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wonderful.
    “Hmm.”
    “This painting…” she gestured behind her, wincing when a drop of champagne spilled onto her wrist, “…for example. Isn’t it stunning?”
    He glanced past her at the painting. “This one?”
    Desperate to play this for all it was worth, she turned to face the painting she’d hungered for so hard. Harder now that she had seen its creator up close. She lifted her glass and drained it completely, the small jolt of alcohol warming her. “Yes. It’s great. Love it.”
    His shoe squeaked. Another step, though not close enough to touch her, but she could feel the heat rising off his body. The curve of the wall carved this small section away from the rest of the gallery, the shadows helping to hide them. “The gallery manager didn’t like this piece. She thought it would be unmarketable. Plain. That’s why it’s hidden over here.”
    Distracted from her panic, a real frown pleated her brow. “She needs her eyes checked.”
    “She’s considered one of the best in the business.”
    “Then the business is broken.” This wasn’t plain. The figures sang with vitality and life and passion. If Rana didn’t know it would be the height of bad manners, she would trail her fingers over their bodies.
    “I’ve created better.”
    She played dumb. “Oh, did you paint this?” She started to turn, but froze when a big finger brushed her bare shoulder. The touch was so light, she would have thought she imagined it, but there was no way she could imagine the tingle racing over her skin.
    “What do you see?” His voice was luscious and deep, cool and commanding. She wanted to curl up with a smoky whiskey and have that voice say all sorts of erotic things to her.
    “Need.” Her answer was embarrassingly instantaneous. She didn’t just see the need, she felt it. It lifted off the canvas and sank into her veins.
    He made an approving noise. Again, the lightest of butterfly touches whispered against her other shoulder.
    She could demand he stop, but she loved it. Her body swayed backward, eager for more.
    “And?”
    Rana shifted. “Desire.”
    “And?”
    She hesitated, twisting her empty champagne flute by the stem. Never had she thought about a piece of art so intently.
    She wanted to please him. Maybe then he would give her another one of those light brushes of skin against skin.
    She studied the way the man’s head hovered over the woman’s shoulder, his lips a breath away from kissing her. “Fear.”
    He paused for a second, as if he were caught off-guard. “Her fear.”
    She frowned. Her fear? No. The woman was pressing closer to the man, her hand on his chest hungry, not protesting. It was the man who was hesitating, his arm around the woman grasping, as if he feared she would vanish. “His fear.”
    There was silence for so long she wondered if she had scared him off. When he finally spoke, she released a sigh of relief. The relief vanished the second she processed his harsh, blunt words. “Do you see all of this now? Or did you see it when you watched me paint it?”
    Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Where before she’d been hot, she grew suddenly, terribly cold, the blood draining from her face. Her fingers opened reflexively, the champagne flute tumbling.
    With a speed and grace that was almost inhuman, his hand reached in front of her and plucked the glass out of mid-air. His front brushed against her backside, the fabric of his trousers scraping her bare legs. His arm crossed over her belly. To anyone watching, it would have seemed like a simple gesture, a man standing behind and putting his arm around a woman while they spoke in front of a painting.
    There was nothing simple about the electricity that arced between them.
    He withdrew his arm slowly. She heard the clink of glass on something as he set it down, and then his footsteps as he came to stand next to her. She continued to stare at the painting, her mind racing, struggling to come up with justification, lies, or