The world and worries faded gently as Fiona offered herself up to him, pliant and trusting so utterly it made his skin burn with the craving to test that faith, to push her into the shadows and pour onto her the twisting serpents of frustration and lust, to show her the venom of their bite, make her see the ‘dark pleasure’ she was so curious about was not something to be dabbled with.<br/><br/>He pulled back, so abruptly it was almost a flinch. He held her in his arms, pressed to his body still, his eye moving over her upturned face. “Careful, or I’ll mar you,” he said, his voice light, happy to use the excuse of her carefully constructed beauty to stop. Carefully he slid away from her, feeling the ghost of her lips still on his. “Let’s go back in.” He wasn’t running away. He wasn’t. Any further and his excitement would have started to show.<br/>