Wary but yearning for Damen's approval and affection, Laurent took his hand. "I liked resting against you and talking with you. But then your eyes and your hands started wandering, and even though you did nothing to cross a line, I could feel the way that you'd started looking at me, like you already knew where things were going because you knew what came next when you had a appealing body in your bed."

Lightly pulling his hand away, Laurent scooted back to sit against the head of the bed. "And when I suggested that you ask for whatever you have in mind, you lost your temper with me and spoke harshly. After the last time we lay together, I feel wary to be naked with you, because I don't know what it will involve. Now I feel wary even touching you or offering affection, if I can't simply offer affection. If it must always be sex."

He shook his head, looking at the rumpled bedcovers instead of Damen. "I have no objection whatsoever to sex. I'd like to be having sex. It's simply that every time we edge toward that, I feel like I'm on a narrow ledge in a vast, dark cave, and I have no way of knowing if the floor beneath me is inches or fathoms away. Ask me, Damen. Tell me what you're thinking, what you want, what you're offering that you think might tempt me. When you touch me like that, you're thinking that this will lead to pleasure for us both, and I'm thinking that I don't know what you want, I don't know what you're planning, and I don't know if the pleasure for me will be able to outweigh the vulnerability and nerves of it."