out of me. When I arched against him and writhed in need he smiled down at me, knowing full well how the change of pace and pressure affected me. I grinned back and brought my knees up to better accommodate his length, to take him deeper. Never breaking eye contact, he ground his body against mine, moving his hips in slow, unrelenting circles. I pressed my hips against him and rocked in time to the movements of his body.

  “More,” I demanded. “Harder!”

  He captured my mouth with a hungry intensity and at my insistence he eased out and then filled me again in one hard, driving thrust. He repeated the motion over and over, his hips slamming into mine while the rippling muscles of his powerful back flexed under my greedy hands. I sat up to lick a drop of sweat that threatened to fall from his chin and trailed my tongue down along his taut neck to the rock-hard planes of his chest before capturing his right nipple between my teeth and biting down gently. With a shudder, he drove his cock into me, the pace and force of the motion triggering his orgasm. He convulsed against me, groaning low in his throat, as he spilled himself deep inside of me. As I felt the pulse of his seed flood my core, I followed him in a dizzying climax of my own, throbbing waves of pleasure erupting along my spine as I cried out his name with abandon.

  Cameron collapsed on top of me, a gratifying sigh of satisfaction exhaled against the hollow of my neck. We stayed like that for several seconds before he rolled onto his back, his breath coming in rapid bursts. My own breathing came in erratic, shallow spurts as well, and I pulled a few gulps of air into my lungs to help calm the thundering of my heart. I turned to find Cameron staring at me, a gleam of pride and fulfillment shining in his beautiful baby blues.

  “That was …” he laughed and looked toward the ceiling. He lifted his hand and ran it through his hair as he exhaled loudly. He looked back at me, chuckling, “God damn, that was fucking spectacular.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” I closed my eyes and stretched languorously, feeling my muscles ease and the tension from our argument leave my body.