AN: thanks to Capercaillie for the name J This is not going to be a song fic, since you already know the song, and it is Mal’s point of view on the same events as those Inara thought about in Que Sera.

Okay. So he’d rented the shuttle. (What a dumb idea. Who’s idea had that even been? Wait, don’t answer that.) And, naturally, being the captain of this here boat, he’d had to be the one to show the possible boarders around. Get them acclimated. See if they would fit in on Serenity.

So he’d done just that. He’d gotten himself spiffed up. New pair of suspenders and everythin’. He thought he looked pretty gorram good for the captain of a boat with a hide like Serenity’s. At least, that’s what he’d thought until SHE walked on.

Inara Serra. Companion. Most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. When he’d first clapped eyes on her, he’d felt like someone had sucker punched him, and Mal was very well acquainted with that feeling. However, he’d never before got it without the accompanying fist…. Figured. It really did.

She’d had that veil thingy on, hiding half her face. Only not completely hiding it, you know, just sort of… gauzing it. Making her skin all dark and mysterious beneath the veil, and making her eyes all the more bright and alluring. Then, that was her job, right? Being alluring? He bet she’d never had a hard day’s work in her life. Well, save for all that sweaty bedplay. Snicker.

And anyway, they’d traded words. Mal thought he’d been polite enough. Considering. She should have been grateful! He could have been a hell of a lot ruder if he hadn’t been trying to be nice. And that little pause, right after the phrase, ‘Because you want me’…. Ouch. Just long enough to get his stupid eyebrows to rise and somethin’ else to think pretty hard about rising, too, and then she’d just gone right ahead and continued her little spiel. Hadn’t even looked away from his face. Damn it.

Ooh. Wait. There was a word for women like her, one he’d thought of a few days after she moved in. Beguiling. That was the one. Miz Se