Astrid reared back, not whispering any more. “Afraid? What makes you think that I’m afraid?” she said defensively.

I shrugged again. I’d obviously touched a nerve. “Nothing. Just a sense I had.” I figured lying to help Astrid save face was for the best.

“Oh, well, then you need to get that ‘sense’ of yours checked out,” Astrid retorted sharply. She stepped away suddenly and removed her towel before starting to get changed into some fresh tights and a clean sports bra.

I turned around, more out of instinct than to preserve her modesty—Astrid didn’t seem to care at all whether I saw her naked.

“What was it like?” she asked after a moment.

“Am I good to turn around?”

“You were good minutes ago,” she said with a sly giggle. “I thought I told you I don’t mind.”

I slowly looked over my shoulder, and when I was sure she was completely dressed, I turned all the way back around. It wasn’t much different seeing her in the tights. They were pressed so close to her skin that she might as well have been naked.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “What was it like, having sex with Kyrine?”

“Oh, it was something else,” I said, unsure how specific I should go with the details. I wasn’t the kind of guy to speak to my friends about the specifics of my every sexual encounter, so I definitely wasn’t going to go into it with a woman I’d just met.

Still, the way Astrid’s lips parted slightly and her cheeks reddened made me almost wish I was.

“I guess it’s not so strange that you don’t want to talk about it,” Astrid said. “After all, how does someone actually fuck a giant gemstone?” She shuddered. “I’ve heard guys mention nightmares about cheese graters, and that’s got to come close.”

I shuddered in return. “It definitely wasn’t like fucking a cheese grater.”

Astrid raised her hand. “I thought I wanted to know, but I’ve changed my mind. Not anymore. Don’t. Say. Another. Word.”

I smiled at her. “My lips are sealed. I don’t kiss and tell anyway.”

“All the guys say that,” Astrid said.

I shrugged. “I’m different.”

“They all say that too.” She poked her tongue out. “If you want to wait while I dry my hair, I can show you a few of the training terminals and how they work.”

“Sure,” I said. “That’d be great.”

Astrid grabbed a hair-dryer that was built into a unit on the wall next to a full-length mirror. There was no power cord, I noticed, and she waved it at me as she turned it on to emit a low hum, quieter than any hair-dryer I’d ever heard before.

“This is enchanted,” she said, indicating the dryer. “Magic powers everything that would normally be powered by electricity in here.”