grief. Her failure to struggle or offer any resistance at all surprised him. She had surrendered limply to his guiding strength, allowing him to lift her up and change the position of her body without crying out or pleading with him not to touch her.

It was a good omen, even though it seemed strange and unnatural under the circumstances. Then, quite suddenly, he realized that she wasn't looking at him at all. She was staring dazedly beyond him, at the blank expanse of metal surrounding the slowly closing hull section. Her eyes were very wide, the pupils slightly dilated, and her lips were parted, as if she lacked the will or desire to bring her thoughts to a focus, and exercise control over the muscles of her face.

She appeared to be in a state of shock. Well that was understandable, he told himself. He should have anticipated such a frustrating development and made allowances for it. He could wait. She would find him an impetuous lover but not an inconsiderate one. He would know how to be gentle with her.

He would wait patiently and—it suddenly seemed to him that he could no longer breathe. Her closeness, the pulsating of the veins in her soft, white throat, the swelling firmness of her breasts, bursting like honey mounds from the constraining tightness of her dress made it impossible for him to wait.

It was all like a terrible dream that is both rapturously intoxicating—sweet beyond anything the waking mind can experience—and laden with the blackest kind of guilt. He had not wanted to be cruelly importunate with this woman whom he desired so ardently—this woman whom he had already begun to worship.

But now he had no choice. Restraint had become impossible.

His arms went out and around her. She was not the first human woman he had ever made love to, but in that instant of fierce passion no other woman existed for him. There were no memories to distract him and provide comparisons, for all past amorous conquests dwindled to a pin point glimmering in his mind, and then vanished completely.

He was only aware of her. Aware of her hair, which his taloned hands caressed lightly and the soft flesh of her shoulders which he also caressed, and the tender swell of her bosom which drew his eyes, and her mouth, which he wanted to smother with kisses. He wanted to envelop her completely, and in every pore of her being, to make of his body a palpitating web of love which would bind and imprison her and make her his captive and 

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