by Paige North
Slowly he rocked his hips, moving me back and forth. I was at the point where having him fully inside me wasn’t enough—I wanted more. I pushed my hips down on his, grinding on him in an effort to get every last bit of him inside my body. We held each other tight, moving slowly.
Leo’s arm held my back as he quickly moved our bodies, still held together as one, to the floor of the office. The changed position gave my body new thrills. I realized that the only thing better than Leo’s face between my legs was his face looking down at me, watching me as he moved in and out of me, savoring every second of pleasure.
His eyes on me from the angle made me feel like he could see all of me, and I felt flush under his scrutiny—even more than when my legs were spread before him. The look he gave me was far more intimate than anything I’d experienced.
“Sophie,” he said, breathing out my name. “I can’t stop making love to you. I don't want anyone or anything other than you. I can’t stop.”
I cried out as he moved harder into me, his face contorting but his eyes always on me. I moved my knees out to the side as far as they would go, and he took them both and pushed them up by my shoulders. The sensation filled me as I arched my back, concentrating on the pounding he gave me, moving faster and faster, all while keeping those sea blue eyes on me.
Feeling him, seeing the look in his eyes, it was almost more than I could bear. I reached up for him, clawing at his chest and throat, wanting every part of him. I sat up on my elbows, the angle of him inside me pushing right where I wanted it. When Leo came, I came again, with him, both of us looking into each other’s eyes, keeping them wide open as we cried out. Finally he collapsed down on top of me, and we held each other as our hearts slowed their beating.
For a moment I felt shy, a bit rattled as we picked our clothes off the floor and got dressed again. Leo had a satisfied grin on his face, and I wanted to rush back into his arms. I wanted to tell him I loved him. The emotions washed over me with undeniable force. My heart wanted to say the words to him, but my mind held me back.
He’d made love to me. He’d done it, and he’d even said that it was real. And I was more confused than ever.
Worse, I realized I was totally in love with Leo Armstrong. I was in love with a man that everyone in the world knew as The Panty Dropper. What was I supposed to do with that?
Once dressed, Leo took my hand. “Want something to drink? Water, wine?”
“Water,” I said.
I sat on the couch out in the living room, looking out the window at the twinkling view. Leo brought me a glass of water and I took a sip and set it on the coffee table.
I decided now was a good moment to bring up my new status to Leo.
“Did you hear that it’s official?” I asked as he sat down beside me. “I’m now known as Leo Armstrong’s mystery women. My picture was up online yesterday.”
“That grainy thing?” he said. “That was nothing. Doesn’t bother me. How are you feeling about it?” He tucked my hair behind my ear.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s weird.”
“Those tabloid vultures trying to get a piece of my private life,” he said with clear disdain. “We can be more careful, if it makes you uncomfortable, but I try not to let them rule my life.”
“No, it’s fine,” I mumbled, a sense of extreme guilt piercing the armor of my chest. I was one of those tabloid vultures, as much as I didn’t want to be. And here he was, trying to offer me protection from the very thing I’d become.
“Come here,” he said, pulling me close to him.
My head rested comfortably on his chest, my leg wrapped over his. He brushed my hair off my forehead and kissed me there, something he’d done before and that I loved so much. I snuggled in closer to him.
“You should come over every night,” he said.
“I can come back tomorrow night.”
“Come back every night,” he said. Leo kissed me again and whispered, “Stay tonight.”
I wanted to, with every inch of my being. I didn’t want to leave his side. But I knew I needed to get home. I wanted to stay in the foggy afterglow of lovemaking with Leo but I needed to step out and clear my head and figure out what, exactly, I was doing. My feelings for him had clearly grown into something that felt unstoppable, and I had to figure out what that meant in terms of my job—and my entire life.
“I’m going to go home,” I said. “But not right now. That okay?”
He squeezed me tight and said, “Stay as long as you like.”
We ended up in his bed—sleeping. Our bodies tangled, our faces close, breathing in each other. I’d never slept so peacefully in my life. Little did I know, it was all about to change.
18
“It’s been long enough,” Kait said. “Time to write.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, scrambling through the papers on my desk to find the drive-in story. For the past couple of weeks at work, Kait had me doing total low-level work—coming up with cover lines, writing the snappy one-lines in the table of contents, and fact checking beauty product spellings. “I still have Pam’s notes. I can polish what I have with her marks in mind.”
“What are you talking about?” Kait said. She always spoke to me like I was her younger, annoying sister—the one she had absolutely no love for.
“My New Girl story? The drive-in piece?”
“I told you. That’s scrapped.”
“But I thought since no one…”
She leaned closer to me. “The Leo story. Jesus, the one thing I’ve asked you to focus on. Our next issue goes to press at the end of the week so it’s time to get all your little notes and mementos and whatever else you’ve been saving, and write the story.”
“Does this story have to be for this issue? Can’t it go in a future edition?” I asked, hoping against hope for a reprieve, a pardon from the warden. Anything to stop this from happening right now.
