his head - images he had seen years ago in an ancient scroll, images of couples engaged in a practice long forbidden and forgotten.
"It's all right," Lainey murmured, threading her fingers through his hair.
"No!" He drew back, his brow sheened with perspiration, his breathing ragged. "We mustn't."
"Mustn't what? Kiss? There's no harm in a kiss."
He stared at her mouth, knowing deep in his heart that one kiss would not be enough, that a hundred, nay a thousand, would be far too few.
She smiled up at him, her beautiful brown eyes as luminous as the stars of Xanthia, her lips pink and inviting, and he surrendered to the invitation in her eyes, unable to resist the temptation to kiss her again.
A kiss, he thought, what an amazing thing it was.
He had never kissed a woman before. It shook him to the very core of his being, freeing his tightly reined emotions, until he wanted nothing more than to plunder her body as he plundered her mouth.
The thought that his self-control, that the discipline he had worked so long and hard to master, could be so easily destroyed, was devastating, and he drew back, thinking that Lainey's power over him was far more dangerous than all the armies on the face of the earth.
Lainey gazed up at him, confused by his abrupt withdrawal. "What's the matter?" she teased, resorting to humor to cover her sudden uncertainty. "Are you afraid I'll seduce you?"
"No." His voice was thick. "I'm afraid of what I'll do to you."
It wasn't a harmless flirtation anymore. He wanted her in the most primal, elemental sense of the word. And she wanted him. Wanted him as she had never wanted another man.
"Micah..."
His gaze slid away from hers. He wanted her with a soul-deep ache that was frightening in its intensity, and even more alarming because he had never before known he was capable of such need, such raw, primitive hunger. To feel it now, for an earth woman, was more than he could endure.
"I think you should go."
He was right, and she knew it, but at that moment Lainey didn't care about right or wrong. She wanted to stay, to bask in the warmth of his arms, to lose herself in the sweet seduction of his kisses.
"Please, Lainey, go home and don't come back." Micah forced the words past his lips.
He watched her stand up, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. He didn't have to probe her mind to know he had hurt her deeply, but it was for the best - for her, at least.
He clenched his hands at his sides to keep from reaching out for her, compressed his lips to hold back the words that would beg her to stay.
She looked down at him for several seconds, then turned on her heel and hurried out of the room, out of the house.
He stared after her for a long time. In his mind's eye, he could see her running down the driveway, fumbling inside her handbag, jamming the key into the ignition of her little blue car. The motor sputtered to life, the car pulled into the street, and then she was gone, leaving him sitting there in the darkness, empty and alone, as he had always been alone.
It was time to leave here, he thought dully. He should have activated the distress signal long ago, but he had been reluctant to leave this planet.
Late at night, he had often assumed a human shape and wandered up and down the dark streets, intrigued and fascinated by the subtle differences, the numerous similarities, between Xanthia and Earth.
He should go home, but now that he had found Lainey, going home was the last thing he wanted. He hadn't meant to hurt her, didn't want to hurt her, and yet sending her away had been for her own good. He could not tell her the truth. He could not let himself succumb to the shameful primal urge that was tormenting him even now, sending the hot blood rushing through his body, making him long for a way of life that had been proscribed eons before he was born.
Heavy-hearted, he walked up the stairs to the third-floor room.
She was gone, and his soul was as cold and empty as his heart.
Part One Chapter Six
"Lainey. Lainey?"
With a shake of her head, Lainey pulled herself out of her reverie and looked across the table at her mother. "What?"