Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus

Chapter 375: CH : 364 Somehow That Doesn’t Surprise Me

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"You belong wherever you decide to belong," Marvin said firmly. "That’s the only rule. Everything else is just furniture."

The waiter came—a young man with an apron and an accent that spoke of Naples and summer heat. Marvin ordered a glass of freshly squeezed white peach nectar from northern Italy, pronouncing it in flawless Italian, earning an appreciative smile from the waiter. They ordered food—pasta for her, fish for him, and appetizers to share.

"Tell me something," Marvin said after their drinks arrived and the basket of warm bread was placed between them. "Something not about work. Something not about acting. Tell me about Colorado. Tell me about before."

Amy tore a piece of bread, suddenly shy. "Before? There’s not much to tell. I was a waitress. I did community theater. I dreamed about being somewhere else."

"Where did you dream about?"

"Here," she said, looking up at him. "New York. Or LA. Anywhere that felt like the movies. I wanted to be Julie Andrews. I wanted to sing and dance and make people feel less alone."

"And now?"

"Now..." She paused, the bread forgotten in her hand. "Now I just want to be good. I want to be real. I want to do work that matters, with people who matter." She looked at him, feeling the weight of the unsaid things between them. "I’m getting that, Marvin. With you. I just... I hope I’m worth what you’re investing in me."

He reached across the table, his hand covering hers, his thumb brushing her knuckles. "Amy. Look at me."

She did. She always did, when he asked.

"You were worth it the moment you walked into my office with your résumé printed on pink paper because you’d run out of white. You were worth it when you organized my disaster of a filing system in three hours and didn’t complain once. You’re worth it because you’re kind when you don’t have to be, because you’re fierce when everyone expects you to fold, and because you make me..." He stopped, swallowing hard. "You make me want to be the person you think I am."

"Marvin—"

"Just let me say it." His voice softened. "I’ve got more attention than I know what to do with. More people wanting me than any man should." A faint smile touched his lips. "None of that’s rare. This is." He gestured between them. "Being able to sit here without pretending to be larger than life."

Amy felt tears prick her eyes, unexpected and unwelcome. "You’re not small," she whispered. "You’re the biggest person I know."

He smiled then, sad and sweet. "Only you would say that when you’re wearing heels."

She laughed, the tension breaking, and kicked him gently under the table. "Shut up. I’m enjoying being taller for once."

"How’s the view from up there?"

"Terrifying," she said, grinning. "I can see the future. It looks like us."

The food came, and it was perfect—the pasta al dente, the sauce rich with tomatoes and basil that tasted like sunlight, the fish delicate and flaky. They ate slowly, feeding each other bites from their plates, sharing conversations and silences with equal comfort.

Amy told him about her mother, about the prayers they said before dinner in Colorado, about the way the mountains turned blue beneath fresh winter snow. Marvin answered with stories of the days before the world knew his name—his first publishing contract, the home where it had been signed, and the surreal feeling of seeing strangers line up to buy something he had created.

"Do you ever regret it?" she asked, twirling pasta around her fork. "The... gifts you have? The things you can do?"

Marvin smiled, almost amused by the question.

"No. Not for even a second." He answered without hesitation. "I love creating things people connect with. Books, films... watching an idea become something that means something to millions." He leaned back in his chair. "I like knowing my work can inspire people. I like hearing their opinions, even when they’re wrong." A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "And I’ll admit it—I enjoy the spotlight. I enjoy being remembered."

Amy laughed. "Somehow that doesn’t surprise me."

Power was addictive. So was being admired. Once you had tasted the emotions of millions, pretending you wanted a quiet life became a lie. Every cheer, every gasp of awe, every spark of envy, every whisper of admiration, every burning desire directed at him flowed back into his soul as nourishment. It became mana. It became strength. Millions were no longer enough. He wanted billions. He wanted every corner of humanity to know his name, because every heart and every mind turned toward him was another ember feeding the inferno within.

Amy looked around the restaurant before gesturing between them.

"Even so... this feels different. Simple, somehow."

Marvin met her eyes, his smile softening.

"It is." His voice was quiet but certain. "Ambition doesn’t mean every moment has to be complicated."

They finished dinner slowly, reluctant to end the spell. When the bill came, Gordon paid with cash—old habit, untraceable—and Marvin helped her with her coat, his hands lingering on her shoulders.

"Walk with me?" he asked. "The plane can wait another hour. I want to show you something."

They stepped out into the New York night, the air crisp with approaching winter. Gordon was waiting in the car at the curb, but Marvin waved him off.

"Follow us," he called. "Slowly. We’re walking."

Gordon nodded, impassive as ever, and the car crept along behind them like a patient shadow.

Marvin took Amy’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and they walked. The Village was quiet now, the restaurants closing, the brownstones darkening. They passed a small park—just a triangle of grass and trees, really, fenced with iron and filled with shadows.

"Here," Marvin said, stopping at the edge. "Look up."

Amy tilted her head back. Above them, visible between the buildings, the stars were emerging—faint against the city’s glow, but there. Real. Ancient. Indifferent to their small lives, but somehow comforting in that indifference.

"It’s beautiful," she whispered.

"You’re beautiful," Marvin said.

She turned to look at him, and found him already looking at her—his face illuminated by the streetlamp and starlight, his glasses reflecting the universe back at her. He was so small, she thought. Five-foot-four with shoes, barely reaching her chin in these heels. But the charms in him, the intensity, the sheer gravitational pull of his presence—it made him feel larger than the city itself.

