Devi’s face is buried in my shoulder, and I want to pull back to look at her, but then I feel the unmistakable warmth of tears on my skin, and so I don’t.  Instead, I hook an arm behind her knees and scoop her up into my arms and carry her into my dark bedroom, where the drawn shades keep out most of the afternoon sun.  I sit on the edge of the bed with her still in my arms, and simply sit, rocking her slowly and resting my head on top of hers.  

I don’t ask her what’s wrong again, even though I’m itching in the worst way to know.  When I last saw her this morning, she was dewy-faced and flushed from her scene with Kendi (and, I secretly hoped, the moment we shared on set).  And when she kissed me goodbye, she seemed happy and chipper, if a little nervous.  I know she had a scene scheduled after the one I saw—could that be what’s upsetting her?  Something that happened on set?

I rack my brain, trying to remember if she told me any details about the shoot she was going to.  Generally, her scenes don’t get much rougher than some dildo play and maybe the occasional light bondage, but certainly not the kind of punishing scenes some actors film.  So maybe she fought with someone on set?  Another performer?  A director?

“Devi,” I say.  It’s an invitation for her to speak, but it’s also an affirmation, a reminder that I am here for her and only for her, and that she is completely safe and cared for in my arms.

“I—I didn’t tell you something,” she gets out.

I frown, my eyebrows pulling together.  “Whatever it is, babe, it’s fine.”

She shakes her head against my chest.  “It wasn’t fine,” she says, the tears flowing faster and harder now.  “I—I thought I could do it and then he was so aggressive and he cornered me—”

He?

A fucking he?

What the fuck was she doing this afternoon?  While I was missing her and feeling lonely as I worked on my couch, she was on a set with a he?

My mouth reacts before my brain entirely catches up.  “What?” I ask sharply.  “Who is he?”

I feel her shrink in my arms, retreating into herself and curling into a ball.  “I booked a het shoot with LaRue Hagen,” she whispers tearfully.  “That’s where I was going today...not for a girl-on-girl scene, but for a scene with Bruce Madden.”

“Bruce Madden?” I demand, five different kinds of anger rising in my chest, the chief one an insanely protective instinct, because Bruce Madden is notorious for shitty onset behavior and fuck that guy.  My blood immediately boils, conjuring the worst possible scenarios and elaborate fantasies that involve me going on vigilante murder sprees, but I try to breathe myself into a state of patient calm until I know what actually happened.  It’s just that I know my girl, and I know that she’s not the type to cry.  She’s not the type to let emotions overrule her control, and so whatever happened must have been big.

And bad.

I think about some of the worst stories I’ve heard about porn sets, all the rapes that happened on camera and were never prosecuted.  Raven and I advocated hard for those performers—and we still do, albeit separately now—but I never ever thought that it might happen to someone close to me, someone I love…

Oh God.  If something like that happened to Devi today, there will be no end to the hell I will rain down on everyone even tangentially connected.  Hell and handcuffs and blood and money, and I will personally see to it that Bruce himself is castrated, followed by LaRue.

You don’t know what happened yet—set the mental castrating knife down.

“Yes, Bruce Madden,” she sniffles.  “He was...oh God, Logan, he was awful.”

“Did he…?” I can’t even get the question out, because I’m asking two questions—did he assault you? and if not, did you still fuck him?  But even in my protective rage, I can’t bear to ask anything that makes her feel for one second like she’s to blame or did anything wrong.  Whatever happened was one hundred percent that shit-bag’s fault.  “Did it happen during the shoot?”

“I couldn’t even start the shoot.  But then he found me while I was trying to leave…” She breaks off abruptly and starts sobbing, the kind of sobs that tell me words can’t happen right now, and so I just hold her and rock her, stroking the back of her head as she cries.

Then, as I’m murmuring my reassuring words, something else hits me and hits me hard.

Devi booked a het scene.  When Devi kissed me goodbye this morning, she was driving off to go fuck another man.  And even through the veil of my rage at Bruce Madden and my desperate fear that she’s been terribly hurt, another emotion surfaces, ugly and undeniable.

Jealousy.

I remember our first fake date in the park, when I saw that Sinner’s Playpen was calling Devi, and I remember her asking my advice about doing more mainstream porn, and I remember telling Tanner that of course we were both professionals and would keep filming all the scenes we wanted to do.  And somehow none of that matters right now, because before now it was all in abstract, just things that could potentially happen, things that didn’t feel real.  I told myself and everyone else it was okay.

But it’s not.

It’s not okay.

Because I’m holding this woman in my arms, and I want to be the only one to hold her, fucking ever, and you know what? That goes for the female performers who get to fuck her too, because I want it just to be me me me, and have her all to myself.

I try to remind myself that it’s just sex, it’s just fucking, and it doesn’t mean anything, but if it doesn’t mean anything, then why didn’t she tell me about it?  Why would she keep it a secret?

And then the twin sister to jealousy shows up.

Suspicion.

