Jayne remembered the first time he’d seen ‘er—all fresh-faced an’ excited. She looked like she’d been raised off of corn bread an’ cream. Like she’d never even seen a Firefly, none less been inside’ve one’s belly.

She weren’t one’ve them cool companions who cost a fortune to have ‘em be chilly at ya. Weren’t one’ve them cheap, dirt-side whores either.

Not that there was somethin’ wrong with cheap, dirt-side whores.

But Kaylee was a Woman. Jayne capitalized it in his head when he thought of it. Woman. All curvy an’ soft.

He’d wanted to pin ‘er down when he’d first seen ‘er. Lick ‘er all over an’ make ‘er shiver.

But when she’d first come on, she’d only had eyes for one thing. Serenity.

She spent every second in that engine room, tinkerin’ an’ cooin’ an’ settin’ things right after that gorram Bester idjit had mucked it all up. Sometimes he’d stick his head in. Ask her if she wanted help. Really he just wanted to see her layin’ on her back under the engine.

Nice to have a visual at night.

After she’d fixed the boat up enough to suit her, there had been a few times that he’d caught her lookin’ at ‘im. A few times he’d let her see him lookin’ at her.

There was one time… God… it was burned on Jayne’s brain, he conjured it up so often. There was one time when him an’ Kaylee was paintin’ the kitchen. She’d picked up a bunch of buckets of yella paint somewhere. Decided it was perfect fer the kitchen.

He’d offered ta help. When there weren’t no jobs bein’ done, he didn’t have much to do. Plus he liked bein’ around her. So they was paintin’. Makin’ small talk about growin’ up an’ such. Kaylee picked up a bucket of paint an’ it slopped all over ‘er front. She’d set the can down an’ whipped her shirt off ‘fore she even thought about it.

She weren’t wearin’ nothin’ underneath. Seemed ta realize that when she’d seen where Jayne was lookin’. Jayne knew fer certain she’d let him have an eyeful before she’d wrapped a kitchen towel around herself.

Quite a Woman.

Jayne