All those years Vansh had spent missing his siblings, and it had come to this?

Naina’s smile went wide and blank. “A human rights lawyer? A charitable mission in Haiti? She sounds totally his type.”

He returned her smile. “So you’ll come then?” Because that was the only thing that mattered. Being with her.

“Well, someone’s got to help you check her out.”

Nisha, Ashna, and Trisha picked up their jackets, their heads turning between Naina and Vansh as though they were at a tennis match.

Vansh retrieved Naina’s jacket from the closet and held it up for her. Anger sparkled in her eyes as she tried to take the jacket, as though letting him help her with it was too intimate. It was, and he needed it. He needed to not tiptoe anymore. He wanted them to see her. He wanted more.

She shoved her arms into the jacket he was holding with far too much force.

“Who better than you to help me check a woman out?” he said behind her ear, everything he was feeling in his whisper.

She was far too adept at holding herself so no one saw the things she was feeling, but his body soaked up the shiver that ran down hers, every last tremor of it.

“I can’t think of one single person,” she whispered as they followed his sisters out to the car.

Despite himself, Vansh couldn’t stop his hand from running down her back, from her long neck down her spine to the beautiful curve of her hip. They couldn’t see him do it and the urge to touch her was too intense.

The fact that her legs faltered at his touch made everything okay, but just for a moment. Then she moved away from him, shoving herself into the third row of Nisha’s van, right in the middle seat, leaving no space for him.

Don’t even think about it. She glared at him when he tried to get in the back next to her.

“There’s only five of us, Vansh, did you miscalculate? You don’t have to crowd into the back row,” Trisha said.

Vansh and Trisha both hated third rows. They made them carsick. Trisha had called shotgun.

Ashna threw Vansh a worried look, but it was so kind that he sat down next to her and felt Naina’s body relax in the back row from the fact that he hadn’t squeezed in next to her.

He threw a look over his shoulder. Really?

The fact that she didn’t want him near her hit him hard. He knew why she didn’t want his body touching hers with his family here. He knew how their bodies reacted to each other. He knew. Even so, the fear that rolled through him at the thought of not being wanted by her shook him.