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head in order to drive the point home. “You are still so young, full of energy and time, whereas I”—his voice broke off and he seemed to struggle with something—“I have lived too many lives already. So you’re absolutely correct to be wary, Anna. Back away from me.”
    Perhaps it was his awkward denials and attempts at reversing their moment, but she felt suddenly very certain about what he meant to her. What he would mean, what he had already come to mean over the past day and months.
    She placed a palm over his heart, felt its urgent, steady beating. “You aren’t an old man, Nevin. Look at you! You’re so handsome!” With her fingertips, she reached upward and traced the slight lines about his eyes. “You wear your maturity like the virile man that you are. I know what maturity is about, don’t think that I don’t.” She laughed, reaching her hand to the top of his head, stroking it, feeling the scratch of the close-cropped hairs, running them under her hands like zia grass back home, all prickly and tickling. “You are in your sexual prime, it’s obvious.” He stiffened beneath her touch, shaking his head slightly.
    â€œNot…true.” He drew in a shuddering breath.
    â€œNo?” she teased, pulling back slightly to study him. “Then why are you trembling so badly when I touch you? Because you’re dead inside? Because you have no life left? And why did you insist that we scent each other?” He said nothing, kept his face unreadable. “Because you know,” she finished, leaning up onto her tiptoes so she could meet his gaze head-on. “Because you understand this thing between us.”
    He released a rumbling, low growl from the back of his throat, like a Refarian tiger in heat. She had friends who had lovers like Nevin, sexy, unstoppable men in their post-change prime; everyone said such men were volcanoes in bed, unable to suppress their ever-increasing needs.
    Nevin fit those descriptions to perfection, both physically and emotionally. Mentally. His stamina was undeniable—they’d hiked these mountains for hours and he’d never tired. She loved that in a man, someone who could keep pace with her boundless energy. She knew what he’d be in bed: that same tiger in heat.
    â€œI-I am not the man for you, Anna,” he stammered, lifting his chin proudly. But he could do nothing to dampen his distinctive, sexual scent. It was palpable, strong as she breathed him in and his aroma kept tantalizing her. Why All had put the Refarian men in their prime of heat after their fertility faded, well this much she’d never understood. Was there some mystical secret to it? She had no idea for certain, but the man before her shook with barely contained lust—lust so profound it gave off a scent that kept her entire body tethered to his like a chain of reflexive Antousian metal.
    â€œI can still scent you,” she told him at last, running her tongue over her lips. “It’s intense, Nevin. The aroma of heat and fertility and gods-only-knows what all.”
    With a tremor, he lifted his hand to her throat, stroking the slight indentation at the base of it, running his fingertips across her bare skin. “Anna…back away. I was wrong to invite this. You’re much too young, too innocent. Nothing right can happen here.”
    â€œ You’re not backing away.” She gave a defiant lift of her chin. “You’re touching me.”
    â€œOne of us must…break this hold we seem to have”—he hesitated, his breathing growing heavy as he wrestled for words—“upon each other. This lusty hold. Must stop, Anna. Must.”
    â€œThen do it. Do it, Nevin. You make the break.”
    He dipped his fingers lower, tracing the edge of her collar. “I don’t think I’m capable.”
    â€œThen make love to me—here, now, beneath the sun and sky!”