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.Yet she could still see almost everything.She could see his surprisingly narrow hips and the great rising weight of his back above them, the curve of his spine leading down and down to something she would never, ever look at.She kept her eyes up.Up.Not that it helped.Keeping them up meant seeing the split of his suit, where the zipper was supposed to go.It meant seeing a strip of his bare skin revealed in such a way that it somehow seemed ruder than if he’d been completely naked.She thought of odd things as she sealed him in—women in catsuits, slowly easing their zips down in a sultry striptease.Him choking over the sudden restriction, her coming to his rescue with a completely insane mouth to mouth.And then it was done, and the matter was passed.It was passed.Oh God, it would never be passed.She understood clearly, the moment he turned and held her gaze for just a fraction too long.It was an assessing look, she knew, and it told her all the things she didn’t want to hear.I know you’re thinking about me, that heavy gaze said.But obviously, he wasn’t thinking about her in the same way.His handling of her zipper was brisk and perfunctory, almost like a shove to the back.And no matter how frequently she checked, his eyes stayed away from her body.Hell, sometimes they stayed away from her face too.She was fairly sure his stare hovered somewhere just over her head as she handed him his mask.Then when she keyed in the door code, it actually settled on some nonexistent thing to her right.Air was more important than her, apparently.And this theme continued throughout their foray into the labs.He stared at everything but her—which was partly understandable.The place was a warren of glazed and faintly glowing sights, everything so smooth and clean you could have ice-skated on some of the surfaces.She watched him take in all the things that always held her attention, like the slow dance of a thousand mechanical arms, each one in perfect synch.The great black vats beyond these bright lights, just waiting in the darkness like sleeping giants.Then finally the clones themselves—row upon row of them, each encased in a glass casket, each as pale and peaceful as a marble statue.She couldn’t possibly blame him for being transfixed by them, because she so often found herself in a similar state.In fact, she often found herself in a far worse state, if she was really being honest.She searched too often for B-426’s black hair now, and thought too often about the desert and those eyes and the words that would haunt her forever.I will not go with them, Margot, she’d said, as though her freedom didn’t matter.Something else did, instead.Something that made her fight the ones who’d come to liberate her, instead of going with them when Margot had told her to.She’d jumped on the back of the one of them and pushed Margot into the dirt when shots rang out, and after it was all over she’d still seemed so heartbreakingly surprised when Margot had said the only thing she could, the only thing that—“You almost done?”She jerked the moment he spoke, but this time it had nothing to do with his voice or his uncanny ability to speak when she least expected it.This time she was just so busy being in that world, it was kind of a jolt to return to this one.She had to take a moment to reestablish her equilibrium…though once she had she didn’t feel any better.He was still looking at everything but her.And it was worse here too, because now he had good reason to glance in her direction.He’d just asked her if she was ready, but couldn’t even bring himself to check.Apparently she was so hideous in her suit he had to feign interest in a light fitting, rather than find out what he needed to know.And she had to admit, that sort of stung.It stung even though it had never done so before.She’d seen the same attitude in a million men and never thought a thing about it, and more than anything wanted to return to that state now.She wasn’t really bothered by his behavior.She wasn’t, she wasn’t—it was just a silly faddish feeling that faded as quickly as it came.Once they started back to the elevator, her mind just went to another place.She wasn’t happy, or sad.She was in the middle of emotions, like always.Nothing weird, no highs, no lows—just a flat, endless ocean that never encountered a storm.In truth, she didn’t even know what a storm was.The closest she’d come was her hand on the curve he’d left behind in the bed, and that panic at the thought of touching and seeing him.Or at least, that was the closest until they were inside that steel tube again.Until he breathed in again to give her room, then cursed when his body briefly touched hers.He cursed at the feel of me, she thought, and everything suddenly shifted sideways.It refocused through the lens of that one action—an action she’d barely thought of the first time, but now seemed so full of meaning.And the meaning was a goddamn tidal wave [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]