He made himself say no more than that, though the words crowded in his chest. He waited. It surprised him that it hurt to wait, and that the longer he waited, the more he felt he couldn’t bear to hear the answer, brought to him on a knife point.
When he made himself look at Laurent, Laurent’s eyes on him were very dark, his voice quiet.
‘How can you trust me, after what your own brother did to you?’
‘Because he was false,’ said Damen, ‘and you are true. I have never known a truer man.’ He said, into the stillness, ‘I think if I gave you my heart, you would treat it tenderly.’
Laurent turned his head, denying Damen his face. Damen could see his breathing. After a moment he said in a low voice, ‘When you make love to me like that, I can’t think.’
‘Don’t think,’ said Damen.
Damen saw the flickering change, the tension, as the words provoked an internal battle.
Damen said, ‘Don’t think.’
‘Don’t,’ said Laurent, ‘toy with me. I—have not the means to—defend against this.’
‘I don’t toy with you.’
‘I—’
‘Don’t think,’ said Damen.
‘Kiss me,’ said Laurent. And then flushed, a rich colour. Don’t think, Damen had said, but Laurent couldn’t do that. Even to sit there after what he had said, he was fighting a battle in his head.
The words hung awkwardly, a blurt, but Laurent didn’t take them back, he just waited, his body singing with tension.
Instead of leaning in, Damen took Laurent’s hand, brought it towards himself, and kissed his palm, once.
He had learned in the course of their one night together to tell when Laurent was taken unawares—taken aback. It wasn’t easy to anticipate, the gaps in Laurent’s experience not mapping to anything that he understood. He felt it now, Laurent’s eyes very dark, uncertain of what he should do. ‘I meant—’
‘Don’t let you think?’
Laurent didn’t answer. Damen waited, in the quiet.
‘I’m not—’ said Laurent. And then, as the moment stretched out between them, ‘I’m not an innocent who needs his hand held through every step.’
‘Aren’t you?’
Realisation came to Damen. Laurent’s wariness was not, at this moment, the high walls of the defended citadel. It was that of a man with a portion of his guard down, who was desperately unused to it.
After a moment: ‘At Ravenel, I—it had been a long time since I had—with anyone. I was nervous.’
‘I know,’ said Damen.
‘There has,’ said Laurent. He stopped. ‘There has only been one other person.’
Softly, ‘I’m a little more experienced than that.’
‘Yes, that is immediately apparent.’
‘Is it?’ A little pleased.
‘Yes.’
He looked at Laurent, who was sitting right on the edge of the bed, his face still turned away slightly. Here there were only the dimly lit shapes of the room’s arches, its furnishings, the unyielding marble base of the bed where they sat, mattressed and cushioned from its foot to the curve of its headrest. He spoke softly.
‘Laurent, I’d never hurt you.’