"You've learned about sex from eavesdropping?"

"Exactly. Without a man present, how-"

"Ever heard of self-satisfaction?" Tessa asked wryly. She should at least be pleased that she hadn't had to explain the basics of human copulation to her new friend.

"Self-satisfaction is not allowed."

"On my world when one is alone, masturbation is a completely acceptable practice."

"If that is a hint for me to leave, I shall do so, but your suit won't permit such actions."

Tessa sat up so fast that she felt light-headed. "What do you mean?"

"The suit prevents acts of self-gratification."

Tessa dropped one hand between her legs to test Dora's theory. Damn. She might as well have been trying to pound Kahn with her fist. The result was exactly the same. Then the implications sank in. All along she'd assumed she could alleviate her problem, but that option had been taken from her.

She couldn't remove the suit or control it. Nor could she eliminate or relieve her reaction to the continuous sensual assault. Trapped, her desperation increasing at the realization of her helplessness, she fought to keep her tone from rising in panic. "Dora . . . how much more . . . of this am I supposed to take? I need to find a way to stop-"

"You have one viable option," Dora replied cheerily.

"What?"

"Seduce the Rystani male."

Leave it to a computer to come up with so logical a solution, one Tessa hadn't considered. "You want me to sleep with the enemy?"

"Not sleep-have sex. Wild, passionate, lusty sex would solve your immediate problem, would it not?"

If a man from Earth had kept Tessa naked and assailed her with kisses and caresses, she would have had no trouble figuring out his motive. But the alien seemed mostly indifferent to her, except for the occasional direct gaze of those cat-eyes.

"Besides, he's not the enemy," Dora continued. "I heard him say that his success is tied to yours."

Tessa wasn't about to cast aside Dora's suggestion without giving it serious consideration, but not for the reasons Dora had mentioned. Kahn wasn't the frivolous sort. He didn't strike her as the type of guy to make her uncomfortable for no damn reason. And no one would spend this much time, effort, or resources just to have sex with an Earthling.

She had to look at the facts. The aliens had requested a virgin. And she'd been forced into a suit that sexually stimulated her. Those were two undeniable truths that indicated her circumstances had something to do with sex.

Tessa didn't believe it was a coincidence that Kahn had told her that her training had begun shortly after the suit had started stroking her. If Kahn called sexual stimulation training, and he'd told her he was supposed to help her develop her psi, was adjusting her suit the method he intended to accomplish his task?

While she'd been told she'd been sent into space, supposedly to perform some unknown alien Challenge with her psi, how did she know the Challenge hadn't to do with mating? Suppose the Challenge was created for the aliens to evaluate her to determine how well she adapted? To determine if she had phobias that would prevent Earthlings from interspecies mating or if she could fit in? What better way to test her than to see if she would have sex with one of them?

Although Kahn had claimed to have been expecting a man, he could have deliberately misled her. Or if Earth had sent a man, perhaps there was a woman waiting somewhere for him. Tessa didn't have enough facts to make a good decision. However, she didn't want to fail. If she'd been willing to give her life to save the president, she ought to be willing to part with her virginity to save her world.

"Don't you find him attractive?" Dora prodded.

"Yes, but I don't know him."

"So what?"

"I don't have feelings for him-"

"Feelings other than lusting after his delicious looking body, you mean?"

"Dora!" Although Tessa admonished her, perhaps her friend had seen what she could not. Had Tessa's background caused her to miss the obvious? The aliens had requested a virgin then kept her naked and stimulated and thrown her together with a man from another world. Why? To accomplish her mission was she supposed to have sex with him?

"I wish I had your problem," Dora admitted. "I wouldn't hesitate."

"I'll think about it." Tessa doubted she'd be able to think about anything else. Perhaps that was the point. Had Kahn programmed her suit to develop her psi or so she would go to him? The entire idea of sexual stimulation causing her psi to emerge seemed absurd. It seemed more likely the Challenge was a test to see how well she intermingled with Kahn.

