"Emma, wait!" I yell, watching her stomp up the stairs without sparing me another glance.

The look she gave me was enough to break my heart, reducing it to a million, crushed pieces. A heart which, lately, only seemed to beat whenever she was around.

I had pushed her hard tonight, but it was what she needed. She has to regain control. Emma is strong-willed, stubborn, fearless, but she is not invincible. She is hiding things. Too many of them and it is catching up to her. I am going to find out every single one of them and when I do, I will annihilate every single person who has ever hurt her.

It is now only a matter of time before she confessed them to me. I was able to break down part of her walls tonight and that was just the beginning.

After what I did to her, I know I do not deserve her trust, but no matter how hard I try I can not let her go.

I trail after her, running up the stairs and trying my best to do it at a human speed. I know I have to give her some sort of normalcy right now. She is fragile and until I am able to fix her, I will need to thread carefully.

"Emma!" I hear her bathroom door shut, so I make my way to it.

I hear angry shuffling inside, then water running.

"Emma?" I lower my tone and knock softly on the door.

"What do you want?" she yells back in that beautiful, honeyed voice of hers. Even through the door, I can hear the hurt in it. She may not be defensive right now, but there is still an edge to it.

It is cute how she thinks she can keep me out of the bathroom. That makes me smile. I could so easily bust down that door or just teleport in. All of my instincts tell me to and for a moment, I think I will.

Then, I remember how panicked she looked the first time I entered her house without her permission. I remember the look she gives me anytime I push too hard, anytime I do something against her will. It is the same look she gave me when I attacked her. Every single moment of my existence, that look haunts me.

"Can I come in?" I try to keep my tone levelled, knowing I need to be patient. I suppress my temper. Something I have learned to do a lot lately with her.

"No."

"We need to talk."

"Nothing good ever came from someone saying that," she replies. I hear the faint sound of fabric hitting the floor followed by water being moved.

"Fuck..." I groan.

The images of her naked body in the bathtub are enough to make me want to bust in there and say fuck it to being patient. Maybe I can show her just how much I wanted to kiss her too.

I hear the water moving some more and this time, it sounds quicker.

"You know, for an almighty powerful angel or whatever, you sure don't know how to take a hint, do you?" I can just picture her scrunching her face and narrowing her eyes at me like she does anytime she gives me lip. I could easily just let that one go, but then again I enjoy pushing her buttons.

"Forgive me, but you're kind of sending mixed signals. One second you want to bite my head off and the next you try to kiss me. I'm getting whiplash here."

I start to hear splashing. It sounds... violent. I frown. What the hell is she doing in there?

"You want to talk about mixed signals, Death? Let's talk about mixed signals. How about the fact that merely two weeks ago, you were threatening me and trying to kill me and now, you keep getting me out of trouble and trying to help me? Does that even makes sense to you? Because it sure as hell doesn't make any to me!" she shouts. I hear her anger loud and clear, but I will not back off.

"I'm done talking to you through the door," I yell, "Get out or I'm teleporting in." I am dead serious now (no pun intended).

"For once he offers me the choice! How kind of him," she says, more to herself than to me.

It kind of stings, because I am actually trying really hard here. If only she knew what I could do to her. More than once I have thought of kidnapping her and locking her up at my place. Where no one and nothing could ever get to her again. Doing it would be so, so easy.

When I am about to do exactly what I just promised, the door is yanked open and out she comes, holding Maleficent wrapped in a pink, fluffy towel. She glares at me with her big, hazel eyes. The male badger jumps out of the towel and starts shaking out the moisture from his fur before he stomps out of the bedroom angrily.

I eye Emma curiously while she stares at Maleficent's retreating form with annoyance. She looks back at me and sends me a dirty look.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Didn't you see the mess she made?" she gestures to the room and only now do I notice all of the snow and the dirt littering the floor.

I snap my fingers and the entire mess instantly disappears. Her eyes grow wide and her plump lips part slightly. I love when she does that.

She looks around the room slowly with barely concealed shock, but recovers quickly.

"You bring me food, you clean my room, you put me to bed. What am I? Your fucking Tamagotchi?" I have no idea what she is talking about, but the angry little stare she gives me is worth it.

"What's a Tamagotchi?"

"An annoying little toy thing you're supposed to take care of like a pet. Otherwise they die," she says.

"Well, you are kind of annoying..."

I watch with an amused expression as she stares daggers at me. Her long, auburn hair is soaking wet, sticking to her skin in different places. The mascara she was wearing has smudged a little from our fight and from bathing Maleficent, but even then all I can think of is how beautiful she is. Everything from her heart-shaped face to the dimple she has only on one of her cheeks is alluring to me.

My eyes travel down to the wet t-shirt clinging to her chest and I feel a hunger burn deep within me. No other woman has ever made me lose control the way she does. Whenever she is near, I struggle to keep my thoughts in check. The only thing I can think of is running my hands all over her.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asks, surprising me. She sits down on her bed with her legs crossed. I watch her swallow and start ringing her fingers against her thighs. She tends to do that whenever she is nervous.

"What happened earlier."

"Nothing happened. It's fine." She has a tendency to dismiss problems and right now, she is doing exactly that. Too bad I will not let her. I decide we are done ignoring whatever is between us.

"That wasn't nothing, Emma," I tsk, "The reason I didn't kiss you is not because I didn't want to."

"I said it's fine. Unlike you, I can take a hint."

I shake my head, bringing a hand to my temple, "No, apparently you can't."

She crosses her arms against her chest, looking away.

"You would have hated yourself after."

"What?" she blurts, snapping her head back in my direction.

"After what I just did to you. If I kissed you and you let me, you would have hated yourself."

She swallows again and when she does not say anything, I know I have hit the nail on the head. She does not need another reason to loathe herself.

"It was just a kiss, not a marriage proposal. It doesn't mean anything." She tries to sound nonchalant, but her eyes betray her.

"Oh, sweatheart, I wish it were that simple." I really do, but the fact is a kiss would never be just that between us.

"Whatever do you mean by that? Why are you always being so cryptic?" she snaps, "And anyway, this shouldn't concern you. I can make my own god damn decision."

She gets up and starts moving past me to the hallway leading to the stairs. I grab her wrist to keep her from getting away. We are not done here.

She looks at my hand on her wrist, but does not move away. I know she can feel it too. The electric current going through us anytime our skins touch. The tingling that takes over our bodies anytime we are close.

"Oh, it concerns me alright. It wouldn't be 'just a kiss', Emma." She still does not pull away, "Don't try to deny it. I know you can feel it too."

I feel her tense in my grasp. When she looks up at me, I see one side of her mouth twitch. Instead of backing away from me like I expect her to, she takes a step closer.

"That's where you're wrong, Death," she says lowly, "I don't feel."

Right. Heaven forbid she would admit to feeling any kind of connexion with another person.

The desire I see burning behind her eyes is my undoing and when I remember she is still not moving away, a corner of my mouth lifts up.

Let's see how long you can keep this little act up, sweetheart.

I pull her to me and crash my lips on hers.