Want: There was no denying it. He wanted her. In a smaller-head, not-thinking-straight manner. Thing was, he knew he wasn't the only one. Hell, the girl made her living off men wanting her badly enough to hand over coin. His want wasn't so different from theirs, he supposed. The only difference being that they had the money to satisfy that want, whereas he had only nearly empty pockets. He wondered if that was all it took. Place coin down, unbutton your pants, and then after a few thrusts, the want goes away. He also wondered if it gave her what she wanted. Was she satisfied, or did she ponder redecorating the shuttle ceiling while those men who had paid so dearly got in those few thrusts?

Take: Late at night, in his bunk, he counted the ways he would take her. In his bed. In hers. Up against a bulkhead, with her legs wrapped around his hips. Bending her over the catwalk railing, her skirts in disarray over her waist. Seated in his lap on one of the mess chairs. But was that any different from how all the others had taken her? Mal reasoned that there was a finite number of ways in which to grapple, and she'd prolly done most of them. Maybe even on her first time out the gate. She would let them take her. In ways that were probably illegal on at least 13 Core planets and would send you straight to the Special Hell on seven more. But did any of them give back? And what happens to her if they just take and take?

Have: Atherton Wing wanted to have her. To own her like a prized hunting dog or one of hs swords. And she had refused him that 'privilege.' Surely, he was not the first to have made her that offer. Mal himself wanted to have her. To mark her as his -- on her neck, on her wrists and on the inside of her thighs. Did that make him a better man than Wing? Or just another in a long line of red-blooded males who only saw her for what was between her legs? He hoped for the former, but was afraid of the latter.