"He's coming," Dora told her, breaking into her thoughts.

Tessa wished she had more time to think, more information to judge her situation. For all she knew, the Challenge was to see if she could resist the seduction and somehow overcome her primitive biological urges. Or maybe winning the Challenge might require the exact opposite response. Perhaps she'd succeed if she offered to mate with the Rystani. Or perhaps sex had absolutely nothing to do with the Challenge at all.

However, one thing she knew for certain, she didn't like the suit touching her. It left her restless, angry, and very determined to put an end to her suffering. And if she had to choose between the suit's impersonal strokes and Kahn's touch, she'd much prefer the sexy spaceman.

Sexy? Dora's suggestion now had Tessa sizing up Kahn's attributes in a way a woman measures a man. He had a great body, attractive features, and compelling eyes, and he'd never touched her with anything but gentleness. However, the idea of having sex with a man who was causing her distress was not the logic of a rational woman-unless her ability to accept this alien as a partner was the Challenge.

After Mike's death, Tessa had wished they'd made love, and she'd discovered that she usually regretted the things in life she didn't do, not the things she did. Kahn had implied that she might never return from this mission, and she wouldn't mind experiencing sex before the end came. Would she prefer for her emotions to be involved? Yes. But could she enjoy sex without her emotions being involved? She didn't see why not. And Tessa knew better than to believe she could have everything she wanted.

She only wished she could be sure that her assumptions were correct. But Kahn had told her he wouldn't explain anything that had to do with the Challenge. So there was no point in waiting for further information that wouldn't come her way.

"Thanks for the advice and the warning, Dora. You should go now, okay?"

"You do realize that you always send me away right before all the good stuff happens," the computer complained, her tone both peeved and amused.

"I'll tell you all about it later," Tessa promised.

Then the door opened, and Kahn strode into the room, looking bigger and more handsome than Tessa remembered. With those broad shoulders and his tapered waist, he really was a magnificent masculine specimen and had a mouth-watering appeal. But it was his aura of confidence that appealed to Tessa.

She had already tested her fighting abilities against Kahn and come up short. Her goal was to accomplish her task any way she could. And if success for Earth meant having sex with Kahn, she was willing to do so.

Chapter Five.

KAHN PUNCHED up Helera's lined visage on the ship-to-planet communications system. The wise woman's yellow eyes sparkled with curiosity in a face crinkled with worry. "What's wrong?"

With a sheepish grin, he swept a hand through his hair. "How do you know something's wrong?"

Helera smiled. "I'm old, not senile. And I can still see. You never look happy these days, but I would have thought training for combat would put a bit of glow stone light in your eyes."

The buxom woman must have been a beauty in her youth. She still possessed gorgeous yellow irises and the deep bronzed coloring so prized among his people. But her once blond hair had long ago faded to gray, and the lines between her nose and mouth sported heavy folds from years of laughter.

"Earth sent a female. But please keep that information as well as the rest of our conversation to yourself."

"Agreed. Are you following the Federation guidelines?" she asked.

"Yes. But . . ."

"But you hate what you must do." Helera softened her tone. "That's because you are a noble man.

"Noble men don't torture women with sexual frustration."

"You've been taught to protect those who are weaker than you. Rystani treasure and protect their women, hence pushing the Earthling so hard, so fast, is not only unpleasant to you-it goes against every moral code from our world. You must now do what makes you sick inside."

"Warriors can do hard things if necessary-especially when the end result saves the lives of Rystani men, women, and children. But-"

"Pushing her hard will protect her. And you can't permit your personal distaste in training a woman to interfere with your task. Winning the Challenge is too important to our world."

"Treating her this way is still wrong."

"Sometimes we have to do what is wrong to do a greater good. Your father-"

"Corban?" Kahn spat. "You would speak to me of him?"

"He made a supreme sacrifice for our people, or we all would have starved. Can you do less?"

