What a complicated, ridiculous, self-destructive feeling! Afraid to ask for what I want. Afraid to own up to my own desires. Driven by circumscription of nurture, not nature. I’d come to Dublin wearing shackles on my bonds. I’d been all nurture.

He was all nature—trying to teach me to change.

Like I said: degrees of denial.

He’d leaned into me, in that garage, sex and barely leashed violence, and when I’d felt his hard-on, it made me feel so alive and wild inside that later I’d had to peel off my bikini and take care of myself in the shower again and again, fantasizing a very different outcome in his garage. One that had taken all night.

I’d told myself it was because I’d spent the day in close proximity to a death-by-sex Fae. Another lie.

He’d unchained me and let me go.

If I were chained to that beam now, I’d have no problem telling him exactly what I wanted. And it wouldn’t involve unchaining me. At least not at first.

I focus through my tears.

Grass. Trees. Him.

He lies facedown. I need to go to him.

The earth is wet, muddy from last night’s rain, from his blood.

I need to clean him. He shouldn’t be messy. Barrons doesn’t like to be messy. He’s meticulous; a sophisticated, exquisite dresser. Although I’ve straightened his lapel a few times, it was only for the excuse of touching him. Stepping into his personal space. Exercising familiarity to underscore that I had the right. Unpredictable as a hungry lion, he might be feared by everyone else, but he never ripped out my throat, only licked me, and, if his tongue was a little rough sometimes, it was worth it to walk beside the king of the jungle.