{Friday 29th August, 12:05}

Eugene Fahquad didn't much like Fridays. When everyone else was looking forward to the weekend, to spending time with spouses, lovers and friends, Eugene faced a weekend of desperate loneliness and boredom which pornography and beer only did so much to assuage. So he was not enjoying his lunch as much as he might have been, despite the presence of a brown parcel in his top right drawer: a new import from Japan which should provide an hour or two of stimulation to the jaded man.

Then his appetite was ruined. The door to his office opened and goddamn Crazy Perault prowled in like a goddamn lion or something. The frightening groundskeeper's pale silver eyes were gleaming with some inner light today, a strange energy crackling through them as he smiled tightly at Eugene.

"I'm taking a half day."

"What?" Eugene smiled hesitantly, wondering if this was a joke, but Declan leaned over the desk and Momma Fahquad's brown-eyed boy suddenly felt a sense of mortality.

"I'm taking a half day." Declan gave him a slow grin, resisting the urge to growl at the spineless turd. "You owe me a day. I'm taking half of it now."

"But we need not-" Eugene's words died as Declan leaned a little further forward. "Okay, okay!" He wiped his forehead as the ex-Marine or whatever the fuck he was turned on his heel and stalked back out of the room.

Declan grabbed a shower from the staff facilities area, having already prepped for today. He threw his work coveralls into the locker and picked up the duffel bag containing his clothing for later as well as a few other items. For now he was dressed in his habitual sneakers, jeans and t-shirt. So attired, he trotted out of the grounds staff area and over to the Broad Art Center, stopping only pick up lunch for two along the way.

Owns-The-Night paced swiftly through the third-floor corridors of the center, counting off door numbers under his breath. There. He spied the number Morgan had given him and knocked quietly on her studio door.

The "studios" weren't much more than large cubicles with detachable plastic plates announcing their ID number, open to the high ceiling criss-crossed with bare metal and crisp white lights. Even the doors were flimsy, insubstantial things intended more for privacy than security, and easily removed for the open house events held periodically by the university's Art Department; the cursory knock sent a tremor through the composite wood panel that caused the partitions themselves to vibrate slightly in sympathy. From within, the scrape of metal on concrete was clearly audible as something weighty was dragged across the floor.

"One sec!" Morgan called out as she finished pulling the long folding table to one side of the enclosed space, quickly tossing a sheet over the top to cover the numerous scars, splatters, and etchings that littered the surface. Somewhat self-consciously, she wiped her hands on the loose, once-green cargo pants belted around her hips; these, too, had been sacrificed on the altar of Art, being smudged and dotted as they were with ink, paint, and what might have been bleach. The brief tank top she wore, similarly adorned with the evidence of the emphatic application of paint to canvas, rode high over her stomach. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing one wore when expecting a suitor, but it was eminently more practical for her current purpose than the rest of her Stripperella attire.

She padded around the table and two small chairs which nearly filled the studio space, bare feet all but soundless on the cool concrete, and opened the door to greet her... model? Friend? Date? The precise nature of their relationship had become increasingly muddled, and she tried not to think too much about it, but instead smiled as she welcomed the groundskeeper in.

"Hey. C'mon in."

A simple wooden easel stood against the rear wall, with half-finished canvases on either side. Next to them, a panel of wood that looked suspiciously like a cabinet door, down to the small holes where screws had once borne hinges and a handle, awaited a coat of primer. Her messenger bag sat in the corner, but apart from the temporary furnishings she'd brought in, the studio was largely empty. Only the partitions were decorated at all, and they were positively covered already with drawings and anatomical studies. Most were quick gesture drawings that captured only the simplest of details or movements, since they were, after all, intended only for reference.

She stepped back, allowing him to walk through the narrow entrance as she picked up her travel mug from the floor near one of the chairs.

"Make yourself at home, I guess," she shrugged, smiling and taking a nerve-soothing sip of warm, caramel-scented coffee.

Silver eyes smiled into green ones as the werewolf slipped past her in the narrow space, setting the brown-paper bag on a chair and his duffel on the floor. He wandered around the studio space, seeming far too big for the cramped surroundings. Like a wolf in a pen. she thought as Declan quickly ran out of ground to cover and looked at the walls, studying the various bits of paper tacked up all over the cheap partitioning. He gave every impression to her of a dog (wolf) turning around and around as it tried to find a spot to settle down in. He glanced around at Morgan with a slight quirk of his lips.

