Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(68)

“You couldn’t do that in any river,” Rome announced, suddenly appearing right in front of me as he spoke to the thoughts in my head. “Why do we need to keep reminding you that you can’t swim?”

“Maybe I can,” I countered, taking a step further into the water again—this brought me directly into contact with him, and before I could stop myself, my hands were on the bare skin of his stomach.

I could feel his muscles contract at my touch, and I could hear the deep breath he pulled in above my head.

“Maybe all beta-sol-dweller-hybrids can swim …” I continued. “Maybe it’s a secret skill of mine, just like disappearing people’s clothes and starting little fires.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Yael sounded from directly behind me.

I couldn’t see the evidence that they were both completely naked, but Rome was pressed tightly enough to my front for me to be able to feel it, and when Yael’s heat draped across my back, I knew that they had both stripped down. Did they do that for me? A show of naked solidarity?

“You like being naked,” Rome said, answering my thoughts yet again. “And you threatened to cry. We thought this was the safer option.”

I laughed—the sound sudden and light. I hadn’t laughed that easily in a long time, but I found his statement hilarious. There was nothing safe about the three of us standing naked in a river, with mud stuck to places on my body that would need to be washed sooner or later. Nope. This was not my version of a safe scenario. As though catching on to what had set me off, Rome started to chuckle along with me, and then Yael was laughing, too. That made me laugh even harder, until I was slumped against the hard chest in front of me and the laughter naturally died away. It was almost a relief, being able to laugh as much as I had just cried: I tilted my head up to the sky, trying to catch sight of the stars hiding behind what seemed to be a dense cloud cover. I stayed that way while the other two quietened, pulling in deep breath after deep breath. I felt like an open box: my emotions spilling out everywhere. All I wanted was to be submerged in the water, to cool the burn of intensity that seemed to be leaking out of me in a constant stream.

“Can I swim now?” I asked the shadow that loomed over me.

“Yeah, Will.” Rome looped an arm around the small of my back, pulling me up off my feet as he stepped further back into the water.

He drew us out into the middle of the stream and I saw Yael’s shadow following us—I could also still feel him close by. It seemed that they had both forgotten their rivalry, at least for the moment. They were putting aside their own needs to take care of mine. It warmed something inside my chest, and I looped my arms around Rome’s neck, pulling my legs up around his waist. I had intended to wrap myself around him in a hug, but his sudden grunt and the way his hands slipped down to my butt was enough to make me pause and re-evaluate the heat of something huge and hard pressing between my legs.

Whoops.

“Just ignore it,” Rome growled, “or this is going to be a very short … swim.”

“I don’t even want to know what it is,” Yael spoke up, only sounding a little agitated.

“Wouldn’t it be a him?” I asked, before I could stop myself. “I mean … an it has no gender, right? So wouldn’t it be a him? Wait … wouldn’t it be a you? Shouldn’t it be a you? But if it’s not a you, then does it have a name or something to separate itself from you?”

Okay, yes. I was rambling. It wasn’t like I was completely inexperienced; there had been that one boy in my seventeenth life-cycle. But ten clicks of fumbling, pain, and an inevitable disappointment did not compare to me now having a god’s thing pressing right against my thing—

“Please stop,” Yael interrupted my thought. “Firstly, we don’t want to hear about you and a fumbling—soon to be dead—dweller. And please say the words, at least. That was one of the most uncomfortable inner monologues I’ve ever heard from you, Willa-toy. I mean it. Say dic—”

“Whoa!” I tried to twist out and hit him, but I only managed to push my torso back from Rome and create enough momentum to fall backwards. I might have flopped into the water if Yael hadn’t stepped up and caught me between the two of them. “That’s enough of that conversation,” I squeaked, once I was secured.

I didn’t even want to think about what I was now feeling pressed against the base of my spine.

“You’re still thinking about it,” Yael complained softly, his voice in my ear.

“I can’t help it.” I tipped my head back, letting it fall onto his shoulder. “It’s right there. He’s right there? You’re right there? Someone needs to help clear up the personal pronoun issue.”

“It’s a dic—” Yael tried again, but my knee-jerk reaction this time was absolutely no different to the last time.

I swivelled around to hit him again, and somehow ended up unbalancing us all. My sudden, swinging lurch was enough to tip Rome backwards, and I was forced to twist off to the side to avoid falling on top of him. I sank into the river, the cool water rushing over my head and the sharp little rocks biting briefly into my skin. Luckily, the water wasn’t very deep, so my head still broke the surface when I found my feet again, or else this might have been a very different night. Different, because I would have drowned.