The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (The Devils #2)(47)

He presses his face to the top of my head and holds it there for a moment, as if he’s saying a prayer.

“I was jealous,” he says quietly.

“What?” I roll toward him, not understanding.

He meets my gaze for only a moment, then his eyes fall closed. “The night we met? The shit I said about you stealing the silver? I was just pissed off and jealous, and I didn’t think he should get to wind up with someone like you. But instead of saying it all, I made it sound like my problem was with you. And I’m so unbelievably sorry you heard that.”

I roll over again and press my back to his chest. I wish his hand, now resting lightly on my hip, would slide up along my rib cage. That he’d pull me tight against him, the way we woke this morning, and press his mouth to my neck. I wish I could hear the sound of his breathing grow heavy as I reached back to grasp him.

I picture him rolling me to my back, his hands exploring my body, tugging my shorts down. Slowly pressing inside me.

I squirm. It’s such a bad idea to let my brain venture down this path. He shifts onto his back then and I follow, rolling into the curve of his arm to face him.

My hand falls to his stomach and brushes something else instead. He hisses through his teeth and turns away, rolling onto his stomach.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I know,” he grunts. There is silence. He can’t blame it on needing to pee. “It’s been a really long time,” he finally says.

“Yeah, me too,” I tell him.

I hear his disgruntled laugh. “It’s been a little longer than one night for me.”

“I’m not sleeping with your brother,” I reply, my voice barely a whisper. “It was one of the conditions I set out before I’d agree to come on this trip.”

He makes that noise he does occasionally, as if all the air’s been knocked out of him.

He remains on his stomach but turns his head to face me. “Haven’t you been dating him for, like, a year or two? Why would you suddenly refuse to sleep with him?” His voice is as low and careful as mine.

“We were seeing each other casually before and I ended things last August,” I tell him. “He asked me to give him a chance and I agreed, but I didn’t want…sex confuses things.”

“I’d probably be better off not knowing that,” he groans, turning his face into his makeshift pillow.

And I understand that. I’d be better off too.

I’m exhausted, but I remain awake for a long time after that, wishing I was still just Ilina Andreyev, living in some shitty apartment I can barely afford, and curled under a blanket with a doctor named Josh. Whose brother I’d never met.





29





JOSH





February 1st





I wake in the morning, hard as nails.

It’s not entirely a surprise, as that’s how I spent most of the previous night.

It doesn’t help that I’m currently pressed—insistent and throbbing—against Drew’s ass. I roll away from her, willing it to retreat, and she wakes.

“Is it just me or did the temperature drop about forty degrees?” she asks, yawning.

I’m pretty sure it did—another reason I was up most of the night. Cold weather and significant temperature changes can trigger asthma. I spent the night alternating between checking her breathing and trying to will my erection away. I want to ask her about it even now, but I’m worried I’ll trigger a panic attack if she senses I’m concerned. My fury at Joel has only grown over the course of this trip.

She rolls over, clinging to my back for warmth. I can feel her nipples even through her sweatshirt.

Fuck my life.

"You talk in your sleep," I tell her.

"You're making that up,” she says, but when I don’t argue, she concedes with a sigh. “What did I say?”

"You were talking about how hot I am.” I can feel her cheek curving against my spine as she smiles. "Fine. I might have misinterpreted that part. No seriously, you just kept repeating numbers.”

“That lines up," she says. "I'm extremely good at math, having made it all the way through the eleventh grade."

I laugh. “It was less math and more like…you were ordering Chinese food. You kept repeating the same numbers again and again saying ‘the one-ninety-nine’ and ‘the eight-eight’. Do you remember what it was?”

She stiffens and rolls away. “No.”

There are no jokes about Chinese food or implications that they were sexual positions.

That’s how I know she’s lying to me.





The river is deemed passable when everyone wakes. We pack up our stuff and plunge in, tethered to one another. The water is surprisingly cold, and I place a hand on Drew’s shoulder—in part because the stream is still rushing fast enough to sweep someone to sea, in part because it allows me to silently assess her breathing once more. She still seems fine, thank God.

When we reach the other side, everyone is soaking wet and filthy but buoyant, thrilled to have made it. There are cheers and laughter and it’s a relief, but I don’t feel all that celebratory. When Drew and I say goodbye at the airport tomorrow, that will be it…unless she actually stays with my brother, which would be even worse.