Bearclaw Valley pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers

Brows scrunched together and he grew still, breath held as he felt her kisses. He really wasn’t sure what to do now. His own experience insisted that he should not touch her, that anything too sudden would scare her away, but… she was the one touching him now. What was he supposed to do? How should he react? Slowly, his tail started to thump against the ground and he left out a long breath, tilting his head closer to her.

This had to be okay. She was the one reaching out this time, he wasn’t rushing into anything—it was okay.

He hoped.

Convinced, his face smoothed out, expression rid of confusion whilst he looked at her. There was still a voice nagging at him from the recesses of his mind, telling him he was wrong and that he should be giving her some space right now, but he did what he could to ignore its ramblings. With but an ounce of hesitance, his mouth opened and the flower dropped out so that he could creep closer, attempting to draw his tongue across her cheek. He didn’t want to think about what had happened to her, he didn’t want to be held back by his own memories, he just wanted to be close to her again. And this time, he wouldn’t go anywhere—not long enough for anything to happen to her. He would protect her and look after her—look after them.