Unwavering gray eyes watched Diana. "And now you want me to kiss you?" Closing her eyes, she nodded. "Despite your fear of men," Ten added.

Again, she nodded. Then, in a whispered rush, she said, "I like you, Ten. I know I could bear being kissed by you, but the thought of any other man makes me-cold."

A visible shudder of fear and revulsion went through Diana. Ten saw it but said nothing.

"Anyway," she added with desperate calm, "if you know going in that all it's going to be is a kiss, you won't push for more, will you? If I'm honest?" Diana opened her eyes and looked at Ten with unconscious pleading. "I'm not a tease. Truly. It's just that I can't bear being touched by men."

"What happened?" Ten asked calmly. "Why do you have such a poor opinion of sex in general and men in particular? What makes you afraid that every man you kiss will demand sex?"

"Because it's true."

"You don't believe that."

"The hell I don't," she said, her voice low and flat.

Ten stared at Diana. All her softness and unconscious pleading was gone, all hope, all color; and what was left was a bleak acceptance that made her voice as flat as the line of her mouth.

"Look," Ten said reasonably, "no man worthy of the name is going to share a few kisses with a woman and then demand a turn in the sack."

Diana shrugged. The movement was tight, jerky, saying more than words about the tension within her, a tension that had been pulling her apart for too many years.

"Maybe you're right," she said. Then she made an angry, anguished sound. Years of bitterness burst out in a torrent of words. "But the only way to find out which men are decent is to try the kisses, all the while praying very hard that when the time comes he'll take no for an answer, because if he doesn't, he's bigger than you are, stronger, and you've been dating him for months and no one on earth will believe that he forced you."

"You're acting as though all men-"

"Not all men," she interrupted savagely. "But too damned many! If you don't believe me, ask the psychologist who did a study for UCLA. The statistics are illuminating. More than a third of all women have their first sexual experience as the result of rape."

"What?"

"Rape," Diana said savagely. "I'm not talking about being beaten senseless or having a knife at your throat until the rapist is finished, although God knows I talked to too many girls who got initiated that way, in outright violence."

Diana's breath came in harshly, but she gave Ten no chance to speak. "I'm not even talking about incest. I'm talking about the dumb middle-class bunnies who believe that no means no, who believe that the boy they've been dating for three months won't use his strength against his girlfriend, won't keep pushing and pushing and pushing her for sex, taking off her clothes while she says no, putting his hand between her legs even when she tries to push it away, and each time they're alone he pushes harder and harder until finally he was holding me down, telling me all the while how it was okay, nice girls did it all the time, he'd still love me in the morning, in fact he'd love me more than ever-"

"Diana," Ten said, his voice low, shocked.

She didn't even hear him. "-and I was too well brought up to claw and scream and kick, and above all / couldn't believe Steve wouldn't stop. Nice middle-class girls don't get raped by nice middle-class boys. He had stopped the times before. He would stop this time. He had to. He simply had to. God help me, I still didn't believe it when he was finished and I was bleeding and he was zipping up his pants suggesting we have a burger and some fries before we went to his apartment and did it some more."

Diana blinked, shuddered again and made a broken sound. "To this day Steve doesn't know why I broke our engagement. The last time I talked to him, he got mad and said if I didn't want sex, I shouldn't ask for it by wearing heels and sexy hairstyles and perfume and I shouldn't make out at all. I was a good middle-class girl, so I believed him. I believed it had been my fault."

Diana's hands clenched until her nails dug into her palms, but her voice remained the same, flat and without warmth. "When I could bring myself to date again-it took more than a year-I was very careful not to lead a man on. No makeup. No perfume. No skirts. A few kisses, that was all, and then only after several dates. It didn't matter. Two of my dates called me a tease. Some called me worse."

Pounce made a soft sound of complaint and leaped to the floor, sensing the tension in Diana. She didn't notice the cat's absence.

Neither did Ten. He was still caught in the moment of shock and rage when he had realized why Diana feared men. He heard her words only at a distance. His hands clenched and unclenched reflexively as he tried to reason with himself, to drain off the useless rage that was consuming him. What had happened to Diana had taken place a long time ago. Years.

But for Ten, it had happened just a few seconds ago.

"Only one of the men came back for more than a few dates," Diana continued tonelessly, determined to tell Ten everything so that no more questions would have to be asked or answered. "Don never pushed me. Not once. Not in any way. Eight months later he asked me to marry him, and he told me about how perfect it would be, two virgins learning together the ultimate mystery of sex on their marriage night." She made a helpless gesture with her right hand. "He was a kind, decent man. I couldn't lie to him. So I told him."

When Ten spoke, his voice was as carefully controlled as the coiled strength of his body. "What happened?"

"He tried to believe it wasn't my fault, but when he found out I hadn't gone to the police…" The downward curve of Diana's mouth became more pronounced. "We saw each other a few more times after that, but it was over."

"Did you love him?"

Slowly Diana shook her head. "I didn't love Steve, either. I just wanted to believe it was possible for a man and a woman to share something beautiful, that a man can be decent and civilized with a woman who is weaker than himself."

"I take it your father wasn't."

"My father was a soldier. A commando." Ten's eyes widened but he said nothing.

