That acute feeling, that I'm incapable of love, had been ground down and dispersed into a general feeling of unworthiness over the past few weeks. It made it harder to attack that conviction in particular, because it was no longer vivid and acute and solitary.

If it had been, still, this might have broken that thought.

Now it was just one part of a confusing maelstrom of self-hating thoughts. They had always come so easy to him, under that big blanket of denial.

He pressed a kiss against Duke's neck.

"I don't deserve you," he said softly. "But I want to."