"I brought lunch, in case you hadn't eaten." he said softly, those pale eyes studying her attire and evidently approving of what they saw. His gaze lingered on the smooth skin revealed by her tank top for a heartbeat, then swept up to her eyes as he smiled, unabashed. The scents of paint and the various other chemicals artists use in their craft were strong, but not as overpowering as he had feared, probably due to the open space above the studio walls. She looks good enough to eat... off. he thought to himself with an inner smile. Turns of phrase that were innocent for humans would not do for an Uratha to use, even internally. "So. How do we do this? Never modelled before." He smiled wider at her.

The sweep of his gaze didn't escape her notice; how could it, when those silvery orbs seemed to catch every available glimmer of light? The responding flush that crept conspicuously into her cheeks and across her chest added a roseate hue to her skin, an intimation of heat beneath the surface. Far from being embarrassed, however, Morgan returned the smile, obviously pleased.

"Well, most models work nude," she began slowly, nudging the door shut with the side of her foot. "Clothes are a distraction, because really the artist is just looking for the lines of the body, not so much at the body itself. It doesn't matter whether the person is thin, thick, pretty or plain, because they're just a set of shapes and contours when they pose, and each body is a new challenge. Everyone's parts are in the same places, they're just proportioned differently, so it's less a study in attractiveness than in how all those parts fit together."

She took another sip of coffee, her eyes moving over him thoughtfully, in much the way they had at the party. She was assessing him, rather than giving him a once-over, and the sudden sobriety in her expression formed a curious contrast with the increase in pheromone levels produced merely by his proximity. She was obviously interested physically, but her mind was too busy mulling over possible poses to consider it.

"Typically, poses are held for about twenty to thirty minutes or so, with maybe two or three poses during a session. They obviously start to get uncomfortable after a while, even if you're lying down. I'm not sure what your comfort level is, and we can just do parts modeling if that's your preference."

"Hell, I've crouched down for two hours in a crevice about the size of the space under that table before when lying in wait for Taliban." He smiled at her as he started to peel off his shirt. "Being raised in the sticks has some pluses. My uncle used to take me hunting near as soon as I could walk, so shutting up and staying put were early-learning skills for me." He dropped the shirt onto his duffel, then unfastened his jeans. A quick rustle and some kicking-off of sneakers later, and they too were dropped atop his bag.

He straightened up and turned to face her, the scars on his back and stomach angry red lines now, and other than his name-scar and Rangers tattoo, the only marks easily visible on his skin.

"So." He smiled at her, not at all uncomfortable. There was a hint of humor and flirtation in his eyes as they looked into hers. "How do ya want me?"

Morgan tried to hold it back. Really, she did. She knew it was awful, and most men would have cringed. The moment was utterly inappropriate, but as he stood there smiling and quite, quite nude, she found herself completely, shamefully unable to keep from laughing. Perhaps it was something to do with his complete lack of self-consciousness, standing naked in a cramped studio cubicle, or maybe it was the innuendo in his little quip that shocked a bit of humor into her. Either way, it bubbled up inside, threatening to spill out from behind her lips until, finally, peals of helplessly mirthful sound filled the air, echoing off cold stone below and metal high above. Tears streamed from her eyes as she collapsed onto the edge of a chair, waving her hand ineffectually in the air; incoherent as she was, it might have been a plea for patience, or interpretive dance.

With Morgan, it was often difficult to tell.

Declan just looked at her for a long moment, his puzzlement then giving way to a smile as she burst into giggles, then full-blown silvery laughter. He looked skywards and shook his head in mock impatience as she collapsed into the chair, acting for all the world as though he would never understand women. It only briefly occurred to him that she might be mocking him, but her laughter sounded purer than that. It was laughter of the soul, and it was also infectious. Grinning, he padded barefoot over to the chair she had collapsed in and crouched down a few feet away, gazing at her with his head canted to one side.