I hate it.  I hate every inch of that emotion, I hate feeling it crawl over my heart and rifle through my thoughts, wondering if there’s some reason Devi kept it a secret, wondering if I’m going to wake up one day soon to find Devi posting pictures of herself with some Italian.  I hate wondering if I care about her more than she cares about me, if she’s been fucking other guys all this time, if I’m about to have my heart broken again.

And then I shut it down—all of it.  The jealousy and the suspicion and the rage.  I don’t have a right to care if she’s fucking other guys because I’ve been fucking other girls, and even if I hadn’t, “sort-of boyfriend” isn’t a term that has to mean explicit monogamy.  We never talked about being exclusive.  

We’re porn stars.  We shoot porn.  We fuck other people.  That’s just how it is.

And right now the woman I love is hurting, and that’s where all my attention needs to be.  I can figure out the rest later.

After a few minutes, I feel her begin to relax in my arms, her tears slowing and her breathing returning to normal.  She wipes at her face with her hand, and it comes back black with mascara.  She pulls back to look at my shoulder and chest, which are smeared with the same.

She barks out the kind of laughter that only comes in the midst of tears.  “I got your chest all messy.”

“We can fix that,” I say as cheerfully as I can while I’m still trying to contain all of the residual bitter pangs of jealousy and the over-protective boyfriend instincts that are telling me to go burn shit down.  I stand up and carry her into my bathroom and set her down on the wide bench in my shower.

My shower is big—the size of most people’s entire bathrooms big—and has a million showerheads and jets and nozzles that I don’t normally use, because, as you may have heard, we don’t have water in California anymore.  But today is an extenuating circumstance, and I turn everything on, hot as it will go.

Devi blinks at me from the bench, suddenly very young and forlorn-looking.  And then all of my jealousy and suspicion melt completely away, washed down the drain.  Instead, I feel an overwhelming need to shelter her and protect her, to erase whatever bad thing has happened, but it’s too late for that.  I can only hope to atone for not being there, for not being able to help her.  

I approach her slowly through the water, ignoring the way my jeans are getting soaked.  You’ve probably already guessed this, but I don’t mind getting my clothes wet—a porn habit, I guess.  But I leave my jeans on for another reason: I don’t want Devi to think that I brought her in here to fuck her.  I don’t want her to think that this is about sex or about me, or about anything other than helping her feel better.

She watches me with curious, tired eyes as I get closer, until I’m over to the bench.  “Can I undress you?” I ask.

She bites her bottom lip and then nods.  “Yes, please.”  Her voice is barely audible over the hiss of the water.

Steam billows around us as I work her damp T-shirt off of her body.  My dick jolts as I see she’s not wearing anything underneath and those delicious tits are just hanging out, ripe and plump, but I move my focus elsewhere, helping her out of her flip-flops and then her denim cutoffs, tossing everything to the edge of the shower.

Once she’s naked, I take her elbows in my hands and guide her to the waterfall showerhead, where I make her stand while I go get a washcloth and body wash.  

“You’re going to smell like a dude, I’m sorry,” I apologize as I start washing her.

“No,” she corrects me.  “I’ll smell like you.”

The way she says it, like it’s the best possible thing I could give her, twists my heart.  I quickly look back down to the washcloth so she doesn’t see how much this affects me, paying extra attention to non-sexual places like her hands and feet.  Even so, being this close to her body, watching the water pour over her breasts and hips and ass, is doing uncomfortable things to my jeans.  I wait until I go get shampoo and conditioner to surreptitiously adjust myself—not easy in soaking wet denim, but I manage.  

I take my time washing her hair, massaging her scalp and rubbing the tresses clean between my fingertips.  I love you, I think, wishing she could feel the words radiating off my body.  I love you so much.

But of course I don’t say them, knowing now is not the time, not with whatever is hanging over her like a dark cloud.  I rinse her off, wrap her in a giant fluffy towel and carry her to my bed.

I go to shuck my wet jeans and grab another pair when she finally speaks again.  “No, don’t put another pair on.  Come here.”

“Cass, it doesn’t have to—”

“I know,” she says firmly.  “I know what you’re trying not to do, but it’s what I want.”

Somewhere inside of me, I know I should protest more, but I can’t.  Not only because of how aroused I am after washing her body, but because the warm confidence in her voice is undeniable.  I strip off the wet jeans and walk towards the bed, crawling up next to her.  She reaches immediately for my cock but I grab her hand.

“I know I look horny as fuck right now—and I am—but Cass, if something…really bad…happened today, I need to know about it.”  I don’t use the r word, but it hangs in the air between us nonetheless.

She takes a minute to answer, struggling for words.  “I wasn’t—it’s not—”  She swallows and looks down at my hand, large and strong, wrapped around her wrist.  I quickly let go.

“I want to know what happened, but I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.  We can just be here.  But I’m not comfortable doing anything more until I’m sure that I’m not taking advantage of you.”

Devi groans loudly and suddenly, flopping onto her back.  “I wish you wouldn’t be so goddamned circumspect.  I want you; I need you.  Only you can make me feel better in the way I need.”

“Then you have to tell me why.”

