"Here? Here is my home. My woods. What are you doin' here, Tilly?"
Her name bathed in his deep voice punctured something in her.
"I... didn't, " she looked around as if realizing just how far she had walked. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"The woods at this hour are a dangerous place to be," he admonished sharply.
And unlike any other person in the world, he brought out a side of her that stood up tall and straight. "You should know, shouldn't you? Because that's rich coming from," she stopped the words from coming out of her mouth.
His already still form stilled impossibly more. Silence ballooned between them. Then he took a booted step forward. Her heart kicked up. He took another step and then another and she marveled that he could avoid making any kind of sound, like he knew how to quiet the world with his weight.
She kept herself still, unmoving while her blood rushed frantically.
"Comin' from what?" he asked slowly, dangerously.
She shook her head.
"Say it," he said. The words were still slow and deep, digging into her rapid heart. "You know you want to." His tone held a note of teasing.
She shook her head again and wondered if her winged friend would intervene. What would happen now? She felt fear, yes. But there was an underlying feeling that was warm and beckoning and she wondered if he drew it out of her as the predator that he was, or if it was something more.
When he was standing a foot from her, closing the distance with the stealth of a large cat, she looked up at him, her neck craning to reach him towering over her. Dark hair tousled, falling over his forehead made him look like a handsome statue.
She could picture him with his white button-up shirt, his pants less modern, and windblown hair on an early 1900s expedition. He would look roguish and ready for adventure like he did now.
He raised a large hand toward her but she stopped him with a word.
"Don't." It came out faint. But strong.
His hand paused, controlled by the marionette strings of her voice.
"Say what I am, Tilly. I've been waiting to hear the words from you."
"Why?" she asked, a furrowed brow creasing her forehead.
He tilted his head, his hand still stopped in mid air. "Because I want to hear the darkness of who I am on your sweet tongue. Maybe then you will stop torturing me."
The shock of his words shot through her. "I'm torturing you?"
"Yes."
She shook her head, trying to make sense of his words. "How?"
He dropped his hand then and took a wide step around her. She felt his looming body by her side and she kept herself still. He circled her like a curious beast.
"How have you tortured me? Since I met you, there's just been somethin' about you." She felt his heat behind her now. There must only be scant inches between them. She tried to control her breathing. "There's a fierceness inside of you that is masked by your sweetness." The way he said that word,sweetness, twice now, she wondered if he could taste it.
She let out a fear-laden laugh. "Fierceness? You've read me wrong, then. May that end my torture of you because I am not fierce."
"No?"
Her breath stilted sharply when she felt that one word against the back of her neck. The caress of warm breath against her exposed skin created sparkles through her body. She felt shocked, alive, on the precipice.
"Hmmm," he rumbled there nearly flush with her skin. He wasn't touching her. Not one part of his skin touched hers and yet she hadn't felt so intimately touched like this in so long.
She swallowed against those thoughts.
"What do you want? Are you going to," she breathed out. "Are you going to do something?"
