Grand Passion

return, and you know you will need to look into the painting again. And again.” He lifted the heavy weight of her hair aside, bowed his head, and kissed the side of her throat. “And again.”
    “It sounds painful.” But the urgency in her that was generated by his warm, tantalizing kiss was not painful at all. It was exquisitely exciting.
    Max's eyes gleamed in the shadows. “The hunger is part of the pleasure. But you know all about that, don't you?”
    “No. Yes.” She trembled as he traced the line of her jaw with his fingers. “I don't know.” The eyes of the woman in the mirror were still veiled in mystery, even though she no longer wore the protective glasses.
    “You described the sensation in The Mirror ,” Max said. He threaded his fingers through her hair as if it were so much precious silk. “There is hunger on every page. The book is filled with it. It's hunger so deep it has the power to make the reader hungry, too.”
    “ The Mirror is a fantasy,” Cleo said breathlessly.
    Max reached around from behind and started to unbutton her oxford cloth shirt. “A fantasy like the fantasy we're watching in the mirror. A fantasy which is also reality.”
    “No.” But she was no longer certain of that. He was right, the fantasy was rapidly becoming a reality. Max was making it happen. It was disorienting and disquieting. It was also incredibly thrilling.
    “You're the woman in the book, and you're the woman we're watching in the mirror, aren't you, Cleo?”
    A light-headed sensation swept through her, leaving her a little dizzy. “If I'm her, who are you?”
    “You know who I am. I'm the man in the mirror. And I'm the man who's touching you. The brilliance of The Mirror is that in it seducer and seduced become one.”
    She wanted to explain just how much of a fantasy The Mirror really was, but she could not find the words. He would never believe that she had an extremely limited acquaintance with the kind of sensuality she had described in her book. No man would believe that The Mirror had been created almost entirely from her imagination.
    Cleo watched the image in the mirror as Max slowly and steadily undid the buttons of her shirt. She was riveted by the sight of his fingers as they slipped into the shadowed valley between her breasts.
    The woman in the glass could not really be her, Cleo thought. She looked mysterious and exotic and sensual; she looked like a Cleopatra, not a Cleo.
    Max's fingers touched her bare skin, and she sensed herself start to merge with the woman in the mirror. The man in the misty reflection looked at her with knowing eyes, eyes that saw the many layers waiting to be revealed. Eyes that were filled with a hunger that matched and perhaps exceeded her own. That knowledge shook her.
    “Max, I think I'm getting a little scared,” Cleo said.
    “Of me?”
    She looked into the mirror and saw the stark need etched into every line of his face. She also saw the control and self-discipline that governed that need, and she knew that she was safe.
    “No,” Cleo said softly. “I'm not frightened of you.”
    “Of yourself?” He had the shirt undone now. Slowly he parted it, revealing her breasts.
    “Of the unknown, I think.”
    “But you know what's waiting for us, Cleo. You wrote a whole book about it.” Max eased the shirt off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. He circled her waist with his hands and slid his palms upward to cup her breasts. “I'm the one who's going into the unknown.”
    He meant it, Cleo thought, deeply intrigued. Not in the literal sense, of course, but she knew that in some way tonight would be a new experience for Max, too. The knowledge touched her deeply.
    Wordlessly she lifted her fingertips to the side of his face. The movement caused her breast to glide upward. Max's thumb skimmed across her nipple, sending a searing jolt of sensation through her.
    Cleo cried out softly and closed her eyes for a brief moment. She leaned back against Max, seeking the heat and strength of his body. He was as solid as a rock behind her. The heaviness of his arousal pressed into her buttocks.
    Cleo opened her eyes when she felt Max's fingers go to the button of her jeans. He dropped soft, persuasive kisses into her hair as he slid the zipper downward. Cleo stared into the mirror as he eased the jeans and her panties down over her hips. It was like watching a dream unfold. She was part of it and yet still apart from it. The real Cleo was still hovering