She blinks up at the ceiling.  “As long as you touch me while I’m talking.”

“Cass…”

“It doesn’t have to be sex.  But Logan, I need to remember what it feels like to be touched by the person I’ve chosen to give my body to.  I need a man to touch me in the way I like and want, because I don’t want today to make me forget.”

In a flash, I understand.  I mean, not entirely, because I’ve never been touched in a way I didn’t have control of, and because I’m a man, I’ll probably never be powerless in that way.  But her plea is so deeply human, so deeply vulnerable, and I can’t deny her.  I can’t deny her anything, when it comes down to it.

I roll and crawl over her, resting my body weight on my knees and forearms, letting our naked chests and stomachs touch and my stiff cock press into her lower belly.  I kiss her neck and her shoulders and jaw, and I feel her melt into my touch and let go of her last remaining shreds of control.  She starts crying again, slow and silent tears, and she keeps crying as I drop kisses everywhere, light lips-only kisses, and gradually, haltingly, the story emerges.  She tells me about the set, about her discomfort with the director and with Bruce.

And then when she gets to the part where Bruce cornered her in the office, my open hands clench into fists, and I turn my face away so she can’t see my expression.  Because all I can think about is murder.  Castration and murder and then castration again.  Double castration.

She finishes and then reaches for my face, gently turning me so that I’m forced to meet her eyes.  “What are you thinking?” she asks, uncertain and vulnerable.

My heart breaks, but I’m honest.  “About how I want to hang Bruce Madden and LaRue Hagen from the Hollywood sign.”

She presses her lips together in what might be a smile.  “It would be too difficult to get up there with two bodies in tow.”

“Not for a determined man.”

She sighs underneath me, and I stroke her hair away from her face.  “I don’t know what to say, Devi.  Except I’m so desperately furious and heartbroken for you.  I wish I could have been there to protect you!”

“I wish that, too,” she murmurs, but then she falls silent, as if she’s troubled.

I hesitate, but then I say it anyway.  “Devi, why didn’t you tell me about the scene?  I have never lied about the work I’m doing.  It makes me worry that we aren’t on the same page…?” My voice lifts in a question at the end, betraying all of my unfounded fears.

She glances away, new tears in her eyes.  “I’m so sorry, Logan.  I didn’t mean to lie to you.  But telling you about it—it would have meant having a talk with myself that I didn’t know I was ready to have.  And it’s all so stupid because now I’ve ruined everything.”

I’m not sure what she means by the first thing, but I can help with the last.  “Please don’t worry about the fallout.  As long as I’m around, you will have work if you want it, I swear.  And I will personally see to it that Bruce Madden is destroyed.  That fucker won’t get away with this.  Neither will LaRue.”

Another sigh.  “Even you would be hard-pressed to take on LaRue.  And thank you for the offer of work, but I also want to work on my own terms, you know?  That’s important to me.  As it is, I’m not sure how much I want to work at all…” she trails off.

I’m confused.  “Like, not work while you sort all this out?  Or leave porn?  Because this was shitty and horrible, but you know that there are safe places to work.  You’ve been working in them for three years.  And you’re so fucking amazing at it!  Don’t let an asshole like Bruce drive you away from something you love to do and something you fucking rock at doing.”

“It’s not…”  She takes a breath.  “It’s not that I feel driven away, Logan.  But there’s something else, something I haven’t told you, and I don’t know what it means for me or my work yet.”

I’m listening, but she doesn’t continue talking.  She seems to shut down, something in her eyes shuttering closed and her lips pressing together.

“You can tell me anything,” I say, leaning down to kiss the delicate skin near her ear.  “Anything.  Devi, please.  You asked me not to shut you out…don’t shut me out.  Tell me.”

Her voice is cautious.  Logical.  “I don’t think I’m ready to tell you.  I haven’t thought it through yet.”

“You don’t have to have a thesis paper written about it, babe.  If we’re going to try this boyfriend-girlfriend thing, part of that is talking with one another about things that might be messy or hard.  It’s okay if you haven’t gotten it all figured out yet.  I want to hear about it because I care about you, and I—”  

I stop myself right before I say it.  Not the time, Romeo, I remind myself.  This is not the place for my tendency to jump into shit heart first, head later.  Devi is too precious for my usual messy, full-throttle approach to love.

But something I say seems to unfreeze her. Her lips part and her eyelashes flutter and all of a sudden her chin starts trembling.

“What were you going to say?” she whispers.

I shake my head.  “It’s not important.”

“Is that true?” she asks.  “Or are you just saying it’s not important because you don’t want to talk about it?  You just talked about shutting each other out, but you’re doing it too!”

Shit.   

“I don’t want that,” I say, “but I also…you’re so young and I don’t want to fuck this up and I’m worried that I’m pressing on the gas too hard for you.”

“No,” she murmurs.  “You’re not.”

“But it’s okay to take things slow, I mean, that’s kind of what we talked about at the gallery—”

“I’m in love with you,” she says abruptly.

