This waiter was a talker, and Vansh’s family loved few things more than they loved talking about wine. Next to him Naina stiffened, then convulsed. Her fingers tightened on the glass, the muscle in her jaw worked, her thighs pressed together, but other than that not a hint that she was coming hard against his hand escaped her.

“God, Naina,” he whispered close to her ear as his fingers soaked up the pulses that beat through her clit and thrummed through his blood.

The waiter poured her a glass, and she took a long sip on a gasp that sounded to Vansh’s ears like his name screamed in the night.

“It’s that good?” Trisha asked, taking a sip too and looking confused.

“Naina loves her cabs,” Vansh said, pulling his hand away from her even as aftershocks shivered through her body.

He ran his fingers over his lips. He could have been just another man contemplating life and his friend’s wine preferences. In reality he was a man savoring the taste of the most intoxicating woman he’d ever come across in his life. A man who’d just realized that he couldn’t let her go. Not ever.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Naina’s legs still felt shaky in her heeled boots as she let herself into the restaurant’s minuscule bathroom. Had she really just done what she’d done, with Vansh’s family right there? Her inner muscles contracted just thinking about it.

What was happening to her?

Everything inside her felt different. It had been coming on for a while, this feeling of fullness, as though something had snuck inside her and infected her. The thick armor she’d worked hard to wrap around herself kept slipping off, but she felt too tired to pull it back on. Too greedy for the breeze that kissed her skin when it was exposed.

Most of dinner had gone by without her registering a single thing but Vansh next to her. Not all the wine in the world could compare with the intoxicating feeling of him.

Then his parents had arrived after dinner and joined them for coffee and dessert. How the hell were there families like this in the world? The kind that liked to be with one another? That ate and drank together and actually found enjoyment in it?

The rage inside Naina roiled to life, mingled with every bad memory from her childhood. How much more work did she have to do to get over this shit?

Well, getting involved with someone like Vansh was hardly the way to distance herself from the ugliness of her own family. It was akin to scratching at a scab. Satisfying in that moment, but it gouged out wounds in the long run. She scrubbed at the red wine stain on her white sweater with a wet washcloth. It faded but didn’t disappear.