Hard Target

by Tibby Armstrong

  “My password?” Simon laughed, a warm sound. “Yeah. We both got paranoid about one another pretty quick. I hacked into her computer and she into mine around the same time. That was an interesting conversation to say the least.”

  Alex remembered the red rose on her pillow. The words, Change your password, Agent Valentine on the accompanying card. He’d come over that night with a bottle of wine and they’d talked until dawn, then made love well past sunrise.

  “I was going to ask her to marry me the night of my arrest. Over takeout Chinese and a bottle of pinot noir.” His laugh was self-deprecating. “Romantic, huh?”

  Alex suppressed a gasp. Günter didn’t say anything, merely reached into the fridge and popped open another beer before setting it down in front of Simon.

  God, he really sounded innocent. Either he believed what he said, or he was an amazingly good liar. And a sociopath too. Alex sat up on her elbow. “If I got you access to your old laptop, do you think you could hack into it? Figure out who did this to you?”

  Draping his arm over the back of his chair, Simon faced her. Gun seemed to recede farther into the shadows.

  Sitting fully upright, she pushed her hair behind her shoulders. “I wouldn’t offer if I was the one who set you up.”

  “You testified against me,” he said.

  “If you really are innocent, I want to know who did this to you. Who did this to us.” Even she didn’t understand what made her willing to let him prove himself now. After all these years.

  Simon stood and crossed to the bed. Alex examined the shadows obscuring his face and wondered at his thoughts.

  “I already know who did this to us.” He shook his head. “You.”

  Covers tangled around her legs and she had to push them aside to stand. In the kitchen, Günter took a long sip of his beer and watched her and Simon as they faced off.

  “If what you say is true, I’ll get your name cleared.”

  “You can’t give me my life back. You can’t return what I lost.” He took her in with a sadness of expression that extinguished any remaining hope he’d forgive her.

  “I know.” She grasped his hand and gave it a quick squeeze before he pulled his hand away. “I just need to know. For me too. Maybe then we can move on.”

  And maybe then you won’t hate me.

  Günter stood and moved to the door. Neither Alex nor Simon heeded his leave-taking as the latch clicked softly shut behind him.

  “Do you really believe me?” he asked.

  Alex plumbed the depths of her emotions and came up with the same conflicting feelings she’d had on the subject, almost from the beginning. This time, however, something made her want to believe in him.

  “At first…” she began, then shook her head. He didn’t need to know about her interrogation. The questions they’d asked her and how she’d responded. He only needed to hear how she felt now, and she needed to be honest. “I’m willing to take a look at the evidence.”

  Simon stepped away.

  “Come to bed,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a couch.”

  “Or a headboard to cuff me to,” she muttered.

  He gave a wry snort and stripped off his jeans.

  His naked ass drew her stare. Holy hell, without a change of underwear today he’d gone commando at her place. “I can sleep on the floor…”

  “Alex.” Jeans in his hand, he faced her in all his masculine glory. “I promise not to touch you. Just let’s go to bed.”

  She couldn’t lift her gaze from the length of him nestled against his testicles. Her fingers curled with the urge to grasp him and feel him harden in her palm. “Are you sure?”

  He tugged on his pajama bottoms, hiding himself from view. “I’m sure.”

  Disappointment sent her tummy into a freefall, but she nodded and crossed to the bed. Still wearing her clothes minus her bra, reluctant to touch any of those clothes from her past life at least for tonight, she crawled under the covers and moved to the far side of the mattress. The bed swayed with her movement and she relished the gentle motion with a sigh. Simon climbed in and the bed swayed harder.

  “Must be interesting during sex.” She cringed when she realized what she’d said.

  Mid-pillow fluff, Simon paused. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Alex rolled away, avoiding Simon’s stare. He dropped his pillow to the mattress and followed her motion. Leaning over her, one palm near her stomach, he said, “I’ve never slept with anyone in this bed, Alexandra.”

  She affixed her attention on the soft glow of the alarm clock. The punctuation mark between the digits pulsed softly.

