He listens closely, as he always does when she speaks. He has even less choice in the matter now, as his hearing is so sensitive he could probably hear a mosquito fart in a hurricane. He can almost taste the ups and downs of her words, and when a foreign one slips in - jarring against her usual speech - he feels it tickle in his ear like a fly. Akrasia. He has never heard the word, or indeed the language, yet somehow, he understands it. It's as if she has spoken in English or Hungarian, as the word simply translates itself in his mind, without rhyme or reason. "Quod nisi feceris horruit aequum est." Unless you do it just for the thrill of it.

No sooner have the foreign words left his mouth than his eyes widen to saucers and his ears ram forwards, confused. "I've never heard that language before in my life, and yet...I understand it. The hell is going on?" He's so engrossed in his new language ability that he almost - almost - misses the possible implications of her words. She talks of temptation, making it sound as logical as she makes everything else. Her gaze meets his, and he feels himself warm from the inside out at the intimacy of eye contact, although admittedly it is less pleasant than it should be given their eyes are all emitting rank black ooze. And is he imagining the way her voice alters just slightly? Well, under normal circumstances it would be just slightly, but with his ears this sensitive he can detect simple fluctuations in tone that have, until now, been invisible to him. He doesn't read into it, though. For all he knows, everybody's voice changes like this depending on the topic; he is just lucky enough to be able to hear it now.

She describes her own symptoms, and they're very different from his own. Colours, she says. Reds and yellows, fire; her wing brushes his back and he feels his skin stand sentinel to her touch, fighting against the desire to press into her wing and embrace the contact he so adores. Then it moves to his chest, and his confusion is apparent on his face until she speaks. Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

If she can see temperature...then that means nothing is safe from her penetrating gaze. She will know if all the heat floods between his thighs, his own ardour betraying him. She will know if his heart hammers, thudding against his chest and generating warmth. She will know the way his flesh quivers at her touch, like it's pressing against an open flame. She will know. His secrets, laid bare. Shit. Naturally, the moment he becomes aware that she can see everything, the more his rebellious body itches to push its warmth to the precise places he doesn't want her to be able to see it going to. Sweat breaks out across his flanks as he damn near forces his body to submit to the whims of his mind and obey him. No doubt that sweat will create heat as well, though.

Sure enough, she points out his fluctuating temperature. The giant clears his throat, tasting black phlegm like tar at the back of it. "I'm fine. It must be the, uh, illness making my temperature change." That sounds fairly plausible, right? He glances towards the sea, angling his ears slightly away from it to try and smother the cacophony of noise. "In fact, I feel quite feverish - do you?" It's a blatant lie, but it will at least excuse his random temperature changes. "Perhaps we should go in the water. Water soothes, as we know." He is, of course, referring to the hot tub, to how it felt with their skin pressed close together as warm water bubbled around them, how it relaxed every last muscle in their tight bodies...admittedly, the sea is a lot larger and a lot colder than their snug little hot tub, but Volterra begins to wander towards it in the hope she will follow him in. Not just so he can see her with her mane slicked against her neck and her delightful skin clinging to every salacious curve of her body, but so the cool water will disguise exactly which parts of him grow hot whenever he's near her.