"Are you alright? Drink of water or something?" The grin on his face was probably not helping Morgan recover her composure in the slightest, especially as he was still buck-naked and completely at ease with it. The harsh overhead lights played over the tanned skin of his back and shoulders, dancing in his eyes as he chuckled along with her, a husky bass accompaniment to the music of her merriment.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, sorry," Morgan gasped breathlessly between giggles. "Sorry, I just..." She forced herself to exhale slowly, blinking back tears as she tried to regain some semblance of composure. "Whoo. I guess you just caught me off guard, there. Point: Declan." She traced a short vertical line through the air, as if marking on an invisible scoreboard. Limply, she slumped back in her chair, peering about the room while she caught her breath. She grinned at him long enough to let her eyes flicker over the view his position afforded her, then shook her head, still chuckling softly.

"Well, for anything but standing, there's the table. Usually there's a carpeted sort of deal, but this is the best I could come up with today. Most of the classrooms are locked..." Frowning suddenly, she drummed her fingertips on her knees as her bare toes tapped quietly on the cold floor. "Let's try standing first, if that's all right? I think I've got a towel in here somewhere we can throw on the floor if it's too chilly." She made a mental note to grab a space heater the next time someone modeled for her, just in case; the cooling system never seemed to shut off on this floor.

Not that the cold seems to be bothering him too much, her rebellious brain was kind enough to point out.

"No. Not too chilly at all." Declan was still watching her as she recovered, his eyes glinting. He spoke the truth, although the air conditioning gave the air a definite chill he felt warm. Very warm, in fact. He realised it was his proximity to her: his body was trying to tell him something. Hey! Quit it! he told his hind-brain. His Wolf just laughed, a growling chuckle. *What's the matter, cub? Growing pains?* The problem was Morgan was not just looking too damn good, flushed with laughter and emotion, but smelling too damn good as well.

Declan stood up and moved to the center of the room, trying to feel the cold air as a blessing on his skin. Man and Wolf. Remember? He told himself/his Wolf self. *You think this is all me? Stop being a fool.* his subconscious growled back. Modelling. I'm here to model. To spend time with her. Let's get the game face on before we send the poor girl running.

He turned towards her with another smile, trying to ignore his animal side and doing a damned bad job of it. "So, at the risk of another laughing fit: how do you want me... to stand?"

At attention, soldier... Mrow.

"Good question," was what she'd meant to say as she rose from her chair, shaking her head as if to clear such thoughts away with a gesture. Unfortunately, the words formed by her lips were precisely those that had sauntered wickedly through the forefront of her mind, right down to the vampy feline murr of approval.

It took the rest of her a moment to catch up, but the precise instant it happened was obvious. Her eyes shot open wide, and the soft smack of her hand flying up to cover her mouth preceded a fresh flood of color into her cheeks. Oh, god. Oh, fuck, I can't believe I just said that. Okay, okay. Damage control. Just keep moving forward. Don't even stop to talk about it. Forward. Briskly, she put her hands on his shoulders, turning him blessedly away from her. This solved the problem of having to look him in the eye, and gave her ample time to try to extract her foot from her mouth without him watching.

"Oh, good, good. This'll do fine. Good muscle definition along the back, yeah. Actually, could you put your hands behind your head? Hope that's not going to be too uncomfortable for you, and we can break whenever. Just let me get my things together here, and I'll go ahead and get started. Shouldn't be more than half an hour or so, if you can manage that long. Try not to rock forward if you can help it? Talking's fine, just keep in mind I'm a bit..." Her voice trailed off amid the sounds of zippers being pulled, and paper rustling. "Was it this one? No. ...Yeah, okay. Here we go," she mumbled quietly. "...distracted," she finally finished, more loudly, weaseling a slim spiral-bound sketchbook out of her bag and fishing a few pencils from one of the pockets.

Declan's eyes went large, and a dark flush ran under his skin from collarbone to hairline as Morgan's words hit home. The wild tone of appreciative lust underscoring her voice was highlighted fully in that final "Mrow", sending the warrior's careful attempts at self-control into a tailspin. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a gleeful howl responded to Morgan's tone, a howl echoed in his eyes as he watched the young Enchantress approach him, her face flaming as she tried to cover up her slip. She didn't meet his eyes, which was probably best from the point of view of getting any art done today. Her hands felt deliciously cool on his heated skin as she gently nudged him into turning around, touching his arms here and there as he linked his fingers behind his head in response to her request. A low rumble sounded in his chest as the faintest waft of her brushed over him, but he kept himself under control and resisted the urge to turn around and step into that sweet scent.

