too? No matter how long I’m out here, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how casual these people are about killing. It’s very wild west on Risda, and I’m still thinking like a small-town woman, where those sorts of situations just don’t happen.
Yet here we are.
I open the front door as Nassakth approaches. He’s filthy, his lower arms covered in grime. I realize after a few moments that he’s also extremely naked. His towel from our earlier shower is gone, and he’s been out in the field with that woman…in the nude.
A hot flare of jealousy rushes through me. I know Nassakth would never touch Bethiah, but…I don’t like that she was looking at what’s mine. Admiring what’s mine.
Knowing Bethiah, she probably made sure to get an eyeful, too. The thought makes me grit my teeth.
Nassakth looks up in surprise as I step onto the porch to greet him. The look in his eyes is careful, as if he doesn’t want to risk too much. “It is done,” he tells me. “Bethiah will deliver the package to the other bounty hunter and he will not trouble us again.”
“I see.” I gesture at the door. “Come inside. You should wash up.”
He grunts. “You are offended by the dirt of a slaver’s grave?” He goes to move past me.
The words sound so accusing when he says it that way. “No. But you’re dirty and we need to talk, and we seem to talk best in the shower. So I thought I would wash you and we could hash things out.”
Nassakth pauses, dripping dirt on the clean floors. “Are you afraid of me?”
“No,” I admit honestly. “I’m not. Nor am I angry that you killed those men. Now that I’ve had time to get my head straight, I’m not mad about that. The only thing I’m mad about is that you never told me any of this.”
“I told you. I still think like a slave who must protect his secrets.”
“I understand that.” I put a hand to the small of his back and steer him toward the showers in the bathroom. “I didn’t say that they didn’t deserve killing. I’m mad that you’ve been telling me to trust you, to put my trust in you, and you didn’t do the same for me. Marriage is a two-way street, Nassakth. If we’re going to be in this together, we have to be on the same page. Right now we’re not even in the same book.”
He lets me steer him, and when I glance down, his tail has a bit of a lively flick to it again. The long, luxurious fur is crusted with dirt and mud—and leftover soap—but at least it’s got a spark to it again. “What would you have me do, then? If I confessed all my secrets the moment we met, you would have run from me. You would have been terrified.”
“This is true,” I admit as we cut through the bedroom and move into the still-steamy bathroom. We sure are spending a lot of time here lately. I guess it’s become “our” place in the house. “But there have been other opportunities. There are ways to bring these things up. Especially after what we’ve shared lately.” I blush, thinking about last night and how I ground certain unmentionable parts of myself against his mouth and talented tongue. Lots and lots of grinding. So much grinding.
I turn the shower on and then strip my tunic off.
Nassakth remains in the doorway, his brows furrowed. “What are you doing?”
“Getting undressed?”
“I thought…” He pauses. “I do not know what I thought. Am I not the dirty one?”
“You’re very dirty, actually.” I blush at how “dirty” that sounds, too. “But I’m going to wash you.”
“You are?” His voice drops a husky note, and I can hear the purr starting in his chest.
“I am. Because we need to figure out where we’re at in this relationship, and apparently we both think best when our hands are on each other.”
Nassakth rumbles, and it almost sounds like laughter. “Or we just think of excuses to get our hands on one another.”
I feel my cheeks heat. It’s not that. It’s absolutely not…is it?
Well shit. Now that I think about it, maybe it is. “Just get in the damn shower,” I grumble.
52
NASSAKTH
It has been the longest of days, and it is not yet noon.
I look at Kim, my mate, my everything, and I am tired. Very tired. It is not just because of the noli-storm we weathered last