When she was finished, Maggie was breathless and moved and exhilarated. She reached up to rewind the recorder for playback when, for the second time, she saw Cliff standing in the doorway.

Her hand froze, and her pulse, already fast, went racing. Had she called him with the song, she wondered frantically. Was the magic that strong? When he said nothing, she switched off the recorder and spoke with studied calm. “Is it an accepted habit in the country for people to walk into homes uninvited?”

“You don’t seem to hear the door when you’re working.”

She acknowledged this with an inclination of her head. “That might mean I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m working.”

“It might.” Disturbed. The word almost made him laugh. Perhaps he had disturbed her work, but that was nothing compared to what the song had done to him—to what watching her sing had done to him. It had taken every ounce of his control not to yank her from the piano stool and take her on the littered, dusty floor. He came closer, knowing before it reached him that her scent would be there to add to her allure.

“I lost quite a bit of time yesterday.” Maggie swallowed whatever was trying to block her voice. Her body was still throbbing, still much too vulnerable from the passion she’d released. “I have a deadline on this score.”

He glanced down at her hands. He wanted to feel them stroke over him with the same skill she’d used on the piano keys. Slowly, he took his gaze up her arms, over the curve of her shoulder to her face. For both of them, it was as if he’d touched her.

Her breath wasn’t steady; her eyes weren’t calm. That was as he wanted it now. No matter how often or how firmly he told himself to back off from her, Cliff knew he was reaching a point when it would be impossible. She wasn’t for him—he could convince himself of that. But they had something that had to be freed and had to be tasted.

“From what I heard,” he murmured, “you seem to be finished.”

“That’s for me to decide.”

“Play it back.” It was a challenge. He saw from her eyes that she knew it. A challenge could backfire on either of them. “The last song—I want to hear it again.”

Dangerous. Maggie understood the danger. As she hesitated, his lips curved. It was enough. Without a word, she punched the rewind button. The song was a fantasy, she told herself as the tape hurried backward. It was a fantasy, just as the film was a fantasy. The song was for the characters in a story and had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with her. Or with him. She flicked the recorder to play.

She’d listen objectively, Maggie decided as the music began to spill into the room. She’d listen as a musician, as a technician. That was what her job demanded. But she found, as her own voice began to tempt her, that she was listening as a woman. Rising, she walked to the window and faced out. When a hunger was this strong, she thought, distance could mean everything.