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and check the oil, which is all I’ve ever needed. My favorite color is blue, my politics are mostly liberal, and if it matters to you, I’m a Scorpio—so don’t mess with me if I’m in a bad mood.”
    Marc was smiling.
    Josie went on stolidly. “My first boyfriend gave me my first kiss around the age of nine, as I recall; he did it on a dare, and I was curious, but our teeth got in the way, so neither of us enjoyed the experience. Needless to say, the relationship didn’t last. Over the next few years I had several more boyfriends; at that stage, we mostly punched each other on the arm as gestures of affection. In junior high I reached the hand-holding-in-public stage with a boyfriend who knew how to kiss without getting our braces locked; we went steady for more than a year and pretty much fought like two cats tied up in a bag.”
    When she paused, Marc murmured, “Don’t stop now. I’ve a feeling we’re just getting to the interesting part.”
    She frowned at him. “Not really. I had the same boyfriend all through high school, but he ended up at Stanford while I went to Wellesley, and neither of us could commute—so that took care of that. I dated in college, but nothing serious. Since then, I’ve been working long hours, so there hasn’t been a lot of time for a social life. And that brings us up to the present.”
    Marc nodded gravely and leaned over to place his cup on the coffee table. He seemed thoughtful, and when he leaned back and met her gaze, there was a heavy-lidded look to his eyes. It was unmistakably sensual. That was the only warning Josie had before he closed the distance between them, slid his unencumbered right hand under her loose hair to the nape of her neck, and pulled her slowly toward him.
    “There’s something I have to know,” he murmured.
    In the seconds granted to her, Josie knew she could stop this. She
knew
she could. All she had to do was stiffen, or pull away, or just say no. No, don’t do that. No, I don’t want to.
    Except that she did want to.
    She gazed into his heavy-lidded, tarnished-silver eyes until his lips touched hers, and then she closed her own eyes as an abrupt wave of dizzying pleasure washed over her. His mouth was warm, soft and hard at the same time, and incredibly erotic. She could feel the tension of wariness seeping out of her, feel her body soften and begin to tremble.
    She wanted to reach out to him, touch him, but her mind was still too wary for that even if another part of her wasn’t. She couldn’t reach out. But she couldn’t pull back, either, or deny even to herself the pleasure she felt and the overwhelming response of her body to his touch.
    She felt the tip of his tongue probing, sliding along the sensitive inner surface of her lip, and a hot shiver rippled through her. She had never felt anything like it before, and was astonished to realize that it was desire. She had believed she’d felt desire before, but now she knew better.
    This was desire, swift, hot, and urgent, and everything in her recognized the enormity of it.
    Josie didn’t know what she might have done if he hadn’t drawn slowly away just then, because with that devastating desire had come a confused jumble of emotions she very badly needed to sort through and understand.
    “Our teeth didn’t get in the way,” Marc murmured huskily as he drew back, “and there are no braces to lock, but I have to know how I stack up against your previous boyfriends. It’s a macho thing, I’m afraid. The battle of conquest, and all that. So tell me—how do I compare?”
    She blinked at him. “What?”
    “As a kisser.” He appeared perfectly serious.
    Josie had a vague objection. “But you aren’t my boyfriend.”
    “We’re a little old for the terminology,” he agreed. “How does
lover
strike you?”
    After a brief moment of uncertainty, Josie got hold of herself. “I don’t want a lover, thank you very much,” she told him politely.
    “No?”
    “No.” She wished