“Thanks for rescuing me. Twice.” Clasping his hand in hers, she brought his palm to her lips.
He frowned, started to speak then stopped and frowned harder.
“What?” she asked.
Simon leaned close. “You owe me one.”
A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Hey… I rescued you too.”
His stare took on a mock seriousness. “Once.”
She giggled.
He growled and kissed the end of her nose.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I owe you one.”
Lips meeting hers in a hesitant brush, he said against her mouth, “I can’t wait to make you pay up.”
“Take away this tea and I’ll give you anything you want.”
Simon sat up and took the mug from her fingers. “Anything?”
“As long as you’re on top.” She frowned. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be seeing two of you, unless you cloned yourself.”
Bolting off the bed, Simon had his cell in his hand and was dialing 9-1-1 so fast that Alex almost didn’t stop him in time. Hand over the buttons, she pressed end and he scowled at her.
“I was kidding about seeing two of you. Mostly.” She kissed his cheek, and smiled against the stubble that prickled her lips. “I’m fine.”
When he leaned back to scrutinize her she laughed. He quirked a smile and the deep dimple she loved so much popped to life along with the light in his eyes. She’d missed that so much. She’d missed him so much.
Lacing his fingers at the small of her back, he kept her close, though his expression sobered a little. “When Ryan left he said something about you making a mistake.”
“A mista—” She closed her eyes against the sure and sudden knowledge that Ryan had heard about her leaving the Bureau from someone other than herself. “Oh shit, Simon. He must be so upset.”
His arms tightened around her. “Upset about what, sweetheart?”
“I quit the Bureau today.” The confession came out as a whisper. Once made, she looked away. “They wanted…” She shook her head in attempt to clear the constriction in her throat. “They wanted me to cut you out of my life and I couldn’t.”
Simon sat, tugging her with him into his lap where he pressed her head to his shoulder with his palm. “You did that? For me?”
“I did it for us.” His henley muffled her reply, but she knew he heard her when he pressed a kiss against the top of her head, letting his lips linger there.
The steady beat of his heart thudded in her ear, a reassuring reminder that she and he were both alive and well. She didn’t need a career, she needed a family. She needed Simon. Unless…
“So, I guess you’re stuck with me,” she said with an edge of nervous laughter. He’d been angry with her for so long—they’d been at odds with one another for so long—she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe he might’ve finally forgiven her. But, oh God, she hoped he had.
“Stuck with you?” He dropped his hand and pulled back so she could take in his shock. Ruddy color bloomed along his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. He blinked several times in rapid succession. “Why would you think I don’t want to be with you? After all this?”
“After what I di—” Warm fingertips pressed against her lips, cutting off her intended apology.
“What you did for me was incredible. Beyond heroic. You saved my sister and gave me back my family.” His eyes darkened. “Thank you.”
She wanted to speak but he frowned and slid his palm sideways over her mouth for the briefest of moments.
“Shush. I’m not finished,” he said.
Though she huffed over the top of his hand, she nodded once, agreeing to be quiet. He slid his palm to her cheek and cupped her face.
“What happened to us was nobody’s fault. It was Downing’s doing. It all was. Well, except for my not talking to you before my trial. I didn’t… That is, I should’ve… Oh hells bells and a bag of chips.”
She snorted.
“What?”
“Sorry. That’s a new one from you.”
He grunted. “Yeah. Well. Your boss gave me ample opportunity to come up with some creative curses over the past several weeks. I was going nuts not being able to see you. I couldn’t get through to Ryan and got hauled away by armed guards every time I tried to get into your room. I made it past the nurse’s station once. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Guilt gnawing at her middle, she laced her fingers with Simon’s and squeezed. “If I’d known… I figured the mission was over and you probably…” She shrugged and looked away.
“Hey.” He brought her knuckles to his lips. “I’m sorry for blaming you. You never deserved that. I would’ve said so sooner, but when it comes to admitting I’ve been an ass? Anyone who knows me understands I’m about as effective as a left fielder on a snap play.”
Alex bit her cheeks to suppress the laughter she knew was entirely inappropriate given the gravity of the moment.
“What?” He teased her with his mock glare.
She lost the battle and burst out laughing. When she could breathe again, she said, as gently as possible, “I think…if they put you in left field in football pads, the umpire would send you back to the dugout.”
“Fuck.” Red stained his skin from his collar to his hairline. “You know I don’t know whether to pass a baseball or pitch a football.”
