“But you and he-?” Iain was aware he probably should shut up, but his mouth kept on going. ”I mean, did-?”

Cygnus sighed. His glance diverted again to her breasts as her chest expanded and contracted.

“The first few dates were nice,” he heard her confess. “Then I found out who and what he really was. That kind of cooled things off. But, you know, not for him.”

Iain looked back up at the disappointment and then speculative expression written on her face. She narrowed her orange tinted gaze at him.

“You haven’t done anything like, firebomb a whole planet have you? Lead genocidal wars, that sort of thing?”

“No…” Iain replied, then became aware at how long he’d taken to answer. “In fact, I’ve never even killed anybody before this…”

Cygnus returned a kind smile.

“I thought so. You don’t seem the type,” she replied, then shook her head, wagged a finger at him. “Don’t prove me wrong!”

Iain didn’t have an answer for that, at least not yet, so he just shook his head in response. Cygnus turned and walked back towards her capsule, then bend down to pick up his shirt, started putting it on.

She turned back and offered him a pair of raised eyebrows as she buttoned up.

“Let this be a lesson to you,” she told him. “It’s not a good idea to kidnap me, lock me in a freezer, and be a genocidal maniac.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Noted,” Iain replied. For a moment, he wondered if that meant being/doing two out of the three would be acceptable in her books of if that was the order those things had to take place. Not wanting to test that theory just yet – or maybe ever – he decided to get dressed himself, walked over to his pants, grabbed them, then started putting them on. Zipping up, he turned to Cygnus, who had finished buttoning up as far as she was going to, leave the top two buttons undone. His shirt was tight on her in all the best places. She took a sniff of the collar, plucked at the checked fabric, self-consciously, he thought, then gave him a concerned look.

“You don’t mind do you? It’s not like you brought me my clothes when you defrosted me. And this smells nice.”

“Sorry about that,” he told her a little guiltily, while she knelt down and picked up his shoes. “I didn’t even look for them. I guess I was excited to find someone who might be…”

He didn’t have a good way to end either.

“The social circle on this ship is pretty small,” he finished.

She bent down to pick up his shoes, stepped over to him

“You mean one that appeared sexually compatible?” she asked with a knowing gaze. Iain’s face went hot and his pants tightened up pretty fast. That hadn’t happened since high school. She prodded him with the shoes. “Fair enough. These are too big for me.”

“Right,” he replied and took the shoes, knelt down to put them on.

“The ship should know where my clothes are,” he heard Cygnus say as he tied them up.

“We’ll have to go up a few decks to ask,” he told her. “This level is dark as far as the Skipper is concerned.”

When she returned a questioning glance he added, “the Skipper is the ship’s A.I., control system, pilot.”

Cygnus nodded in response.

Iain looked left and right, then back to her.

“I wouldn’t know were to look anyways,” he confessed.

“Probably Orwon’s doing,” she said with a grimace. “Always was a paranoid gargravak.”

He became keenly aware she was now staring at his bare torso.

“Well,” he asked, wondering.

“You’re a bit soft in the middle,” she stated offering a bit of a shrug.

“Yeah,” he told her, optimism declining a bit. “That would be all the cake.”

That perked her up. Cygnus straightened. Her whole expression brightened with anticipation.

“There’s cake?”