If he saw her tongue one more time, he was going to lose it. His misbehaving cock was already pressing uncomfortably against the fly of his tactical pants. He shifted carefully and hoped she hadn’t noticed as she was busy emptying the drink packet into her jar of water. She seemed disappointed when it didn’t bubble or steam.
“Stir it,” he recommended. “It makes it more palatable.”
She followed his direction and noisily clanged the spoon against the sides of the glass. She glanced at him as if to silently ask if she had stirred enough, and he nodded. Before he could warn her about the taste, she grabbed the glass and took a long drink. A moment later, she put the glass down and made a terrible face while reluctantly swallowing. “It’s awful!”
“It’s an acquired taste.”
“I’ve tasted heads and tails that were better than this!” She pushed the offensive glass away from her.
“What are heads and tails?”
“Moonshine,” she explained, picking up her fork and diving into her dinner. “There are four different phases that come out of the still. The foreshots are poison. The heads smell gross and taste terrible. The hearts are the good stuff. Then comes the tails which is bitter and sharp.”
“I had no idea moonshine was so complicated.”
“It’s complicated and dangerous.” She seemed as if she wanted to shovel the food right into her mouth, but she eyed him before neatly taking a small bite.
“Like explosives,” he remarked, looking away from her and back to the maps. “You’re comfortable with them?”
“It’s all I know. I was laying line with Daddy by the time I was seven. I started measuring out the powders and grains at eight. When I was ten, he taught me how to make the pastes and pack the tubes. The math came next. Figuring out what kind and how much explosive to use and where to place it to get the result you need.” She gestured to a leather journal on the table. “My notes if you want to see them.”
Needing to see if she was capable of the work that might need to be done, he opened the journal and thumbed through the pages. Despite her lack of formal education, Brook understood chemistry, math and physics. Her calculations were neat and clean. Her drawings were detailed. From the first job to the most recent in the journal, she showed a knack for numbers and chemicals.
“You’re very good at this,” he remarked, still turning pages. “If you were allowed to go to school, you could have been an engineer.”
She snorted. “Mountain girls don’t become engineers. They mine until their daddies marry them off and then they make babies and keep a home. That’s it. That’s the life.”
“You’re not married,” he pointed out and closed the journal.
“Are you?” She didn’t even try to hide her curiosity about his status. “Or Grabbed? What do you call it?”
“Mated,” he said, clearing his throat. “Some of the men on my ship have chosen to follow your ways, though. They’ve had marriage ceremonies after a successful Grab.”
“The fixer who hired me for this job gave me a choice,” she confessed, seemingly desperate to talk about her options.
“Oh?”
“I can either take a pile of credits and a transport ship to the colonies with all the papers and permits I’ll need.”
“Or?”
“Or I can let one of you take me as a mate.”
He swallowed hard at the thought of her wearing a collar and kneeling at his feet. The thought turned ugly when he thought of another man claiming her. A jealous flare burned his belly as he imagined another man seeing her smile when he came home or listening to her moan and whimper while she writhed beneath him in their bed. That jealousy soured to fear for her when he considered some of the men who might take her. She was so sweet and gentle, and the wrong man would break her and ruin everything special about her.
“You should go to the colonies,” he said gruffly. “Take the money and run.”
She frowned. “You don’t think I would be a good mate.”
He thought she would be a wonderful mate, but refused to say it aloud. Instead, he grunted. “You couldn’t handle a man like me.”
“Oh.” Her reply was soft and small. “I see.”
She didn’t, but he wasn’t about to explain what he meant. She would be safer far away from this mountain and the men on his ship.
“Go to the colonies and get work as an apprentice. You’ll make a good