Kayana didn’t understand humans. That had to be it. One moment, Ax had been grieving and burying his dead friend. The next, the man had been checking out her ass as she walked off to the bridge. She hadn’t been offended by the attention—he was hardly the first human to do so, and she’d have spaced half of the crew if she’d murdered every man who’d given her the eye. It was the incongruity of the timing that threw her off. None of which stopped her from taking up position in her cabin’s doorway when she heard the shower cut out. Sauce for the Ct’hau was, after all, sauce for Ct’hara.

It was a grotesque luxury to have an actual, water-based shower on a ship of this size. Then again, “grotesque luxury” seemed to be the singular design ethic. At least they kept themselves in check by limiting themselves to one shared facility for the two crew members. No telling if the holocam crew had their own. Berniss had been so perfectly composed every time they’d met that Kayana half-expected the woman was secretly a robot.

A few minutes after the shower shut off, Ax padded down the hall toward his cabin, which was conveniently across the narrow hall from her own. Kayana leaned against the wall next to his door and watched him approach. He had a fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist and artfully knotted, and he left wet footprints on the expensive hardwood.

Kayana made a show of giving him a slow once-over. As humans went, she supposed he wasn’t altogether hideous—he didn’t show signs of the near-psychotic body worship that plagued most Malebranki men. It made him look less sculpted and more naturally fit. Instead of a chiseled six-pack, the soft shadow of abs showed across his stomach. His shoulders were nice and broad, though, and the way his torso narrowed at the waist drew her eye naturally down.

The same brown stubble that seemed to permanently grace his cheeks formed a dusting of hair on his belly and ducked below the towel in a teasing suggestion that made her imagination flare for a moment.

Only a moment though. He was a necessary trouble she had to put up with to reach her goal of getting back into her family’s good graces. An easy route to enough money to prove she could contribute and belonged as a part of the House. He wasn’t the worst eyesore she’d endured as means to that end, but he was temporary nonetheless.

He narrowed his eyes as he noticed her and stopped in the middle of the hall, just before his door. She held back her smirk as he tensed his abs to improve their definition—as though she wouldn’t notice. “Find what you were looking for?”

Kayana rolled her eyes. “Hard to tell with the towel in the way, but I suspect not.” She smiled, showing off the points of her teeth. It should terrify him—among her people, smiling was more of a challenge than a gesture of reassurance. She prided herself on her smile.

He deflated slightly at the dismissal, but she watched him pick his ego back up before he walked into his cabin. He didn’t close the door, so she followed him and leaned against the jamb. Inside, he tossed clothing from the small dresser onto the bed. She glanced at the narrow mattress, comparing it to the enormous bed which filled half her cabin. “You only have a single bed?”

“You got the big bed when you got Darryn’s room.” He looked at the clothes and then back at her. “Are you just planning to stand there while I change?”

She hadn’t planned on it originally, but the way he said it felt like a dare, and it tweaked her sense of pride. The twenty-first maxim said to let no challenge go unanswered after all. “Am I the first Malebranki you’ve met?”

“More or less. I don’t spend a lot of time running in those circles.”

“Which circles are those?” She heard the tint of anger in her voice and dialed it back. “Crime?”

Ax took a step toward the bed. “Hardly. I didn’t know you lot went in for that. Mostly I’ve seen Malebranki in security. Though I avoid the fringes in general. I’d rather stay where the people are. Easier to blend in.”

“So, you know nothing about our actual culture. Just what gets displayed in those stupid holonovellas.” Malebranki villains were all the rage, typically in the femme fatale role. It didn’t improve their reputation with the rest of the galaxy, and the programs were widely reviled in Malebranki space.

“Not a note of it, and no offense, Kay. I’m fine with that.” He put a hand on the towel’s knot and glared at her. “You can stay if you want, but...”

She resisted the urge to correct her name. "If you think what you've got will embarrass me, I'm more interested than I was a moment ago. Somehow I doubt you'll compare much to a Malebranki." It was mostly a lie – Malebranki men might all look sculpted from stone, but in her experience they were thoroughly average otherwise. Still, tweaking Ax's ego amused her more than it should.

He stared her down, and she could see the moment his nervousness coalesced into a sense of challenge. Fascinating to see some sense of backbone hidden in his depths.

“So it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, then.” With a flick of his hand, the towel dropped to the floor.

If he intended to shock her, he was sorely mistaken. Her people didn’t typically have the same hang-ups about their bodies that many human cultures did. G’henna was a volcanic world; even in the coldest months the heat was unbearable to many cultures. While armor might be how they judged each other, the Malebranki were casual about their nudity regardless of gender. She dipped her eyes to the red-brown curls and the length of his cock. Even semi-flaccid it wasn’t disappointing. For a human, she reminded herself. Not that she’d let him know that. His ego was bad enough as it was. Kayana smirked. “I hope you’re more of a grower than a shower.”

His chest deflated, and he quickly grabbed a pair of boxers and started to dress. She felt a twinge of guilt for having needled him, but frankly, he’d asked for it. Challenging her and strutting about like he was the Nine’s gift to females. He certainly could afford to be taken down a peg or two. After he’d donned a pair of trousers, he folded his arms over his chest. “So did you want something in particular, or are you just here to ogle?”

“A little of both,” she admitted. “We’ll be at Caldera soon. You should probably get ready to go planetside.”

He indicated the clothes that remained on the unmade bed. “I’m working on it.”

“So I see.”

Ax watched her a moment, then pulled his shirt on. She tried not to notice the way the fabric stretched over his shoulders, and failed. When she turned to leave, he called after her. “Next time we’ll switch. You get naked and I’ll watch.”

The tiny flutter of lust in her belly wasn’t worth paying attention to, and she crushed it without mercy. There was no future there, despite her mild interest. While humans weren’t capable of bringing any power or prestige to a relationship, they could be entertaining. For the short term, only. She smiled as she called back over her shoulder, “Your weak human heart couldn’t handle the sight.”

She crossed the hall and had almost closed the door to her cabin when she heard him mutter, “I’m willing to risk it.”