Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“I will start by being firm when it comes to Professor Zorin and his dinner…invitation.” Hmm. “Is there a human word for an assumed invitation? Not quite forced but something similar?”
“Good question. You’re distracting, though, and nothing is coming to mind.” He approved enough to give me another kiss even though the word distracting should have had negative associations. “At the very least it’s probably part of my job even though I have no idea what he’s doing.”
“We will both discover what has been frustrating him.” He was behaving oddly. “I must get clean first.”
I had gone from sticky to uncomfortable, and the reminder of our activities earned me a pleased laughing sound from my human. “Yes, and you were going to show me a better way to use the shower.”
He did not know being naked was not a requirement for our versions of showers.
My mate was using water every time he needed to get clean.
“I was.” Before we had both become distracted. Hmm. Maybe there could be positive associations with that word. “Then we will have dinner with Professor Zorin and his…his associates?”
My human shrugged. “I think they’re going to be more personal than that, but we probably shouldn’t make any assumptions. He might actually need help talking about BDSM with a coworker but that doesn’t sound right even for your world.”
No…but stranger things had occurred lately.
****
“I feel the need to remind you that bad manners can be delivered in a calm, what you would consider neutral tone. It does not take extensive exterior emotions to be rude.” From what I had seen of humans the two things usually went hand in hand as they said. We were rude in different ways than he might expect.
Yes, my human sighed and paused at his doorway.
“How much rudeness am I supposed to put up with?” Giving me what I recognized as a thoughtful expression, he looked between me and the door. “On Earth, depending on the situation and who I was dining with, I’d put up with a lot of rudeness or just bad manners. Sometimes you have to…does the expression lose the battle to win the war make sense to you?”
“Yes.” I had read several military series while Toman had been getting to know his mate. “I agree that sometimes it is necessary, but I do not believe questions about human domination relationships fall into that category.”
Conversations had become strange lately, however.
Nodding slowly, my human mate straightened and seemed to finish his next round of thoughts. “What situation could we run into where BDSM would fall into that category? Some of the council meetings are going to require interesting conversations, but not deliberate bad manners.”
He asked good questions.
“Your life on Earth must have been very interesting.” I was ready to answer his questions but he cocked his head again.
“We really haven’t talked much about that kind of stuff, have we?” His mind was going faster than my verbal abilities to respond in English, so I quickly shook my head.
I was starting to understand why they had added so many nonverbal signals.
“Okay, quick recap before we walk out the door. I technically work for a part of my government that is a mix of intelligence gathering and monitoring interesting situations.”
“Like the dragons near the gate.” They were remarkable in their ability to find trouble. “They must keep you busy.”
“Amazingly so.” Rolling his eyes, my human leaned against the door and pulled me close to him again. “But before that I was in a more traditional role within the government. No ridiculousness, just a job. My parents have both worked as ambassadors and in other diplomatic positions like that.”
When he paused and raised one eyebrow, I nodded to show I understood the role his parents had played.
My reading on different aspects of world governments had been incredibly useful.
“That kind of work goes back several generations in my family and my parents were actually pissed when I went into intelligence instead.” His grin said he was not angry about their feelings. “I guess I proved them wrong. I’m the first in the family to get a position on another planet.”
Hmm.
“Yes. That does trump a position in Europe.” We were not as dangerous as other parts of his world, but we were impressive and strange.
My human laughed, nodding. “And now I’m cooler than Great Uncle Albert who spent most of his life doing questionable things in the South Pacific.”
Did I have any books based around that part of his world?
“What else?” My human frowned, cocking his head. “I don’t want you to be surprised at anything that happens when we’re talking at dinner. You’re more important so that means you need to get information first.”
That was a logic my people would appreciate.
“Your name?” Everything else seemed touched upon in at least vague ways. “Everyone calls you Agent or Agent Murphy. I was told you were quite stern with the diner men’s wives who tried to obtain more personal information.”