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“Close your eyes, big guy.” She hummed, her breath heating my skin.

“Big… Guy…?” I closed them as requested so that she could run the cloth over my eyebrows and eyelids.

“Does ‘guy’ translate?” she asked. “It’s an informal word for a person, often with a male connotation. And big is obviously just… big.”

So she was calling me a big, male person? I was not sure if that was good, bad, or something in between.

I opened my eyes once more. Which was probably a bad idea. Because while they’d been closed, Jaya had seated herself upon the table to continue her work, and now my face was exactly level with the tantalizing human swells on her chest.

Jaya was slender, the lines of her body a little straighter and leaner than those on Magnolia or Tasha’s frames. Her bosoms were certainly nowhere near as large as the warden’s wife’s.

To my eyes, they were absolutely perfect. I considered it something of a miracle that I was allowed to observe her bosoms from such close proximity this way.

I should let her hit me in the head with a hammer more often…

“You know,” Jaya murmured, her voice washing over me the same way her intoxicating human scent was, “you’re probably the only guy I’ve let stare at my boobs this long without getting snarky.”

“What?” I asked, lost in the blissful, arousing haze of sitting by Jaya and letting her touch me while her small bosoms shifted with each of her gentle movements. Perhaps, if she leaned in close enough, one of those lovely bumps might even hit me in the face…

A man could hope.

“My chest, Oaken. You haven’t blinked those big white eyes of yours in over a minute.”

“Oh. Oh!” I dragged my gaze away from her chest. “Sorry. Is that… Is that rude?”

If it was rude, she did not seem angry about it.

“It can be, yeah,” she said. “But I get it. You’re up close and personal with a female from another species. There’s bound to be curiosity.”

“You are not just the first female from another species I’ve been this close to,” I admitted. “You are the first female of any sort that I’ve been this close to… Well, since my mother died.”

Her hand stilled at my hairline.

“How old were you?” she whispered.

“I was very young. Five cycles.”

Jaya blinked rapidly, then appeared to focus very hard on one specific place on my forehead.

“My mom died when I was five, too. Both my parents did.”

“What happened?” I asked. I did not like that she shared this sad thing with me. But I was glad that, at least if she had to bear it, she could bear it alongside someone who understood.

“They both worked in the same zone of an engine factory on Terratribe I. One of the safety features failed, a machine overheated, and there was an explosion.” Her hand drifted up to clean my ear, but I plucked the cloth from her hand.

“I will do this part,” I said quietly. If Jaya started stroking one of my ears now, then my involuntary orgasm was all but guaranteed. And the thought of ejaculating while Jaya shared the tragedy of her childhood with me was an unforgivably appalling thought. I wiped down my bloodied ear rather forcefully, feeling the flesh sting.

“What happened to your parents?” Jaya asked.

“My father died before I was born,” I explained. “My mother had a chronic lung condition that got progressively worse after I was born. It made her especially susceptible to infections. She became very ill one winter, and her heart was under too much stress to continue.”

“Shit. I’m sorry,” Jaya said. I would have been confused by this if I had not read Tasha’s book. It was common for humans to express their condolences for the grief of others by apologizing. I found it very odd, but also rather charming. It was like she was trying to somehow take responsibility for my loss, even though it really had nothing to do with her.

“I am sorry to you, too” I said, putting down the cloth.

A smile tugged at her lips.

“Not sorrytome,” she corrected gently. “You can just say, ‘I’m sorry,’ or, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’”