Angus and Erin were just finishing up their evening meal when there was a knock at the door. They stood to clean the table and looked at each other.

Angus grinned. “Expecting company, Erin?”

Erin snorted. “Not me. Probably some of yer alien lads come to fetch ya for a drink.”

After she put their plates on the cart, Angus caught Erin around the waist and pulled her close while she squealed. “It’s not the boys. I told them I had plans tonight,” he whispered.

The knock came again—louder this time.

“Stay here, love. I’ll get rid of the cock blocking bastard and be right back,” he told her.

Erin laughed and pushed hard on his chest. “Do nothing of the kind. Answer the door like a polite man, ya crazy fool. I’ll still be here after they leave.”

“Ah Erin, ya say the sweetest things to me,” Angus joked, reluctantly turning loose.

He stomped to the door when the knock got even louder. “I’m coming,” he yelled. “Can’t a man get a little privacy around here? I was kissing my woman.”

Angus yanked it open to find an obviously disturbed Darcone staring worriedly at him. “Sorry, Darcone. I didn’t realize it was something serious. What’s the matter?”

“Talk, we must,” Darcone said gruffly.

“Move out of his way, Angus. Let the man in,” Erin said from across the room.

Angus grinned at his favorite alien. “Ya heard the woman of the house. Get yer frowning arse in here.”

Erin pushed the cart with their dinner dishes across the room and Angus took it from her. She motioned for Darcone to follow her and sit in one of the chairs.

“What can we do for ya, Darcone?”

After disposing of their meal cart, Angus went into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of ale and a bottle of water.

He handed one of the glasses to Darcone. “Thanks,” the alien said softly.

Angus sat beside Erin on the sofa.

“Fool, am I,” Darcone said, pounding his chest with a fist. “Hurt Bri, I did.”

“From what I’ve seen her do when she gets riled up, that woman could handle pretty much anyone on this ship without suffering much damage to her person. Did ya put Bri in Medical when ya hurt her?” Angus demanded, worried already.

“Never,” Darcone passionately vowed, looking appalled at the idea. He looked at Erin. He touched his chest in the area where a human’s heart resided. “Hurt heart, I did. Must fix.”

“I see,” Erin said, squeezing Angus’s knee. “So ya said something to hurt Bri’s feelings then?”

“Yes,” Darcone answered quietly. “Must fix.”

“What did ya say?” Angus stared at Darcone, his eyes growing wide. “Are ya actually embarrassed over it? Come on, Darcone. You don’t talk that much. It can’t be all that bad.”

Darcone shrugged. “New woman smell good.”

“Oh, no,” Erin said in shock, covering her mouth to hide her smile now that she understood. “Did ya mean it, or were ya teasing Bri?”

“Means joke?” Darcone asked.

Erin nodded.

“Say it, I did. But truth. Bad to say. Right?”

Angus whistled. “Heard we were getting a new woman. She’s good-looking then?”

“Smell like… home,” Darcone admitted. “But not smell like Bri.”

“I see. Have ya ever told Bri ya like her in a man-woman way?” Erin asked.

Darcone shook his head and drank his entire glass of ale without stopping. “No. Words bad. Speak wrong.” He looked between them. “Teach me better.” He paused for a moment and drew in a breath. “Please,” he added.

Angus turned to look at the woman he loved. “Well, ya were a teacher, Erin. How about ya give some talking lessons to all the lads? That way Darcone doesn’t look like he’s doing anything unusual. We’ll say it’s part of our plan.”

Erin bit her lip. “I don’t know, Angus. They’re grown men, not elementary school children.”

Angus shrugged. “They are when it comes to talking. Ya find a few that can speak okay, but not many. Like most males, they figure they don’t need to say much once they get a woman into their bed.”

Erin huffed. “That’s the most important time of all to be saying the right things.”

Angus patted her knee. “I know, love. I know. I’ve told them as much.”

Erin looked at Darcone. “Ya take such good care of us, Darcone. I will help ya all I can, but it may take some time to train yer speech. Ya better apologize to Bri now using whatever words ya have. She’s a dangerous woman to be walking around mad at ya.”

“Trouble, she is,” Darcone said, nodding. He stood and bowed his head. “My trouble, she is.”

Erin laughed softly. “Oh, Bri’s worth yer trouble, Darcone. Take my word for it.”

Angus rose to see him to the door. “Don’t worry. It’ll all work out. Ya should want the ones who cause ya the most trouble. Trust me, those are the best kind,” he whispered, patting the alien on his rock hard shoulder.

* * *

“Look, I’m sorry I laughed at you,” Sheena said, pushing a change of clothes into her medical satchel. “Do you want me to stay so you can make fun of me or something? I know that always makes you feel better. We can invite Angus and Erin over and make a party of it.”

Bri snorted and pulled the cold pack off her now swollen face. Her nose was twice its normal size. Her eyebrow was swollen and distended. She’d hung up her MacNamara sash and Evan’s beautiful jacket, but had left her shirt on. Her face hurt too much to completely change clothes. Instead, she pulled on a pair of medical sweat pants Angus had stolen for her just after she moved into these quarters.