He stood motionless, poised with his arms up and hands behind his head. The pose threw his musculature into higher definition, highlighting the absence of spare flesh. The corded muscles on his shoulders and back flowed under the tanned skin down into his waist and buttocks, the only marring of that smooth expanse twin parallel angry red scars in the small of his back. He felt little discomfort as he stood still, at least for now.

The next twenty minutes passed in relative quiet, aside from the faint echoes of a distant radio being played in another studio and the soft, whispery scratching of Morgan's pencils across the lightly textured paper. Her subject could almost guess what she was drawing; short, rapid strokes rendered the external oblique muscles and the shadows beneath the scapulae while longer, more deliberate rasps of graphite indicated the slight arc of his spine or delineated the smooth flow of the Latissimus Dorsi tapering inward over his ribcage. To his credit, despite the chill, the lack of conversation, and being forced to hold one pose for nearly half an hour without doing something, the Rahu was surprisingly cooperative.

So intent was she on her subject, on capturing the chiseled form of one more predator than man, that the sudden, insistent beep of her cell phone startled the pencil right out of her hand.

"Jeeeeeeesus H. Christ!" she muttered vehemently, digging the offending gadget out of her pocket and turning off the pre-set alarm. "Sorry, I sort of lost track of time there," the girl offered apologetically, actually looking at him for the first time since he'd taken up his current pose. "You doing okay? Want to stretch for a minute, maybe get a bite of that takeout before it's frozen solid?" It occurred to her that she'd be dining with a naked man/wolf, and quickly following on the heels of that oddly appealing thought was: Huh. Maybe I should bring a robe next time? She slid the sketchbook off her lap, uncrossing her legs and getting up out of the chair for a nice long stretch herself.

Nah.

Cheshire cats could not have grinned half so deviously.

He sighed and stretched his arms out wide, then flexed his shoulders and back, feeling a tingle as partially-reduced circulation was swiftly restored. Fortunately, the cold air and the impersonal nature of posing as a model had cooled him off a bit. That is, until he turned around and saw Morgan in mid-stretch herself.

"Uh. Yeah, something to eat would be good." He stretched a bit more as he stepped over to the lunch bag. "I wasn't sure what you felt like, so I got two steak sandwiches with everything." He peered into the bag, then smiled over at her. "Be warned, it ain't pretty."

Grinning, he handed her a wrapped sandwich large enough to choke a Bengal tiger and a handful of napkins. A can of coke quickly followed, and he dug out his own sandwich and a small carton of milk before taking a seat on the floor atop his clothes. The Uratha was plainly ravenous. Two bites, and a quarter of the sandwich was gone before Morgan had gotten comfortable herself, the bread and meat sheared away by white teeth. He didn't growl as he ate, though he was gazing over at her as he chewed the second mouthful. The first mouthful hadn't rated much chewing, it seemed. He paused after swallowing to lick a blob of onion off his lower lip, then smiled at her.

"So how'd I turn out?"

Wow. When he said 'everything,' he wasn't kidding.

Gingerly, she scraped away nearly everything that wasn't meat, cheese, onion, or pepper, and tucked it back into the wrapper. He was nearly halfway done with his sandwich by the time she'd taken the first bite, but when she finally got everything arranged the way she wanted and tore into it, her eyes almost rolled back in her head. "Mmmmm," she groaned blissfully, emphatically nodding her approval of his choice. "'s good!" she managed to exclaim happily between bites. With the oversized sandwich in one hand she settled down on the floor, tailor-style, and dragged the open sketchbook off her chair to show him the drawing.

It was unpolished, and unfinished, as studies were wont to be, but the proportions were correct and the musculature clearly-defined. Though not a masterpiece, it was certainly competent, and she'd even included faint indications of scarring by erasing jagged lines into the shadows of the lower back. The head and thighs were vague shapes, fading into the white of the page along with his arms, the forms being only roughly outlined; she'd either run out of time, or she wasn't as interested in the rest of him.