Kahn had no choice. He knew he had no choice. But he'd needed to hear it. No matter how much he'd disapproved of his father's decision, the sacrifice would not be made in vain. No matter how much he disliked what he must do, duty came first.

"Thank you, Helera. You are wise as always."

"Stars be with you." Helera was about to sign off.

"Another moment, please," Kahn requested.

"Yes?"

"The Earth woman . . . I never know what to expect from her."

"Is she so different from us?"

Kahn tried to put his impression into words. "Tessa Camen doesn't act like a Rystani woman would if taken from her home against her will. Rystani women are strong, but they'd panic, sob, and try tearful pleas to get their way. "

"That is so."

"But from the first moment of contact when Tessa opened her brilliant green eyes and stared at me with more curiosity than fear, she's used her resourceful brain instead of relying on emotions."

"That's a bad sign. Federation scientists have determined the best way to invoke psi skills is to elevate frustration. By stimulating her sexually, you'll increase her frustration to a frenzied peak and cause her neglected psi abilities to flex their muscles."

Kahn was grateful Helera was keeping the discussion scientific, impersonal. "But while Tessa seems to physically respond as a Rystani woman would have in her situation, the Earthling represses her frustration."

"She's working against you, battening down her emotional reactions."

"Yes. Instead of strong fear, she's exhibited merely weak anxiety; instead of panic, determination. She's asking questions, gathering information, and assessing my answers like a field general."

"Has she shown any loss of self-control?"

"Only once-when she attacked me."

"Oh my. Is she blind to your muscles or just dim-witted?"

"Neither. Her attack was a systematic test of my defenses with a series of strikes to search for vulnerabilities."

"You have no fighting vulnerabilities."

"She didn't know that. Yet, not once did she go for a death blow."

Helera grinned. "I can almost admire her character, except her skills in suppressing her primitive emotions are counterproductive to what you need to evoke her psi."

And if Tessa didn't learn to use her psi and win the Challenge, the last of his people might perish. "Her strength of self-control suggests the process of bringing out her psi abilities may take longer than I'd planned."

"And require more extreme measures that you find distasteful."

"I'll do my duty." Kahn had no choice.

"You may need to go deeper. You may need to evoke her emotions."

Kahn groaned. "According to the Federation manuals, programming her suit to sexually stimulate and frustrate her is the best way to teach a woman humanoid to use her psi."

"The manual may need to retire."

"After dealing with Tessa, I may need to retire," Kahn joked.

Helera's grin faded. "And don't think of explaining your rationale to her. That would be kind, but doing so in past Challenges has led to failure. Telling her that you need her frustrated to engage her psi will only lower her anxiety level and be counterproductive to your purpose."

"I thought you just told me to retire the manual?"

"A smart man listens to all advice and then makes his own decisions."

Decisions? Or mistakes? "I'll do my best."

"Do better than your best." Helera prodded then signed off.

Full of rigid determination, unwilling to put off another meeting with Tessa any longer, Kahn strode toward the room with the Earth woman, unsure what to expect from her next.

Using his psi, he opened the entryway into her chamber. He'd prepared these quarters after careful consideration of innumerable details. He wanted no portals, technology, or stimulation to distract her from the sensations he'd programmed into her suit.

Perhaps, her frustration level had already grown high enough to enable her to change her suit's transparency so he needn't push her further, so he needn't view the constant reminder of her sex. He found her nudity disturbing and too attractive. He didn't want to appreciate her sleek proportions. He didn't want to admire her toned muscles or her shiny black hair, especially the dark curls between her legs. He wanted to think of her as sexless, but with her perfectly shaped breasts alternately heaving, trembling, quivering, and standing up proudly, he was all too aware of her attributes.

He found her on her feet, facing him almost as if she was waiting for him. He tried to hide his distress that she still remained naked.

"What's wrong?" she asked, striding toward him as if that suit weren't still caressing every bare part of her.