To put an end to his embarrassment, Alex kissed him, hard and deep, weaving her hands in his hair and holding tight until they both gasped for air. He broke their liplock with a gasp and leaned down to nip at her neck.
“What do you need tonight? Tell me.” Simon’s demand rumbled against her pulse point, vibrating along her ear and sending a thrill up her spine.
She risked everything with her answer. “I need you to love me.”
Without hesitation, he brought his mouth down over hers. The passion of the renewed kiss took her by surprise, sending a shock of arousal from her abdomen out to her fingertips. She opened to him, slanting her head to the side and winding her arms around his neck. A hint of bergamot bathed her tongue along with Simon’s unique taste as he delved deeper. He adjusted his jeans with a lift of his hips, raking her bottom over the rigid heat of his arousal as he settled her against him. Fumbling in his haste, he tried to undo the front hook of her bra. She assisted him, and then divested herself of her sweatpants.
Settling her against his back, he shoved her thighs wide to display her intimate folds and entered her with two fingers. Arousal spiked as he flicked over her G-spot and wrung a cry of pleasure from her lungs. Pad of his thumb pressed against her clit, two fingers stretching her wide now, Simon fucked her with slow, capable strokes, withdrawing only to shove her thighs wider when they fell partly closed.
As she came apart in his arms, he whispered hoarse and intimate in her ear, “I never stopped loving you, sweetheart. I promise I’ll love you forever.”
Epilogue
Snow created a monochromatic blur of the New York City skyline outside the windows of the Museum of Modern Art. Simon paced the long gallery and peered at his watch as gusts whipped white sheets of precipitation against the panes. Icy plinks created a bright music that he would’ve enjoyed on any other day. Right now the offending weather elicited only a sharp glance.
Alex was late. The museum would be closing in fifteen minutes and she was late. She was never fucking late. Bad weather always created a snarl of Manhattan traffic and the job they were working for a visiting dignitary had all four of the crew on double time for the past week. If Günter hadn’t relieved her on time…
The rapid click of heels on white oak flooring made his heart beat faster. Only one person could be coming down this gallery right now. He’d paid plenty to make sure of it. Nerves and happiness at the sight of the woman approaching him made his stomach somersault with excitement in ways it hadn’t since he was sixteen and in puppy love for the first time.
Dark hair s
wept away from her face with a velvet band that matched a coat swaying around her like a dancer’s costume, Alex approached him. She smiled and his heart lifted even as he waited for her to notice the objects on the wall to her right.
Her step faltered. She glanced to the side. Slowed, then stopped. Blinking, she opened her mouth. Then closed it. Slowly now, she began to move along the gallery again, examining the sections of Monet’s Water Lilies and the words he’d laid out for her.
Slashes of color played across canvases all the way down the long wall. Each section a study in liquid light, serene movement and grace. They were even more breathtaking in person than in any photograph. Words hung above each section, forming the sentences, You are more beautiful to me than any painting. A living masterpiece. My true love.
Eyes shining, Alex neared, her attention held by the last painting—the Picasso they’d rescued together, restored to its original frame. When she reached him, Simon bent to one knee and dug in his pocket for his mother’s engagement ring—a ruby surrounded by diamonds, all set in white gold—and took her hand.
“Alexandra.” He swallowed and cleared his throat.
Pink rushed to her cheeks, turning alabaster to rose. She nodded.
“There is no substitute for your love. What I have with you can never be imitated or replaced. A family with me might be small, but if you’ll let me, I’d like to be that for you. Your best friend, your family, and your husband too.” He faltered and her fingers squeezed his tight. Reassuring. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She pulled him to his feet and stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against his. Warm and sweet, she met his mouth and whispered, “Yes.”
He slipped the ring on the third finger of her left hand where it gleamed in some of the best light the art world had to offer. No sculpture or painting could have been as lovely standing before him as she. Later, he wouldn’t be able to say how he’d gone from kneeling to standing or what they’d said to one another. What he would undoubtedly recall with vivid clarity for decades after was this kiss.
Wrapped in his arms, she fit against him perfectly, face upturned, as he sought out her mouth with his own. Tongues tangling, sighs mingling, they embraced until the lights flickered their five-minute warning and long after. Until the museum guard coughed politely and the library director who’d helped arrange his proposal tapped him on the shoulder.
Reluctantly, he lifted his head. Face flushed and eyes bright, Alex grinned at him.
