Hushed Willows as spring opens (touching, skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

Now the male did his best to resist her charms, regarding her with a fond crinkle to the corners of his eyes. What a sad and dissonant irony it was that he was thinking nearly the same things: that he could never truly be enough for this fine girl, that he would let her down, that she would be left unsatisfied and disillusioned with him in the end. What sad and dissonant irony that he thought all these things, and yet misinterpreted entirely the words she spoke next.

Kincaid laughed; he had rarely heard something so funny. "Oh, darlin'," he said with a shake of his head that was both amused and contrite. "If you truly think that, then I know you're the one who won't be sated. I ain't as good as I once was." But, he supposed he was as good once as he ever was.

Although he felt a good deal of desire to prove this sad fact to her then and there, Kin thought he recognized her words as a graceful out more than an actual sharing of her fears. Perhaps she was not quite ready — it fit with what he was learning of her, and with the true timidity he sometimes saw interspersed in beguiling coquettishness. Besides, he did not think he was quite ready, either.

"I am hungry, as it happens," he admitted with a de-escalating swing of his tail. "You wanna hunt with me?"