look at her as he added, “Of course, that means I won’t share this chocolate with you, since you were making fun of me.”
“Wait, wait,” EJ said. The chocolate cake smelled heavenly, and he still held it over her head as they approached the door she vaguely remembered as his. “Come on, you can’t eat that by yourself. Xaravians don’t even eat dessert.”
“Perhaps it is time I start,” he mused, then opened the door to his quarters and stepped through after picking up a small duffel bag that sat just outside it.
For half a heartbeat, EJ considered making a run for the other end of the corridor while he was distracted. But the urge to flee faded, more due to the half-forgotten scent of chocolate than not having anywhere to really run. The door slid shut behind her and once more she confronted the Xaravian in a too-small space. She folded her arms over her chest and tried to look both competent and fierce as she debated how to free the dessert from his grip without knocking it to the ground or ruining it.
Nokx arched his dark eyebrows and his silver eyes flashed. She couldn’t really decipher his expressions, not with his scales still mostly blue-green but with an intriguing flash of purple every now and then. She didn’t remember enough from the sessions on hostile species to decipher what the purple meant.
The Xaravian pointed at the water closet after opening the duffel, then toed it in her direction. “Clean up first. You smell like the port and that ship you were on. The Earther provided you with other... clothing.”
By his tone, he didn’t think much of the options offered by Violet, but EJ was more than happy to get her hands on fresh clothes that weren’t too-large robes that smelled like a Xaravian. Not that she minded wearing Nokx’s robe. At least it was soft and gave her plenty of room to move around, unlike the awful gray prisoner uniform from the Hollbrd. “I don’t appreciate being told I smell, by the way.”
“It’s not an opinion,” he said without inflection. “You were running around a port, you smell like a port. No dessert unless you clean up.”
Her cheeks heated. Was he seriously not going to let her have cake unless she took a shower? EJ stared at him long enough that Nokx raised his eyebrows and sat down on the couch next to the bed, arms folded over his chest and the cake sitting next to him. She clenched her jaw but couldn’t take her attention off the chocolate. Curie help her, she hadn’t had an actual Earther dessert in ages. Would it be worth the risk of stripping down to nothing in his shower with him in the same room?
Wariness crept over her. “You’re not going to try anything, right?”
“Try anything? What would I try?” His head tilted as he watched her. It was at least a good effort at quizzical, if he didn’t actually mean it.
“Try to take advantage of me being in there,” she said, nodding at the water closet. Hoping she didn’t actually have to point out the risk of her being naked in there while separated from him by a flimsy door panel. “You know. While I’m... cleaning.”
Realization dawned over his face like a star-rise, and a strange swirl of colors lit up his scales and disappeared before she could identify what shades had been there. “No. You are safe with me. Clean. No one will disturb you.”
EJ didn’t think she should have believed him, not with the way her luck had run lately, but she didn’t have much of a choice if she wanted to get clean, change into fresh clothes, and have some dessert, too. She gnawed the inside of her cheek, debating, and finally picked up the duffel. “Okay. But save some of the chocolate for me.”
“I’m told Xaravians don’t even like dessert,” he said, totally deadpan. “So there will be plenty for you.”
She smiled in a quick flash, then backed into the water closet and the temptation of a hot shower. She still tried to bar the door, just in case, since trust only went so far. She’d known him less than a standard day, after all.
The small shower had just enough room to turn around in, but the water was hot enough it took her breath away and she felt clean for the first time in a long time. Only the promise of chocolate pulled her out of the