There’s nothing but static and sparks in my brain, and an expansive hot glow igniting in my chest.  “What?” I manage.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’ve been in love with you for a while, but this morning, it became completely clear.  I’m so much in love with you, that even the thought of coming for another man, of him touching me where you touched me, it bothered me.  Scratched at me.  I almost walked away from that set before I even entered, because I realized that I didn’t want to make that kind of porn without you.”

She doesn’t deliver this news to me as if celebrating a huge revelation or confiding a hope.  She shares this like she’s confessing a sin, a weakness, and then I realize why—she doesn’t know I love her back.  She thinks she’s being the irrational one because she’s normally so incredibly rational, and I’ve done too good a job hiding my feelings from her.  She must think that she’s gone too far, and that’s making her insecure and nervous about telling me these things.

“I know that sounds like something the worst, clingiest girlfriend on earth would say,” she continues.  “I know it sounds prudish or narrow-minded or something, but the whole experience, the way Madden handled me and LaRue dismissed me, it made me realize that not only are you the man I feel safest with shooting porn, but you’re the man who makes me want to shoot porn.  If any man is going to touch me, I want it to be you.  I don’t want to settle for anything less.  But I also understand how completely out of line this is emotionally, and how unwelcome it might be to you, and if you want me to go, I understand.”

In fact, she even starts to roll out from under me, as if to leave.  But I keep her caged against the bed, and I lean down and claim her mouth with a rumbling growl in my chest.

“You’re mine,” I say against her mouth.  “You belong to me and you’re not going anywhere.”

She pulls back a little, her brows furrowed in worry.  “You’re not grossed out by what I said?”

“Devi, I’m desperately in love with you too.  Maybe I have been since the day we met. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to scare you or overwhelm you.”  I move my hand so my thumb can trace her bottom lip.  “But you said it first, my brave girl.  You said it first, so I know that I haven’t pushed you into it or that you’re lying to make me feel better.  You really love me, don’t you?”

She nods, those gold-brown eyes huge and limpid.  “I do,” she whispers.

“Thank fucking God,” I breathe, my thumb pulling her lip down just a tad.  My erection, which abated while she described Madden’s assault, stirs back to hot life against her stomach.  “I love you so fucking much.”

I move my mouth against hers, and she kisses me back hungrily for a minute, her hands sliding up my torso and staying warm and firm against my chest, but then she breaks off the kiss. “Logan, I need…”

“Anything, Cass.  Name anything.”

“I just—” she blinks up at me, and her eyes are wet with new tears, her face open with hope and pain.  “Is this real?  You’re not saying this for Star-Crossed?”

“Do you see any cameras in here?” I ask roughly.

“No, but—”

I crush my mouth to hers, cutting her off.  “This is real,” I growl between kisses. “It’s just you and me in this bed, and I’m going to show you exactly how fucking real it is.”

A tear spills out of one eye and traces down her temple.  I catch it with my lips before it reaches her hairline.  She reaches down and then I feel her hands cradle my swollen cock.  I let out a low groan.

“Please make me forget about Bruce,” she begs.  “Show me you love me.”

“My brave girl,” I say, brushing her hair away from her face.  “So brave on the set and then so brave with me.”  It’s her bravery that drives me down, moving backwards until I can settle between her thighs and begin nuzzling the soft skin there.  I want to lavish her with piles of money and jewelry; I want to buy her a new house and a new car.  I want to give her something—anything—that shows her how fucking grateful and torn up with happiness I am.  Not just that she loves me, but that she told me first, because every other step forward in our relationship has been me, me coaxing and me leading, and her cautiously thinking things through before she says yes.

But not today.

Today, she plunged in and bared her soul, with no guarantee that I felt the same, and without her usual safety net of logic and analysis.  And seeing my Devi all reckless and unsettled because of me—then she has to love me.  She must.  She must feel the same turbulent, all-consuming pull that I do, and that makes me so desperate to thank her, to touch her, to show her exactly how fucking much I love her back.

Since I can’t give her piles of money, I’m determined to worship her body to show her my adoration instead.  The moment my lips brush against the soft, neatly trimmed curls just above her clit, she shivers and widens her legs.

I settle in, sliding my arms under her thighs and then curling my hands over the top to keep her legs spread as widely as I want.  And then I dive in, running my tongue everywhere and tasting everything and stopping at nothing to make her squirm and whimper.  She smells like clean water and my body wash, but when I spread her open even farther and let my tongue trace circles inside her entrance, I taste a sweetness that is hers and hers alone.

She writhes on the bed, her hands reaching for my hair, and it’s one of my favorite things about eating a girl out—maybe my favorite thing—feeling her fingers curl into my hair and pull, feeling her hands on the back of my head while her hips lift to rub her pussy against my face.

