Risky Business by Nora Roberts Page B

twice.”
    “Okay, finish up. We’ll cruise around ourselves.”
    By the fourth stop, Liz was fed up. She noticed that Jonas no more than toyed with a drink at each bar, but she was tired of the smell of liquor. Some places were quiet, and on the edge of seamy. Others were raucous and lit with flashing lights. Faces began to blur together. There were young people, not so young people. There were Americans out for exotic nightlife, natives celebrating a night on the town. Some courted on dance floors or over tabletops. She saw those who seemed to have nothing but time and money, and others who sat alone nursing a bottle and a black mood.
    “This is the last one,” Liz told him as Jonas found a table at a club with a crowded dance floor and recorded music.
    Jonas glanced at his watch. It was barely eleven. Action rarely heated up before midnight. “All right,” he said easily, and decided to distract her. “Let’s dance.”
    Before she could refuse, he was pulling her into the crowd. “There’s no room,” she began, but his arms came around her.
    “We’ll make some.” He had her close, his hand trailing up her back. “See?”
    “I haven’t danced in years,” she muttered, and he laughed.
    “There’s no room anyway.” Locked together, jostled by the crowd, they did no more than sway.
    “What’s the purpose in all this?” she demanded.
    “I don’t know until I find it. Meantime, don’t you ever relax?” He rubbed his palm up her back again, finding the muscles taut.
    “No.”
    “Let’s try it this way.” His gaze skimmed the crowd as he spoke. “What do you do when you’re not working?”
    “I think about working.”
    “Liz.”
    “All right, I read—books on marine life mostly.”
    “Busman’s holiday?”
    “It’s what interests me.”
    Her body shifted intimately against his. Jonas forgot to keep his attention on the crowd and looked down at her. “ All that interests you?”
    He was too close. Liz tried to ease away and found his arms very solid. In spite of her determination to remain unmoved, her heart began to thud lightly in her head. “I don’t have time for anything else.”
    She wore no perfume, he noted, but carried the scent of powder and spice. He wondered if her body would look as delicate as it felt against his. “It sounds as though you limit yourself.”
    “I have a business to run,” she murmured. Would it be the same if he kissed her again? Sweet, overpowering. His lips were so close to hers, closer still when he ran his hand through her hair and drew her head back. She could almost taste him.
    “Is making money so important?”
    “It has to be,” she managed, but could barely remember why. “I need to buy some aqua bikes.”
    Her eyes were soft, drowsy. They made him feel invulnerable. “Aqua bikes?”
    “If I don’t keep up with the competition…” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
    “The competition?” he prompted.
    “I…the customers will go someplace else. So I…” The kiss teased the other corner.
    “So?”
    “I have to buy the bikes before the summer season.”
    “Of course. But that’s weeks away. I could make love with you dozens of times before then. Dozens,” he repeated as she stared at him. Then he closed his mouth over hers.
    He felt her jolt—surprise, resistance, passion—he couldn’t be sure. He only knew that holding her had led to wanting her and wanting to needing. By nature, he was a man who preferred his passion in private, quiet spots of his own choosing. Now he forgot the crowded club, loud music and flashing lights. They no longer swayed, but were hemmed into a corner of the dance floor, surrounded, pressed close. Oblivious.
    She felt her head go light, heard the music fade. The heat from his body seeped into hers and flavored the kiss. Hot, molten, searing. Though they stood perfectly still, Liz had visions of racing. The breath backed up in her lungs until she released it with a shuddering sigh. Her body,