  “Afraid you’d get seasick?” The heat of his naked torso radiated onto her skin.

  “Offering to help me find out?” His quietly posed challenge vibrated up her spine.

  On impulse she rolled to her back, then froze. She’d spent so long not thinking about Simon, not wanting Simon, that to have him here, now, pressed up against her, played out like a waking dream. She was sure if she blinked he’d fade away.

  “You promised not to touch me,” she whispered.

  He shifted so his body no longer rested along her flank. She immediately regretted the loss of contact. With one last, long look she couldn’t quite fathom, he rolled away. Hours later, when the bed no longer swayed and the air-conditioned room wrapped tendrils of ice around Alex’s shoulders, she listened to a softly snoring Simon and wished for his body heat. He’d always liked to sleep like a polar bear in the arctic. Chest bare, he wore only his striped pajama bottoms. Even in the winter. She shivered and pulled the covers more tightly around her.

  Simon opened his eyes and blinked sleepily. “Cold?”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered, though they were the only ones in the room.

  “C’mere.” He drew her close and settled her into the crook of his arm.

  The heat of his skin sank through her light top, his warmth like that of a blanket fresh from a dryer. The man could kick off some serious heat. She let out a soft sigh and breathed in his scent, so clean and crisp. Fingers slipping from her hip down to her waist, his hold loosened. Grew heavier. When a snore wuffled between his lips, she knew he’d fallen back to sleep.

  Alex used the position and his repose to her advantage. With brazen interest, she studied the moguls of his pecs and abs, the taut landscape broken only by the tightly pebbled, ruddy skin of his nipples. As she drank him in, a little devil settled on the shoulder of her womanly pride and asked how he could sleep when she lay in his arms. She wanted him to want her. It shouldn’t have been so easy for him to sleep with her in his arms. Without thinking where her actions might lead, she brought one fingernail to his left nipple and circled the nub. His chest stilled. Her hand froze.

  “Alex…” He groaned her name.

  “Kiss me?”

  Lowering his chin, he looked down at her. “Just a kiss?”

  She nodded. He groaned again.

  Soft, hesitant, his lips met hers. She darted her tongue to taste him and his chest expanded under her hand. He increased the pressure of the kiss, tightening his arm around her torso. Drawing her close. She moaned into his mouth and he rolled them both so she lay beneath him. Poised over her, touching her with no part of his anatomy other than his lips, he made love to her mouth. First kissing and suckling, next tugging and nibbling, then plunging his tongue between her lips until she arched, gasping for breath and for more.

  Palm hovering over her breast, the heat of his skin burning up the air between his hand and her flesh, he asked, “You sure you don’t want me to touch you?”

  Her nipples contracted to painful hardness, compelling her to arch just a fraction. Just enough. Simon closed his hand over her breast and Alex keened her approval. He squeezed harder, then swiped the pad of his thumb over her engorged nipple. Her hips responded with a measured, involuntary thrust. Nostrils flaring, Simon looked skyward, seeming to beg the heavens for strength to endure
his own arousal. He massaged her nipple, circling and flicking until pain-pleasure forced her head to and fro on the pillow. Strands of hair sticking to her lips, hips rocking, Alex fisted the sheet and begged wordlessly for more. The bed swayed with her motion, mimicking the sex act. A sensible part of her mind whispered dire warnings and held up brightly colored caution flags that almost, but not quite, overruled desire.

  “Touch me. Love me.” Her breathless plea convulsed his hand at her breast and she cried out as pinpricks of light sent her spiraling out of control. Out of her mind. If Simon wanted her as much as she wanted him nothing would stop them now.

  “Sweetheart.” He removed his touch and kissed her forehead. “No.”

  Alex grasped his hand and tried to force it lower, along her belly to her sex. She wanted his fingers there. His lips. His tongue. Simon resisted her attempts and clenched his hand into a fist before rolling away with a force that jarred the bed, rocking it violently.

