Almost Real Read online

  There was something going on…something that electrified the space between them, and did all kinds of weird things to her body and her mind. Her spine seemed to have turned to jelly, and for some ridiculous reason she was holding her breath. She was sucking herself in like he was, trying to make her mass as small as possible so no accidental touching occurred.

  And all the while the pressure built until she could hardly bear it.

  If the keypad to her left didn’t turn green soon she was going to do something really stupid. She could actually see herself doing it, in fact—reaching out to pry open the metal door, then just stepping out into a waterfall of darkness. And though she knew, rationally, that she never would, she relished the image for a moment.

  How cool the descent would be. How airy and open! In here there seemed to be no oxygen, and everything was roasting hot. It made her want to check the climate control, or maybe look out a window that wasn’t there to see if they’d accidentally bought a one-way ticket to hell, but of course she knew that couldn’t be true.

  It was him. It was just him. He was like some massive furnace behind her, boiling the atmosphere alive. He was boiling her alive—and not just in some metaphorical way, either. She made the mistake of turning just a little—just to get an inch more space, just to get a bit more relief—only to have her arm brush against some part of him.

  And it burned.

  It burned so bad she came close to clutching at the affected area and was only saved by the shush of the elevator coming to a stop. At last, at long, long last the elevator had come to a stop, and then that blessed door slid open and oh it was like being unzipped out of a wetsuit. She spilled into the decontamination area in a big boneless rush, so relieved she hardly cared about disguising the emotion. What did it matter now, anyway? He probably knew by this point what was going on.

  Though if he did, she kind of wished he’d fill her in. She didn’t have the foggiest idea what all this was, starting with the incident in bed. What had made her do a thing like that? And now there was the elevator of doom, and her slithering exit, and her current inability to look at him.

  Of course, she told herself that the latter was due to tasks she had to do. There was gear that needed getting out and rubber seals to check and a whole host of things that kept her head legitimately down. However, she understood on some level that she was just avoiding him. And if she didn’t, the sudden sound of his voice was a good reminder.

  “What’s the oxygen for?” he asked, as innocuous as anything.

  But it went through her like a gunshot. She jerked the second he spoke, gaze flicking up to him far, far too quickly. Seeing him at an ordinary speed was bad enough. Getting all of him in one quick rush was a real problem. Those eyes, that mouth…for a second she forgot what words were.

  He had to ask again before she understood.

  “There toxins in the lab?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Why should I?” he asked, and for just a second she was relieved. He hadn’t taken her words the wrong way. She wasn’t an accidental asshole who’d implied he was an idiot. But then he went and added, “I’m just a grunt.”

  And suddenly she wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t being cruel—she knew that much for certain. His expression remained completely neutral and his voice was more matter-of-fact than sneery or cynical. But then, possible sneery cynicism wasn’t really the problem. The matter-of-factness was.

  He really thought of himself that way. He really believed it, the way other people believed they needed to breathe oxygen. It was just a detail to him, plain as a piece of paper—yet somehow it stung her so hard it stole her breath. She had the immediate urge to correct him, and would have done if she’d known how.

  But oh God, she didn’t, she didn’t. Everything in her head just seemed like something a lovesick drip would say. Her brain started with you’re brilliant and pretty much devolved from there.

  He didn’t want to hear that he was brilliant.

  She didn’t even want to hear that he was brilliant. She hadn’t realized she thought that way until right now, and it came as much as a shock to her as it probably would to him. He was just staring at her with his big, dispassionate face, likely waiting for her to say something normal.

  What was a normal way to refute someone’s poor self-image?

  “You know you…you do your…things…very well.”

  Oh God, not like that. What did that even mean? She didn’t know, and clearly neither did he. One of his eyebrows seemed to actually briefly lift, followed by a thank-you so faint and full of bewilderment she could have had it hospitalized.

  Yet still, she felt the need to make things worse.

  “I mean, you’re not just a grunt,” she said, and when he didn’t respond she simply had to explain further. His frozen, slightly stunned expression forced her to. “You’re very kind…and…and…” And Lord, she hoped someone was going to stop her soon. Why wasn’t he stopping her? He was just staring and staring with this frozen look of probable shock on his face as she babbled on. “You make dinner, without having to be asked or prompted or—”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  “What?”

  “It’s a good thing that you don’t have to ask.”

  “Well…yes. I mean, it’s quite unusual to run into—”

  “So guys you dated…they didn’t cook you dinner?”

  She was getting fairly close to hyperventilation. Or at least, it felt that way. Her breathing had gone all short and she could no longer think straight, and then he threw in a question like that and it was pretty much meltdown time. Was that what she had implied? Something weird about dating? She was sure she hadn’t, but somehow she couldn’t imagine Sergei just bringing it up. He still looked mostly impassive, with just that faintest hint of confusion.

  She must have suggested something.

  And now she had to un-suggest it, fast.

