Page 106 of A Soul to Touch

She knew she was deeply infatuated with him.

“Yes, I know this,” Faunus chuckled as he grazed his claws over her scalp, down the edge of her jaw, and lifted her chin. “You like it when I ride you.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She sighed as she lifted herself to straddle his chest. “I mean that I like you, and I want you to stay here with me.”

He tilted his head in obvious puzzlement, which was something he didn’t do often. “I am already staying here with you.”

Ugh!Why was this so damn hard?

“I mean like... fuck, I don’t know.” She gripped the side of her head. “It’d be weird calling you a boyfriend since you’re a Duskwalker, but basically the equivalent of that?”

A fuckbuddy was one thing. That was just sex without emotion, but she wanted more from Faunus.

“I will be whatever you want me to be, Mayumi. I have heard that term before. I know it means something more than what we are doing now.” He scratched the tip of his claw at the side of his snout. “But wouldn’t you want something like this from another human?”

Despite his show of awkwardness, she thought it might be half false considering his orbs turned a brighter yellow rather than a glow of reddish-pink to highlight a Duskwalker ‘blush’.

“People are complicated,” she groaned while letting her head fall back, feeling the strain up the column of her throat. “I have dated both men and women, and they annoy the absolute shit out of me. Someone cheats while I’m gone, another just wants my money or protection, and then there are the few who have all these emotions. As much as I’ve tried, I’ve just never beenable to be myself. I’m supposed to be solemn and think about the cruelty in the world. Don’t get me wrong, I do that a lot, but sometimes I just want to have fun for the hell of it. But you’re the kind of person I don’t have to hide any of who or what I want from. Do you know how freeing that is?”

“I am not a person, Mayumi.” His tone was almost bitter.

Mayumi dropped her head forward. “You are to me. You have an identity. It’s just unique.”

Faunus pinched her cheek and pulled on it. “I find your strangeness cute,” he admitted. “No other human would ever be like this with me. It’s odd that you are.”

He was right, and she knew it too.

She let herself fall until her hands were buried in the snow above his backward curling ram-horns, her hair flicking down one side of her face.

“So how about it?” she asked with a grin.

His arms fell into the snow as he rolled his skull and let it fall to the side. He sounded exasperated as he said, “If we must.”

The bastard is making it out as if he doesn’t want to!

She would have smacked him in the chest, but she knew he was just poking fun at her. He was lucky she was really fond of him.

Jerk.

After waking up and begrudgingly crawling to her feet, Mayumi made it about halfway to her front door before a strong arm wrapped around her waist and tugged. She let out a surprised squawk as she fell backwards – into a set of large arms and a warm lap.

She’d thought she’d managed to get up without waking Faunus, but she guessed not.

One of his hands clasped the outside of her bare thigh to hold her to him while the other cradled the side of her neck and jaw.

“Why do you do this?” he asked as he nuzzled his jaw against her cheek. His voice was even more gravelly than normal, considering it was groggy and sleep-filled.

“Do what?” she asked back while lifting her chin, allowing him to pet her however he wanted.

“Why do you throw yourself into the snow?”

Since their conversation yesterday, Faunus seemed to be even more affectionate with her. He purred and rubbed against her a little more often.

She did it back, allowing herself to be pampered.

“I struggle to wake up fully, especially in winter.” Her eyelidslowered in laziness as she took in his warmth. She still wasn’t fully awake, and he was threatening to pull her back under, even now. “I’ve been doing it since the guild. If I didn’t have tea, I’d throw myself into the snow to become alert. Otherwise, I walk around with half a brain for the first hour of my day.”

“Don’t you have tea?”

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