Kait gave me a death glare. “I know you’re stalling, Sophie. But it’s become more than clear to me that whatever little grains of information Leo Armstrong’s giving you are not improving with time. He’s obviously grown bored of you, he’s stringing you along and there’s nothing to hold out for.”
“I’m doing my best,” I say, my tone more defensive than I intended it to be. Of course, it was a lie. I hadn’t done my best for Kait and the magazine—I’d left out all the juicy stuff and tried to protect Leo from their prying and poking.
“I get that,” she said, even more annoyed now. “And so we might as well work with what we have. I want all that crap about blocking his number from you and his sad story about the women in his family making his poor little heart so cold. Give me three-thousand words in three days. And don’t screw it up. Any questions?”
All I could do was sit slack-jawed and shake my head no. No questions, unable to process…
“And don’t forget to send me your cover line suggestions and table of contents,” she said, and turned and walked away.
That night I sat in my bedroom with my laptop, staring at the blank page. Leo was the only thing I was thinking about. I had entered near obsessive levels of having him on my mind.
But the man on my mind was not the same man Kait and others had warned me about for so long.
The Leo on my mind was the guy who picked the pine nuts out of my salad because I was allergic. The Leo who whose hand instinctively drifted to me like a magnet when he wasn’t even paying attention, just reading emails on his phone. The Leo who looked at me like I mattered.
He’d taken me to his favorite Mexican restaurant the other night and when I told him I’d never been out of the country he’d immediately gotten on his phone. “I’m taking you to Mexico.”
“Now?” I’d laughed. My cheeks were warm from the margaritas—and the smoking hot company.
“Hey, why not?” he said while typing something on his phone. “No, I’m going down in a couple of weeks. A little break before we start filming our movie.”
Our
movie meant the one we’d worked on together, and that still boggled my mind. “Are you serious?” I said.
“I’ll have Elaine book a ticket for you. You have your passport?”
“Wait, slow down,” I’d laughed. “I can’t just go to Mexico.” Although, I’d thought, Kait would probably give me the time off if I told her what I was doing. But I didn’t want her to know what I was doing. I didn’t want to go to Mexico for Kait. I wanted to go for Leo, and for me.
“I think the temp agency can live without you for a few days,” he said. “Besides, we need to celebrate the great work you did on the screenplay. Come with me.” His eyes had a hopeful glow to them as he waited for me to say yes.
“It’s just a trip to Mexico, not a marriage proposal,” he’d said said. “Elaine will help expedite your passport, if that’s what you’re worried about. Shots?”
“You’re getting me drunk,” I’d said.
“That’s okay,” he’d replied. “It’s practice for Mexico.”
For him, everything was so easy. He just bought it, demanded it, or had his assistant Elaine do it for him. People did what he wanted them to do—including me. When he smiled at me, I melted.
Who wouldn’t want to live such a charmed life? So far, I’d seen no misogynistic behavior from him. All the things Kait had been ranting about for weeks hadn’t been my experience. I didn’t know if she was crazy, or if he was just different with me.
As I sat staring at my blank document on my computer in my bedroom, the doorbell rang. Ava Marie was at a gig, so I trudged out to answer it.
A messenger handed me a package with my name on it. I opened it up and found a white bikini with fun little palm trees over the breasts. A card inside read, You wearing this will be the best view in all of Mexico.
Of course, it was my size. He knew my body well enough, I supposed. I certainly knew his. I shivered, thinking about the smooth skin on his arms, the rippled muscles of his abs. The way the left side of his mouth crooked up a little higher when he smiled than his left. I fell asleep at night thinking about those lips.
I drifted along in a haze for the next two days, knowing Kait was anxiously awaiting my article. The day it was due I thought briefly about calling in sick. I may have been nervous, but I was still ready to face her. At least, that’s what I told myself as I sat in the crushing L.A. traffic on my way to work.
As I walked down the halls of the magazine, I felt like all eyes were on me. Pam shot me a look from inside her office as I went by.
Kait was in meetings all day, which made the pain of waiting for her ten times worse. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I knew it wouldn’t be good, and as the hours ticked by my imagination became more outrageous. By the time she finally called me into her office at nearly six o’clock, I was a bundle of nerves.
I took a deep breath, gathered my strength, and stepped inside Kait’s office.
“I don’t have any emails from you,” she said, her eyes on her computer. “Where’s the story?”
I braced myself before I said, “I didn’t do it.”
Kait cut her eyes up at me. “Excuse me?”
Still standing in the doorway, I shifted my weight, telling myself to hold steady. “I didn’t do it. I think…I didn’t really get any dirt on him anyway.”
Kait’s eyes didn’t move from mine. Her jaw was tight, and she looked coiled, like she was ready to spring across the desk for my throat.
“You’re telling me that, the assignment I gave you that could launch your career you just decided, screw it, I don’t feel like doing it?”
“No, Kait, it’s not that.”
“We go to press tonight. You better get your ass back to your desk right now and start writing,” she said. “And you better hope your fingers can type fast enough because if I don’t have that article in my inbox by nine o’clock tonight, you can kiss your career goodbye.”