"Might have you sit for the next one. Would probably be more comfortable. Is another twenty good for you?" It was easier by far to distract herself with food and inane questions than to acknowledge the metaphorical wolf in the room, particularly one as intriguingly unclothed as this one. She tore into the sandwich again with the zeal of an unemployed college student being given a free meal as she waited for his response.

"Sure. Twenty sitting is better than twenty standing." He smiled a little around a mouthful of sandwich as he peered at her study of his form. "I've never worked with a model. Always just took my time and drew whatever stayed still long enough. Sometimes stuff from memory." He took note of what she had scraped off the sandwich, and filed that away for later use. Still, her bliss on tasting the food was rewarding for him, and he smiled wider as he watched her eat. Damn sure somebody had better feed her better than she fed herself. He finished off his own sandwich and took a long drink of milk from the carton, waiting for Morgan to finish her lunch likewise.

Tossing the trash back into the paper bag, he got his feet under him and rose smoothly. "Okay, so I guess I'm getting the chair this time?" He grinned down at her. "I'm in your hands, girl. How should I sit?"

Morgan had almost finished chewing the last bite of her sandwich, having stuffed it into her mouth quickly so she could get back to work, when he rose up in front of her. He stood up, tall and naked and proud, uncaring of the cool air on his skin or the hot eyes that followed. If nothing else had told her that she was dealing with a wild thing wearing the shape of a man, this would, the realization that it wasn't the nakedness that was unnatural for him, but the lack of it. She stopped chewing, then nodded, swallowed and cracked open the soda he'd left. Another swallow, this one icy and carbonated, gave her time to think and breathe in the room that suddenly seemed half its previous size.

"Well, the chair's fine, or the table, or even the floor. Really, it's up to you." Bracing one hand on the floor, she got up, brushing her hands briskly over the seat of her pants before retrieving the can of cola. Suddenly, she brightened. "Hey, try this. Might keep your feet up, if you don't fall over." With her free hand, she slid the desk chair back from the table, its wheels rattling noisily across the floor. "Should let you lean back, and you can put your feet up on the table if you like. Once you get comfortable, we can start again. I'll let you be in control this time, since I made you stand there and freeze before." An apologetic smile flitted across her lips before she took another sip from the can.

He sat down into the chair and shifted a little, feeling the balance of it under him before tilting back and setting his legs on the corner edge of the table, one ankle crossed over the other. He folded his hands behind his head again, giving Morgan a quizzical look. "Like this?" The pose made the muscles of his chest and stomach stand out nicely.

He grinned at her like a naked devil in Eden, emboldened by the heat of her gaze as it rested on him, and stretched his arms out once langourously before returning his hands to link behind his head. His silver eyes were equal parts humor, playfulness, and challenge as he got comfortable before her.

Oh, I'm sure that pose could be improved upon. A long, slow whistle echoed through her mind as she drank in the sight of the deliciously tanned body sprawled languidly in the chair. Her fingertips tingled, anticipating the feel of hard muscle rippling beneath sun-warmed skin, and she drew in a shaky breath before smiling.

"Yep. That's... just about perfect," she conceded, pulling up the other chair and crossing one ankle over the opposite thigh. With her sketchbook balanced just so on her leg, she exhaled and looked back up at him. The intensity that flickered in the depths of her eyes didn't waver in the slightest, but, now that he could watch her as she worked, he could see that it changed somehow. Her gaze went from heated to direct almost within the span of time it took to press pencil to paper, and even the shift in her posture changed, if only subtly, with uncanny swiftness. She took him in again with a slow, deliberate rake of the eyes, and without the slightest hint of embarrassment, began to draw.

The blunted tip of the soft-leaded pencil skimmed easily over the paper, forming first the rough outlines of the chair and a man-shaped figure within it. Every so often, she glanced back up at him, referring back to the near-flawless specimen of primal masculinity before her and making corrections as necessary with a stubby grey eraser reshaped time and again to suit her needs. By and large, however, she stayed silent, focused intently on her work as it emerged slowly from the page.

