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  Of course, it had been a long time since she’d thought that. Recently she’d really begun to like the way he looked and now…now he was so different.

  “I wish my skin was the same color as yours,” he said, holding his arm alongside hers to compare. “But I’m glad you find me easier to look at now.”

  “I never found you hard to look at,” Lauren protested. “In fact…Here, lean down a little.”

  Obediently, he crouched down so she could reach around behind his neck. Lauren felt for the leather thong that kept his hair tied in the tight club at the back of his neck. Carefully, she unknotted it and pulled it free.

  The effect was dramatic. A thick, glossy curtain of blue-black hair fell down around Xairn’s muscular shoulders. It framed his face, softening his stern features, and making him look more than ever like a model on the front of a romance novel.

  “Wow,” Lauren breathed, stepping back to look at him. “See, now I’ve been wanting to do that almost from the first moment I saw you. And that was long before you turned into Mr. GQ.”

  He frowned and ran a hand over his hair. “Why should you want to let my hair down?”

  “Because I wanted to do this.” Reaching up, she ran her fingers through his silky black mane. Truly, he looked magnificent, but what really made him attractive were the traces of the old Xairn she could see peeking out through his gorgeous new exterior.

  Xairn shivered under her touch like a nervous animal but didn’t draw away. Instead he held perfectly still as she caressed him. “Why?” he whispered. “Why would you want to…to touch me so?”

  “Because I like you.” Lauren pulled him closer and he came to her willingly, his gorgeous, sea-colored eyes wide and uncertain. “Xairn, I think…I think I might be starting to love you,” she confessed. “And not because of this…because of how you look. Because of all we’ve been through together. Everything you’ve done for me… risked for me… given up for me. You’re the sweetest, kindest, most noble man I know.”

  “You’re wrong,” he whispered hoarsely as she drew him closer. “I am not any of those things.”

  “You’re all that and more,” Lauren insisted. She put her arms around his neck and stood on her tiptoes. “I wanted to do this too, you know,” she murmured. Gently, she brushed his lips with hers.

  Xairn’s reaction was immediate and intense. Arms like warm, flexible steel suddenly crushed her against him and his mouth covered hers, insistent and demanding.

  At first Lauren was a little frightened but then she relaxed into his grip. She could feel the need in him—need that had been buried for years and years, desire he’d been too afraid of to ever let see the light of day. Can’t let him think I’m afraid of him. Can’t feed the image he has of himself as some kind of sexual monster.

  Moaning softly, she opened her mouth to him, inviting him in, trusting him. Xairn hesitated at first but then she felt his tongue enter her slowly. She caressed it gently with her own, inviting him to do more, to explore. Xairn took her invitation eagerly, threading his fingers through her hair and growling softly deep in his chest as he pulled her even closer.

  Lauren was still wearing the fuzzy purple robe she’d put on the night before and she was bare underneath. As Xairn pulled her to him, the robe opened up and she moaned breathlessly to feel her naked breasts rub against his broad, bare chest.

  There was a hard bulge in the black boxer briefs he was wearing and it pressed insistently against her thigh, dangerously close to her unprotected pussy. Lauren had a brief thought about how he’d claimed to have double the usual equipment down there but from what she could feel, it was perfectly normal. Well, maybe not completely normal—it did feel awfully large. Maybe she’d get a chance to explore and find out exactly what…

  “Stop!” Xairn broke the kiss abruptly.

  “What? Why?” Lauren looked up dazedly, trying to find the reason in his eyes. “Do you want to go to bed? Because I agree this isn’t the best place for this.” She gestured around the bathroom with its deep blue fixtures and the bathtub still filled with congealed pink oatmeal stuff from her abandoned bath of the night before.

  “No, I do not wish to take you on the bed.” Xairn’s voice was hoarse and the hot, hard ridge Lauren could still feel against her thigh throbbed as though in denial of his words.

  “Where then?” she asked, frowning.

  “Nowhere. I…I do not wish to take you at all.”

  “You’re lying,” Lauren said softly. Reaching up, she cupped his cheek and looked into those new, beautiful sea-colored eyes. “You want me, Xairn—I can feel it.” She nudged him with her thigh and had the satisfaction of seeing him jump. “And I want you.” She nodded down at herself to where her tight nipples were still rubbing against the broad, tan planes of his chest. “We want each other,” she clarified. “We need each other. And I don’t see one good reason we shouldn’t give in to that need.”

  “Because I feel for you as well.” Gently but firmly he took her hands and put them down by her sides. Then he stepped back, breaking all physical contact between them. “I don’t know what to call it but I want…I want to shelter you from pain, to keep you safe from harm. To comfort you when you’re sad. To put my body between you and any danger that might befall you.” He shook his head. “It’s a very strange and confusing emotion.”

  “It sounds like love to me,” she said quietly. “If you love me, why are you pulling away?”

  “Because of everything I told you last night. Because of what I am.” He shook his head and looked away from her naked body, framed in the fuzzy purple robe. “And it’s because I care for you that I must leave you. I’ll see you safely home to your planet but then…then I must go.”

  “Go where?” Lauren reached for him but he ducked away from her touch. “Will you come back and see me?”

  “No.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Never.”

  “What?” Stung and surprised, Lauren began to cry. Hot tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her cheeks before she could stop them.

  “What did you expect?” he asked roughly. “For me to stay on Earth with you? Live as a human? Just because I look like one now doesn’t mean I am one inside, you know.”

  “I…I know.” Lauren sniffed and tried to stop crying. “I don’t know what I expected but I hoped you might stay…at least awhile.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I must go.”

  “Why? Because of what your people do?” Lauren sniffed again and glared at him fiercely. “I don’t accept that. I don’t care how the men in your race treat women or what you’ve seen your father do—you’re not them, Xairn. You’re you. And I know you wouldn’t treat me that way. I know you would never hurt me.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said in a low voice. “More wrong than you know.”

  “Maybe I am at that.” The tears wanted to come back but Lauren wouldn’t let them. “Because you have hurt me—worse than I’ve ever been hurt in my life.”

  “What?” He looked startled. “I haven’t laid a hand on you. Not in the way of my people, anyway.”

  “No, but you’re leaving me as soon as we get back to Earth. Leaving without even trying to explore these feelings we have for each other.” Lifting her chin, Lauren looked him in the eye. “And that hurts worse than any rough, kinky BDSM-type fantasy ever could. You haven’t just wounded my body, Xairn—you’ve wounded my heart.”

  He opened his mouth to reply but Lauren didn’t want to hear it—didn’t want to hear more excuses. Straightening her shoulders, she drew the robe close around herself and stalked out of the bathroom. If that was the way he wanted it, then so be it. It was clear he was serious about dropping her off on Earth and leaving her without a backwards glance. Fine then, she wasn’t going to beg.

  But it hurt. Oh God, it hurt much worse than she ever could have believed possible. And she couldn’t stop hearing his deep voice in her head saying those sweet words, I want to shelter you from pain, to keep you safe from harm. To co