"You can't make me feel any way I don't decide to feel," he said, and that was the Angelique Kersen knew. Unafraid, certain, with a spine of steel beneath the graceful silk of white skin and ebony hair.

When Angelique had seen a kindred spirit in Kersen, had suggested they might understand each other in ways other people didn't, it had been because of this. This exactly. Kersen knew how to look beyond presentation and appearance, and see the person beneath. Angelique had never been quite so bare before him -- even now, still half clothed.

"It's only that I don't usually let anyone see me without my face," he added, and began to move toward Kersen with a gentle little sway of hips. "I feel a little... exposed."