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 a slave of love through long months and years of amorous dalliance. He wanted to hold her tightly and never let her go. There were lovers who remained entwined the whole night through and he wanted to be such a lover now, but a single night would never suffice and he wanted it to be a hundred nights, a thousand. Earthmen were too quick in their lovemaking, headstrong and foolish. They thought of love as a kind of explosion, which quickly burned itself out and left only ashes. He knew better. He was far wiser and now that wisdom and knowledge was a living flame consuming him. Not a flame that could be extinguished in one soaring burst of ecstacy or a hundred such bursts but a flame that would burn forever. First her mouth. Claim and possess it, parted lips over parted lips with the dartings of love between. Yes, her moist and yielding lips. She would bend to him and he would kiss her with such ardor.... But it was not as he had expected. As his arms moved to envelop her more completely and his lips approached her mouth she shuddered convulsively and strained backwards, crying out in wild terror.