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'Don't what, Sian?' he

'Say things you don't mean'

'I mean them Why should you think I'd say them if I didn't?' He sounded baffled, uneasy

'What about Annette?' she cried, voice shaky

'Ah,' he said on a long sigh 'Annette'

'Nobody gets over loving so out from under her lid

'Darling!' Cass said on a deep, shaken sound, and then his lips were on her wet eyes and his arms round her, and Sian ached to let herself yield weakly to the coth, but she wouldn't— she pushed at his shoulders and turned her face away fro lips

'Do I have to bite you, too?'

Cass laughed, surprised 'Terant! I believe you would'

'You'd better believe it!' she said firo of her, because he would be able to read too erous to let Cass kno he made her feel She hadn't believed it possible to feel e intensity was a shock to her, utterly new and bewildering She had had hteen, she had even thought she ht be in love once or twice; she had suffered when relationships broke up, but she had never quite been able to give herself completely to anyone else She had always had reservations, held back a part of herself that was essential, the core of her own being She had thought it would always be like that; she had come to think she wasn't capable of a really intense e now It had never happened like this before Her whole body see internally at the very idea of ever saying goodbye to Cass

Cass backed and sat down on the ironwork bench 'Then we'd better talk'

She stayed where she was, eyes lowered, the curve of her face stubborn 'Talk away'

'Come and sit down!'

It wasn't so estion or request as an order, a

utocratically given, and Sian stayed at a distance, gri