Ripping the face chain during the fight had half pulled the anchor post out of her nose. Knowing it might have to be removed completely made her want to go back to Maslin’s cell and beat the crap out of the woman’s unconscious body. The only reason she didn’t is it would require healing time she didn’t have to spare.

Bri groaned and shook her head. “I’m fine, Sheena. Go get laid. I would have laughed too if it had been Nate saying you smelled like shit.”

Sheena bit her lip to keep from laughing at Bri’s sad comment and drew in a breath to help her stay sober. “Darcone did not say you smelled bad. He said she smelled good. You jumped to enormous conclusions from his observation about a strange female.”

Bri lifted her free hand. “The demon-looking bastard kissed me in the stairwell this morning. He got me all hopeful for some man-on-woman action, and then backed away. Do you know why he did that? Because I’m not fucking tame enough for him, that’s why. Like I give a rat’s ass what he thinks. I will never, ever on any planet be fucking tame.”

Sheena nodded in sympathy. Boy, had the alien ever stepped in it with her sister. “Maybe he misspoke. Darcone’s not one much for words, but it’s obvious he cares about you, Bri.”

Bri huffed. “Of course he cares. He’s known me since I was a child. I’m sure he only kissed me when he did because he’s desperate. That and because until recently I’ve been the only female on this ship who wasn’t afraid of him. Well, now there’s another female who sees past his growling shit. I say let him take his freaking shot with Maslin Jones who smells so damn good to him. He can take her ugly, combative ass home to his planet and have all the ugly ass alien babies they want. Good riddance to both of them.”

Sheena lifted her bag, looked at the door, and then looked back. “We don’t even know if she belongs in the bride program. Or whether or not she’s even human. Tomorrow I’ll find out what she is. Nate let me use Medical for my testing. The samples are incubating. Let’s wait and see what grows from her.”

“Fine, but don’t be duplicating that nasty bitch,” Bri ordered, putting the cold pack against her nose again. “Go get laid. I’m just… grumpy. Nothing a couple hundred cold showers won’t fix.”

“Now I feel doubly guilty,” Sheena said.

“Don’t. Nate didn’t say anything bad about my jacket today. Keep him happy. He’s way easier to deal with.”

Sheena laughed at her sister’s crazy reasoning. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”

Bri nodded and shooed her sister with her hand when there was an insistent knock.

“Nate must be getting anxious,” Sheena said, smiling as she headed to the door. She opened it and saw Berg standing behind a nervous looking Darcone.

“Berg is here,” the handsome, apprehensive clone said.

Sheena nodded to the guard before looking at Darcone. “You might want to wait a day or so,” she whispered.

Darcone shook his head. “No. Must fix now.”

Sheena winced. “Okay. Good luck with that. Let’s go, Berg. The Admiral gets impatient when I’m late.”

Berg held out a hand, motioning down the hall. Smiling, Sheena walked away and never looked back. If Darcone went into that room, he deserved whatever was going to happen to him.

* * *

Bri frowned when Darcone came through the door. “Come to gloat over my pain?” she asked.

“What mean gloat?”

“Never mind,” Bri said. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Why are you here?”

“Must fix… bad words,” he said, struggling to express himself.

She snorted. “No, you need to fix your brain. I’m fucking special. If I was any of the other women in the bride program, I’d be screaming about being alone with you.”

Darcone nodded. “This not secret.”

Sighing over her pettiness, which seemed a huge waste of time on a literal being who wasn’t fazed by human sarcasm, she waved at the other side of the table. “Sit. You make me nervous standing there all stiff like that. I’m sorry I was mean to you. You deserved it, but that’s still not a good enough excuse.”

Darcone walked to the chair and sat. His gaze raised to her. “Lie, I did. Big sorry, I am.”

Both his confession and his apology made her chuckle. She could only admire him for having the balls to come say it to her. “Are you even capable of lying, Darcone?”

Darcone slowly nodded. “Yes. Bad joke. Big surprise. Hurt you, I did. ”

Bri shrugged. “You were just being truthful about the new woman. And I just…” She looked at him. “Fuck this careful shit.”

She drew in a breath so she could get her own confession out in a rush.

“I thought you and I were going to get together. It bothers me that I’m not the kind of female you think smells good, much less the kind of one you might one day consider having sex with. I’ve wanted you since I was a teenager. So yes, this is a big damn deal to me, but I will get over it. You have a right to say no. I heard no and I’ll accept no. It’s what adults do.”

Darcone hung his head, studied the table, and avoided her gaze. “You… long time want too. I fight want. Good idea, we are not. Not sure, am I.”

Bri shrugged. “I know. Even you can’t deny we’ve always had a connection. When the new woman came, her attack didn’t bother me, but your reaction to her did. Seeing you with her, even though you were fighting on my side… well, it made me realize there might actually be somebody better for you than me. I guess it upset me more than I could handle knowing.”

“New woman,” Darcone said quietly, pausing to choose his words carefully. “Not… lust for her. Smell like home, she does. Miss home, I do. Not big. Just…”

Sighing heavily, Bri reached across the table. She put her unusually large female hand over his extraordinarily big and strong one. Darcone looked up at her, stunned at her action.

