As often as I found myself in his bed, it was almost a shock I hadn't inserted myself between his legs and showed him just how often I'd had a man in my mouth.

But it was almost a shock. The reason it wasn't was due to the fact he was practically a stranger, and seeing how much he loved to chat, it wasn't looking to change anytime soon.

Maybe tonight was different because I didn't have on a shred of clothing, thanks to my outfit being in the ancient laundering machine and me not having an extra change of clothes. He'd said we'd get more next time we landed, anything I wanted to buy, but that'd do me little good now.

As it was, shivering beneath the single blanket on the bed and feeling absolutely useless, the thought of buying clothes in two days did anything but lessen my annoyance. Not to mention my body was switching between goosebumps and sweat, and the urge to toss off the blanket every five minutes was growing stronger every instance.

The only reason I didn't was the quiet man sitting outside the sleeping nook, a table scattered with bounty pucks in front of him. He was cataloging it looked like, but he could have been sleeping for how quietly he did so.

After I'd hopped under the blanket and tossed my clothes out for him to wash, he hadn't said a word. Despite the suggestive opportunity staring him in the damn face, he hadn't even considered taking it.

He could have looked me up and down and that would have said it all. Blanket be damned, I was naked, and I thought that meant more to men, but if it did, it was more than this one was letting on.

But in the end, I could see the good in him for not caring so much. His dick didn't lead his head unlike the others I'd been with, but he was almost too good to be interesting. I wanted to rip the blanket off just to watch his face change from passiveness to shock to lust, but I wasn't even sure if he was capable of processing I was anything other than too hot.

Fuck this, I thought next time my body started sweating, tossing off the blanket and arching against the cool bedding on the other side of the tiny bed. Without my body heat seeped into it, it was chilly, and my body grew cold again, but I was sick of the switching back and forth. Instead, I let my body cover in goosebumps, stretching out on my stomach and hoping he didn't want half the bed anytime soon because I wasn't about to move.

My stomach twisted with lightness and insecurity the longer I laid there. My skin looked midnight blue in the low light, but he could see right up my legs to my light-toned center if he even glanced this way. It'd have been damp-it always was lately-and every minute or so, it throbbed with an unbidden half-climax despite little to nothing being sexual about this situation.

I groaned into the bedding, ignoring the urge to touch myself as I shifted, grazing my sweet spot against the course but comfortable blanket. Maybe the knowledge that true satisfaction was so close was what had me half-ready.

Not that he had a clue.

"You can't come with me while I hunt."

The suddenness of his voice was a welcome change to the silence.

"How long does it take?" I wasn't sure he could hear me with my mouth in the blanket since I'd have bet his helmet did a lot more than just cover his face, and he currently didn't have it anywhere in sight. "The hunting, I mean."

"Days. Weeks sometimes. I'll make sure you have a safe docking place and money."

Weeks alone? It was a mutual agreement marriage dream. Let him do his job while I bask alone with his money? Heaven. Sort of. In a weird, twisted way.

I murmured, "Fine with me," even though the thought of being completely alone terrified me a bit. So maybe I'd been alone back in the PleasureWife city, but I'd had people similar to me there, searching for a male in some way, shape, or form, and in extreme cases, I could have gone to them for help.

But there'd be nobody to call on with a bounty hunter husband a week's trip away and zero knowledge of how to fly a ship, specifically this ancient hunk of tech.

"Is it?" he asked, sounding incredibly closer than before.

"I thought we had a deal about useless questions," I breathed out, pulse skipping through my body like blaster shots on beskar.

Warmth flooded my lower legs and I could have sworn his palms were hovering against the backs of my knees. As if he didn't know Chiss were sensitive to temperature change, a fact any decent bounty hunter knew and used to their advantage.

"Useless questions, yes."

My heart jumped. I would have sworn his voice had come inches from my thighs just behind where my body sloped up to my back. His breath was unmistakable now, uneven against my skin, shaking with the same nerves that had decided to knot through my stomach.

"Who-" I swallowed, throat tight as my skin grew cold save for where his breaths fell. I wanted to beg him to touch me, to feel me, to let me feel him, but my pride wouldn't let me. "Who determines uselessness?"

His voice came out little more than a murmur laced with a thousand tremors, and when he said, "I don't know," his lips brushed the side of my right hip.

I nearly jumped and gave him a hip to the face, but I forced my body into the bed, spine electric with his nearness. I wanted so badly to turn over, to find him just as naked as I and pull him into me, but I feared the slightest change would shatter the moment and he'd pull away, leaving himself a successful tease and me helplessly raging with lust.

My eyes slipped shut, chest heaving with every second he spent close. I didn't love him, but I'd have been more than willing to give him everything in that moment.

But moments end, and this one did a thousand moments too soon. He drew away, and if not for the rustling of fabric, the absence of his warmth flooded my skin before my mind realized he was no longer close.

Reaching for the blanket, I pulled it against myself, covering whatever had been on show for him before turning to my side, eyeing the spot where he'd been, but he was standing farther outside the nook's doorway, chest shuddering beneath his heavy shirt and eyes dancing anywhere but my own.

I swallowed, throat parched unlike the space between my legs. Somewhere, I found the voice and the words to ask, "What do I call you?"

Considering I'd nearly violated myself with him, it seemed like a question I should already have the answer to, but he considered anyway, proving it wasn't a useless question.

Not this time at least.

He tilted his head, voice thick with something easily associated with the hardness swelling against his abdomen.

"Din."

"Din," I said, tasting it and finding it tasted just like it should.

But when I refocused on where he was, the spot was empty and I was alone again, but I knew he was close.

For now.