He watched her work, much more comfortable than he was before. He liked the way she had looked at him, and liked the way she could switch to being able to concentrate. A man capable of intense concentration himself, he admired that ability in others to turn off outside distractions and focus on a task.

He stayed silent, just watching her face and eyes. Now and then she met his gaze, but with admirable self-control she didn't let herself get sucked into it, instead averting her eyes just enough to stave off disaster and focus instead on the job at hand.

Damn, but she gets more beautiful all the time. He mused as he watched her draw. Smart, sexy, and down to earth under the stripper-wear. Mind you, the stripper-wear adds some appeal at times. Okay, most of the time. He grinned slightly as he regarded her. But she makes pretty much anything look good. And smell good. Mmmhmm. A soft rumble in the depth of his chest was the only outward sign of his rising ardour. Well, perhaps not the only rising sign, Declan realised with a near-start. Okay. Cold thoughts. Think about how Fuckwad smells all the time. BIG turn off.

The problem was, imagination was not much contest for reality. If Declan had been a religious man, he would have prayed that Morgan would either a) not see/notice or b) not care. He tried to relax and focus on being a good model, despite his body's betrayal.

God, or whatever passed for His Divine Presence at UCLA, was not with Declan Perault as he reclined quiescent (or, at least, most of him did) in the office chair. In fact, He was probably busy watching Muppets episodes on YouTube as the werewolf attempted to keep his burgeoning libido in check. Or maybe He was creating a universe somewhere, or inventing Spring. After all, He had tides to regulate, comets to direct, etc., etc.

He, therefore, had nothing to do with the fact that Morgan did, indeed, notice.

She couldn't help but notice. Oddly, it wasn't the defiant insistence of his body on announcing its intentions that caught her eye, but the involuntary motion of the salute associated with it.

"Mr. Perault," she murmured, resolutely keeping her eyes at chest level despite the near-palpable surge of warmth beneath her skin and the traitorous darkening of her eyes. "Believe me. I've got no problem making a study of all your many interesting parts, but I'm going to need you to keep them from moving, if you can help it. I'm sure you've got the matter well in hand..." She paused deliberately. "But you are making it incredibly difficult to concentrate." Only the faintest twitch of her lips betrayed the smile she was trying to hold back, but she managed to keep her pencil moving, sketching out less prominent details to keep her hands busy. It wouldn't do to let them go idle, after all- not when the temptation to occupy them with other pursuits was still so prevalent.

He tried. He really did. But Mama Nature was proving to be a bitch today.

The only real mistake he made was taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. This, unfortunately, gave the werewolf a nice large lungful of the mingled scents in the air. Including Morgan's. His pupils dilated so wide that his eyes seemed to be black discs with silver edges, and he managed not to twitch and growl only through an effort of extreme will.

Okay. Calm down. The Wolf snarled and whined against the bars, scenting Female and wanting to couple. The Man in contrast relaxed somewhat, breathing shallowly as he kept the beast on the leash. But narrowed lust-darkened eyes focused on Morgan as that leash was pulled taut and his maleness finished 'waking up'.

"Sorry about this." His voice was deeper than usual, barely audible undertones of soft growling heard on the lower notes. "For what it's worth, you make it hard for me too. To concentrate, I mean." A faint flush was darkening the tanned skin under his chest and neck, and one corner of his mouth twitched upwards in a smile. "I've got myself under control. For now." This last was uttered part-seriously, part-teasingly, his gaze direct as he looked at her.

"Good thing, too," she quipped, her voice slightly huskier than it had been as she dared to make eye contact. "Or we'd have an impromptu performance art piece in the making." With visible effort, she let out a slow, shaky breath and reminded herself that this was a professional undertaking. He was just modeling. Arousal was a natural response with some people when they were being observed, and it had nothing to do with him. Or her. Just circumstance, and nothing more. She did her best to ignore the insistent waves of heat rippling through her abdomen and the urgings of her own damnably mortal flesh, concentrating instead on the work at hand. Even so, she felt the cool air of the room as almost stiflingly hot, and every nerve in her body was fairly tingling at the very closeness of him.

Just draw, Morgan. Just fucking draw, and don't say a word. Not. A. Word.

