It is difficult to not circle back to what was, what has been. Is he so unlike anyone else to imagine himself only as what he has been in the past? There is not yet a part of him that asks why he has lived as a monster. There has been little else, only impulses, only cruel indifference, only dominion over who or what ever fell victim to him. He will never be like any other, so what is it she wants from him?
Nothing, perhaps.
Oh, but he knows that cannot be true. He cannot forget how she feels when she wants him, the unique tension that brazenly grows between them. Fearless.
Bardot startles, he hasn't noticed she was dozing because he has been making his way over the hills and valleys of her body. A pilgrim restoring a sacred pathway he'd once plundered. When she rubs her face against him he tenses a little but stays where he is, watching her still though she only affords him a glance and it is an unaffected if not chilly look. The buckskin mare does not answer his question, his countenance darkens further. He never asks such questions.
He makes an appropriately irritable Beast to her Beauty.
Still she remains quiet when he brings himself to admit fault. Tunnel looks for belief in her, a little comprehension. What she gives him instead is a single listening ear.
For a moment he thinks he truly ought to have torn her apart.
Women you have ripped up and eaten do not give you the cold shoulder.
It is a passing thought and he finds only the slightest desire to act on it, far eclipsed his other desires involving Bardot.
And I see you. She admits, and even though some part of him knew it was coming it sparks a possessive desire. His lips brush the point of her hip, drifting to the midline of her back...but she has more to say, and at last looks him in the face.
Unfortunately she brings him back to the reality in which she is brave and certain… and fearless.
Fearing him now or not is not the issue, she will be unafraid until it is too late. He makes a noise of frustration, looking into her calm eyes, his jaw clenched. "I am not in the habit of giving out warnings, Bardot. You--"
She repeats herself, steady and sure. What comes keeps him quiet only a heartbeat. His reply is placid, but his lip twitches. He would not normally give words in exchange for her defiance. "What do you think so frightens me, little unicorn? Please. Expound."
His voice is gravelly, unaccustomed to so much use. This woman the first he has been able to resist breaking and yet she begs him to destroy her. Why doesn't he? If Tunnel feels anything like fear, it is in not understanding why he has grown so awake within himself… and here is Bardot in the center of that storm, a steady beacon of light, the only thing he craves more than the cold unthinking dark.