In my porno career, I’ve shot a few scenes where I’ve been playfully tied up, but they’ve never been anything but the loosest shadow of submission.  But when I’m between a woman’s legs like this, heels digging into my back and hands rough and forcing around my head, I think I understand the appeal.  Because while I may be the one on my belly, from my vantage, I’m the one with all the power.  I’m looking up over the rise of Devi’s pubic bone and up the slope of her stomach to her face, which is currently scrunched up in abject pleasure, and I’m the one doing that.  Maybe her hands are the ones tugging and she’s the one urging—harder, faster, inside, please lick me inside—but it’s my mouth, my tongue, my skills.  I’m the one unraveling her, and that makes me feel more powerful than I’ve ever felt with a crop in my hand.

I’m not saying I want to give up the crop, mind you.  But this is just as amazing.

I look up at her again, still sucking and licking, and I watch her as I move my hand from under her thigh to find her seam.  I stroke everywhere—her ass, her thighs, her entrance—but it’s when I finally slide a finger inside of her that I see her start to truly come apart.  This morning, she was coming for Kendi, and now she’s coming for me, and I just think that’s fucking beautiful, like some sort of cunt-licking circle of life, but then I wonder for a minute if she feels a difference between me and Kendi.  If not in her cunt, in her heart or her mind—because it’s got to be different, right?  When someone you love touches you?

I’ll make it feel different, I vow.  I’ll make it so that she has no doubt that I love her, that her body learns ways to respond to me and only to me.  I want to own her fantasies, I want her to think of me whenever she closes her eyes on a set.  Whenever another actress fucks Devi with her tongue, I want Devi to imagine my mouth, and whenever she’s fucking herself with a dildo, I want it to be my cock she dreams of.

Devi tugs me up over her, and I oblige, wiping my mouth with my arm as I settle back on top of her.

“What is it, Cass?”

Her gaze meets mine, the pupils so dilated that her eyes are pools of black.  “I love you,” she whispers, searching my face.  “I love you and I wanted to say it again.  I wanted to make sure it was still real—you loving me too.”

Her honesty breaks my heart.  “Never doubt that for a fucking second.  It’s always real.”  And I lean down to kiss her and she kisses me back hungrily, licking and sucking her own taste off my mouth, which makes my cock so fucking hard that I can feel it leaving a wet spot against her belly.  I love her, and I want to fuck her until she can’t walk.  I want to know her soul, and I want to tie her down and own her pussy for days at a time.  I want to worship her like a temple slave, and I want to come in her so hard and so often that she’s reminded of me every time she stands up.  It’s taking everything I have not to stab my cock into her right now, to keep my mind present when my body and heart are so singularly united in the goal of fusing myself to her.

I’m shuddering with restraint, my muscles literally fighting against themselves, when she whispers, “Please.”

“Are you sure?” I force myself to ask.  “Just because we’ve shared things doesn’t mean we have to…” I’m so hard that I can barely breathe and my voice is stuttering and raspy. “We don’t have to today.”

“I meant what I said,” she tells me with those dark eyes.  “About needing your touch.”  She closes her eyes for a minute.  “Show me it’s real,” she begs.  “Fuck me like it’s real.”

“Okay,” I say hoarsely.  “Gimme a minute.”  I reach for my bedside table, where I keep a small glass jar of condoms, but then she stops me.

“No,” she says earnestly.  “Bare.  I want you bare. I’m on the pill, so it’s okay.”

I look down at her.  “Are you sure?” I ask.  I’m tested every two weeks, and I know that she is too, but it’s still a big leap of trust.  “I know you’re clean, baby girl, and I know you’re on the pill, but it’s a big step, and we’re just getting started.  We have lots of time for big steps.”

She shakes her head.  “I want it—you.  All of you.  Nothing between us.”

I’m braced up on my hands and I hang my head for a minute, trying to catch my breath and decide if I can say no to this.  I don’t want to and there’s no logical reason to, but this feels big.  The special kind of big that only Devi and film make me feel, and it fucking terrifies me.

“I’m scared,” I admit.  “Devi, being with you bare, with no barriers and no cameras…I’m scared.  Whatever is between us, it’s so real that it hurts.”

“I’m scared too,” she says.  “But I’m with you.  If we fall, we fall together.”

If we fall, we fall together.

My heart pounds with both relief and terror at the same time, and I dive back down to capture her mouth in a searing kiss.  “God, I love you,” I say fiercely.  “So fucking much.”

“Do it, Logan,” she breathes.  “Please.  Need it.  Need you.”

I inch just a tiny bit lower, and—with our eyes locked on each other’s the entire time—I reach down and take myself in my hand and guide the swollen crown to her wet entrance.  I only push inside to the flared edge of my helmet and then I stop.  I take another deep breath, almost unable to bear how tight her pussy is around my tip.  It squeezes me, it fists my crown better than any real fist ever could, and I almost want to stay like this forever, with her wet and begging, and me rendering both of us practically insensate and nonverbal with just the barest penetration.

And then I slide in deeper.

Her thighs tremble and her hands dig into my back, and I feel my cock stretching her so tight, forcing its girth deeper into her wet, soft warmth, until I’m nestled all the way.  I’m in between her legs, our pelvises flush together, our stomachs touching and my chest brushing against her stiff, dark nipples.  I lower myself to my forearms and I kiss her again, not moving inside of her yet, letting her adjust and letting myself cool down before I embarrass myself and explode like a teenage boy before making Devi come.

