Paul eyed her, gaze full of mischief.His index finger swished back and forth another couple of times, riding perilously close to the apex of her legs, then he sighed and rolled back onto his butt, and crossed his legs.“Spoilsport.”
 
 “I shouldn’t even be in here with you.”
 
 “My sweet, you should be sharing every damn minute with me.We should be nailing one another like the sky’s about to fall and spending unholy amounts of time staring dreamily at one another and wondering how we got to be so lucky.”
 
 The reason they weren’t doing any of those things really could be boiled down to one word.“Nash,” she said.
 
 “Yup, got the memo.Guess we’ll just have to pass the time with a quiz instead.”
 
 “A quiz?What, like general knowledge?”
 
 “Like ask me whatever thou wishes to know.Anything.Absolutely anything.”
 
 “Favourite pizza.”
 
 He made a dry scoffing noise and rolled his eyes.“Anything I say, and she asks me that.”
 
 “It’s an important question.”
 
 “Only if you’re planning on treating me to dinner.In which case I’d prefer a paella to pizza, but if we’re going with pizza, mushrooms, and jalapeno.You?”
 
 “Mushrooms are gross.And after the last lot of mushrooms you fed me, I’m never going near them again.”
 
 He leaned in, blinking at her in a flirty fashion.“I can see this is going to be a point of contention between thee and me.It’s not like anything bad happened.”
 
 She’d been about to say, it definitely had but stopped herself just in time.After all, he might not take it how she meant it.That it’d caused them both trouble, not that he was bad.He absolutely wasn’t.In fact, he possessed, of all the qualities a girl could want in a partner, if said girl was free to take him thus, which she wasn’t.
 
 “You okay, Castle?”
 
 “Fine.”
 
 “So, separate pizzas, when we order.”Like that was definitely a thing they’d be doing at some time.“What are you having on your half?”
 
 She cycled through the options in her head.“I’m mostly a garlic marguerita girl.”
 
 “So, you’re telling me I have to put up with your garlic breath?”
 
 “I have to put up with your ’shrooms.”
 
 His smile didn’t waver.“They don’t typically leave an aftertaste.”
 
 Last time they had.A bitter one she was still struggling to handle.
 
 “No matter.I’ll claim one of these as advance compensation.”He grasped her hand and kissed her inner wrist, then sat back again, laughing at her outraged tut.
 
 “Oh, Mr Reed,” he said in a mock Regency upper class falsetto.“Such liberties you take.I’m quite overcome.”He pressed the back of his hand to his head.“Deary me, I feel quite...faint.’”And he flopped onto his back as if he’d passed out.
 
 “Mean,” she complained.
 
 “Moi?”He lifted his head and crooked a brow.
 
 She tossed the nearest thing to hand at him, which turned out to be a ball of wool that unravelled into a pastel yellow tail.
 
 “Shit!”She caught the hook to which it was attached before it flipped onto the floor or lost the stitches.
 
 Paul caught the wool ball and began rewinding it towards her until they met up.Him on his knees before her again.Her still clutching the crochet hook, with too much heat in her cheeks.
 
 God his eyes were pretty.