"Amy," he said, and her name sounded like a prayer.

"Marvin," she answered, and stepped closer.

He reached up—always up, she realized, he was always reaching up to touch her face—and cupped her cheek in his palm. His hand was warm, calloused in ways that didn’t match his soft appearance, strong in ways that did.

Marvin lingered for a moment, his fingers gently brushing against hers. "Do you know when I realized I was in trouble?" he asked quietly.

Amy tilted her head. "When?"

A faint smile crossed his lips. "When I started looking forward to seeing you more than closing another deal." He let out a soft chuckle. "I kept telling myself it would pass. That it was just admiration. Then one day I caught myself wondering what you were doing when you weren’t around... and I knew I’d already lost."

Her heart skipped. "Marvin..."

His hand rose slowly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear..

"I’ve wanted to kiss you properly," he said, his voice barely audible, "since the day you organized my files by color and told me my system was ’a crime against alphabetization.’"

She laughed, breathless. "That was our first day."

"I’ve spent weeks finding excuses to stay close to you." His eyes searched hers. "I think I’ve run out of excuses."

Amy’s smile was warm, almost shy. "Then stop making them."

He didn’t ask permission. His hand found the small of her back and pulled, hard, and Amy folded toward him like a book spine cracking open after years of staying shut. Her heels made her clumsy, too tall, and she had to bend at the waist to meet him, her palms slapping against his shoulders for balance. She felt him smirk against her mouth before they even kissed—felt the vibration of victory in his chest.

Then his mouth was on hers, and the smirk vanished, replaced by something starving.

It started like a collision, teeth clicking, noses bumping, the awkward geometry of two people who hadn’t learned each other’s maps yet. But within seconds, they adjusted. Marvin tilted his head back, exposing his throat, demanding she come down to him, and Amy went, her fingers knotting in the hair at his nape, pulling just to hear him grunt against her lips.

He tasted like the sweet cake they’d shared, but darker underneath—copper and want and that particular salt that meant he’d been clenching his jaw all day. His tongue didn’t tease; it invaded, pushing past her lips with a confidence that made her knees loose. Amy opened for him, let him take, and chased back with her own tongue, sliding it alongside his, then sucking—just slightly—just enough to make him groan into her mouth.

The sound undid something in her.

She pressed closer, her height advantage forgotten, her body curving around his smaller, denser frame like water finding a vessel. His hands moved to her hips, fingers digging in, thumbs pressing. She didn’t care. She wanted the marks, wanted the proof that this had happened, that she hadn’t imagined the heat of him.

Their mouths grew sloppy, careless. Saliva slicked her chin, and she felt his tongue trace the mess, licking it away before diving back in, deeper, messier. When they broke for air—just barely, just enough to gasp—she saw the line of spit connecting them, silver in the streetlight, and instead of embarrassment, she felt only more hunger. She chased his mouth back, biting his lower lip, pulling it between her teeth until he hissed, until his hands slid down to her ass and hauled her against him, fitting her thigh between his legs.

Amy felt him—hard and insistent through his trousers—and moaned, the sound swallowed by his mouth. She rocked against him, desperate for friction, for anything to ease the ache that had started the moment he’d touched her hand in the car. He was small but he wasn’t fragile; she felt the muscle in his shoulders, the strength in his grip, the way he held her like he was anchoring himself to her taller, softer body.

"Fuck," he breathed against her lips, the word hot and wet. "Amy. God."

She answered by kissing him again, deeper, her tongue stroking the roof of his mouth, her hands sliding from his hair to his jaw, holding him still so she could taste him properly—thoroughly—like she was memorizing him for a drought. He let her, went pliant for three seconds of surrender, then took control again, his tongue thrusting in rhythm with the roll of his hips, simulating what they both wanted, what the streetlights and Gordon’s patient silence and the distant plane waiting at JFK wouldn’t allow.

When they finally separated—truly separated, putting inches between their swollen mouths—Amy’s chin was wet, her lipstick completely gone, her breath coming in jagged bursts that hurt her ribs. She looked down at him, at his flushed face, his pupils, the spit-slicked shine of his lower lip, and felt something dangerous crack open in her chest.

Marvin looked back at her, his chest heaving, his hands still gripping her hips like he was afraid she’d float away.

"Wow," she managed, her voice wrecked.

He laughed—breathless, stunned, real. "Yeah," he agreed, resting his forehead against her collarbone, right where her pulse hammered. "Fuck yeah."

She looked down at him—really looked—and saw the boy he had been and the man he was becoming, all mixed together in those impossible eyes. "You’re something else, Marvin Meyers."

"You’re everything else," he replied, and kissed her again—softer this time, a promise rather than a demand.

They stood there for a long time, holding each other in the starlight, while New York breathed around them, indifferent and enormous, and the plane waited, and the world turned, and nothing else mattered until it did.

---

The rain fell in sheets across Manhattan, slicking the streets and blurring the neon lights.

A black, armored luxury SUV glided smoothly through the traffic, a bubble of absolute silence and wealth against the chaotic city.

Marvin sat in the spacious back seat. He was taking Lindsay and Amy to an exclusive, private screening room at Miramax headquarters to see the final cut of *The Others*.

The atmosphere in the car was relaxed, the tension and wildness of New York left far behind.

****

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