“I thought you might need reminding, considering my job is one of the reasons—possibly the main reason—my last relationship ended. Which brings me to the aptly titled number four. It’s beenthat many years since I’ve had sex. Since I’ve evenwantedto have sex.”
I say it quick and dirty, blushing blushingblushing,and then snap my lips together.
His smile vanishes, and even though I’m looking at a murky reflection of him, something flickers in his eyes.
“Four years,” he repeats, tone husky, hoarse.
“Four years.”
It must be the fever that got me to admit that.
“And now?” he asks.
“Things are different now.”
I very quickly realize I miscalculated, adding this tidbit to my list of five worst things.
I thought it would stall Will. I thought my lack of sexual activity, sexual drive, sexual exploration might freak him out the same way it freakedmeout. But given the storm on his face, I think it succeeded only in turning him on.
His arms retract from my body, and he shifts away from me.
“Fuck, Josie,” he all but growls. “Fuck. Did you seriously just tell me I’m the first person you’ve felt sexual about in four years?”
“Um, sorry, I didn’t think that one through.”
Silence. A deep breath.
“Just remind me why I’m here,” he says, looking at the ceiling. “The real reason, not the one in my head right now.”
I go for lighthearted, breezy. “What? You barging into my hotel room to keep me company because of the guilt you feel for forcing me to leave the hotel in the first place?”
Will laughs, though it still sounds strained. “I actually feel no guilt whatsoever for forcing you to leave the hotel yesterday. It was a near-perfect day. And more likely, we caught this virus in one of thefourairports we traveled through the day before, not downtown Arequipa.”
“Believe what you want.”
“I will.”
“We should get some sleep.”
“We should.”
He slides to one side of the bed, and I crawl to the other. Neither of us suggests Will return to his own room. Under the covers, we take painstaking care not to touch, but his presence soothes me, distracts me from my fever.
I fall back asleep to a harmony of rainforest noises and snoring. And I wake up in the middle of the bed, cradled in his arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Despite Will’s protests that he can handle the walk-through alone and I should stay in bed, I make it to the second supplier visit the next morning.
Barely.
Ibarelymake it, and I’m in such a questionable state of physical wellness—my skin gray, my cognitive skill diminished—the ownermustbe questioning his choice to do business with Revenant the second we drive away.
“He looked at you like you were a ghost,” Will notes wryly on our way back to the airport. His gaze turns back in my direction from where he was gazing out the window at El Misti. “Youlooklike a ghost.”
I glare at him. “Did you mean that to sound nicer than the way it came out?”
He laughs, the sound warm and buttery off his tongue. One day out from the virus, and he’s as good as new. “I told you to stay in bed.”