We kiss long and slow, and she moves soft and sighing underneath me, until she’s practically glowing with happiness, until she’s moving herself against me and wearing the kind of open, warm expression that radiates pure love.

She’s rubbing her clit as she undulates under me, and I see a dark flush rising up her chest and cheeks and I know it will be any second now, and sure enough—despite the fact that I’m not moving at all—she’s grinding herself to orgasm underneath me, the balls of her feet moving against the sheet as she searches out friction and depth.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I murmur to her, watching her face blush as she works herself on my thickness, watching those fleeting sex smiles chase themselves on and off her lips as she approaches the edge.  It occurs to me that I haven’t fucked a woman in missionary position in I don’t know how long, because it’s not a great position to film with.  I prefer the positions where the viewers can see my dick and the pretty, pink pussy it’s fucking, and missionary hides so much of the good stuff.

Except it feels fucking incredible—for me and for her—and there’s something else.  I forgot how intimate it is.  Our skin is touching everywhere, everywhere, our thighs sliding together, our stomachs, our arms and our lips.  I’m so close to her and I can see her every expression, her every unspoken thought, and I know she can see mine.  There is nothing between us—no condom, no camera, no invisible walls of denial or fear.  There’s only us moving together as one, an intimacy so deep and feverish that I almost feel outside of myself, like my soul really is leaving my body to search out Devi’s.

It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to any woman, ever.

But right as she begins to peak, I have this uncomfortable thought, this thought out of nowhere, that this is the best it’s ever going to be.  That I’m going to look back at this moment one day and realize that it was when we were the closest, the most uncomplicated, the most in love.  And I realize I think that because there’s no camera on us right now, no camera to capture this moment forever.  It makes it feel so fragile, like it could vanish at any second, and how do people bear this?  This feeling like love and ecstasy are slipping through their fingers?  With a camera, I could hold on to it, freeze it in time.  But without one, there’s nothing protecting this moment from being swept into oblivion.

And then a dawning realization of oblivion comes as she shatters around me, as she cries out and flexes and shudders with waves of release.

I want all these moments.  I want only these moments.  Because the only way to hold on to them is to hold on to her, and the way I want to hold on to her is something like I’ve never felt before.  I want to give her all of me, all the time, always, and what the fuck does that mean?  Does that mean I don’t want to fuck other women?  That’s ridiculous, of course, but the answer is right underneath me, coming down from her orgasm glassy-eyed and breathless.

I think I might only want Devi.

I think I love her in a way I’ve never loved anyone else before.

I think I want to give her all of me.  All of me.  Meaning I don’t give myself to anyone else.

Because that’s one thing that the economics of porn can’t erase—you are sharing yourself, endlessly, over and over again.  Private slices of yourself, and I want Devi to have all my slices, all the parts of me that I have to share.

A ball of panic clenches in my stomach, because I don’t know how to digest any of this.  I try to push it all aside, but as I start rolling my hips into hers, I catch sight of my camera on my bedside table.  It’s dark and unseeing now, but its presence soothes me and worries me all at once.  Who is Logan O’Toole, really?  And what does he want?

I bury my face in Devi’s neck, smelling her skin and my body wash and the slightest note of cinnamon, and I may not know all of the answers to those questions yet, but I know that all those answers start with the same woman.

“Did it feel good to come on my dick, baby?” I ask her, still rolling in and out, nice and easy.

“Yes,” she says dazedly.  “So good.”

I move up onto my hands, nudging her legs open wider.  I watch her as she watches me, her eyes on where we’re joined as I start pumping in and out, the thick ridges and veins of my cock glistening from her pussy.  Her gaze transforms from contented to hungry, and I look down too, loving the sight of my cock stretching out her hole, of her legs open for me and just for me.

But no, that thought brings back the unanswerable questions, and so I instead focus on the fucking, picking up the pace and jabbing into her faster and faster, until I’m grunting and she’s gasping.  Color is high in her cheeks, and I feel my balls tighten at the thought of coming in her like this, but I’m not ready, not ready at all.  I want this moment to last forever.

So I slow down and change my strokes from short stabs to long, deep thrusts.  I go so deep that I feel her cervix, and she lets out a half gasp, half moan.

“You like that?”

She closes her eyes and nods.  “You’re so big,” she says in a tight whisper.  “Even after I came.  I thought it might be less tight, but I feel so full…”

“Such a brave girl,” I reassure Devi in a low, deep purr.  “Such a brave girl to take such a big cock.”

She flushes under the praise, looking so bashfully proud and young that I have to duck my head and bite her shoulder to keep from looking at her face, because I’ll come in an instant if she keeps wearing that look.

“It’s the biggest cock you’ve ever felt inside you, isn’t it?  Tell me how big it is.  Tell me how big I feel inside you.”  To punctuate my words, I thrust in deep, loving how tight her cunt feels around me, like a slick, hot vise.  

Her eyelashes flutter when I hit that deep spot, and she moans.  “It feels like you’re splitting me in half,” she says in a strangled voice.  “I can feel you everywhere.”

