“Well, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” I said. “But I expected… Well, typically human married couples share a bed. Or at least a room. Not always, of course,” I stammered. Good grief. I was well and truly blabbering now. “If there are, I don’t know, sleep issues or something, they might sleep apart. Do you snore?”

“Do I what?”

“Snore. It’s this loud snorty noise people make when they sleep. Sometimes. Not always. Do you snore?”

“I have no idea.”

“It’s fine if you do,” I added hastily. “Mama always said I sleep like the dead, so it won’t bother me…” I steeled myself. “I’ll sleep here! If that’s agreeable to you, I mean.”

Silar didn’t look up. His head still bent, he merely muttered one single, growly word directly at my boobs. “Agreeable.”

“OK. Swell. Sleeping arrangements are settled, then,” I said in a breathy rush. For some reason I didn’t feel relieved by this agreement, even though it was what I had been angling for. My belly tightened with nerves as I finally dabbed some of the cream onto the blackened edge of Silar’s ear. He hissed sharply, and I snatched my hand back.

“Sorry! Did that hurt?”

“No,” he said after a tense moment of heavy breathing. He curled his hands into fists on top of his thighs.

This was just like when I’d put my hands on his shoulders and then kissed him earlier. The simplest touches resulted in the most extraordinary, explosive physical responses. It occurred to me as I thoughtfully squeezed more cream from the tube that it might have been months, or maybe even years, since Silar had been touched by another person.

“Here,” I whispered, giving him a bit of a warning before I stroked the edge of his other ear, gently spreading the cream. He didn’t actually hiss this time, at least, but he did breathe in sharply through his nose. Some unseen muscles beneath the hair on his scalp spasmed, making both his ears twitch in unison.

“Are you sure this isn’t painful?” I asked doubtfully, adding a little more cream to the first ear.

“Define painful,” he said raggedly. Thrown by the question, I couldn’t come up with an answer.

Instead, I asked, my heart in my throat, “Should I stop?”

“Probably.”

I raised a brow at him.

“If I stop, will you promise to finish the job and do this yourself?”

“No.”

I smirked and rolled my eyes.

“I didn’t think so. I’ll try to be quick.”

Silar remained dutifully stiff and silent under my ministrations. Soon enough, all the inflamed, black bits of his ears had been coated with the healing antiseptic cream.

When I was finished, I asked him if he had any bandages to wrap everything up so the skin would stay clean, but he just stared at me blankly.

“Did that not translate?” I asked, wiping residue from my fingers onto my pants. Silar’s blue-veined gaze tracked the movements of my hands against my hips. “I want to wrap up your ears so all the cream doesn’t come off and everything stays protected.”

“It translated,” he finally informed me, taking his eyes from my hip-area with what looked like some effort. “I just don’t have anything like that.”

“What the heck do you do when you’re injured?”

“Usually nothing.”

I gaped at him.

“So, what, you just bleed all over the place and don’t even bother covering the wound?”

He did that tail-shrug thing again.

“Blood clots quickly enough. If it’s really deep I just wrap it in a shirt.”

Is this why he doesn’t wear a shirt? I thought rather grimly to myself. They’re all ruined with old blood stains because the man doesn’t have a single fucking bandage in his entire fucking house?

“Well, we’ll just have to make do,” I said with forced cheer. I went back to my bag in the kitchen, tossed the tube in, then fetched out my red scarf. I returned with it to the bedroom, fingering the soft material as I went. “Cherry red!” I said, smiling and shaking it at him.

“What’s that?” he asked from his seated position. Now that I was done rubbing cream on his ears, he seemed a little more relaxed. His fists had uncurled, and he leaned his large torso back against the chair, watching me as I approached.

“It’s for your ears.”

His gaze narrowed.

“Don’t use that.”

“It’s clean and it will protect-”

“Don’t.”

I sighed in exasperation.

“Are you going to put your hat back on and go back to work out there?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need something to cover your ears! Your hat’s got all kinds of dust and bacteria and lovely human sweat in it now, thanks to me. And I’m pretty sure wrapping a whole shirt around your heat is not going to be ideal.”

“Don’t use that.”

How many times was he going to repeat some variation of that same command?

“Is there a specific reason why you don’t want me to use it?” I asked, fighting to keep the irritation out of my voice. I was the idiot who’d taken his hat and caused him to get burned in the first place. Couldn’t he just accept this little bit of kindness from me, from his wife? Why couldn’t he-

“It’s too nice.”

My nagging thoughts dispersed instantly. I stared at Silar, suddenly overwhelmed with something that felt a whole lot like tenderness. He didn’t want me to, what, get it dirty? He’d rather let an injury get infected than sully something of mine?

I swallowed a hot lump in my throat.

Silar took care of his property. Of his house. Of his animals.

But who took care of him?

Who took care of the man who didn’t have a table to eat at or a person to eat with?

The man who didn’t even bother to bandage himself when he bled?

I will.

I would do it. I was his wife now and wives were supposed to poke and prod, help and heal, and if Silar didn’t like it then too fucking bad because he’d married a human woman and we were one hell of a stubborn breed.

And if he decided to send me back after thirty days as a result…

Well… I’d just have to cross that bridge when I got to it. But I wasn’t about to idly sit by and watch Silar make dumbass decisions about his health just so I could keep my scarf clean.

“I may not know much about Zabrian marriages. Or even human marriages,” I admitted quietly as I returned to my place between Silar’s spread legs and placed my scarf gently over his ears. “But I do know that you’re more important than some scrap of fabric.”

I tugged gently on the scarf before tying it in a bow beneath his chin. Satisfied with my handiwork and trying to ignore how hilariously cute he looked with the scarf arranged along his hard jaw the way an old lady would wear one, I nodded once. He stared back at me in white-eyed silence.

“Next time,” I told him with a soft smile, “We’ll get some real bandages.”

I had a funny feeling that this big, quiet, alien dope was going to need them.

I had a feeling he’d needed them for a long, long time.

12SILAR

Cherry’s face was very close to mine.

So were her lips.

Small. Soft. Pink. And just a little damp where she had licked them while tying the scarf beneath my chin.

I wondered if humans only ever did the kiss ritual at weddings. I did not see how we could have another wedding so that I could repeat the experience. But maybe they also did the kiss thing at other important ceremonies, like funerals. I found myself rather foolishly hoping that someone might die soon so that I could find out. Maybe Zohro. No one would miss him. It would be worth it.

I remembered the way she’d pressed her mouth to mine. How entirely stunned I’d been in response.

How aroused.

How I’d had to turn right from the room and douse myself in cold water just to feel halfway myself again.

It was very likely a sign of impending insanity that I wanted to repeat such a disconcerting experience.