Deliberately, she took a step closer, running her hands slowly up his chest. It was time, she decided, to give him back a bit of his own. “Maybe I’m hungry, after all,” she murmured, and, rising on her toes, brushed her lips teasingly over his.

Because he hadn’t expected the move from her, Cliff did nothing. From the start he’d stalked and seduced. She was the lady, the crown princess with the wanton passion men often fantasize about on long, dark nights. Now, looking into those deep, velvet eyes, he thought her more of a witch. And who, he wondered as his blood began to swim, had been stalked and seduced?

She took his breath away—just the scent of her. She made his reason cloud—just the touch of her. When she looked at him like this, her eyes knowing, her lips parted and close, she was the only woman he wanted, the only woman he knew. At times like this, he wanted her with a fire that promised never to be banked. Quite suddenly and quite clearly, she terrified him.

“Maggie.” He put a hand up to ward her off, to draw her closer; he’d never know, for the dog began to bark, and the rumble of a car laboring up the lane sounded from outside. Cliff dropped the hand to his side again. “That’ll be Stan.”

“Yes.” She studied him with an open curiosity he wasn’t ready to deal with.

“You’d better get the door.”

“All right.” She kept her gaze direct on his for another moment, rather pleased with the uncertainty she saw there. “You coming?”

“Yeah. In a minute.” He waited until she had gone, then let out a long, uneasy breath. That had been too close for comfort. Too close to what, he wasn’t certain, but he was certain he didn’t like it. With his appetite strangely vanished, Cliff abandoned the drumstick and picked up his coffee. When he noticed his hands weren’t quite steady, he downed the contents in one swallow.

Well, she certainly had enough to think about, Maggie mused as she walked down the hall. The sheriff was at her door again, Cliff was standing in her kitchen looking as though he’d been struck with a blunt instrument, and her own head was so light from a sense of—was it power?—that she didn’t know what might happen next. Her move to the country certainly hadn’t been quiet. She’d never been more stimulated in her life.

“Miss Fitzgerald.”

“Sheriff.” Maggie scooped Killer up in one arm to quiet his barking.

“Quite a beast you’ve got there,” he commented. Then, holding out a hand, he allowed the puppy to sniff it cautiously. “Cliff gave me a call,” he continued. “Said it looked like somebody’s broken into the house.”