She smells like neither of those things. She smells like a sexy woman.
“Why do you smell so good?” I ask, confused. She smells like that spot on a woman’s neck when she first wakes up, when she’s warm and cozy—when it’s so relaxing just to sniff and cuddle with her until the morning alarm gets rude.
Inara’s eyes widen. “You can scent me?”
‘Yeah, precious, you’re driving me nuts,’ I think, but I manage to keep this to myself. “You smell… nice,” I amend. Like I want to raise your thigh and slide into you and fuck you to sleep. Forever.
WHOAAA, MATT. STOP. YOU’VE GONE TO A DANGEROUS PLACE.
She’s an alien. An employee. A woman-under-your-care, you predator.
Grumbling to myself, wondering if I can be quiet enough to beat off in the washroom or if I should hit the public men’s room on the second floor of this building—cringe—I force myself to turn away from the vision that is Inara and prepare to attempt to park it on the couch. At least for now.
Inara glides across the room and floats down until she’s parked on it with me.
In disbelief, I turn my head enough to look at her, and see that her tail is in her lap and it’s knotting itself around her hands like it’s nervous. Adorably nervous.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I growl to absolutely no one but myself as I heave myself off the couch and away from her delectable self and stomp into my bedroom to rip a flannel shirt out of my winter dresser.
“Stand up,” I tell her.
Inara frowns. “Why?” But she obeys.
It can only fit on her going backwards, with the buttons fitting together between her dorsal spines, because there’s no stretch to the fabric of this shirt.
“Why are you covering me in this?” Inara asks as I do up the row of buttons with careful deliberation and try not to inhale the back of her neck.
DAMMIT, MATT, I SAID DON’T!
Inara’s thick, textured hair slides over my hands and her shoulders as she twists to look up at me. “Don’t what? What are you telling yourself?” she asks.
“Do you read minds?” I ask her.
“No. You commanded yourself out loud again.”
“‘Kay. Well, you don’t want to know. Trust me,” I tell her.
She’s quiet for a long moment, and then she faces forward again. “Maybe I do want to know,” she says softly.
“Tomorrow,” I announce, “We’re getting you a new nighttime wardrobe. Unless you brought more than tiny clothes?” My eyes focus on the hint of naughty tangerine that peeks from under my damn shirt. Delectable. “Slinky stuff, geezus.” I want to bite that ass. “Don’t you own anything comfortable?”
Inara glances over her shoulder at me, and just this one look has my dick responding. “I didn’t select my Earth wardrobe for comfort,” she says.
Almost accusingly, I gripe, “What—” the hell, my tone adds, but I do not voice aloud in words because it sounds harsh “—did you select it for?”
“Seduction.”
My Johnson is at full salute. “Y—you… What?”
Inara spins to face me, squeezing her tail in her hands. Looking heartbreakingly earnest. “I told you I came here to experience freedom. I also came here to have sex. I want to have much sex.”
She takes a seat on the couch quietly, spreading her sexy-smell all over where I’m going to have to try to sleep after she’s dropped this bomb. I’m gaping. “WHAT!”
“With a man,” she adds.
I look to the room for help. I even look to my fish. They’re of no assistance whatsoever, and I’m swinging back to Inara, unable to believe what I’m hearing. “WAH—wait.” I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking my head. “Have you—does this mean you’ve had… with a woman?” My eyes flash open and pin her. “Wait—no, don’t answer that. That’s so fucking inappropriate for me to ask. Forget I asked.” Unbidden, I imagine two beautiful otherworldly Inaras touching each other. “Dammit. NO, MATT, NO!”
Inara laughs. “No, I haven’t ever had sex.” Her eyes are way, way too pretty, too perfectly flirtatious—siren’s eyes—when she adds, “I would like to have sex with you, if you’d agree.”
“I will NOT,” I bark.
My dick kicks in my boxers. Speak for yourself, fucker! RIDE ME, ALIEN WOMAN.
“I understand. I hope I caused no offense by asking.” Inara sighs and settles back. “I will keep searching. I like you. I hope I can find another male I feel this much of a connection for. I will ask him to have sex with me.”
“THE FUCK YOU WILL,” I roar—which is weird, because my voice also manages to hit an alto note, wrapping incredulity around every word. My shout is loud enough to shake the walls. I take a breath to tone it down. I fail. “YOU WILL NOT ASK SOME FUCKING ASSHOLE TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU!”
Inara frowns for like two seconds, parsing out the meaning of my words, I think. Then she turns a scowl on me. “Don’t presume to tell me what I won’t do.” She rips off my flannel, exposing the sexywear again. And her bottoms. What are those things? Besides the friggin’ most indecent apricot ruffly ‘covering’ I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Your brothers have had the right idea!” I insist, just winning me all the points with the woman who feels like she’s been smothered and repressed for far too long by those same brothers. “If I knew how to contact them, I’d SO be on the phone. You are NOT going to go out and ask a stranger to have sex! You could get murdered! You could end up trapped in a laboratory, and sweetheart, who knows what they’d do to—”
Inara gets up from the couch. She’s quiet, but I can feel that she’s furious.
“Wait,” I say, so, so too late realizing that I needed to dial it back about three sentences ago into my impromptu speech. “Inara, please—just, hang on. Don’t leave, okay? I don’t have the first clue how to handle this, and I’m sorry for freaking out. Just... don’t walk out of here.”
She does stop, but she keeps her back to me. She whispers, “Why shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She turns to me then. She searches my gaze with hers until I feel like she’s got my soul open on an operating table. “I want things, Matt. Things I intend to find. That’s why I came here—to find them with a man. Without the interference of my brothers or my family, I want to enjoy experiences with a man. Many experiences.”
Is it wrong that I do want her to find them with me? She was wearing my shirt. She’s sleeping in my bed, for fuck’s sake. Or will be, if I haven’t made her so mad she takes off to find some stranger. Some stranger who could hurt her.
She’s a gorgeous female being, and even if the concept of hot aliens being real is new to me, my body is all on board. If I’m being honest, my head would be too. If not for the fact that I’m this woman’s employer and gratis protector.
“If I hadn’t hired you, I’d take you up on your offer. Technically, you could not be giving me a greener light to take advantage of you right now—”