“We are friends,” Bri said tightly, struggling for words as badly as Darcone had. “I want what is best for you as much as I want what is best for me. Beyond that intention, I have no answer to this lust between us. I’ll never be the tame woman you’ve been hoping to find here. Being with you isn’t just a pleasant dream for me—it’s what I want. But I get the problems you’re having. I’m not your perfect mate. You don’t have to justify feeling that way.”

Darcone growled and stood. He turned his back to her. “Perfect, you are. Want you, I do. No lie, this is.”

Bri looked at his rigid back. It was costing him to admit he wanted her. She could only imagine what it cost him to turn away the first sex he’d been offered in who knows how long. But then she’d always known the alien was noble in a way Earth men had long ago forgotten how to be.

She rose from her seat, dropping her ice pack on the table. She stood behind the alien she wanted to take to bed and raised a hand to his back. She ran it across his bare shoulders. “Your people have sexual relations for pleasure and not just for the procreation of the species—I read that. It’s not like if we did have sex that we’d be violating any rules about mating, right?”

Darcone’s brief head shake revealed little, but she could tell he’d nearly stopped breathing.

Bri lowered her hand, stepped back. “That’s all I’m asking for from you right now. I badly need sexual relief. What do you need?”

Darcone turned tormented eyes her way. “You.”

Risking the pain of hurting her face more, Bri lifted the shirt over her head, balled it up, and threw it at the alien now boldly staring at her. “Great. In case it’s been so long you’ve forgotten, a female getting naked while you watch is an invitation for you to have sex with her. What’s your answer, Darcone? I’m looking for a fucking yes… or a yes to fucking. Form the sentence, however the hell you want, but I need you to say it aloud.”

When his smile revealed all his teeth, Bri couldn’t help but smile back. She might be full of puncture holes tomorrow when he finally turned his passion loose on her. It was probably stupid of her not to care about such things, but she didn’t. She could only follow that instinct inside her that said this male was the one to quiet that restless female who lived within her body.

“Afraid to speak, I am.”

Her chuckle over his admission seemed to please him as a reaction, but neither of them had taken a step toward the other yet. Darcone’s warning growl made her happy because she could tell he didn’t want to give in first. It was the closest to feeling giddy she’d ever gotten without drugs or drink.

And then… of course there was a frigging knock on the damn door interrupting them. Darcone turned the most vicious glare toward it she’d ever seen him give anything on the airship. The growl in his throat sounded like he intended to rip someone apart.

Her hand was on his chest to hold him back, while she swiped up her shirt from the floor. “Hold on,” Bri yelled. “I’m fucking busy here.”

“No. Not fucking now,” Darcone grumbled.

Giggling at his comment, Bri pulled her shirt back on. Darcone reached out and pulled her shirt down to finish covering her waist. Bri turned and held his gaze. “The invitation to bed me is not going away no matter what happens when I open that door,” she said softly. “Do you understand what that means?”

“Means we fuck soon?” he asked.

Bri nodded and hugged him hard before stomping to the door. She yanked it open to find a disheveled Sheena on the other side.

“Instinct told me to knock. Glad I followed it,” her sister said, peeking around her to see Darcone glaring at her.

“What’s up? Did you forget something?” Bri asked.

Sheena shook her head. “No. We have a problem in Medical. I can’t talk about it here. Unfortunately, you need to come see for yourself.”

Sighing, Bri nodded. She turned back to retrieve her jacket and saw Darcone already held it in his hands. She walked to him and let him help her on with it.

“Pretty,” he whispered roughly in her ear. “No lie, that is. Believe this, you must.”

The compliment sent a shiver down her spine to her toes. She turned around and put her mouth on his. He stiffened under her surprise assault on his lips, then melted.

His hands lifted to her face when she pulled away. “Make no trouble,” he ordered.

Bri laughed. “No promises,” she answered back, patting his jaw.

When she turned back to Sheena, she saw Berg’s eyes wide with surprise at what he’d witnessed.

“Claim?” Berg asked.

Darcone growled at the innocent question. Disappointed, Bri shook her head. So that’s how it was going to be. Fine. She was not going to become the noble alien’s dirty little secret.

She looked back at the growling idiot and wished like hell she could stay so she could beat some sense into his hard alien head. Then she was going to show him what sex with an Earth woman was really like. How in hell could she still want to bed a male who was ashamed of being with her?

Bri walked to the door and turned casually to address Berg. “Darcone is family,” she said flatly. “Like an alien brother to me. You understand the concept of a brother, right?”

Berg stared at her in disbelief. Bri closed the door behind her, locking a frowning, growling, and now probably pissed off alien inside her quarters. Their attraction was so obvious even Berg knew she was lying about the brother thing. She sighed and shrugged.

“Just go with the brother story, Berg. It’s what the pointy-eared bastard wants you to believe about the two of us. I plan to bed him first chance I get, but Darcone would rather no one know I lust for him.”

Grinning now, Berg nodded and patted her shoulder. Apparently, it amused the handsome alien to know Darcone had a woman interested in him.