  Breath still coming in little gasps, Alex sat up and clutched the duvet to her chest. Humiliation washed over her in a sickening cascade. She’d asked him not to touch her. Any other man would’ve had her clothes in a ball at the end of the bed by now, but Simon wasn’t just any other man.

  “I’m sorry.” The realization she’d pushed him hard against the wall of his honor disgusted her. “God. What’s wrong with me?”

  Wordlessly, Simon flipped away the covers and padded to the bathroom. The light clicked on and the door shut, leaving her with only her regrets for company.

  Chapter Five

  “Afternoon.” Simon muttered the greeting into his first cup of tea and kept his attention firmly on his half-day-old copy of the Times.

  Though he’d managed to skirt around the embarrassment of facing Alex in his own bed, it was tough to escape the walk of shame entirely in your own apartment. Alex observed him from two feet away. He knew this because he could see her pink toenail polish peeping at him from beneath the corner of the arts section. She curled her toes in a self-conscious gesture before moving away from him and into the kitchen.

  Kiss me, she’d said last night—a request that should have sent him running to the security flat where he and Günter kept a spare bedroom. Instead, what had he done? He’d played the besotted lover and acquiesced to her pretty little plea. Imagining the pebbled heat of her nipple against his palm, he stifled a groan and felt the first pangs of a headache.

  “Sleep well?” she asked, voice husky with sleep.

  His cock hardened immediately and he rattled his paper as he turned the page more forcefully than necessary.

  “Fine thanks.” He let the full-color spread of an auction house ad absorb his interest. “You?”

  “Pretty good.” She stretched and yawned, then he heard her lift the coffeepot. “Wow. You made coffee?”

  “Cream’s in the fridge,” he answered. “Hope you don’t mind full fat. It was all they had at the place around the corner.”

  A spoon clattered against the counter. “You got cream for me?”

  Despite his best intentions he looked up.

  At her doe-eyed expression—all schoolgirl romance—he couldn’t help biting out, “Seemed the least I could do after you put out the sugar.”

  Red painted her skin from the roots of her hair to the expanse of skin visible above the neck of her tee. Braless, she presented a picture of rosy temptation just begging to be plucked.

  “I-I’m sorry.”

  “It was habit,” he bit out. “For both of us.”

  She flinched, her hands spasming around the mug. He shoved down a wave of remorse. Since when had she ever been vulnerable? Alexandra Valentine always played with the big boys and she’d never before failed to realize that meant she might get bruised—physically and emotionally. Last night had been a mistake. Simon knew it and he was fairly certain Alex did too. Quickly burying the romance they’d resurrected seemed the kindest thing. No way he’d allow it to animate into a shuffling zombie he’d only have to napalm later.

  Folding his paper in thirds and creasing it thoroughly, he gave himself time to regain his composure. “Alex. What we had…”

  “Stop. I get it.” She held up a hand. “It’s all good. We’re good.”

  A sheen of tears made her smile appear even more forced than he already knew it to be. She didn’t deserve his pity, yet he found himself desperate to offer her comfort in whatever way his patched-together sense of self might allow.

  “I’m sorry.” He pushed away from the table and leaned over the breakfast bar to place his dishes in the sink. “I broke my word last night. It won’t happen again.”

  The woman he’d once loved chewed on her lower lip. Sitting again, he took a sip of his tea and awaited her response. When it came, it was nothing he’d expected.

  “What if I want it to happen again?”

  Simon’s cock jerked hard and he grabbed for his paper. Yanking the folded pages in front of his face, he pretended not to have heard her.

  With a heaving sigh, Alex began to do his dishes. Simon peered around the paper to study the grace and precision of her motions—the way her fingers flitted over the porcelain. How she delicately yet self-assuredly grasped the sponge. Shoulders set, arms relaxed but strong, she moved like a dancer while accomplishing the most mundane of tasks. She went about the chore, cheeks flushed, lips parted.

  Her innocently sexy expression took him to a place in memory he’d long since forgotten. A time when she’d knelt in the middle of his kitchen floor as he’d undone his trousers. Moist tongue darting, she’d tasted the tip of his cock as it sprang forth. He’d smiled down at her.