She bit her lower lip, physically preventing herself from saying anything else provocative- unintentionally or otherwise- until it was finished.

He also stayed quiet, the charged atmosphere subsiding gradually to a pleasant frisson between the two as Declan transferred the weight of his gaze to a nice blank piece of wall. He could still feel her nearness, a lure as old as Male and Female that caused his heart to pound savagely against his ribs like the drumbeat of Life itself. The air felt warm, as though a full moon was shining down on him, filling nerve and sinew with pale fire. His greatest urge right now was to leap over the table, to press his blazing skin against her cool pale flesh in a desperate bid to quench this quicksilver heat that tormented his body.

But he stayed still. He stayed motionless in that small space as he breathed in her scent and listened to her breathing. And he tried not to go out of his mind.

The next fifteen minutes, for Morgan, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Time was, indeed, an illusion. Every second that ticked past marked the turning of an eon, and the space between heartbeats was an infinite void in which the universe itself might have been born and died. The sound of the pencil lead scratching across the paper might well have been the ceaseless notations of some arcane Chronicler observing the rise and fall of civilizations that occurred in what she knew, logically, was only a quarter of an hour. Finally, though... Finally, it was done, and she rolled her chair back, away from the danger zone of rampant pheromones and carnal temptation.

Exhilarated at having survived with her sanity more or less intact, and without any destruction of property due to overzealous sensual indulgences, she rewarded herself with a long drink of soda and a long, full-body stretch as she rose from her chair. With arms up high over her head, she flexed her fingers and toes blissfully before relaxing again.

"Well... That's done. Think you're up for another one? Show doesn't start until eight, but if you're getting restless, we can take a break."

He stood and stretched in a similar fashion to her, reaching up and out with his arms and twisting his body this way and that before arching his back. In truth, the pose had not been that uncomfortable, but the deliberate activity gave Declan something to focus on other than the sparks flying around the room. He was somewhat embarrassed at his lack of control now that the sexually-charged atmosphere had become a little more comfortable.

"Er, yeah. That is, I'm up for another pose. It's what I'm here for, right?" He smiled a little nervously. "Look, Morgan. I... ah... I'm sorry about what happened. Really. Doesn't usually happen, even around beautiful women. It's weird for me..." He stopped, then shrugged, a faint blush darkening his tanned face. "I just don't want you to think that you're in any kind of danger from me, okay? I'm not a pervert or... Or some kind of mindless animal." The last sentence was said quietly, more a mantra than a statement as Declan looked into Morgan's jade-green eyes.

It took Morgan a few moments of staring into those bright argent eyes to remember why Declan didn't quite have a grasp on the issue of sex, but when she finally did, the grin that sprang to her lips was easy and warm.

"Why are you apologizing? Seriously. So you had a hard-on," she teased playfully, tipping the soda can up to her lips again. "Big deal. It's actually kind of flattering, and, no, it doesn't make you anything other than a red-blooded male. There's nothing perverse or mindless about being turned-on, it's just a natural part of being alive. Besides, it's not like I've got any room to be shocked." Grinning unashamedly, she shrugged. "Sex is one of the best things in life, if there's passion behind it and you're not just going through the motions. It's definitely one of my favorite activities, anyway. It's a good way to work off tension, get rid of stress, and, hell. It's just fun."

Canting her head slightly to one side, she laughed quietly, watching him work through his discomfort.

"It's a moment between two people, sharing each other and the time you have. It doesn't have to mean anything more than that- not forever, or maybe not even the next day. It just means opening yourself up to possibility, to a connection with someone else, and enjoying what you can give, and what you get in return. That's all. Nothing strange about it."

He listened.

Head tilted in unconscious mimicry of Morgan's, Declan listened as she explained sex. What it meant. What it was to her. More importantly, what his urges meant to her. "Nothing perverse or mindless... Natural part of being alive... kind of flattering... hell, it's just fun..."

His discomfort eased as she went on. What Morgan said, and the manner in which she said it, was... liberating. It was something he had been struggling with ever since that first night under the crescent moon, a part of the slumbering Wolf that had never truly awakened with his First Change. Lack of experience, lack of insight and never having had any 'talks' with his peers beyond sitting on the fringes of barrack-room bragging sessions and laughing to