Risky Business

body was hers for the taking.
    Her hands were inexperienced so that her stroking was soft and hesitant. It drove him mad. No one had ever been so sweetly determined to bring him pleasure. She pressed kisses over his chest, slowly, experimentally, then rubbed her cheek over his skin so that the touch both soothed and excited.
    His body was on fire, yet it seemed to float free so that he could feel the passage of air breathe cool over his flesh. She touched, and the heat spread like brushfire. She tasted and the moistness from her lips was like the whisper of a night breeze, cooling, calming.
    “Tell me what you want.” She looked up and her eyes were luminous in the moonlight, dark and beautiful. “Tell me what to do.”
    It was almost more than he could bear, the purity of the request, the willingness to give. He reached up so that his hands were lost in her hair. He could have kept her there forever, arched above him with her skin glowing gold in the thin light, her hair falling pale over her shoulders, her eyes shimmering with need. He drew her down until their lips met again. Hunger exploded between them. She didn’t need to be told, she didn’t need to be taught. Her body took over so that her own desire drove them both.
    Jonas let reason go, let control be damned. Gripping her hips, he drew her up, then brought her to him, brought himself intoher with a force that had her gasping in astonished pleasure. As she shuddered again, then again, he reached for her hands. Their fingers linked as she arched back and let her need set the pace. Frantic. Desperate. Uncontrollable. Pleasure, pain, delight, terror all whipped through her, driving her on, thrusting her higher.
    He couldn’t think, but he could feel. Until that moment, he wouldn’t have believed it possible to feel so much so intensely. Sensations racked him, building and building and threatening to explode until the only sound he could hear was the roar of his own heart inside his head. With his eyes half open he could see her above him, naked and glorious in the moonlight. And when she plunged him beyond sensation, beyond sight and reason, he could still see her. He always would.
     
    It didn’t seem possible. It didn’t, Liz thought, seem reasonable that she could be managing the shop, dealing with customers, stacking equipment when her system was still soaking up every delicious sensation she’d experienced just before dawn. Yet she was there, filling out forms, giving advice, quoting prices and making change. Still it was all mechanical. She’d been wise to delegate the diving tours and remain on shore.
    She greeted her customers, some old and some new, and tried not to think too deeply about the list she’d been forced to give Moralas. How many of them would come to the Black Coral for equipment or lessons if they knew that by doing only that they were under police investigation? Jerry Sharpe’s murder, and her involvement in it, could endanger her business far more than a slow season or a rogue hurricane.
    Over and above her compassion, her sympathy and her hopes that Jonas could put his mind and heart at rest was a desperate need to protect her own, to guard what she’d builtfrom nothing for her daughter. No matter how she tried to bury it, she couldn’t completely block out the resentment she felt for being pulled into a situation that had been none of her making.
    Yet there was a tug-of-war waging inside of her. Resentment for the disruption of her life battled against the longing to have Jonas remain in it. Without the disruption, he never would have come to her. No matter how much she tried, she could never regret the weeks they’d had together. She promised herself that she never would. It was time to admit that she had a great scope of love that had been trapped inside her. Rejected once, it had refused to risk again. But Jonas had released it, or perhaps she’d released it herself. Whatever happened, however it ended, she’d been able to love again.
    “You’re a hard lady to pin down.”
    Startled out of her own thoughts, Liz looked up. It took her a moment to remember the face, and a moment still to link a name with it. “Mr. Trydent.” She rose from her desk to go to the counter. “I didn’t realize you were still on the island.”
    “I only take one vacation a year, so I like to make the most of it.” He set a tall paper cup that bounced with ice on the counter. “I figured this was the only way to get you to have a