“Your mouth is swollen.” He brushed his thumb along her upper lip.
She sucked on the pad of flesh and what had been a pleasant hum of arousal kicked up a notch.
“Your place or mine?” she asked.
“Mine,” he answered.
Grasping his hand, she surprised him when she ran down the gallery toward the fire exit. Alarms blared as they shoved through barricades meant to be used only in emergencies. They pushed out onto the street and kept running. Snow and sleet splashed Simon’s face until a subway entrance took them below the wind and weather. The rumble of a train propelled them onward. Faster and faster.
Alex jumped the stile and Simon followed suit as train doors swished open and welcomed them inside an empty car. He stopped. Looked at her. Knew he couldn’t wait. A glance behind him showed an out of service train across the platform. Dragging her with him, he reached the doors of the darkened train and pried one open. God love her, she followed him without question. Her smoldering glance made him sink onto the hard, plastic bench as his knees went weak and his mind lost the ability to access rational thought. The gleam of Alex’s engagement ring winking in much-less-flattering fluorescent lights, but nothing—not even the ambience of a New York City subway train—could dim her beauty in this moment. His love. His life. His future wife.
“I love you,” she rasped, lowering herself onto the length of his cock with painstaking slowness.
Unable to wait, he grasped her hips and rocked upward, seating himself fully in her heat. Arching, she cried out and let him take control. Every thrust upward he timed with the rocking of her body until she found her bliss. Each shudder sent spikes of pleasure coursing through him. Muscles in his thighs tightened. His toes curled against the leather of his loafers and his fingers clutched at Alex’s back as he lifted them both off the seat with the force of his final thrust.
She collapsed against him, breath coming as hard and fast as his own. Minutes later she laughed against his shoulder.
“What?” The languid feeling in his limbs reached into his voice.
“I never had sex on a train before.”
He chuckled. “Me either.”
“Where else haven’t you had sex?” Her tone sent a tingle of desire down his spine.
He grinned into her hair then lifted her off him so they could tidy up. “Just about everywhere.”
“Everywhere might be a tall order to fill,” she said as they finally boarded the uptown train.
As they rode, holding hands, her shoulder companionably leaned against his, the scent of her sex teased at his nostrils, awakening desire almost as quickly as it had been satisfied.
At their station, he took her hand as they exited the train onto an older platform. Its white-and-black subway tiles—carefully restored sometime in the last several years—gleamed around them in the station.
“Want to start with David Tallis’ rooftop garden?” Alex laughed at her own suggestion, bringing them back to the topic. “I hear there’s a Jacuzzi with a view clear to the East River.”
Picturing Tallis’ face if he caught them made Simon shudder. “The man would probably make me floss with his steel-string guitar if he caught us.”
Her grin gleamed wicked in the lamplight as they exited to the street. “I like it when you take risks.”
“With you in my life I’ll never lack for that.” He pulled her close, hoping she’d forget about Tallis’ newly installed private retreat.
Snowflakes kissed her nose and dotted her lashes as she searched his face with her gaze.
“And what do you feel inspired to do now?” she asked.
“Well, Gustav Klimt said, All art is erotic…and I’ve always wanted to learn to paint.”
Alex waggled her brows suggestively. “Feel like making a masterpiece?”
“With you?” He pulled her into his embrace. “Always.”
About Tibby Armstrong
Tibby Armstrong began writing at age eleven when a kiss in a YA book fell short of her expectations. As a teenager, she snuck Kathleen Woodiwiss novels from her aunt’s bookshelves, and devoured a forbidden volume of Victorian erotica.
While she has since broadened her reading tastes to include science fiction, urban fantasy, biographies and a strange addiction to monographs, her favorite books still feature edgy alpha heroes, and the women (and men) who drive them to distraction.
When she’s not writing, Tibby works toward defying librarian stereotypes—yet she lives with four cats, two computers and enough books to collapse a poorly engineered house.
Tibby welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Tibby Armstrong
Covert Attractions 1: Sheet Music
Covert Attractions 2: Undercover Lover
Print books by Tibby Armstrong
Covert Attractions 2: Undercover Lover
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Hard Target
ISBN 9781419946073
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Hard Target Copyright © 2013 Tibby Armstrong
Edited by Grace Bradley
Cover design by Syneca
Cover photography by
Valentino Ristevski, Furturaphotography/Shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication April 2013
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