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It was probably because I hadn’t slept with anyone in months. The last person had been Gerald, and that had never been a particularly awe-inspiring experience, even in the beginning of our relationship.

I was just feeling the effects of a very long, very dreary dry spell. Clearly, my hormones were going absolutely haywire in the presence of seven-foot-something of pure muscle and masculine Zabrian energy.Maybe I’m ovulating.

He might not even be single! There obviously wasn’t anyone living with him out here, but maybe this was just a temporary contract. Perhaps, someday soon, he’d go home to someone else.

No. Not home to someoneelse, just home tosomeone.“Someone else” would imply “someone other than me.”

Which was patently ridiculous.

What was even more ridiculous?

How much the thought deflated me, left me feeling bleak and depressingly empty.

It didn’t matter if the warden had someone special waiting for him. I was here to do a job, do it well, and that’s what I’d bloody well do.

Warden Tenn’s fingers tightened. My skin prickled. I felt a momentary stab of sickly fear that I’d be too heavy, but that feeling disappeared as soon as he hoisted me easily into the air. He settled me on the saddle with no apparent effort on his part, then pulled himself up after me. His chest pressed firmly against my back as he reached both arms around me to grab the reins.

“Let’s go, Rabbit.”

“Did you just call me Rabbit?” I asked.

“What? No. That’s my shuldu’s name.”

“Oh! A rabbit is an Old-Earth animal.”

“I see,” he said, steering Rabbit through the gate and towards the dusty road. The sun was climbing higher, and I found myself grateful for the protection of the new hat.

“If it’s a type of animal, why did you think I was calling you that?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I admitted. “That’s why I asked.”

His chest rumbled against my back every time he spoke. It was annoyingly pleasant and terribly distracting.

“If I were going to call you something besides your name, I wouldn’t be calling you something that refers to an animal.”

“Oh? And what would you be calling me, then?”

He paused for so long I thought he wouldn’t bother answering. But then, suddenly, he said, “Something pretty.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt the sort of pleasure that went rushing through me then. Dizzying, heart-squeezing, brain-melting. I opened and closed my mouth several times, my head completely emptied of thoughts except for,The warden thinks you’re pretty.

Or, at the very least, he thought I deserved a pretty nickname.

No one had ever told me I deserved anything pretty before.

I wanted to run from the compliment. To reject it. It felt like I’d be protecting myself that way.

So I tried to tell myself that he was just trying to soften me up. Wear me down. Get past all my defences and leave me vulnerable to biased judgments in favour of his men.

But…

I remembered his words from last night. Words about this world stripping a man of all his most polished insincerities.

So what, then?

Was he lying last night when he’d said that?

Was he lying now?