“That’s sweet, but it isn’t accurate.”
“It is accurate.” I kept my thumb against her cheek and waited until she looked at me. “The contract is a nuisance. James is a problem. The Agency may be a problem. You are not.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I know what a hefty price is,” I said. “I’ve paid enough of them. You aren’t one.”
“That doesn’t make the stupid chastity clause disappear.”
“No,” I admitted. “It doesn’t.”
She seemed steadier when I said that. Maybe she’d expected me to dismiss it. I wouldn’t. The danger was real. Pretending otherwise would insult both of us.
“We’ll deal with it,” I said.
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s honest.”
That earned me a small look. Not a smile, but close enough that I took it as a victory.
I kissed her forehead before I could think better of it. She closed her eyes for half a breath, and I felt the bond pull hard in my chest.
Mate.
The word was there. It had been there since the spaceport, whether I’d understood it then or not. I could have told her. I could have explained that this wasn’t a trial to me. That my kinddidn’t feel this more than once. That if the Agency thought a clause in a file could change what she was to me, the Agency was more foolish than I’d already believed.
But she’d spent years with a man who’d used words like chains. If I told her she was my mate now, the morning after she’d given herself to me, she might not hear what I was truly saying.
I wouldn’t do that to her.
Not yet.
So I kept the word behind my teeth and kissed her instead. Once. Softly. Then I let her go.
Eventually, we got out of bed. She put on one of my flannels because her clothes were in no shape for breakfast. It fell past her knees, and she had to roll the sleeves several times before her hands appeared.
I watched her do it.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing,” she pursed her lips.
A satisfied sound escaped from my chest. “It’s my shirt.”
“I’m aware.”
“It looks better on you.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away as if the window had become very interesting. I should have stopped there. I didn’t.
In the kitchen, she sat at the table with both hands around a mug of coffee. Her bare feet were tucked beneath her on the chair. I cut into a star-fig and stood at the counter to eat it.
