That gentle caress is so exquisitely painful he almost wishes she wouldn't. If it's only going to be ripped away again, he'd rather not have it -- except that's not true at all, not even a little bit. Even if he knew he'd only be starving for it again, he's completely at the mercy of those touches, the ones that remind him of why he tried so hard to be better in the first place.

Omega remembers having to learn how to touch her. It used to make his muscles itch, instinctively wanting to rend flesh but not wanting to hurt her; tenderness was a conscious effort, and clumsy, graceless. Perceiving his own inadequacy at something that meant so much for some reason had infuriated him, which in turn only sabotaged his efforts, and the vortex of his own savagery would have swallowed the whole mountain if not for her. He still doesn't know how she worked that kind of magic.

His fingers tighten between hers and he nuzzles her hand again, lips parting against her thumb, remembering the last time she kissed him -- not so terribly long ago, only a few hours. The sweetness of it leaves a burn on his skin, and he wants so badly to pull her into his arms again and curl them both up around each other the way they used to do. But this is already so much more than she's allowed him to have in weeks. He wouldn't risk it now.