“So you like to provoke me until I do.”

“Yeah.” He smiled again. “That about sizes it up.”

“Why?” she demanded in a voice filled with exasperated amusement.

“I’m not immune to you,” Cliff said, so quietly her fingers tightened on the stem of her glass. “I wouldn’t like to think you were immune to me.”

She sat for a moment, stirred and baffled. Before her emotions could rise any closer to the surface, she stood and began to clear the table. “No, I’m not. Would you like more wine or some coffee?”

His hands closed over hers on the dishes. Slowly, he rose, his gaze fixed on her face. Maggie felt as though the kitchen had shrunk in size. Like Alice in the rabbit hole, she thought confusedly, unsure whether to sample that tempting little bottle or not. The patter of rain outside seemed to grow to a roar.

“I want to make love with you.”

She wasn’t a child, Maggie told herself. She was an adult, and men had wanted her before. She’d resisted temptations before. But had any ever been quite so alluring? “We’ve already been through this.”

His hands tightened on hers when she tried to turn away. “But we never resolved it.”

No, she couldn’t turn away, or run away, from a man like this, Maggie realized. She’d have to stand her ground. “I was sure we had. Perhaps coffee would be best, since you have to drive this evening and I have to work.”

Cliff took the dishes and set them back on the table. With her hands empty, Maggie found herself at a loss. She folded her arms under her breasts, a habit Cliff had discovered she used whenever she was upset or disturbed. At the moment, he didn’t care which she was, as long as she wasn’t unmoved.

“We haven’t resolved it,” he repeated, and plucked a pin from her hair. “We haven’t begun to resolve it.”

Though her eyes remained steady, she backed up when he stepped closer. It made him feel as though he were stalking her, an odd and thrilling sensation. “I really thought I’d made myself clear,” Maggie managed, in what sounded to her like a firm, dismissive tone.

“It’s clear when I touch you.” Cliff backed her up against the counter, then pulled another pin from her hair. “It’s clear when you look at me like you’re looking at me now.”

Maggie’s heart began to pound at the base of her throat. She was weakening; she felt it in the heaviness of her limbs, the lightness in her head. Desire was temptation, and temptation a seduction in itself. “I didn’t say I didn’t want you—”

“No, you didn’t,” Cliff interrupted. When he drew out the next pin, her hair fell heavily to her shoulders and lay there, dark and tousled. “I don’t think lying comes easily to you.”

How could she have been so relaxed a few moments before and so tense now? Every muscle in her body was taut in the effort to combat what seemed to be inevitable. “No, I don’t lie.” Her voice was lower, huskier. “I said I didn’t know you. I said you didn’t understand me.”