A habit of Rin's was lowering her head demurely before saying some simple little thing. Her hand brushed at the strands falling over her face, grazing the hair but not sweeping back to reveal her eyes completely. "I want…"

"Courage, Rin. Let me hear it."

Her nervousness seemed to recede a little. "I want you to sit there."

"Yes," he said, most agreeable. "Go on."

Now Rin steeled her nerves. "With your hands down at your sides."

"Hn?" Sesshomaru leaned back against the trunk of the pine tree. "Why," he wondered. "Can't I touch you?"

Rin shook her head. "It makes me weak," she admitted, "and I want to see everything I felt that time ago in the dark." Wood was thrown on the fire, and when she turned around to him her brows rose. "Oh," she said. "What face is that? Do you want to touch me?"

"Constantly."

"Then why haven't you been?"

"Because 'slow' you told me. 'Kiss me more'—that's you."

Rin considered him for a moment, before climbing onto a tense and tortured lap, where then she considered him some more—and the ever-increasing rise and fall of his chest. "Slow means not at all?"