“What if we did the article showing the other side of Leo Armstrong, the one that goes against his reputation?” I tried. I’d thought of that as I sat in traffic, my stomach a gurgling mess of nerves on my way in. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I had to try. I was sinking fast.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” she said. “After all I’ve done for you? I gave you your start in this field. Do you know how many girls wish they had your job? How many girls wish they’d been given free rein of the Crush fashion closet to pick out anything so that they could look good on their dates with the Leo Armstrong? Do you get that?”
“And I’m so appreciative,” I said.
“He has got you so fooled,” Kait said, shaking her head in disgust. “Pam told me not to trust some young, naïve girl like you and she was right. That man has got you so fooled into thinking he actually cares about you. I don’t know whether it’s sad or pathetic or both. Sophie,” she said, leaning forward. “Listen to me carefully: He doesn’t care about you. No matter what he’s said to you in those quiet little moments in his high-rise apartment, he doesn’t care about you. All he cares about is using you. He’s been using you this whole time. Do you get that?”
“Maybe you’re right, Kait, but I don’t know why you hate him so much and why you’re out to get him. He’s not the man you think he is, he hasn’t treated me badly and I won’t say that he has just to make you happy.”
She kept her gaze on me, and I refused to look away.
“If you don’t write that story,” she said, “you can kiss your job here goodbye, and I promise you that there will be no other jobs to come. Los Angeles is a much smaller town than you might think.”
I’d considered this all day. Kait wasn’t the type of woman to let anyone tell her no. Hearing her say the words, though, still shocked me. I paused, wondering for a moment if I was prepared to do that—to give it all away and maybe get nothing in return.
“You know,” I said, “what you don’t understand is that Leo’s not the real user. You are.”
With that I turned and left Kait’s office, pausing only to grab my bag from my desk as I marched down the halls. The other editors had apparently been straining to listen and they all stood at the edge of their cubicles and offices as I walked out of Crush.
I didn’t care about their snide faces (Alexa, Bethany) or their victorious grins (Pam). I only cared about one thing—telling Leo the hard truth.
19
Please answer, I silently prayed as I sat in my car outside the Crush offices—where my career had just been crushed—and listened to the ringing of Leo’s phone. Finally, thankfully, he answered.
“Hi! Leo!” I said with a little too much pep.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, making my heart sing. “How are you? Yeah, that tie is fine,” he said to someone else.
“You busy?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Only a little. The Trigger Happy premiere is tonight.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “I forgot.”
Trigger Happy was his biggest project to date. He’d mentioned the problems with it in passing. The co-stars hated each other, the director couldn’t control them, and the weather never cooperated. But tonight, all that would be put aside as the movie was finally released, and I knew Leo was ready to hopefully throw a successful launch and put the gossip in the rearview mirror.
“My car is here,” Leo said. “I’m going in the elevator so I might lose you. Did you need something?”
His tone wasn’t unkind, just distracted. I didn’t want to lose him, in the elevator or anywhere else. I had to see him and tell him the truth about everything before he found out from someone or somewhere else. Kait was surely right when she said it was only a matter of time before reporters found out who Leo’s mystery woman was. I couldn’t let him find out from anyone but me. I had to tell him the truth, and hope that he could somehow forgive me.
“I have to talk to you tonight,” I said. “Where is the premiere?”
“At Grauman’s Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard,” he said.
“Can I m
eet you there?” I asked.
“Sounds important,” he said. “Like I said, I’m leaving now. I’ll have Elaine email you a pass so you can get in. Good luck with parking, though. It’ll be a nightmare.”
I didn’t care about seeing the movie or where I’d park my car. I just had to get to Leo, and fast.
Of course, there’s nothing fast about driving through L.A. in the heat of rush hour traffic. The whole drive over I tried to stifle the voice in my head that told me I was crazy for everything I’d done since the day I arrived in the city. But I had to believe that there was something real with Leo. We hadn’t just been fooling around.
Things had changed, at least for me, and it was more than just physical. It was how I felt when I was around him—content, at ease, happy, blissful even. The way he looked at me had changed, too. When Leo looked at me, I felt like he was seeing inside of me, at the person I was and trying to be.
Of course, I hadn’t been truthful and it was an ugly side of me that I was now deeply ashamed over. The opportunity to be a journalist had brought out a weakness in me that I’d never known existed. I was sick with guilt over it, but tried to push it away as I finally exited the 101 Freeway at Highland and turned onto Hollywood Boulevard.
The scene was a madhouse. The road was partially closed, forcing me to turn onto another street. I couldn’t waste time searching for a parking spot that I was sure didn’t exist so I pulled up at a restaurant and tossed my keys to the valet. I heard him yell at me about only customers being allowed to valet there, but I was off and running toward the theater.
There were hundreds of people crowding the street in front of the historic theater. I took out my phone to text Leo to see where he was. Instead I found a text from Alexa.
Thought you’d want to know. Kait didn’t even need you to write the article. She’s been keeping your notes and emails all long and just assembled it for a Crush exclusive. ;)
I clicked on the link and it took me to the front page of the Crush web site.