  “I wasn’t thinking about things…in that way. That’s not what I meant.”

  “I see.”

  “I meant something else.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I was just trying to tell you that you’re good.”

  “I’m getting that.”

  “You are?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How strongly?”

  “Strong enough that I can feel it.”

  Oh Jesus. Jesus, she wished he hadn’t said that. He didn’t mean anything by it quite obviously, but that one word stood out like an explosion all the same. Feel. She’d somehow pushed him into feeling, despite how uncomfortable that obviously made him. He seemed to shrug around inside his own skin after he’d spoken, trying to get the whole thing to fit.

  It was unbearable to watch.

  She had to change the subject.

  “We should probably get into the suits,” she said and was at first pleased with herself for doing so. He nodded, and she nodded, and everything seemed to slide back into a pleasing practicality. But then she turned toward the two black-doored lockers set into the stone, and that word began to penetrate her consciousness.

  Suits.

  Fuck, the suits.

  They had to put on suits.

  Really, really tight suits that didn’t go on over your clothes. She could tell they didn’t. He had a massive mask and massive boots, but his all-in-one was the size of a handkerchief. He was probably going to have to use a crowbar to get it on, and that wasn’t even the worst thing about it.

  First, he’d have to take his clothes off.

  They’d both have to take their clothes off.

  Chapter Three

  It took her a good five minutes to fully grasp how poorly she’d thought this whole thing through. Why hadn’t she just come down here by herself? They didn’t have to do things together. There was no law that said so. And he wouldn’t have found it so strange if she’d simply gone ahead on her own. He wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have.

  All right, he m
ight have.

  But frankly, anything would have been better than this. Now he was going to see her flaccid, underbelly-of-a-dead-fish body—the one that did not, in any way, stack up against his. She had all these weird wobbly bits that went out in the wrong places and in when they weren’t supposed to.

  Whereas his…

  Oh God.

  Oh God.

  She was going to see his.

  He wasn’t just going to look at her. She was going to have to look at him. With her eyes. And there was nothing she could do about it, either, because any excuses would give her away. He’d know for sure, then, that she was having these weird feelings, and he’d probably want to say something about it. Or maybe he’d just give her more of this strange, frozen confusion, which honestly didn’t seem any better.

  It almost made her wish for the good old days when he’d just been an expressionless, emotionless automaton, who didn’t say things like—

  “Are you kidding me?”

  She had no idea how he’d guessed what was going through her mind already. But obviously he had, because that kidding me was so full of contempt it could have taken Zeus down a peg or two. It was complete overkill for someone like her—she missed the pegs completely and almost landed on her ass. She wanted to speak, but her throat seemed to have closed up.

  Though in the end, she was thankful for that. He spoke before she could, and saved her from a very embarrassing speech about his body and her bad thoughts.

  “We gotta put this thing on?”

  He was talking about the suit. Of course he was. He was holding it between thumb and forefinger and looking at it as if the material was covered in manure. There just wasn’t any other reasonable explanation. And yet somehow her mind had gone to the completely irrational guess first.

  What was he doing to her?

  And even more exasperating—why was she letting this happen? It made her want to kick something, and unfortunately he was in the way.

  “How do you not know that this is protocol? We have to wear this stuff so we don’t compromise the lab,” she said in a tone far too filled with pent-up frustration.

  But he didn’t even seem fazed.

  “It wasn’t protocol during my last outfit,” he said, voice as calm and still as a lake in some uncharted land. There wasn’t even a hint of sarcasm in it, or a note of nyah nyah I told you so. He just set the idea out plainly, in a way that hooked its claws into her. One second she was regretful, the next curious.

  “So you’ve worked this kind of detail before?”

  She didn’t even realize she wanted to ask until the words were out. And then once they were, this strange sensation went through her. It felt like the burst of adrenaline she’d experienced in the desert, when she’d heard the first gunshot.

  But after a second she recognized it for what it was.

  A thrill.

  A sweet, sharp thrill.

  She was going to find things out now. He was about to tell her things. And that idea was so surprising, and so oddly delightful, that her heart actually kind of caught in her throat when he hesitated. He’s going to stop, she thought. I got my hopes up too soon—here comes the shutdown.

  Only no shutdown came.

  More words did, instead.

  “Before the marriage setup,” he said, and oh there were all sorts of implications there, hidden in amongst his clipped words. The very fact of them being clipped told her something—maybe about his levels of discomfort, which seemed pretty high. And then there were the words themselves—set and up, as though he’d been punked somehow.

  They got him over a barrel and made him sign.

  Oh God, what if they’d gotten him over a barrel and made him sign?

  “I guess you’re not a fan of this. I mean…of doing it this way,” she said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Right.”

  “Could be worse.”

  She wondered how, exactly.

  Maybe if she accidentally stuck her big toe in his ear?

  “Sure.”

