Weeks passed, and Blaine found himself falling further and further under Kurt's spell. He'd watch the way that he sipped his coffee in the morning, lightly blowing across the surface, left to right every time. He'd gaze, hidden behind a book, as he sat on a lawn chair and watch Kurt attempt to teach Grégoire to play cricket. He'd long to reach out and still Kurt's restless fingers as they sat across from each other at the dining table in the evening, forcing himself to make polite conversation with Renée.

Blaine felt almost guilty when talking to Renée, as though he'd broken a sacred promise between friends and was waiting for the consequences, existing in an endless calm before the inevitable storm. He would watch the way Renée would lovingly brush Kurt's hair away from his face as they talked in the library and feel a jolt of loathing, of jealousy, run through him like a stake, but then Renée would turn to him and fix a smile of genuine warmth upon him, and Blaine wondered how anyone could ever take a disliking to the woman, truly.

But despite the myriad of conflicting emotions that passed through Blaine at the sight of Renée, they all seemed to reassemble into one steady ache as soon as Kurt entered his view. Blue eyes would meet hazel, and Blaine would feel his heart pounding at his ribcage, trying to break free, as though it were no longer his to keep, and Blaine would fall a little more in love with Kurt Hummel. He'd tried to deny himself, told himself that he was wrong, that he was a sinner, but as he lay in bed at night, flushed all over at the thought of the porcelain man down the hall, he couldn't understand how anyone could deny this. How anyone could forbid him from feeling so passionately and without reserve towards another human being.

Blaine wondered, night after night, day after day, whether Kurt still felt what they both had in the boat. Whether Kurt lay awake and put his hand on his chest, palms sweaty, as he felt his heart race as though he had run a marathon ten times over.

One Tuesday night after Kurt had come down dressed for dinner in a beautifully tailored suit and Blaine had been forced to retire early, he resolved that he would ask Kurt, consequences and society be damned, if he could begin to understand the depth to which Blaine wished for him to be unequivocally his.

Blaine's chance came early the next morning, when Renée, Grégoire and Lisette went out into the local village and Kurt wandered back down to the lakeside, pale sunlight dancing through the trees. He watched as Kurt stopped by the very edge of the water, arms wrapped tightly around himself, his foot lightly swirling at the surface of the water. He walked silently behind him, blood thundering in his ears, legs barely able to support his movement.

"Kurt."

"Oh, Blaine, there you are," Kurt answered with a slight gasp. He turned to face Blaine with an indecipherable expression, one that Blaine had struggled to decode for weeks, one that he knew was only meant to be seen by him.

"I need to talk to you, Kurt. In private."

Kurt laughed gently, his breath puffing out in a thin mist in front of him. He looked around briefly, before turning back to Blaine, that ever-present mix of adoration and sadness lacing the blue of his irises.

"Why, Blaine, I think we are perfectly alone now."

Blaine stared at him for a moment longer, his throat clenching around a lump of frustration and want, and his heart pulling painfully from inside his chest, before something snapped and he stepped forward, fisting one hand into his own hair.

"God, Kurt, please tell me that you feel this too."

Kurt swallowed heavily, eyes darting from Blaine's face to the gardens around him, trying desperately to focus while his mouth soundlessly worked, his bottom lip trembling slightly.

"I - I don't know what you mean," he finally said, barely above a whisper - light enough to be carried away on the lulling breeze around them - but Blaine heard every word, every syllable, every vowel that he spoke. Blaine's own voice quietened to no louder than a murmur as his lungs constricted and his stomach dropped.

"Please, you have to know - that moment on the boat, I know that it wasn't just me, and - God, the day we met! The day we met, Kurt, we both went to open the door and-"

"Blaine, please-"

The panicked conversation was interrupted by the return of Grégoire as he barrelled into Blaine's side, Lisette following with cries of indignance at her younger brother's rudeness, and Renée trailing behind with a wicker basket on her arm. As quickly as the moment had come, it disappeared, Kurt straightening up and blinking rapidly as he was pulled away to play with his stepson. The only evidence Blaine saw that the conversation had ever taken place came in the form of a watery glance and a never-quite-voiced word as Kurt disappeared into the house.

The next opportunity Blaine had to speak to Kurt alone came six days later, when Renée followed her children to bed, claiming to be running a temperature, leaving the two men to sit opposite each other in silence. Kurt stared determinedly at his wine glass, running his finger around the rim, while Blaine watched the movement and steeled himself to break the tension in the air.

"Kurt-"

"-You were right."

Blaine's breath caught in the back of his throat as Kurt lifted his head to look straight into his eyes, tears forming at the corners as he struggled to find the words to express himself. Kurt's hands dropped to the table, where he twisted and pulled at his wedding ring absent-mindedly.

"I was right?"

"Of course you were. I did not want to feel this way - I could not, you are another man and I am married to a beautiful woman, but I - you stirred something in me that I thought I had locked away long ago, and now it is back and I just, my God, I do not know how to cope but I just know that-"

Kurt took a deep, shuddering breath, and Blaine reached for his hand across the table, his mouth hanging open in shock at Kurt's sudden outburst. Kurt blinked slowly, before opening his eyes and looking across as Blaine's searched him with undying hope and a poorly disguised hint of fear.

"Have you ever wondered if it is possible to fall in love with someone that you barely know?"

Blaine remained silent, his jaw flexing rapidly and his grasp tightening, and Kurt immediately thought that he had crossed an irreparable boundary. With a small sob of anguish, he ripped his hand out from underneath Blaine's and made to run from the room, but was blocked a split second later by Blaine's body pushing warm and heavy against his own. He saw Blaine's face soften, his eyes shining brighter than usual, and felt a hand slide slowly around his waist to rest on the small of his back, the other coming up to cup his neck gently. Their breaths mixed in the air between their mouths, shallow and laboured, as Blaine tilted his head to bring them closer together.

"Kurt," Blaine whispered, his lips brushing across Kurt's, sending fire through his veins. With a last look at Kurt before his eyes fluttered shut, Blaine pressed his lips gently against Kurt's, pressing harder when he heard Kurt gasp and felt him grab hold of his lapels, pulling him in tighter and tighter until they each forgot where the lines of their own forms blended into each other's. Blaine's lips parted and deepened the kiss between them, a thrill running down his spine when he felt Kurt's tongue slide to meet his own, and the room began to feel hotter and hotter until Blaine felt beads of sweat gathering at his temple and his palms slid against Kurt's skin where he had inched his fingers underneath Kurt's shirt. His arm slid round to lock around Kurt's back to seal their lower bodies together, his head spinning dizzily when Kurt moaned quietly and pushed back against Blaine with his hips.

With a noise that Blaine felt should make him wrinkle his nose - though it actually made him shiver with pleasure - Kurt pulled back, breathing heavily, to trace a line across Blaine's lips with his finger, gazing at him with wonder. When his finger reached the centre of Blaine's mouth, where the flesh was still pink, pouting, and a little wet from the kiss, Blaine's breathing hitched and Kurt smiled shyly. Leaning in slowly until his own lips were brushing Blaine's ear, he whispered two words before he detached himself smoothly from Blaine's grip and exited the room.

"Follow me."