  Relax your jaw, he’d said.

  She’d nodded and done just as he’d asked, parting her glossy lips for his entry.

  Beautiful, he’d whispered when she’d given him the gift of her mouth.

  “What?” Alex blinked at him from her stance at the sink.

  “I didn’t say anything.” He stood and stretched with a nonchalance he didn’t remotely feel. Water ran unheeded and began to overflow the dishpan. He reached past the counter to turn it off.

  “You said beautiful,” she asserted, apparently unwilling to let the matter go.

  Frowning, he turned away to scoop up his paper. She might be sexy as hell, but she was still a pain in his ass.

  “Get dressed.” Simon shot the directive over his shoulder as he exited the kitchen. “We’re going to case the museum. Take a look at that painting.”

  Alex followed on his heels to the bathroom, two paces behind.

  Agitated beyond civility, he whirled on her. “You want to try to corner me in the shower now?”

  She gaped at him for all of a second before she lit into him.

  “Of all the arrogant, self-centered… I am not coming on to you, Simon.” She pushed past him to enter the bathroom before him. “Contrary to what you might believe, I didn’t spend the last several years trying to come up with ways to seduce you. Mostly, I tried to forget you ever existed. That we ever existed.”

  Her admission hung between them, visible as frosty breath on a winter morning. In a seemingly suspended moment, she glared at him as he processed the sting.

  “Finished?” he asked, jaw set.

  “With you,” she answered.

  “Well, whad’ya know? We agree on something.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Next thing we’ll be picking out china patterns.”

  She slammed the door in his face and he cursed.

  How he’d work with her for two more minutes much less for the duration of this job he didn’t know. When she took too long in the bath, he picked the lock, stalked in and grabbed his toothbrush before stalking out again. She blessed him out for the intrusion, but he didn’t care—couldn’t bring himself to let her win this battle. His nerves were too raw—from both her words and last night’s kisses.

  How could she feel so right with her arms wrapped around him and so wrong in every other way? Her body seemed tailor-made for his to
uch, yet everything about her grated. Crazy didn’t begin to describe what she made him. Furious and horny shouldn’t mix, yet with her he could be arguing one second and contemplating fucking her in the next.

  Well, she’d better be careful what she wished for because he was finished playing the gentleman. Next time she asked him ever so prettily to fuck her he’d do it. No matter the place or the time. Consequences be damned. He’d get her out of his system and move on like he should’ve years ago.

  An hour later they stood silently side-by-side in the MoMA ticket line and his cock still hadn’t flagged. The Sunday crowd was mostly composed of parents with kids and art students with pads of drawing paper tucked under their arms. Hands stuck in his pockets to hide the bulge in his pants, Simon rocked on his heels and peered skyward.

  With no visible ductwork, the ceiling in this part of the building presented no clues as to how they’d get in—and Gun’s idea of simply walking in the front door seemed the best option. It had been years since Simon visited the museum, but if memory served there were terrace doors on the second floor that might get Alex and the frame inside unnoticed.

  Alex twined her arm with his and he frowned down at her. She smiled and batted her lashes. “What’s the matter? Too hot to touch, darling?”

  Oh. That’s right. They were supposed to be a couple. For good measure and just because he knew it’d annoy her, he put his arm around her waist and his hand in her right front jeans pocket. The curve of her hip settled into his palm as if it’d been made with no other purpose in mind. He caressed her hipbone with his thumb and she attempted to shimmy away from him. Tightening his arm, he renewed the caress.

  “Two tickets,” Alex said to the museum worker when they approached the counter.

  “Fifty dollars,” the man answered, monotone.

  Simon waited for Alex to fork over the exorbitant sum. When she didn’t, he glanced from the lighted display behind the counter to her. She raised her brows.

  “I forgot my wallet,” he lied.

  Alex rolled her eyes at the ticket guy. “Just like a man. Would you do this to your girlfriend?”