Free Captive Star by Nora Roberts Page B

press of his body to hers, and the heat rising from it.
    And an easy, almost friendly kiss shouldn't have made her want to cling, to hold on and hold tight. She compromised by fisting a hand on his back, not holding but not protesting.
    If her lips softened under his, warmed and parted, it was only for a moment. It meant nothing. Could mean nothing.
    "I want you." He murmured the words against her mouth, then again when his lips pressed to her throat. "This is a hell of a time for it, a hell of a place. But I want you, M.J. I'm having a hard time getting past that."
    "I don't go to bed with strangers."
    "Who's asking you to?" He lifted his head, met her eyes. "We've got each other figured, don't we? And you're not the kind of woman who needs fussy dates or fancy words."
    "Maybe not." The fire he'd kindled inside her was still smoldering. "Maybe I haven't figured out what I need."
    "Then think about it." He backed off, then took her hand and pulled her out of the booth. "We'll check the lockers. Maybe we'll get lucky."
    They didn't. Not in that terminal or in the next two. It was nearly one in the morning before he pocketed the key. "I want a drink."
    She let out a breath, rolled her shoulders. After twelve hours in a waking nightmare, she could see his point. "I wouldn't turn one down. You buying?"
    "Why not?"
    He steered clear of any of the places where he might be recognized and chose instead a dingy little dive not far from Union Station.
    "Good thing I've had my shots." M.J. wrinkled her nose at the sticky, stamp-size table and checked the chair before she sat.
    "It was either this or a fern bar. We can check out Union Station when we've had a break. Two of what you've got on tap," he told the waitress, and cracked a peanut.
    "I don't know how places like this stay in business." With a critical eye, M.J.
    studied the atmosphere. Smoke-choked air, a generally stale smell, sticky floor Uttered with peanut shells, cigarette butts and worse. "A few gallons of disinfectant, some decent lighting, and this joint would turn up one full notch."
    "I don't think the clientele cares." He glanced toward the surly-faced man at the bar, and the weary-eyed working girl who was casing him. "Some people just come into a bar to engage in the serious business of drinking until they're drunk enough to forget why they came into the bar to begin with."
    She acknowledged his comment with a nod. "That's the type I don't want in my place. You get them from time to time, but they rarely come back. They're not looking for conversation and music or a companionable drink with a pal. That's what I serve at my place."
    "Like father, like daughter."
    "You could say that." M.J.'s eyes narrowed in disapproval as the waitress slammed down their mugs. Beer sloshed over the tops. "She wouldn't last five minutes at M.J.'s."
    "Rude barmaids have their own charm." Jack picked up his beer and sipped gratefully. "I meant what I said earlier." He grinned when her gaze narrowed on his. "About that, too, but I meant how you handled yourself. It was a tough room, M.J., for anybody."
    "It was a first for me." She cleared her throat, drank. "You?"
    "Yeah, and I don't mind saying I hope it's my last. Ralph was a jerk, but he didn't deserve that. I'd have to say whoever did that to him enjoyed his work.
    You've got some real bad people interested in you."
    "It looks that way." And those same people, she thought, would be interested in Bailey and Grace. "How long do you figure it'll take to find the lock that fits that key?"
    "No telling. Knowing Ralph, he wouldn't go too far afield. He hid the key in his office, not his apartment, so odds are the box is close."
    But if it wasn't, it could be hours, even days, before they found it. She wasn't willing to wait that long. She took another gulp of beer. "I need the rest room." When he narrowed his eyes, she smirked. "Want to come with me?"
    He studied her a moment, then moved his shoulders. "Make it fast."
    She didn't rush