No One Knows Us Here(61)

“Rosemary, I’d like you to meet—”

“I’m not feeling well. I need to get out of here.”

“Of course.” Leo made his apologies to the round man and led me out the door.

We walked back to his loft in silence. In the kitchen, he offered me some ginger ale, a few crackers.

“I feel fine,” I said.

He narrowed his eyes at me, and I came up next to him, fiddling with his bow tie. I offered him what I hope was a seductive smile. “The next level. Isn’t that what you said?” I slipped the tuxedo jacket off his shoulders and it crumpled to the ground.

Leo held up a warning hand. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m in this,” I said. “I want you to know that.” My fingers began working on loosening his bow tie. He didn’t stop me. I worked on the buttons of his shirt.

“Remember what I said, when we first met?” he asked.

“You said a lot of things,” I murmured.

“About what makes a relationship work.”

“It’s a choice.”

“Right.” He gave me a hard look again. I unbuckled his belt, and his eyelids fluttered closed. “I love you,” he said, head tilted up to the ceiling. Then his head snapped back upright and he looked straight at me. “Tell me you love me.”

I exhaled slowly, playing along. I’d figured him out, what he wanted, what I needed to do. He wanted to do this right, he had said. He wanted to have a girlfriend, to fall in love. It was almost sweet, in a twisted kind of way. Love wasn’t about compatibility or common goals. It wasn’t a feeling. Wasn’t that what he’d said? It was a choice. Also, it was my job.

My eyes met his, and I tried to imbue mine with passion, with feeling. “Yes,” I said.

As soon as the word left my lips, Leo hoisted me up into a fireman’s carry and strode purposefully into his bedroom, where he tossed me onto his bed—a maneuver that worked better in romance novels than real life. My body bounced on the mattress, and my arms shot out to steady myself. “Sorry,” Leo said.

I just laughed, rose up to my knees, and reached behind myself to unzip my dress. Midzip, I paused.

“What?” Leo’s eyes darted across my face. His curls seemed to jut out in every direction. “What is it?”

“They aren’t watching us, are they?” I whispered. My eyes traveled to the ceiling, as if I might detect some secret Glasseye hidden behind a light bulb, jabbed into a crack in the ceiling.

“We’ve been over this,” he said, but his voice was affectionate. “Look.” He took his Mirror from his back pocket and tapped on the Lookinglass icon. “Here’s my feed.”

Inside the round screen was another circle, like a frame. Inside the frame it was blank, pure white.

“And here’s you,” he said, tapping over to my profile. Blank as well.

“No one’s watching,” he said, tucking the Mirror back in his pocket. He leaned in to plant kisses up and down my neck, so close I could smell him, that strange, almost antiseptic scent he had, like a hospital. Like a public bathroom with the CLOSED FOR CLEANING sign propped in the doorway.

He stood up next to the bed, forcing me to look up at him. I reached out to touch him, but he stepped backward, still maintaining eye contact. Then he undressed, one piece at a time. First the tie. He finished loosening the knot I’d started, yanked the material from around his neck, and hurled it to the corner of the room. Then the shirt. He undid the rest of the buttons and then ripped the shirt off in a flourish, revealing that surprisingly tanned and muscled chest of his. I wondered, idly, if he visited tanning beds. Did people still go to tanning beds? It was dangerous, wasn’t it? Overexposure to UV rays and all that . . .

He stepped out of his pants and stood before me, waiting. I nodded once, like I was a boss issuing a demand. “Do it,” that nod said.

In one very deft movement, he freed himself from his underwear, and then he stood before me completely naked. I was lucky, I supposed. If I was going to get paid to sleep with someone, I’d much rather be paid to sleep with a young, ripped billionaire than some Hugh Hefner type.

Leo knelt on the floor before me. I wrapped my legs around him and ran my hands through his hair. I leaned in to kiss him.

“Say it,” he said when we broke apart.

So I said it. I didn’t say the words out loud, but I met his eyes and mouthed them with my lips, slowly. I’d never said those words to any guy before. I’d only said them to my own mother. I knew the last time I said them, too. The last day I ever saw her, the day I left home.

He groaned and buried his face in my neck. Then he pushed me back onto the bed, so I was lying with my feet hanging over the edge, and he pulled my underwear off, tossing it over his shoulder. He leaped back on top of me. Within seconds, he was inside me.

“Are you okay?” Leo had stopped moving. He was poised on top of me, raising himself up by the arms, looking down at me. He looked different from this angle, his curls dangling down.

My body lay still beneath him. I’d been lying there, unmoving. A dead starfish. “Yes,” I said. And then, as if to explain my behavior, I added, “I’m just nervous.” I was having a hard time keeping my head in the game. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t me. It was the person pretending to be in love with Leo Glass.