she'll lie and steal and cheat and beg you from her knees
make you thinks she means it this time
The moment between them ebbs and flows, going from frothy and light to painfully deep, and she savors each different note. She loves the way that he teases her, lipping at her mane and touching her so quietly, and the way that he grows serious and feral, the growl rising in his throat as he draws the predators out from the forest. She doesn’t shy from them now, even though there is part of her that still feels that same instinctual fear she felt the first time she saw Red. She, however, has learned to dampen it. She has learned to control it, muscles tensing but her heart expanding with appreciation for them.
When he explains why he has drawn them forward, she can feel the emotions rise in her throat, can feel the way that they nearly drown her with their intensity. This is the depth she was always afraid of; this was the whirlpool of emotion she always sought to avoid. The way he could play her like an instrument, drawing her into passion, buckling her knees with desire, and then smothering her with appreciation. She had never known someone so intense, someone who loved so fierce, who cared so deeply.
All she can do is turn into him, burying her head in his mane, hot tears creeping out the corner of her eyes and falling down her cheeks. She breathes in the smell of him, the smell of spice and earth, and trembles slightly, overwhelmed by how quickly her love has expanded within her once she loosened her grip on it. She has always known how she feels about him, but it was easy to turn a blind eye to it, easy to bury it, easy to simply run so that she could only feel its teeth on her heels and its whisper in the wind.
But now?
Now she has relinquished her grip and it has swelled, flooding through her and rooting into her veins. It has buried seeds in her that have flourished, her chest a forest of her feelings for him. “Thank you,” she finally manages, her voice choked. He has to know just how much it means to her. He has to know how much it means to her that he would look for her family—for those she has left behind.
“How do you do this to me?” she asks, not sure she wants to know the answer.
she'll tear a hole in you, the one you can't repair
but I still love her, I don't really care
