Emberwood [m] But if you get me out, you get a show

He was doing his best not to, but Dusty Rose still had feelings about this new development. Obviously, it could not be kept a secret — not unless the wolves around them were idiots — but Dusty Rose could not help feeling that this was something Reverie very much wanted to hide from the rest of the pack. That was okay because it was the coywolf's natural inclination to hide the things that were important to him, lest they be stolen away by coveters or detractors.

Still. A guy had to wonder, didn't he?

"Whatcha thinking?" he asked her, shifting to make a better pillow of himself. Their movement disturbed the bed of leaflitter he'd constructed, and the coywolf paused to delicately lift the bird skull from the detritus and place it on his other side. Then his head swiveled back to Reverie.

Since she was thinking about other things, too, Dusty Rose did not feel so bad about the direction of his own thoughts. These gifts were another thing that made this situation so sticky. It was what'd kept him single and celibate for all his life until now.

He hated the idea of someone wanting something from him. Or rather, he hated the idea of giving it to them. And his own Wanting had never quite been enough to make him see it as an equal exchange. Apparently, flowers and bird skulls and a dance or two was all it took to shore up. There was something about even that that didn't sit well with him.

He didn't wanna be cheap, was all. And he didn't wanna be paid for it and he certainly didn't want to not be compensated. The whole thing was just a little confusing. Just a little distressing. He didn't know why he kept at it, then, except of course he knew why.

He wanted to fuck. And, for better or for worse, he wanted to fuck Reverie. Which gave her a power over him that he was emphatically opposed to. Except for the part, of course, where he wasn't opposed at all.

Wasn't that some shit?

Dusty Rose wanted to be angry about it. He wanted to be a little huffy about it, at least. Instead he forgot all about his reservations every time he saw her, and even now, given plenty of time and brain power to remember said reservations, he was choosing to keep quiet.

He'd just rather hear about her problems. His own didn't want to be solved.