This is a short originally written for inuerotica.

He said Dance for me,' and he said,
You are too beautiful for the wind
To pick at, or the sun to burn.' He said
I'm a poor tattered thing, but not unkind
To the sad dancer and the dancing dead.'

Sidney Keyes,
Four Postures of Death

Because her breath is not even, because he can see her pulse leaping through the arteries under her bared belly, because she trembles like leaves in the wind.

Why is he afraid to take her?

Because she is holy, she is meant to be untouched by man, she is an instrument of heaven, her skin as alien and austere as the pale surface of the moon. But still she shivers under his touch.

Why is he so drawn to her?

How can she take such obvious pleasure in his every caress, and yet look at him as if seeing into the eyes of Death himself?

She is under a curse, you see, though Inuyasha will not learn of this for some time. She seals her fate in those moments, yet there is nothing she can do but suffer it gladly.

As a miko, no one told her about the ways of love. She did not know it would mean having her better judgment say no, but her lips only "yes." She'd heard of love's strength, but hadn't realized it would make her so weak.

There's fear in his eyes too, not just of hurting her because she is a woman and a virgin, but of breaking her spirit, sullying her purity, tainting the Shikon Jewel itself.

There, perhaps, lay the intensity of their lust. Fear alone might have kept them apart, and mere desire brought them together, but the combination in their blood was overwhelming; every nerve sang. They would almost kiss for hours, their bodies writhing against each other but finding no release. Although later in Inuyasha's life he would become a better lover, better able to satisfy both himself and his partner, and the fear would fade, he would never again experience this level of wanting, this degree of anticipation that is the boon of the innocent.

Her hands did shake as she took off every scrap of clothing she wore, but her message did not waver. Inuyasha found himself desiring her with every mote of life in his body, and was left in the unenviable position of having to refuse a gift too fine for him, one which he could hardly bear to refuse at all. So he kissed her neck and her shoulders, her breasts and her belly, opened her legs and found another conflicting message—she was drenched wet, but clenched tight. Her loins were warm, so warm that even hovering above her he could feel her heat. He leaned in to taste that fire, and her thighs quivered, her brows furrowed, and she said nothing.

When she came she did not scream, but grasped for him blindly, reeling in a world without the sense to have an up or a down, torn between insurmountable pleasure and the agony of a wound from shoulder to chest that had not yet been inflicted.