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Then his mouth moves to my jaw. My neck. His hand finds my waist and pulls me closer and I stop thinking about composure entirely. I make a sound I had not planned to make. His grip tightens in response and something shifts, something that has been waiting, and I turn my face toward him and he kisses me, properly, deeply, one hand in my hair, and I pull him closer by the collar of his shirt without deciding to.

Then he pulls back.

Not away. Just back. His forehead against mine, both of us breathing. His hand still in my hair, mine still at his collar.

"Jan," he says.

"Yes."

"I need to… can we talk? Before…” He stops. Pulls back a little further so he can see my face. His jaw is tight in the way it gets when something is costing him. "There's something I need to say first."

I look at him. I wait.

He takes a breath. "I've never done this. With a man." He holds my gaze, direct, no hedging. "Any of it. I don’t…I want to. I want you. But I don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to get it wrong."

The room is quiet. Outside the canal, the city, the ordinary Friday night. In here just Patrick, looking at me with everything he has, saying the thing that clearly cost him something to say.

I look at him for a long moment. At the honesty of him. This man who is competent at everything, sitting on my sofa, telling me he doesn't know what he's doing and saying it anyway.

"What do you want?" I ask. "Specifically. Not what you think I want."

He exhales. "I want you. All of it. But I've never…” He makes a small gesture. "I don't know how it works. Which of us…”

"You're asking who does what," I say.

"Yes."

"I'm a bottom," I say. "That's what I want. That's what I know. If that changes we talk about it. But that is what tonight is, if you want it."

Something moves through his face. Relief, and underneath it something warmer.

"You're sure," he says.

"Patrick. I have been sure for considerably longer than three weeks."

He almost smiles. "How long."

"Don't push it."

He does smile, the real one, the full one, and then he reaches up and puts his hand against the side of my face and I lean into it.

"I don't want to hurt you," he says. "I've never…” He stops. The jaw tightens. I put my hand over his, the one still on my face, and hold it there.

"You're not going to hurt me," I say. "And I will tell you what I need. Everything. You don't have to guess." I hold his gaze. "Just be here. That's all. Just be present and pay attention and I'll do the rest."

He lets out a breath. Nods once. The tension in his jaw releases and something else takes its place — something open, something that is him, without the worry sitting on top of it.

He stands. Holds out his hand.

I look at it for one moment.

I take it.

CHAPTER TWO

PATRICK

The bedroom. The lamp from the sitting room throws soft light through the open door. Jan is standing in front of me. I have waited, more patiently than I knew I could, and now the waiting is done.