It was true. She'd gotten under his skin in the past few days. He'd never been as tender, or as aroused, in his entire life as he'd been with her lately. Her responsiveness went to his head, made him careless and vulnerable.

"But you don't want to, do you?" she asked softly. She searched his dark eyes.

"You're a virgin," he said stiffly. "You tell me if I want to."

He was more open than he'd ever been. It was obvious that he was afraid of commitment, of loving, of being deserted again. He didn't trust women, or like them. But his body was starved for phys- ical satisfaction, and Tess was innocent and handy. She had to keep the situation in perspective.

"If I weren't innocent-" she began.

"If you weren't, we'd already be lovers," he said heavily.

"You're afraid of me like that, but you want me just the same."

His dark eyes narrowed on her flushed face. "The first time might be pretty uncomfortable," he said, his voice almost choked with feeling. "I might not be able to help hurting you, since it's been so long for me. But the second time..." His high cheekbones went ruddy as he looked at her. "The second time, I'd pleasure you until you cried. I'd be tender. So tender. I'd love you the way I just did in the kitchen, slowly and softly. I'd put my lips all over you. And by the time I joined your body to mine in that intimate way, you'd be sobbing under my mouth...."

He cursed under his breath and got up, running a rough hand over his face. "G.o.d," he breathed unsteadily. "I've got to get out of here!"

Tess watched him leave the room, trembling with desire that he'd kindled so unexpectedly. She could hardly believe that he wanted her so much. All the years he'd denied it, been hostile, kept her at arms' length had been a sham. With shocking clarity, she saw right through him to the vulnerability he was trying to hide. He cared. He 67 cared deeply. Maybe he always had, and her reaction to his ardor had hurt him. She hadn't known anything about him, really. Hadn't totally understood that he'd been savaged by two women he cared about, persecuted by one and deserted in his time of need by the other. He was afraid to love, but he did. Tess caught her breath. He loved her. It was the only possible explanation for the way he was with her lately, for the tenderness that he was learning to give her, for his protective att.i.tude.

He didn't know it, or wouldn't admit it. But the realization made Tess feel warm all over. The trick was going to be making sure he didn't find out that she knew. In the meantime, her heart almost burst with joy. He was hers; he belonged to her now as surely as if he'd given her a solemn vow.

He came back a few minutes later, smoking a cigarette and look- ing totally uninvolved.

"Want some more coffee?" she asked gently.

"Please."

She poured it while he watched her, averting his eyes when she noticed. They drank coffee in tense silence.

"I'll get used to having you here," he said after a minute, "and we'll manage. I can't let you go home until the dealers are caught and the court decides how to dispose of them."

"I know. I'll try not to be too much trouble," she added with a smile. She got up and brought out a pudding she'd made for dessert, serving it with no conversation at all. When he touched her, he was vulnerable. But the minute he moved away, the wall came back, reinforced. Except that now she knew why he kept building it, and she wasn't hurt by it anymore.

Dane was fighting his feelings tooth and nail. He could go crazy for her if he let himself. That couldn't be. Tess was an old-fashioned girl, with old-fashioned ideas about life and men, courtesy of her grandmother, who'd been responsible for most of her upbringing.

He couldn't take her to bed and forget about her. So he had to forget about her physically. In order to accomplish that, as much as he hated to, he was going to have to push her away and keep her there.

He studied her downcast face with eyes that wanted her, but he averted his gaze the minute she looked up. Boss and employee, he told himself. Surely he could manage that.

Chapter Five.

Tess enjoyed living with Dane. She hadn't expected it to be so sweet, even just being with him while they watched television at night. He liked to sit around in his white T-shirts and jeans, in his sock feet, and sprawl over his armchair while he drank beer and watched old movies. Tess found herself relaxing with him, now that she had a good idea how he felt about her. The way he watched her was exciting, like the evasive tenderness in his eyes when she smiled at him.

He was a loner by nature, a very private man with any number of hang-ups that she discovered quite by accident. It embarra.s.sed him to discuss his feelings, so he never let conversation between them get personal. They talked about the job, about everything ex- cept themselves.

A few days after she'd moved in, she was watching a program about birth. He came into the room during it, having been working in his study.

As if it disturbed him to see the embryo being shown at that moment on the screen, he turned to leave.

"I can change the channel if you don't want to watch this," she offered.

He hesitated, his eyes going reluctantly back to the screen. They were showing a delivery room now, a very explicit delivery.

"Sorry." She pushed the Off b.u.t.ton on the remote control and laid it down. "I was curious," she confessed. "I never learned much 69 about s.e.x and reproduction at home, and school courses are very brief. I wanted to know how babies...how they grew."

"How they got made, you mean," he corrected, watching her face color. "But they didn't show that, did they?"

She cleared her throat. "Not really."

"I've got a book," he said slowly. "You wouldn't want to read it with me here, I know, but you might find it interesting. It shows how people make love without being graphic or offensive."

Her eyes searched his averted face. "I didn't think men were curious about things like that. I mean, you know it all already, don't you?"

He lit a cigarette, pausing in the doorway. "I know how to have s.e.x with a woman," he corrected. "I...wanted to know how to make love."

The words made her warm inside. He looked frankly embarra.s.sed.

She watched him quietly. "Because I ran from you?"

His eyes glowered at her. "Don't get personal."

She smiled. "That was why, though, wasn't it?"

He drew in an irritated breath and took another draw from the cigarette. "Maybe it was. So what?" he asked belligerently. "It isn't as if I'll ever need to know for your sake. I'm not going to make love to you."

Her eyes fell to the irregular rise and fall of his broad chest. "I wouldn't be afraid of it now," she said softly. "You're very s.e.xy.

