Inara had a weakness for pedicures. It was, in Mal’s considered opinion, one of her more endearing qualities. Not to mention that it offered him a perfect excuse to nibble on her ankles, so long as he did not commit the heinous offence of smudging the nail polish he had carefully applied to her toes. Truth was, he got to hear a girlish giggle when he painted her toes, and he was so ridiculously over the moon for that giggle.

OK, well that and the goodly portion of sake they had downed in anticipation of his birthday the following day. In light of that, he thought he had done a damnably fine job of not accidentally coating Inara’s entire foot with polish.

Inara pointed at him with her foot.

“Blow?”

Mal noted that it was a question rather than a direct order. This made it much more difficult to resist as he gently blew on her toes, eliciting yet another one of those grand giggles.

“Let me do your toes, Mal.”

He squinted at the bottle of purple frosted nail polish she held out toward him. She knew him well enough by now not to girlify him. On the other hand, there was that goodly portion of sake making the both of them more than a bit reckless and him not taking into consideration the damage his manliness from purple toenails. And the giggle. Mal could not discount the fearsome power of that giggle to bring a strong man to his knees. Or to, you know, agree to have his toes painted purple.

He stretched out on his bunk and lifted a leg.

“’s good thing I’m not prone to wanderin’ around barefoot.”

As Inara worked carefully on his toes, they discussed the birthday plans for the following day. Or rather, River and her love of “kidnapping” the birthday person out of a nice warm bunk to herd them into the mess, still in their PJs, for a birthday breakfast. Mal was just glad there was never any mention of birthday spankings. If there was one thing to put the mortal fear into him, it was River gleefully counting out the thirty-something spankings as she doled them out.

Once Inara had finished