I guide her legs up so that her ankles are hooked past my shoulders, and then I lean forward on my arms, driving down into her cunt.  I can get so deep in this position, and I use it to my advantage, stroking and rubbing that special spot.

“Fuck,” she groans, turning her head from side to side.  “Logan, oh my God.”

“I’m gonna make you come so hard, Cass.”

“Logan, I—I don’t think I can—oh God, oh God, oh God—”

“Look at me, baby.  Just keep watching me, okay?”

She’s trembling hard, and I can feel the hard tip of my cock massaging her womb, kissing up against it over and over again, and I pull out just enough to drag the wide, crest against her g-spot before I push back in to press against her cervix.  Her head is tossing, her thighs shaking against me, and I can tell she’s fighting it off because it feels too big, too intense.

“Devi, look at me,” I urge, and she finally does, her eyes wide and desperate looking.  “That’s it,” I coax her.  “Let me take care of you.  Let me make you feel good.”

“I don’t think I can,” she says, a little wildly, but I keep going, crooning words of encouragement to her, you’re gonna feel so good and such a good, brave girl and I’m so deep, baby, so fucking deep and then I see her hands clawing at the sheets and the cords in her neck strain.

And then it happens.  Devi’s stomach starts visibly tensing and every muscle in her body tremors and her back arches clear off the bed, her face contorted in the throes of ecstasy.  She can’t speak, can barely make any noise other than the soft keening that comes from somewhere in her throat, and she’s on another plane, in another world, her body convulsing in long, deep, slow contractions that consume her, swallow her, transform her.

Cervical orgasms, ladies.  They’re a thing, and they are intense.  Devi has completely fallen apart underneath me, oblivious to everything but the deep waves of release rolling out from her womb to the tips of her fingers and the soles of her feet.  And unlike her clitoral orgasms, this lasts an eternity.  Seconds and minutes and what feels like hours that I get to watch (and feel) the most beautiful woman in the world quiver and fracture into billions of glowing pieces. No man can last feeling that around his cock, watching that happen underneath him, and I’m no exception, because it’s never been this good, it’s never felt this good, and God fucking damn it if I haven’t completely lost myself in her.

“Do it,” she pants.  “Come inside me.”  

“I’m gonna,” I grunt, letting her legs fall back to the bed and driving into her fast and hard.  “Gonna come so good for you, Cass.”

Her hands find my ass, her fingers digging into my cheeks and urging me to go harder, faster, and she feels so good and she looks so good, all soft and sated underneath me. Her cunt is so fucking tight, squeezing me and squeezing me, and holy fuck, I want to marry this woman, and then with a juddering groan, my balls contract and I explode.

I rut into her hard, pumping hot jets of cum deep inside her, our eyes locked and the air heavy with magic.  My whole torso is spasming, my entire pelvis a fiery, burning sun of release, unleashing waves and waves of deep, roiling pleasure. I pump and thrust and fuck my way through the climax, feeling high and drunk and dizzy, intoxicated by Devi, empowered by her, totally alive and exhilarated because of her.  I feel the wet heat of my orgasm inside of her, I see the dark points of her erect nipples and the scorching lust on her face, and it draws it out. And the pulses keeping coming, again and again and again, and I empty myself inside of her, drain my balls until she’s filled with me.  Until she’s dripping around us both.

When the pulses finally subside, the room smells of earthy sex and cinnamon, and we are messy everywhere.  Sweat on our stomachs, and cum and arousal smearing our thighs.  Devi’s long hair is tangled as fuck, my bed looks like a hurricane tore it apart, and I can feel scratches blooming into light, teasing pain on my back and ass cheeks.

I’m so fucking in love.

I lean down to kiss her, a deep, soul-felt kiss, without the urgency of earlier.  I take my time exploring her mouth, lavishing attention onto every crease of her lips, every silky slide of her tongue.  She’s making a humming noise in her chest, a happy, contented noise, and I pull back with a smile.

“Are you…purring?”

She giggles.  “Yeah.  I guess I am.”

My chest puffs a little.  I’ve given many women many orgasms, but I think this is the first time that I’ve actually made a woman purr with satisfaction.  

“Let’s see how long I can make that purring last, kitten.  Flip over.”

---

After Round Two, dinner, and a shower (which turned into Round Three), we are back in bed.  It’s nighttime now, and we’re cuddling, Devi’s back pressed against my chest and my arms around her.  We’re both drowsy, even my cock, which is content to be semi-hard and nestled against Devi’s luscious ass.  I think she’s finally drifted off when she asks, “Do you have an EpiPen in here?”

“Yeah, somewhere,” I say sleepily.  “There’s one in my medicine cabinet, I think.”

“Oh.  Shouldn’t you have it with you at all times?”

“I’m allergic to bees, Cass.  It’s not something I worry about happening in my bedroom.”

“But do you carry one on set?  Shouldn’t you have had one in the desert the night we went out there?”

