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"I don't know what I'm doing."

"I do," I say. "So we'll go slow. As slow as you want. If you want to stop, you say stop, and we stop. No matter what. No matter when."

"You'd stop."

"I'd stop. I wouldn't be mad. I wouldn't tell anybody. Not Sorel. Not anybody."

He's still looking at me. His hands are hanging between his knees. The ring's still on his finger. He sees me looking at it, and he looks down at it too.

Then he takes it off.

He doesn't make a big thing of it. He just twists it over his knuckle and sets it on the nightstand next to the lamp, where it makes a small sound on the wood. Then he looks back up at me.

"Okay," he says.

"Okay what?"

"Okay. Slow."

I lean forward. So does he. We meet in the middle of the gap between the beds, and this time I'm the one who kisses him. I do it gently, with my hand on the side of his face so he knows exactly where I am and what I'm doing. His stubble scratches my palm. He breathes in sharp through his nose.

"Okay?" I ask, against his mouth.

"Yeah."

"Tell me if it's not."

"It is," he says. "It's okay. Rémy. It's okay."

I kiss him again, slower this time, and he opens for me. His mouth is warm and a little hesitant, like he's still deciding whether he's allowed to want this. I keep my hand on his jaw and let him set the pace of the kiss itself, but I don't pull back. When he finally tilts his head and deepens it, a low sound catches in his throat.

I break the kiss just enough to speak.

"Still okay?"

"Yes."

"Good." I stand, tug him up with me by the front of his shirt. "Come here."

He follows. We end up on my bed because it's farther from the door and the window, more private somehow. He sits on the edge first, uncertain, and I climb onto the mattress behind him, knees bracketing his hips. My hands settle on his shoulders.

"I'm going to take this off," I tell him, fingers already at the hem of his henley. "You can stop me."

He doesn't. He lifts his arms when I pull the shirt up and over his head. The fabric catches for a second on his elbows and then it's gone. I drop it on the floor.

Owen Hale is sitting on my hotel bed in Toronto in nothing but his jeans and the pale stripe on his ring finger, and he looks like he doesn't know where to put his hands. They're hovering near his thighs, restless.

"Look at me," I say.

He does.

I take one of his hands and set it on my waist, over my own shirt. "Here. You can touch me."

His fingers curl, tentative. I guide the other hand to the other side. Then I lean in and kiss him again while I start unbuttoning my own shirt. He watches the buttons come open one by one. When the fabric falls away he stares at my chest like it's something he's never been allowed to look at before.

"You can touch here too," I say, and I put his palm flat over my sternum.

He spreads his fingers. His hand is big and warm and a little shaky. I cover it with mine and keep it there while I kiss the side of his neck, the hinge of his jaw, the place under his ear. He makes another of those low sounds.