Unfortunately she was also too restless to work on the shards. She tried, but for once the lure of putting together an ancient puzzle couldn't hold her attention. After fitting a few pieces together, she turned off the big gooseneck lamp and sat at the worktable with no more illumination than that provided by the lamp in the far corner of the room. The shadows cast by that lamp were soft and inviting, making velvet distinctions between light and dark.
Pounce leaped into Diana's lap and yeowed in soft demand. Absently she stroked the cat, drawing forth a ripple of purrs. For a long time there was no other sound. Then a knock came on the front door and Ten called out. Hearing Ten's deep voice sent another curious frisson through Diana.
"I'm in the workroom," she answered. Her voice was unusually husky, but the words carried well enough. The door opened and closed and Ten walked into the room. With a gesture that had become familiar to her, he removed his hat and set it on the small table beneath the lamp.
"That old mouser must think he's died and gone to heaven," Ten said.
The corner of his mouth tugged up, sending another glimmer of heat through Diana.
"Did you mean what you said?" she asked before she could think of all the reasons to be silent.
"I always mean what I say. When it comes to you and that cat, I'm damned certain."
Diana took a deep breath. "Would you really trade places with Pounce?"
This time the curve at the corner of Ten's mouth expanded into a true smile. "Why? You have some mice that he's too lazy to catch?"
Her lips tried to smile but were trembling too hard. She could barely find the courage to force out her next question.
"Would you really like to be touched by me?" she asked. "I mean, do I…attract you?"
"Sure," Ten said offhandedly, reaching for the switch on the gooseneck lamp.
"Would you… kiss me?"
Ten's hand froze in midair. Amusement vanished from his expression. His eyes narrowed until there was little left but a silver glitter as he turned and looked at the woman who was only a few feet away.
"You're serious, aren't you," he said.
She nodded because her throat was too tight for words.
"What happened to all the No Trespassing signs?"
Diana opened her mouth. No words came from her constricted throat. She licked her lips. Ten watched the motion with a heavy-lidded, sensual intensity that would have frightened her once. Now it came as a relief. It gave her the courage to put into words the realization that had been growing in her mind for a long time.
"Watching Carla and Luke and their baby has made me understand that I'm missing something wonderful and-and vital." Diana's voice shifted, becoming even lower, more husky. She spoke swiftly, as though afraid of being interrupted and then not having the courage to continue. "But until I get over being afraid of men, I won't have a chance for the kind of life I want. Men want sex. I have to be able to give a man what he wants in order to get what I really want-a baby of my own.''
Ten's left eyebrow rose in a wicked black arch. "Honey, you don't need a man to get a baby." His mouth tugged up at the comer in response to Diana's shocked look. "If you don't believe me, ask any veterinarian."
Silky hair flew as Diana shook her head vigorously. "No. That's not what I want. Too cold. I want my baby to be conceived in warmth, in a-a joining of two people. Not a doctor's office. That wouldn't-I just-no." She took a fast, harsh breath, trying to control her nervousness. "So I have to start somewhere. A kiss seems a logical beginning."
"Why me?"
Diana looked away, unable to bear the diamond clarity of Ten's eyes.
"Because I-I trust you," she said, her voice uneven. "I've seen you handle kittens and delicate pieces of pottery. You're as gentle as you are strong. When I was trapped in the kiva, I was helpless, completely at your mercy. You could have done anything, but what you did was pull me out, comfort me, take care of me. Never once did you so much as hint that I owed you thanks, much less the use of my body for sex."
Unwavering gray eyes watched Diana. "And now you want me to kiss you?" Closing her eyes, she nodded. "Despite your fear of men," Ten added.
Again, she nodded. Then, in a whispered rush, she said, "I like you, Ten. I know I could bear being kissed by you, but the thought of any other man makes me-cold."
A visible shudder of fear and revulsion went through Diana. Ten saw it but said nothing.
"Anyway," she added with desperate calm, "if you know going in that all it's going to be is a kiss, you won't push for more, will you? If I'm honest?" Diana opened her eyes and looked at Ten with unconscious pleading. "I'm not a tease. Truly. It's just that I can't bear being touched by men."
"What happened?" Ten asked calmly. "Why do you have such a poor opinion of sex in general and men in particular? What makes you afraid that every man you kiss will demand sex?"
"Because it's true."
"You don't believe that."
"The hell I don't," she said, her voice low and flat.
Ten stared at Diana. All her softness and unconscious pleading was gone, all hope, all color; and what was left was a bleak acceptance that made her voice as flat as the line of her mouth.
"Look," Ten said reasonably, "no man worthy of the name is going to share a few kisses with a woman and then demand a turn in the sack."
Diana shrugged. The movement was tight, jerky, saying more than words about the tension within her, a tension that had been pulling her apart for too many years.
"Maybe you're right," she said. Then she made an angry, anguished sound. Years of bitterness burst out in a torrent of words. "But the only way to find out which men are decent is to try the kisses, all the while praying very hard that when the time comes he'll take no for an answer, because if he doesn't, he's bigger than you are, stronger, and you've been dating him for months and no one on earth will believe that he forced you."
"You're acting as though all men-"
"Not all men," she interrupted savagely. "But too damned many! If you don't believe me, ask the psychologist who did a study for UCLA. The statistics are illuminating. More than a third of all women have their first sexual experience as the result of rape."
"What?"
"Rape," Diana said savagely. "I'm not talking about being beaten senseless or having a knife at your throat until the rapist is finished, although God knows I talked to too many girls who got initiated that way, in outright violence."
Diana's breath came in harshly, but she gave Ten no chance to speak. "I'm not even talking about incest. I'm talking about the dumb middle-class bunnies who believe that no means no, who believe that the boy they've been dating for three months won't use his strength against his girlfriend, won't keep pushing and pushing and pushing her for sex, taking off her clothes while she says no, putting his hand between her legs even when she tries to push it away, and each time they're alone he pushes harder and harder until finally he was holding me down, telling me all the while how it was okay, nice girls did it all the time, he'd still love me in the morning, in fact he'd love me more than ever-"
"Diana," Ten said, his voice low, shocked.
She didn't even hear him. "-and I was too well brought up to claw and scream and kick, and above all / couldn't believe Steve wouldn't stop. Nice middle-class girls don't get raped by nice middle-class boys. He had stopped the times before. He would stop this time. He had to. He simply had to. God help me, I still didn't believe it when he was finished and I was bleeding and he was zipping up his pants suggesting we have a burger and some fries before we went to his apartment and did it some more."
Diana blinked, shuddered again and made a broken sound. "To this day Steve doesn't know why I broke our engagement. The last time I talked to him, he got mad and said if I didn't want sex, I shouldn't ask for it by wearing heels and sexy hairstyles and perfume and I shouldn't make out at all. I was a good middle-class girl, so I believed him. I believed it had been my fault."