"Dad was short-tempered when he was sober. When he drank, he was violent. The older I got, the more he drank. He and Mom…" Diana's voice died. "I never understood why she stayed with him. But she did."

"He's dead?"

"Yes." Diana looked up at Ten for the first time since she had begun talking about her past. "Steve was a jet jockey for the Air Force. I haven't had very good luck with soldiers. Any more questions?"

"Just one."

Diana braced herself. "Go on."

"Do you still want me to kiss you?''

Nervously Diana smoothed the soft folds of her oversize cotton sweater. She tried to speak, decided she didn't trust her voice, and nodded her head.

"You're sure?" Ten asked.

There was no emotion in his voice, no expression on his face, nothing to tell Diana what he was thinking. He was as dark and enigmatic as the windswept night, and like the stars, his eyes were a glittering silver.

"Yes," she whispered. "I'm sure."

Ten held out his hand. "Then come to me, Diana."

11

Diana trembled at the sound of Ten's voice, a gentle velvet rasp, like a cat's tongue stroking her. For an instant she didn't know if she would have the strength to walk. But even as the thought came she was standing up, walking, closing the small distance that separated her from Ten. She put her hand in his. The warmth of his hard palm was like a flame against fingers chilled by nervousness.

Ten held out his other hand. A moment later, small cool fingers nestled against the cupped heat of his palm. He lifted Diana's hands to his mouth and breathed warmth over her skin before kissing her palms gently. The unexpected caress made Diana's breath break. Before the sweet sensations had run their course through her body, Ten was lowering her hands, releasing her from his warmth. Diana had asked to be kissed. He had kissed her.

She made a questioning sound that had more disappointment in it than she realized.

"Ten?"

"What?" he asked softly.

"Would you kiss me again?" she whispered.

Ten's smile made Diana want to curl up in his arms like a cat.

He held out his hands and once more felt her smooth, cool fingers come to rest within the curve of his palms.

"You're so warm," Diana said. She closed her eyes and let out her breath in a long sigh, openly savoring the simple touch of her skin against Ten's.

Diana's unguarded, sensual response sent a shock wave of heat through Ten. He hoped she had no idea how fiercely she aroused him with her unknowing sensuality and haunted eyes, her womanly curves badly concealed beneath a sweater big enough for him to wear, and her slender hands lying so trustingly within his.

Ten brought Diana's hands to his mouth and brushed a kiss into first one of her palms, then the other. The tiny sound she made at the touch of his lips was as much a reward as the warmth he could feel stealing softly beneath her skin. He lifted his head and looked at her. She was watching him with eyes that were luminous, approving. Then her dark lashes lowered and she returned the kisses he had given her, breathing a caress into the center of his palm.

"Thank you," Diana whispered.

"My pleasure."

She searched Ten's face with wide indigo eyes, hardly able to believe what her senses were telling her. He had enjoyed the undemanding caresses as much as she had.

"You mean that, don't you," she said finally. Ten nodded.

"It's a relief to find a man who doesn't want… everything."

An odd smile haunted Ten's lips for a moment. "Don't fool yourself, Diana. I want everything, but I'll never take any more than you give me. And I mean give willingly, not because I push you so hard on so many fronts at once that you don't know where to fight first."

Diana smiled uncertainly. "Does that mean you'll kiss me again?"

"I'll kiss you as many times as you want me to."

"And you won't push for more?"

"No."

"Even if you get aroused?" The stark question shocked Diana when she heard her own words, but it was too late to call them back.

"Honey," Ten said, his voice rich with rueful laughter, "if you were standing about two inches closer to me, you'd have the answer to your question."

Confusion showed on Diana's face. Without thinking, she looked down Ten's body. The evidence of his arousal was unmistakable and frankly intimidating. She looked up again, her face suddenly pale.

"Don't worry, honey," Ten said matter-of-factly. "I've been that way every night we've sat around talking and sorting through pieces of the past, and more often than not during the days, too."

"You have?" she asked faintly. "I didn't know."

"I did my best to make sure of that," Ten said dryly. "I'm only pointing it out now so that you'll know you don't have to be afraid of me when I'm aroused."

"But I didn't mean to. Believe me, Ten. I didn't mean anything of the sort!"

"I know. I can't keep myself from responding to you, but I can make damn sure I don't act on it."

"But if I didn't mean to, why…" Her voice faded. "Has it been so long since you've had a woman?"

Ten looked at Diana's confusion and didn't know whether to laugh or swear. Very lightly he stroked his index finger over the inside of her wrist. The touch was gentle but hardly soothing. He felt her pulse rate accelerate, which made his own quicken in response.

"Diana, I could have had a woman five seconds before I walk into a room where you are and I'd still want you. I admire courage, intelligence and a sense of humor. It didn't take long for me to find out that you've got plenty of all three, as well as a fine body you do your best to hide."

Color crept up Diana's cheeks, but she made no move to separate her hands from Ten's while he continued talking in the velvet tones that made her weak. "I've wanted you since the first day you were here, when you put your own uneasiness aside and helped me with that kitten."

Diana's eyes widened in surprise.

"I respect a woman's right to choose or refuse a man," Ten continued. "You made it clear that you were refusing. You're still making it clear. You're as safe as you want to be with me, no matter what kind of kissing or petting we do."