There were angles and slopes and curves to her. Mal had worked hard to memorize them. He could trace them in the dark with lips and fingers.

He knew precisely how her lower back curved. Where there were dimples behind her knee. The slope of where her neck and shoulder met.

He’d memorized them long before he actually got to feel them. Yet the reality of Inara's math was both far superior to his imaginings and at the same time could never match up.

Every night, he’d trace and retrace those angles and curves, trying to burning them into his memory.

For come morning, he’d have to forget them all over again.