  “I could be stuck here with an enormous tombstone who doesn’t know how to have a conversation, for instance.”

  She knew what he meant immediately. But she couldn’t react to it immediately. Her startled smile was stuck, halfway up to her face. Most of her was sure she should laugh, but a small part said don’t. He was almost certainly being funny, and she really, really enjoyed that part.

  But he was being funny at his own expense, again. And though he was right—though he’d kind of nailed himself, this time—the urge to correct him was even stronger than it had been on the last occasion. It was so strong, in fact, that she let it come out, as clear and direct as she hadn’t been before.

  “You’re talking now.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Been a long time though, huh?”

  “Decades,” he said, and oh something ached inside her when he did. He sounded like someone who’d been secretly starving in the desert for far too long. She could almost hear the hunger in his voice, right there where that frosty gravel dragged against the word, and it made her want to comfort him somehow.

  “You know, it’s been kind of a long time for me too.”

  “Don’t see how it could have been.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re just a kid.”

  He wasn’t trying to be an asshole, she knew. But even so, it kind of kicked her in the face, a little. He didn’t have to make her sound so silly and naïve and all the other things kid usually implied. And besides…he wasn’t that old.

  Was he?

  She tried to remember what his file had said, but suddenly thirty-five didn’t seem quite right. He’d basically called her a child, and was always being so world-weary, and when she finally dared to examine his face she could see all kinds of things she hadn’t really noticed before.

  He had a touch of gray around the temples and in the hint of stubble he appeared to have. When he turned his head a little the light caught the silver along the heavy line of his jaw—and then suddenly it wasn’t his age she was thinking about. It was his face, just his face, God his face.

  It was no wonder she kept trying not to look at him. The second she let herself stare she was pretty much lost…and understandably so. His features just weren’t like anyone else’s features. His eyes were so wide-set and so pale they should have made him seem alien-esque, yet somehow that wasn’t the effect at all.

  Instead they burned holes right through her body.

  And his mouth…she just didn’t know what to make of a mouth like that. His jaw was a fist, and his brow was stone, and his stubble made her think of razor wire. But in the middle was the tender curve of his upper lip, so soft she was sure it shouldn’t belong. It should have clashed with everything else.

  Yet somehow it didn’t.

  It kind of sucker-punched her instead, for reasons she couldn’t quite explain. No conventionally handsome man had ever made her feel this way…but then…maybe that was the problem. He was just to the left-hand side of good-looking, and apparently the left-hand side was where her desire lived. It had been buried beneath boring old pretty boys all this time, and now she’d unearthed it she couldn’t stop staring. She just kept taking him in as if she’d been hypnotized, and Lord it was going on for far too long.

  She knew it was, before he even said.

  “You okay?” he asked, and her stomach dropped three floors.

  He’d noticed. How could he not have noticed? There was probably drool leaking out of the corner of her mouth. Her face felt as if it appeared both confused and inexplicably excited—a devastating combination that likely looked even stranger to a casual observer. In a second he’d say all the things she’d been dreading, and even when he didn’t there was no real relief.

  “Want me to turn around?” he asked, which clearly meant he hadn’t realized anything at all. He just wanted to be considerate, and that was nice of him, it really was.

  It just did
n’t quite take away the taste of actually having to do this thing. He faced away from her a second after speaking, but his back was still there, looming and looming like a stone monolith. She had to turn around just to keep herself from worshipping it on the solstice, though turning only raised larger problems.

  She could still hear him.

  And somehow, inexplicably, hearing was worse than seeing. It turned the drag of his t-shirt over his skin into this soft and sensuous susurration, so familiar and yet so alien on a body other than her own. She could almost picture the strange honey-pale of him, that big torso twisting as he raised his arms and then oh then even worse…

  The clatter of a belt buckle rang out through the tiny too-closed room, and every hair on her head stood on end. It was like some crazy trigger she’d never known existed—one so strong it almost made her turn back around. He wouldn’t know she had, after all. She could look with impunity as those combat trousers slid down his massive thighs and his massive shins and Jesus Christ what was she thinking?

  Here he was being all decent and she wanted to peep at him like a pervert. She wanted to peep so bad she hadn’t even started taking her own clothes off. She hadn’t even thought about taking her own clothes off. All her focus was on him, or on not looking at him, or on the sound of him, or on what he might possibly look like if he took everything off and did some floor exercises for her.

  By the time she got around to the first button on her shirt, he was already done.

  “You ready?” he asked, which startled her out of her warped reverie, at least.

  But it didn’t help with what she now had to tell him. Or what she now had to do. She had to say no, like a total idiot who couldn’t take off clothes. And then she had to undress, with the added bonus of his total silence. No jingle of the belt buckle to cover anything up. No sound of his breathing to go alongside hers. She had to pant and gasp all on her own, getting louder and louder in a way he definitely hadn’t. He’d done it all without a hitch, but that wasn’t looking likely for her.