Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(32)

The grannies cackled and pinched her cheeks. And congratulated her on her “strapping” young man. Nayna didn’t even attempt a protest—no one would believe her. Instead, after spending some time sitting with her grandmother and her grandmother’s friends, she got up and looked over toward her table. She had a knot deep inside her because, regardless of his public display of intent, part of her expected to see Raj talking to and falling for her sister, but while Madhuri was talking to a man, it wasn’t Raj.

He was nowhere to be seen.

The knot turned into a different kind of tension. Men left alone with Madhuri tended to capitalize on their luck. But not only was Raj not capitalizing on Nayna being missing, he’d spent the entire night irritating her, concentrating on her… playing with her.

“Nayna, beta,” her grandmother said just as two giggling children ran past, playing tag among the tables. “Will you get me some more chai?”

“Of course.” Nayna asked if any of the other grandmothers would like another cup too. She got six affirmative answers.

Leaving them with a smile, she avoided a toddler dressed in a gorgeous little suit who was crawling happily away from his mother, then headed to the small kitchen area in back of the massive event space that the wedding decorators had turned into a glorious wonderland of shimmer and glitz. As the catering staff had a much larger kitchen area to themselves, no one would care about her being back there. Especially since there was already a bit of a party going on outside and around the corner from the kitchen.

A large wooden tanoa, the traditional four-legged Fijian vessel made for holding kava, took pride of place on the narrow table. The men, many of whom she knew, smiled and asked her where her father was; Gaurav Sharma was known to enjoy a bowl of the cold drink made from the powdered root of a tropical plant.

“I’m sure he’ll be by,” she said with a smile. “He’d never miss a Kava Konference.”

They chuckled and continued on mingling around the beverage that didn’t cause drunkenness but a surplus of which could make people excessively mellow and a little dopey. At weddings like this, the latter wasn’t a problem. It was more about socializing than serious kava consumption.

One of the oldest of the men jokingly offered her a drink, the bowl he held in his wrinkled hand created from the half shell of a coconut polished until it gleamed a smooth and striated brown. “No thanks, Uncle, I don’t want my tongue to go numb.”

Good-natured laughter followed her as she slipped into the kitchen. Surprisingly, it was empty. A large kettle of tea sat on the stove, still hot, and when Nayna lifted the lid to peek inside, she caught hints of tea leaves in the mid-brown liquid that wasn’t too milky but not too weak either. Obviously the Mehras’ caterers had been briefed on the importance of a continued supply of good chai—none of this teabag-in-water rubbish as her aji would say, proper chai with boiled milk and loose-leaf tea.

After placing cups on a tray, tea-leaf strainer to the ready—all of which she found in a neat grouping of supplies set to one side of the room for just that purpose—she went to pick up the kettle.

A big male hand, marked by the nicks and scars of hard work, came around her and took over the task. “It’s heavy,” Raj said, his other hand touching her lower back. “You really like tea, huh?”

“Funny man.” Butterflies fluttering inside her, she moved the tray across so he could pour.

When he shifted to press a kiss to the back of her neck before carrying on in his task, she shivered but didn’t protest.

“Meet me tonight?” he asked, the playfulness gone, to be replaced by that intense concentration on her and only her that made her throat go dry, her breasts ache.

“The wedding will go late.” Mind a little fuzzy, she nonetheless located some sugar and added the right amounts to the right cups. At least the cooks hadn’t already dumped a ton of sugar in the tea—that was the usual modus operandi at mass gatherings.

Going behind her, Raj put his hands on her hips, his fingers scraping over skin exposed by her sari. Nayna was still trying to process the influx of sensation when he kissed her nape again. “I want to kiss you properly.”

Nayna’s hand trembled as she closed the sugar container. “I’ll message you,” she said, her tongue in knots.

Moving away right before someone else entered the kitchen, Raj picked up the tray and carried it out. Nayna knew she was adding fuel to the fire, but she walked beside him—someone had to remember whose tea was whose. Her grandmother and the other grandmothers all cooed over Raj playing her knight. She passed out the tea as fast as possible… then took the tray to return to the kitchen.

“Oh no, please stay,” she said to Raj, a sweet smile on her face. “Aji and her friends are really enjoying your company.” At which point she abandoned him to the granny interrogation. Raj Sen was proving to be a stubborn, immovable force of a man, but he had to learn that he was never going to win all their battles.

He didn’t make it back to the table for a half hour. “I feel as if I just escaped shark-infested waters,” he murmured to her, his arm on the back of her seat.

She knew she should tell him to remove that arm, that it was sending all kinds of signals, but what she said was “That bad?”

Raj didn’t reply, his attention on her gaze. “What is it?”