I stared at it. The last time he'd led me through summer woods had been the night he killed Marcus. The night when everything had gone wrong.
"I don't think I can take another stroll through the woods, Richard."
His hand closed into a fist. "I know I handled it badly that night, Anita. You'd never seen me shapeshift, and I shifted on top of you, while you couldn't get away. I've thought about that. I couldn't have chosen a worse way to introduce you to what I was. I know that now, and I'm sorry I scared you."
Scared didn't quite cover it, but I didn't say it out loud. He was apologizing, and I was going to accept it. "Thank you, Richard. I didn't mean to hurt you. I just ... "
"Couldn't handle it," he said.
I sighed. "Couldn't handle it."
He held his hand out to me. "I'm sorry, Anita."
"Me, too, Richard."
He gave a small smile. "No magic, Anita, just your hand in mine."
I shook my head. "No, Richard."
"Afraid?" he asked.
I stared up at him. "When we need to draw the marks, we can touch; but not here, not now."
He reached up to touch my face, and I heard the silk of his shirt rip. He lowered his arm and put three fingers in the ripped seam. "That's the third time that's happened." He spread the seam on the other arm, putting his whole hand in it. He turned and showed me his back. The seams at the shoulders had pulled apart on both sides like mouths.
I giggled, and I don't do that often. "You look like the Incredible Hulk."
He flexed his arms and shoulders like a bodybuilder. The look of mock concentration on his face made me laugh. The silk ripped with an almost wet sound. Silk sounds the closest to flesh of any cloth when you tear it; only leather sounds more alive under a blade.
His tanned flesh showed pale through the black cloth, as if some invisible knife were slashing rips in it. He straightened up. One sleeve had ripped so badly at the shoulder that it flapped around his upper arm. The seams at the top of his chest were like twin smiles.
"I feel a draft," he said. He turned and showed me his back. The shirt had peeled off his back, hanging in tatters.
"It's trashed," I said.
"Too much weight lifting since I was measured for the shirt."
"You are perilously close to being too muscular," I said.
"Can you ever be too muscular?" he asked.
"Yes, you can," I said.
"You don't like it?" he asked. He wadded his hands into the front of the shirt and pulled. The silk tore into black shreds, ripping like a soft scream. He tossed the silk at me. I caught it by reflex, not thinking.
He grabbed what was left of the shirt across his shoulders and pulled it over his head, exposing every inch of his chest, his shoulders. He strained his arms upward, making the muscles mold against his skin from stomach to shoulder.
It didn't just make me catch my breath, it made me catch and hold, forgetting to breathe for a few seconds, so that when I did remember, my breath came out in a shaky gasp. So much for being cool and sophisticated.
He lowered his arms and all that was left were the sleeves. He pulled them off like a stripper removing long gloves and let the bits of silk fall to the ground. He stood looking at me, nude from the waist up.
"Am I supposed to applaud or say, 'My, my, Mr. Zeeman, what big shoulders you have'? I'm aware that you have a great body, Richard. You don't have to rub my face in it."
He moved into me until he was standing so close that a hard thought would have made us touch. "What a good idea," he said.
I frowned at him, because I wasn't following. "What's a good idea?"
"Rubbing your face in my body," he said, his voice so low that it was almost a whisper.