I didn't want you to stop that time in the kitchen."

His heart shuddered in his chest. "Talking like this is dangerous,"

he whispered. "You don't know how dangerous."

She looked up at him, her eyes adoring his lean, hard face. "Dane, have you ever thought about having a child?" she asked huskily.

His face exploded with color. He moved jerkily and turned away from her to pull nervously at his cigarette. "No," he said curtly.

"You don't want children?" she persisted.

He fingered the cigarette, staring at its glowing orange tip with eyes that barely saw it. "It wouldn't have made any difference, Tess," he said after a minute. He looked down at her, his expression reluctant. "I can't father a child."

70.

Her mind wouldn't absorb it. She heard the words without com- prehending them.

He turned, his eyes dark and quiet as they searched hers. "Jane wanted to get pregnant," he said slowly. "She was obsessed with it. Maybe that's why I couldn't be gentle with her. She demanded, raged at me when she didn't conceive. I felt like some gelded bull by the time she gave up and stopped offering herself to me." He sighed wearily. "I couldn't make her pregnant. Eventually, I couldn't even make love properly." He bent over to put out the cigarette, only half-smoked. "You think you've got scars because of what I did to you. I wish you could see mine."

He turned and started to leave.

She got up, too, and went to him, her eyes big and soft. "There are a lot of reasons why women don't conceive."

"She had a child by her new husband barely ten months after they married," he said curtly.

"That wasn't what I meant. You like jeans, but they create a climate that sometimes prevents men from being fertile...." She flushed as she realized what she was saying.

He lifted an eyebrow. "You're a virgin, I believe?"

"That program I was watching mentioned it," she hedged.

"I don't wear jeans all the time," he reminded her.

"Well..."

His gaze went slowly down her body and back up. She was wear- ing jeans herself, with a floppy, b.u.t.ton-up green shirt. Her hair was up in a disheveled knot on top of her head. She looked young and pretty and very s.e.xy.

"Go away," he said softly. "If I touch you, I won't stop. I can't stop. I'll go every inch of the way."

She searched his eyes and the flush got worse. It was as intimate as a kiss, the way she looked at him. "I know, Dane," she breathed.

His jaw tautened. His breathing changed suddenly, sharply.

She looked down, and her eyes triggered a reaction he'd been trying desperately to avoid. She didn't look away, even then. She found him fascinating. Her expression told him so.

"You're afraid of me," he reminded her with choked pa.s.sion in his voice. "Hold that thought."

71 "If you were gentle, I wouldn't be afraid," she said. She lifted her eyes to his and searched them, her body tingling with new sen- sations, new needs. He loved her. She knew it all the way to her bones, and if she could let him see how it would be with someone who cared, really cared about him, he might change his mind about commitment.

He was sure he was going to die from what he was feeling. He felt near to bursting with it.

Tess felt his tension, sensed how limited his control was. It wouldn't she thought, recklessly, take very much to break through his restraint.

In fact, it didn't. She took one step toward him, and his will collapsed.

He bent and picked her up, managing her slight weight easily, even with his bad back. He didn't look at her as he carried her into his bedroom and kicked the door shut.

He placed her in the center of his bed and stood over her, looking down at the soft contours of her body, his face like rock.

Her hands were beside her head on the beige coverlet, her lips parted, her eyes yielding and submissive, like her body.

"It will hurt," he said tersely.

"I know," she whispered.

His hands trembled as he took off his T-shirt and dropped it onto the floor. He stood, fighting for control. "If you change your mind after I've touched you, I won't be able to stop," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"Don't you understand?"

"I love you, Richard," she whispered, using the name he never let anyone use, the name she'd always wanted to call him because n.o.body else did. "I love you with all my heart. I never stopped, even when I was scared to death of you."

He winced. "Tess...!"

"Teach me. Love me," she said gently.

His eyes closed. His fists clenched at his sides and he shuddered visibly. "I don't want this to happen," he ground out. "G.o.d in heaven, you're a virgin...!"

"I love you," she whispered again.

He looked at her, his face quietly resigned as he registered the 72.

enormity of the gift she was offering him. "I'll try to give you tenderness," he said slowly. "If not at first, afterwards. I won't...

hurt you deliberately, you understand?"

"Yes."

He sat down and leaned over her, his eyes moving possessively down her relaxed body. He touched her lips with a tentative brush of his fingers, an action that made her ripple with pleasure.

"There is no more precious gift than what you're offering me,"

he said huskily. "You can only give your chast.i.ty once."

"Shouldn't it belong to someone I love more than my own life?"

she asked gently.

He framed her face with unsteady hands. "I...can't love you,"

he said bitterly. "Tess..."

Her fingers touched his mouth. She knew that he was denying how he felt out of fear. The very hesitancy in his actions told her more than words could how much he cared for her.

"I won't ask you for anything," she promised. "Not even for you to love me. I want to belong to you completely, just this once.

I want to know how it feels with someone I love."

He bent to her lips, stumped for words. His mouth trembled as it settled on hers. He opened it, gently, and his hands slid under her nape, to lift her face, tilt it to the gentle a.s.sault of his mouth and then his tongue.

Tess smiled under the slow loving as his lips whispered over her face, learning its contours, so tender that they made her warm all over.

His hands slid down, under her back, and he lay down beside her, lazily bringing her body to his as he slid one long leg between both of hers and began to kiss her with slow hunger.

She tangled her hands in his thick, cool hair and drifted while his hands found their way under her blouse, against the soft skin of her back. He kissed her until her mouth was gently swollen, then care- fully unfastened the bra so that he could caress her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Their hard tips dragged abrasively against his palms and she began to breathe raggedly as his expert touch kindled fires within her.