Page 41 of The Devil's Torment

He runs his finger along his lower lip, and I track the movement. This alluring, sensual side of him is addictive. I’ve never seen him act this way. He certainly didn’t with Beth. Not in public, at least. Perhaps in private…

A fiery burn spreads through my chest, and shame coats me. I have no right to be jealous. Beth is dead. How can I be jealous of a dead woman, especially when that woman was the person I loved most in this world? What kind of a monster does that make me?

“Well, I don’t know,” he says, jolting me out of my dark thoughts. “Maybe if you ask nicely.”

The slight curve to his lips is a sign he’s teasing me—another new addition to Nicholas’s personality, which, until recently, consisted of glowers, scowls, and curt words shared begrudgingly and only when strictly necessary.

I’m on the cusp of doing as he asks, but at the last minute, I change my mind. He’s used to people capitulating. Time to show him he won’t get that from me.

Hitching one shoulder, I school my expression into a disinterested stare. “It’s fine. I can wait until we get there.”

As I turn to look out of the tiny window, I catch Nicholas’s brows knit together. He wasn’t expecting that answer. Good.

“As you wish,” he murmurs, and when I face forward once more, he’s focused on his phone, both thumbs flying over the keyboard.

I retaliate by retrieving a book from my handbag. I’m not particularly interested in reading it, but I am interested in forcing Nicholas to make the first move in striking up a conversation. Last night, and this morning, he had the upper hand, dazzling me with his superior seduction skills and disproving a belief I’ve had for years that I can’t orgasm. But I’m back now, and I refuse to play the part of a malleable De Vil wife.

The plane rises into the air, and rain splatters the windows. The book falls into my lap, my hands too busy white knuckling the arms of the chair. I don’t mind flying, but I’ve never been all that keen on the takeoff part. I’ve watched enough documentaries to know this is the danger zone. Once we’re in the air, chances of anything happening reduce to close to zero.

“I wouldn’t have thought you were scared of flying.”

Keeping the triumphant smile from my face that he broke first, I shrug. “I’ll be fine in a minute or two. It’s just this part.”

“You’ve already survived the most dangerous part.”

“What’s that? Marrying you?”

A hint of a smile plays at the corners of his lips. “The car ride here.” Leaning across the table, he unpeels my left hand from its death grip on the expensive leather and encases it in his far larger palm. Warmth from his skin soaks into mine, and his intense stare bores through me as he brushes his thumb over my knuckles. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Goddammit.

My trusty sarcasm withers in the face of his overt sexuality. It’s as though he’s cast a spell on me. One touch, one heated look, one incredible orgasm, and I metamorphize into a timid little mouse.

Like Beth.

I rip my hand from his as though the heat pouring off him had set me on fire. My loins are burning, that’s for sure. Is this his game? To somehow mold me into a carbon copy of the wife he should’ve had. The wife hechose.

Is that the only chance I have of building a relationship with him? To change every facet of who I am, every strand of DNA until I’m like her? Is that the solution to having my parents finally love me the way I wish they would?

If there’s even a grain of truth in my chaotic thoughts, then it’s too high a price to pay.

A shadow falls over his features, the muscles in his jaw visibly tightening. The ping of the seatbelt sign being switched off sounds over our heads, but he leaves his belt fastened, and his eyes don’t leave mine. The leather creaks as I shift my position, uncomfortable under the weight of his stare. He steeples his fingertips together and brings them to his chin, his elbows resting on the table that separates us. This time, it’s me who blinks first.

“What?”

His nostrils flare to accommodate the deep breath he inhales. “I’m curious.”

“What about?”

“Why you couldn’t seem to get enough of my touch last night and this morning, yet now, it’s as though you’re worried you’ll catch an incurable disease if our skin so much as brushes against one another.”

A single, high-pitched laugh leaves my lips, but it’s too false sounding and too bloody late to swallow it down. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’ve never been silly in my life.”

“Now, that’s just sad.”

“I’m also impossible to distract if I want answers. I’d advise you to save your energy and don’t even try.” He holds out his hand, palm facing up, and he waits. And waits. And waits. It’s a battle fought in silence, and I already know I’m going to lose.

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