#maren thinking this is a romantic hehe haha cute moment

[anthrcpophagi]

He promises to stop her, to punish her if things go too far but it isn't enough. Maren knows the way things go once she succumbs to her hunger. No amount of screaming or clawing or pleading would be enough to make her stop. It wouldn't end until his body was no longer intact or his lungs filled with blood and fear. It wasn't a subtle slope to traverse, but she couldn't say as much without confessing the extent of her afflictions.

His eyes are hypnotizing, placing a wicked spell upon her, one that Maren isn't entirely eager to fall under. And yet she doesn't look away, can't bring herself to break eye contact, not when he was looking at her with such hope. He didn't understand, he couldn't. As much as he thought he knew, Maren was sure he had no idea what he was asking of her. If she let herself open up, if she tore down her walls for him, there would be no going back. She could tear the flesh from his bones with ease, but there would be no way to reattach it when the guilt came rushing in.

She trembles beneath his touch, a mixture of fear and pining swirling in her veins. A deadly concoction, a fatal cocktail of emotions that could only end badly. She missed this intimacy, this intoxicating rush of warmth only invoked by another human. Despite her apprehensions, Maren leans into the feeling, head tilting into his palm and relishing in his touch. He swears his resilience and, although Maren is inclined to believe anything he says when he's this close to her, she can't be completely sure.

"I know you are." Her voice wavers as she closes her eyes, trying to still her erratically beating heart. Mental resilience didn't mean anything if she managed to sink her teeth into him. A flame's heat didn't matter when it was so easily snuffed out entirely.

"I want to show you." Her words are breathy and she means every once. His closeness was making her tipsy enough to begin to bend, but she knew she had to remain firm lest she risk snapping entirely. "But I can't. Not like this."

When she opens her eyes again, there's a flicker of something stronger, something far less angelic lingering behind the usual deep brown hues of her irises. She swallows hard, garnering the courage to speak before asking in a weak whisper. "Are you going to kiss me?"

it isn't hurt, not really — not just. in-between the gnawing, the gums, the grinding pressure and inevitable crunch of cartilage, severing of nerves and punctured skin, sits salivating laps, tenderness, lust and unhurried romance. there is more to enjoy than a private wounding, and oliver murmurs this, needlessly desperate: "you won't." though their bodies have come into heavy contact, there is much to learn. in the same way he arrives new to maren's tendency, she sidles in foreign to his desires. she may assume him plainly masochistic; a halfway suicidal thing deranged and needy for the clamp of her teeth, the burn of her stomach. he suggests otherwise, "i'll stop you before you do — or I'll punish you if you try." and morbidly, oliver communicates it like romantic gesture, thumbstrokes running like rivulets across her knuckles. "i won't let it get too far. i only ask you to try. to open up for me, spread like i sense you hope to." she wills the sentiment from him with the doe of her eyes. sensuality made all the more enticing when her façade is wet and wide, her sweetness like cherry garnish for a repressed brutality. he's entirely smitten, drawn like a man obsessed. it's early, but oliver doesn't doubt the tingle. he's friend to it, companion to the thrum that ripples through him layer by layer. he must have her, is the point. "i'm resilient." (hardy, malleable, and naive as it is to think; oliver thinks himself even invincible at this point, heart hammering too quick to catch hesitation. struck too accurately to consider anything but the tending to his desire.) he corrals her instead, scoops her palm by palm along maren's waist, then snaking further to the low of her spine. his eyes are almost frightfully blue, nails digging like measuring pins through the soft folds of her clothes. "...i am," oliver murmurs, reassuring then when the distance between them shrinks into inevitable intimacy. he moves to woo her, evidently — left hand abandoning its possessive grip to cradle maren by flustered cheek.