Heat rose up her cheeks and she stood. “I don’t think that’s what it’s called for women.” She sounded quite unaffected, thank you very much.

“My fault. What is the right term?” He had the gall to scratch the back of his head, his thinking-hard pose. “Rub the nub? Diddling Ms. Daisy? Ménage à moi?”

She hated that she started laughing. Hard. “You’re incorrigible.” She punched his shoulder. “And your attempts at embarrassing me are terribly ignoble.”

He stood too, body loose with laughter, and too close for comfort. “Quit using Old English to distract me. Also, you need to work on those tells, Knightlina.”

“I’m terrified to ask.”

“Well, Old English is your crutch when you’re uncomfortable. But we digress.”

She raised a brow, but she would not step back. “Conversely, you get crass when you enjoy someone’s discomfort more than you should.”

“Actually, I think it’s fabulous that you’re comfortable enough to . . . umm . . . jill off on my body.”

“I’ll bet.” It had gotten hot in there, but she was still not stepping back.

His eyes, that’s where the heat was coming from. “Are you saying thinking about it doesn’t make you want to do it again?”

She had no answer to that question. Truth was, she wasn’t sure. Before she responded he raised a hand to stop her. “Don’t bother to lie, it’s simple enough to disprove.”

That too she was aware of. He had disproved it very recently and thoroughly against her front door.

He tucked a loose lock behind her ear and the tenderness of it trembled down her body. “What I’m saying, Naina, is that I really liked doing that with you.”

She stepped back and walked around the breakfast bar, putting a few feet of solid stone between them like she should have done before this conversation got so out of hand. “Vansh, we can never do that again.”

He leaned into the bar, arm muscles popping—on purpose, she’d bet her life on it. “Or we can do it a few times more.”

“You cannot be serious!”

“Hear me out, I’m perfectly serious. Look how comfortable we are with each other. Have you ever been this comfortable with someone and still been on fire like this?”

Her only response was a gulp that got stuck mid-swallow. He thought she was comfortable right now? How did he look so relaxed? No twenty-six-year-old had the right to look this comfortable in his skin. Be this comfortable in his—absurdly gorgeous—skin.

“We both enjoyed what’s happened between us. We both want it again.” He waited, as though giving her a chance to disagree, but she couldn’t get words out. “So we enjoy it for a bit,” he continued, “and then we move on. Because look at us. We’re talking about it. Two friends. Two adults. With no strings, no expectations to mess things up.”