Dain laughed softly, and squeezed me across the shoulders. "Are you still going to make me take them next time?"

"Lordy," I said, shaking my head. "I hate that there will almost certainly be a next time, but yes. I'm much more willing to suffer your crankiness than to see you in pain."

Something flickered across his face, there one moment before being gone without a trace, and his easy smile was back. "Well, to answer your question, it's very easy for me to tell when someone is aroused, afraid, or angry, and usually sorrowful, as well. I can track by scent like a wolf, and I can tell individuals apart. If I stick my nose against someone and breathe in..." Dain shifted and put his face against my neck, inhaling with his mouth parted. "You're young, healthy, not pregnant, and not currently fertile. You haven't been under a lot of stress, which is shocking, and you've been eating too much sugar recently, which is probably my fault."

His warm breath fanned against my skin and he inhaled against me again, shifting his nose along my neck. "You wash with unscented soap, which is lovely, by the way. You didn't get enough sleep last night, but since you don't smell like long-term stress I know it was a one-off and I shouldn't worry about you. And finally," Dain said, with a little nuzzle. "You have my scent on you, which combined with the fact that I would know your scent even if I lost my entire memory, makes me feel like there's a place in the world for me where I don't have to fight to keep my footing."

I'd kept my composure through his recitation, but the last statement swept my feet out from under me, and I flamed crimson, with no idea of how to respond.

Dain breathed a laugh at that, settling back into his seat. "Impressed?"

"Extremely," I said, fanning myself with one hand. "I considered wearing perfume at one point, to hide all my bodily secrets from you, but I never followed through."

His nose wrinkled, and he made a sound of disgust. "I don't mind scented soaps. I even use them myself. But perfume?" Dain's ears laid back against his head. "I imagine my relationship to perfume is something like your relationship to skunk-spray."

I giggled at that. "Hence shaving off every hair on your body when you got turned into a walking stink bomb."

"Yes, hence shaving my whole body," he said with a long-suffering sigh. "I looked ridiculous, but at least I didn't reek so much that it felt like I'd inhaled acid. I wore a glamor for months while it all grew in." Dain glanced sideways at me, with something of a wicked smile. "I have a terrible time of it every spring, when my winter coat sheds. It itches horribly, and the fur gets everywhere."