She holds my gaze for a long beat. Underneath the chemical flush and the dilated pupils, something absolutely steady looks out at me. Not the fruit. Her. Making a decision the fruit is simply allowing her to voice.
“Fine. Tomorrow.” She draws her knees up, chin resting on them. “But I’m going to be extremely specific about what I want, and you’re going to listen to every word without that face you make.”
“What face?”
“The face where you’re trying to be noble and restrained while your markings broadcast everything you’re suppressing. That face.” She points at me. “You’re doing it right now.”
“I am not doing—”
“Jade-gold. Bright. You might as well be wearing a sign that says ‘I want to do things to this woman but I have principles.’”
I have never wished more fervently for the ability to turn off my own bioluminescence.
“Moving on,” I say, because this conversation needs to change direction or I am going to combust. “You had questions about compatibility.”
“Oh, I havemanyquestions about compatibility.” The gleam in her eye suggests these questions have been composing themselves for some time. “You’re seven-two. I’m five-two. When we do this—and wearedoing this—how does two feet of height difference work? Logistically?”
The sheer matter-of-factness. She’s asking about sex mechanics with the tone she uses for beacon calibration.
“Varkaani biology adapts to partners across species. Our physiology adjusts; it’s autonomic. Temperature, proportion, response. My body will read yours and calibrate.”
“Calibrate.” Her eyes light up. “Like a system reconfiguring for optimal interface.”
“That is the most engineer description of sex I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, Iaman engineer.” But she’s grinning, bright and devastating. “So you’re saying your body will literally adjust itself to fit mine.”
“Yes.”
“And it only works if I’m genuinely willing.”
“My physiology doesn’t respond to force. Only to authentic desire.” My eyes hold hers. “If you don’t want it, my body won’t function. It’s a biological safeguard.”
“That is—” She blinks. Twice. “That is genuinely the most romantic thing anyone has ever told me about alien reproductive biology, and I once sat through a four-hour OOPS briefing on Kytherian mating protocols.”
“Luzrak’s species?”
“Don’t get me started. Mother Morrison’s romantic life is a masterclass in interspecies logistics.” She yawns, huge and sudden, the euphoric peak cresting into drowsy decline. “Okay, one more question.”
“One.”
“The claiming. You said your markings do something specific during bonding. A color you’ve never seen because you’ve neverbonded.” Her voice is softer now, the manic energy bleeding off into something more tender as the chemicals shift. “What if it’s ugly? What if the claiming color is, like, puce?”
The laugh escapes before I can stop it. Actual laughter, rough and unpractised, dragged out of me by the sheer absurdity of the question. Three hundred and forty-seven years of existence, and she’s worried my species’ most sacred biological response might be an unattractive shade.
“It won’t be puce.”
“You don’tknowthat. You said it varies by pair.”
“I strongly suspect that any color my body produces in response to you will be—” The sentence reaches for a destination I’m not ready to send it.
“Will be what?” She’s watching me, drowsy but sharp. “Finish the sentence.”
“Beautiful. I suspect it will be beautiful.” Too honest for a male who’s supposed to be maintaining restraint. “Because everything my body does in response to you has been.”
She stares at me for three full seconds, mouth slightly open, flush climbing her neck. Then: “That’s the most unfair thing you’ve ever said to me, and you once told me you’d been wanting me since day one while bleeding from three separate wounds.”
“You asked me to finish the sentence.”
