Never in her life had Naina ever had such vivid, full-bodied dreams. She came awake with an ache in her womb and a spasm between her legs and a strange pressure in her chest.

Jerking awake from a drugged-like sleep, she sprang up to sitting. Almost instantly, the heavy pleasure of her memories turned into a pain in her head so intense that death had to be better. Grabbing her head, she fell back into bed.

At least Vansh wasn’t here. The throbbing in her head kept her from calling out his name to check if he was still in her apartment. On her nightstand sat a giant cup of Philz darkest roast and two Tylenol. That’s how she knew he was gone.

Gone from her home, gone from her bed, gone from between her legs, where she’d mortifyingly dreamed of his being all night. The imprint of thick heavy muscle was still pressed into the soft skin of her thighs. Her sheets still smelled of him, of that heady rich citrus scent mixed with the tang of his body. And sex.

Groan.

Had she actually done that? The memory of it was too strong, too tangible, for it to have been just a dream. Who cared? She was still denying it. After swallowing the Tylenol down with the world’s best coffee, she reached for her phone. Shit. It was past noon. No texts from him. No calls. Not even an attempt at a shirtless FaceTime.

As she dug through the guts of her phone—for a sign of what, exactly, she didn’t know—something gonged like temple bells. Only the temple was inside her head, and it was on fire.

She squeezed her eyes shut. How could her head hurt like this? Was pain like this even human? The bells gonged again. Was that the doorbell?

God, please, you cannot be cruel enough for Vansh to have come back. She could not face him. Not now when her head was made of pain.

Another gong.

She grabbed a kimono from the hook behind her door. No, she did not thank her stars for having picked up the gorgeous tie-dye garment from the streets of Kathmandu that made her feel like a goddess.

It was going to take more than clothing to do that today. Plus, goddesses did not such agony suffer.

She checked her face in the hallway mirror. No! Ugh. Her eyes were slits, with raccoonlike markings around them, a post-coital raccoon whose horniness had destroyed her. Plucking wet wipes from the bathroom, she wiped and wiped as she went to the door and pressed the buzzer.

“Mar te nai gai si kudi!”

Mummy?

She buzzed her mother in with a “No, Mummy, the kudi is not dead.” Although, the girl did wish she was. Unless she was and this was hell.

At least it wasn’t Vansh. That was a relief. Even if it came with another brutal frying-pan-and-fire situation.