More awake now, I prop myself up on one elbow and look down at her.  She doesn’t turn to look at me.  “I was planning on eating you out, not foraging for honey.  At least not that kind of honey,” I say with a smirk.

She doesn’t smile.

“Why are you asking me this?” I poke her shoulder gently.  “Are you planning to introduce bees into our sex play?  Do you secretly keep bees in your pussy?”

Still no smile.

I sigh.  “If it really worries you, I always keep one in my glove box.  And why did this come up, anyway?  Did I mention the bee thing to you?”  Because it’s not something I normally talk about, not because it’s some sort of painful secret, but because it’s really not a big deal.  Honestly, sometimes even I forget about it.

She doesn’t answer right away, and when she does, her voice is measured.  “Raven mentioned it today on the set.”

Her name drops like an anvil, thudding and lifeless.

Raven.

Ugh.

And the moment my personal distaste fades, a sense of protective anger flares up.  How dare she talk to Devi?  How dare she bring me up to Devi, in what I can only assume amounted to a sick sort of power play?

“What else did she say to you?” I ask, not bothering to hide my anger.  “Did she upset you?”

Devi starts to shake her head but then stops.  Then she gives a little nod.  “Yeah,” she admits.  “I guess it did upset me.  And she didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, Logan, that was the hard part.  She said that I was doing het porn to make you jealous, and that it would never make you jealous, it would just make you feel better about fucking other people.”  A pause.  “And that you were always fucking other people.”

I have to close my eyes against the white-hot anger that boils inside me.  I know, cerebrally, that Raven’s not evil, that she’s just honest and probably hurting right now.  But I don’t feel that way.  Instead, I feel like I want to build the highest, thickest wall around me and Devi and hold her tight and protect her from all the fears and insecurities that Raven forced her to look at.

And if I’m being totally honest with myself, Raven wasn’t entirely wrong.  I was using Devi doing even lesbian porn as an excuse not to feel bad for continuing to shoot scenes.  And more—as an excuse not to feel guilty for enjoying shooting them.  It’s our lifestyle, right?  And as long as it’s our lifestyle, not just mine, then there’s no need for guilt or jealousy.

Except.

Except I am fucking jealous.  I was jealous when Kendi licked her to orgasm this morning and jealous a few hours ago when she told me that she went to a set planning to fuck Bruce Madden.  I’m jealous of every minute she spends writhing under somebody else’s touch.

And I am guilty.  Whenever I fuck someone else, I think of Devi.  But it’s almost like my guilt makes me hornier, fiercer, and I use it as fuel for my fucking, each pump and jab of my cock layered with lust and longing and the kind of shame that burns under my skin and makes me restless for release. Since that shame only rears its head while I’m balls-deep in another girl, it’s so easy to give in to its restlessness and try to fuck it out.

And all of this is just bringing up those questions from before and I can’t answer them. I can’t, because if I actually answer them, I might have to face that my entire life has to change, and suddenly I remember Madam Psuka’s tarot card still shoved in an unwashed pair of jeans.  The Hanged Man, the card of suffering and sacrifice.

But what do I have to sacrifice?  

And what do I have to suffer for?

I push those questions to the side and lean down to kiss Devi’s cheek.  “She’s wrong, Devi.  I’m not always fucking other women, and I’m not happy to see you fucking other people.  But I respect our jobs, and I respect your right to make decisions about your body and who you fuck.”

Devi looks uncertain, sad.  I tug on her shoulder until she rolls onto her back and I can cup her face with one hand.

“We need to make some boundaries, Cass.  What are we okay with and what are we not okay with?  What will we keep special just for each other?”

She gives a small, fragile shrug and my heart aches.  “I’ve never done this before, Logan,” she says.  “I’ve never been with a porn star.  And I’ve certainly never been with one of the most famous porn stars in the world.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” I reassure her, stroking her hair back from her face.  “We have so much time, Devi.  We’ll get it figured out.”

“Yeah,” she says, but her voice is full of doubt.

“Want to hear a joke?” I ask, trying to cheer her up, cajole her back to her normal sunny self.

“I guess.”

“Why does Santa Claus have such a big sack?”

She shrugs again.

I grin. “He only comes once a year!”

No reaction.

“Okay, okay, not my best work.  How about this: what’s the difference between a lentil and a chick pea?”

“What?”

I wait a beat to let the punch line fall with maximum effect. “I wouldn’t pay a hundred dollars to have a lentil on my chest.”

Devi’s eyes widen and then she starts snort-laughing, slapping my bare chest hard.  “You’re disgusting!”

But she’s smiling again.  I resist the urge to preen.

She’s still giggling a little.  “Okay, I have one for you.  What’s the difference between jam and jelly?”

I play along.  “What?”

“I can’t jelly my cock up your ass.”

I burst out laughing.  “Why, Devi Dare, you dirty woman.”

“You have no idea.”  

She grabs for my ass, and we start wrestling and laughing, both of us naked and still a little emotional, and then the wrestling turns to grinding and the laughing turns to kissing, and you know what?  

Suddenly my cock isn’t so drowsy anymore.