Her alarmed look and her blush made him want to laugh from wickedness. As fond as he was of her, Fiona was much more straight laced than anyone he had encountered for such an extended time. To bring a whore to blush had its own thrill, too. He was surprised she didn’t slap him, but smiled uncertainly. He didn’t laugh out loud, though, and softened his smile to something more his usual, and let the abrasive, feral accent ease back down his throat, though his next words were quite clearly a hybrid of the extremes.<br/><br/>“Perhaps not that wording exactly, but who knows, he might be inclined…” He knew Master Ryan rarely, if ever, took one of his own whores to bed, simply because he had never seen any of them receive special treatment. It seemed unnatural for a Master to be so cloistered.<br/><br/>She seemed to be thinking rather a lot, her emotions chasing over her face one after another, too swift and far too guarded for him to read. Perhaps teasing had been the wrong thing to do, but just as he was about to apologise, she moved towards him, and sank to her knees before him. And that look she gave him, like she was doing her very best to brave some terrible fear by doing this. It made his breath catch.<br/><br/><em>"And what of your fire's my hero?"</em><br/><br/>His mind went utterly blank. She was flirting, with him? There was a dark, sickly pulse through his mind and he was tempted to shy away from her. She was tempting, oh, so tempting. Her uncertain desire, her coy teasing, as if this were her first time. She wanted him, wanted his trust and that terrified him.<br/><br/>He blinked and forced the panic down, back to where it couldn’t hurt anyone else. It was his demon, he would not let it control him.<br/><br/>He realised he had been quiet too long, and swallowed before saying softly, “Ash and embers. But,” he reached for her, letting his fingers gliding reverently over her cheek, into her hair, his gaze moving over her features like he had never seen such beauty offered up to him, “when I look at you… when you speak… laugh… tease…” His hand moved down from the soft tumble of her hair and he slid his thumb over the plump round of her lover lip, glad all at once he was not wearing gloves, “…I am stirred.”<br/>