Inara looked down at the razor and then back up at him, her eyebrow raised in dubious surprise. “Are you sure about this?”

“That’s all there is and I gotta look good for this thing, don’t I?” Mal pulled a chair out and sat down. “I ain’t keen to experiment my straight razor skills on my own face. Figured you, with all your fancy education, might be the one for the job.”

“Hmmm…I believe I was absent on shaving-a-man-with-a-deadly-weapon day,” she mused, tapping the razor on the palm of her hand, her eyes traveling the length of him beginning at the tousle of his damp hair, lingering on the white towel around his waist.

Up to now, he had been legitimately interested in her shaving him because he hadn't wanted to navigate that blade over his face. They had somewhere to be and he didn’t want to go looking like he’d just emerged from a briar patch. But she was looking at him, tapping that razor, trying to figure out if he had something else in mind which he hadn’t until she started looking at him and tapping that razor.

“Well, if you insist…,” she sighed, her tone sounding as if he was asking her to do a grievous chore. With a deliberately nonchalant shrug, she turned, leaning over to gather supplies, presenting him quite a view.

His Adam's apple bobbed, as he swallowed. Settling back in the wooden chair, Mal watched Inara as she spread out the shaving paraphernalia about the small vanity; small sponges, a bowl of warm sudsy water, a larger bowl with clean water. He breathed in the scent of the soap suds. Whatever it was it smelled like something hot. Again, she turned away, and he looked his fill, taking in every inch of the gauzy, gold slip that clung to her every curve, falling just above the top of her thighs.

And the wicked, wicked woman wasn’t wearing anything underneath. He shifted in the hard chair, trying to get more comfortable; this wasn’t going to be a quick shave. She tossed him another look over her shoulder. Seeing his grin, her eyes narrowed in coy admonishment and she tugged the slip