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I didn’t answer. Icouldn’tanswer. If I so much as opened my mouth right now, I was certain a sob would come spewing out.

No other man had ever cared about my hurts this way.

Notone.

And here Warden Tenn was, looking like he wanted to fling himself off a cliff, just because a part of his uniform had been poking me.

What the hell is this?

“You understand me, Tasha?”

Why did it sound like he was begging?

“Forget the bride program. Forget liaising. Consider that your number one job if you have to.”

“My number one job?’ I managed to croak.

“Yes,” he replied forcefully, his fingers contracting against my jaw and throat. “When you’re hurting, you tell your warden. That’s your most important duty. That’s your job.”

He lowered his face so that I felt his next words against my mouth more than heard them.

“Fixing it is mine.”

Wordlessly, I nodded. It took all my control not to nuzzle into the touch of his hand at the side of my face. Thankfully – or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it – he removed his hand immediately afterwards and returned to his seat ahead of me on the slicer.

“Without that hook,” he said, “I’ll need somewhere to put my tail.”

Before I could respond, the strong, prehensile length of purple flesh looped itself around my waist, tightening pleasantly. His tail gave a small tug, and I leaned forward against his back, wrapping my arms around his waist.

“Is that better?” he asked, the question vibrating through his back and into my chest. “Is this alright?”

I should say, “No.” I should put more space between us. I should forget the way he just spoke to me, looked at me, half commanded me and half begged me to tell him about my pain.

I didn’t do any of those things.

“Yes,” I said.

That evening,we parked, ate, and found a creek to clean up and hand wash some laundry. While I hung up my clothes to dry, Warden Tenn dutifully boiled drinking water for my waterskin. Apparently, he had no trouble drinking water out here straight from whatever source it came from. But after his whole, “tell me your hurts and I’ll fix them” thing this morning, I figured giving myself a waterborne illness or alien parasite was probably not going to go over well. I didn’t have a cannister to sterilize my water, so we had to go old school to protect my flimsy human constitution.

I would have liked to linger at a fire for a while before bed – anything to delay the awkwardness of getting in the tent with him again – but Warden Tenn put it out as soon as my water had boiled enough in his travel pot.

“It’s too dry out here,” he explained. “We’ve already had one bad fire this season. Nearly destroyed Garrek’s whole ranch.”

“Alright,” I said, blowing on the hot pot of water to help it cool. Once it was more warm than scalding, I carefully poured it into my half-empty waterskin. “I guess I’ll just go to bed then.”

“Good idea.” He made no move to join me. For some stupid reason, that stung. I tipped my waterskin at him in a goofy sort of salute meant to hide my feelings of rejection, then hurried into the tent.

Inside, the bedroll was open and ready for me. It was surprisingly comfortable. I put down my waterskin, took off my boots, and snuggled down.

It smelled like Warden Tenn. A spicy, leathery concoction that had no right to be as pleasant as it was. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, willing sleep to come.

It didn’t. Which was crazy, considering I was exhausted from the day’s travels.

I blew a raspberry through tight lips and rolled onto my back, staring at the tent’s dark ceiling.

Why was he still out there? He was the one who’d insisted we share the tent!

This was not going to work. Absurdly, almost scarily, it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep without him at this rate.