He mussed his hair. “I . . . I’m not really sure what I’m feeling about all this. All the relationships I saw in the Family were—well, let’s just say they’re not the sort I ever want to emulate.” His smile was bitter. “And my other point of reference is movies, and whatever we have, it’s certainly not something you’d find on Disney.”

Nita snort-laughed at that, imagining Kovit as Prince Charming. In her head, he looked like Aladdin but with more gore.

He swallowed. “When I was a child, I used to be terrified of turning into an adult, because all everyone could talk about was how they lost control to their hormones, and the idea that I would just one day wake up and suddenly not be able to control myself was . . . Well, it was terrifying.”

“That’s just an excuse people use to justify bad decisions. No one’s a slave to lust,” Nita pointed out.

“I know that now.” He shrugged. “But it really got to me. It terrified me. All I have is control. If I lose control, what am I but the mindless monster the world paints me as? The thought of willingly participating in something where I would give up control was abhorrent to me.”

Nita understood. For someone like Kovit, who always maintained such tightly wound control, such care in every action he took, in every shiver he suppressed, in every choice he made—for him, control was everything. There was so little in his life he’d ever had control over that he clung tightly to anything and everything within his power. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing it.

“Anyway.” He laughed a little. “Turned out I need not have worried. I’ve never really been, you know. Interested. Maybe all the puberty hormones skipped me.”

“Well, if they did, then they skipped me too.” Nita shrugged. “I’ve never been particularly interested in sex either.” She considered. “I suppose I might try it someday to see what all the fuss is about.”

A little of the tension left his shoulders, but some remained. “I guess it’s more common than I thought. The noninterest.”

“Probably.” Nita watched him carefully. “Is that what was worrying you?”

“Part of it,” he admitted. “But it’s more than that. It’s just—this, us, it’s so new and so different from any kind of relationship I’ve had before. I don’t want to hurt you if all of this life-and-death stuff ends and it turns out I don’t think about you that way. You know?”

“You won’t hurt me.” Nita’s voice was gentle. She hadn’t truly thought about the impact of her actions. She couldn’t really get a handle on her emotions, she’d just been following instinct. It had seemed right to kiss him, so she had. But what did she actually feel?