As her attention on Maneki slowed, he found himself coming out of a haze. "Doing?" he repeated, blinking some more. He gave a little shiver.
What was he doing?
And then the understanding hit him like a bag of rocks. "Oh!" Horrified, he looked down at her, gaze coming to rest on her stroking fingers. Maneki was looking at him warningly.
<No,> she said firmly. She mewed softly, paw batting at the girl's arm as she tried to get her to continue. But now that he had some control back, he couldn't let that continue.
Though she hissed at him when he bent down and though she raked her claws across his arm, leaving four deep gashes that made him wince, he still lifted her up off the ground as quickly as he could. The euphoria from before was flooding out of him, leaving outrage and horror in its wake. By now the purring had stopped completely.
"I was, ah . . . Ouch!" Maneki had caught him across the face with her paw, a horrible stinging now left where it had been. Caught off guard, he dropped her as he went to touch the new scratch, and she ran to sit at the girl's feet, glaring death at him. "Maneki!"
She'd attacked him before, but never on the face! That was off limits! It was deep, too, already bleeding onto his grasping fingers. Now he had a bleeding arm and a bleeding face. How ugly he must look, now!
<I was enjoying myself,> Maneki said with no remorse. He'd hurt her pride; he could feel it through their link. Lifting her like he had.
But his face! His beautiful face! He was speechless.