Hard Target (12 page)

Alex stirred her frozen hot chocolate and stared out the window. Sitting on a modern white stool next to Simon, ensconced near shelves and more shelves of chocolate confections, she slowly returned to emotional equilibrium. Thighs still tingling, her sex still pleasantly aching, she shifted every so often to produce a thrill of sensation through her clit and up her spine. Though the circumstances hadn’t been ideal, the act itself had been amazing—a moment of abandon and excitement she’d never forget.

Simon slurped the last dregs of chocolate from the bottom of his cup. “Better?”

She nodded. There wasn’t much chocolate couldn’t cure and he was a wise enough man to know it. “Had you ever been to the MoMA before?”

Fingering a piece of toffee in the bag they’d purchased, he lifted the candy to his lips and sucked off the chocolate coating. “Yeah. I used to go a lot.”

“What’s your favorite painting?” She took a piece of toffee and scraped off the hazelnuts with her fingernail, leaving them in a pile he scooped up and ate.

“Matisse’s
Dance
.”

She nodded. “It has a lot of energy.”

“Life.” He spoke around the candy he now crunched. “Spirit and life.”

“Mhm. Life.”

“And sex. It’s obviously a maypole dance.”

The word
sex
made her blush as if she were a virgin and he’d just deflowered her in his parents’ musty basement rec room.

“What bothered you about it? About us?” Simon asked, waving one hand suggestively. “You seemed to want it last night. And today.”

Shoving the entire piece of toffee in her mouth, Alex used the need to chew as an excuse not to answer right away. What bothered her? Other than the idea she couldn’t seem to get enough of a man whose criminal history forever separated them? That as he pounded inside her she couldn’t think of anything in her life she wanted more than to have him with her always? Or was it a loss of control so complete that it overshadowed her career, her life and everything she’d worked for since she turned sixteen years old? How could she possibly tell him all that and expect him to understand?

“The dancers…maypoles…they’re too wild. Too unpredictable. They lack finesse and control.” She refocused the conversation on the painting and contemplated the crumbs on the counter. “I prefer the Monet.”

Simon laughed. “Are you comparing my performance to a Matisse?”

“Not at all.” She drew herself upright on the stool. “The Monet is quiet and controlled and…and it has nothing to do with us.”

The disbelieving hoot Simon let out brought the other customers’ heads around.

“The
Water Lilies
are the most riotous profusion of nature run abundantly and beautifully amuck anyone’s ever captured on canvas.” He leaned toward her, his eyes dancing with conviction. “If there isn’t passion dripping from those paintings with every splash of color, I don’t know what you’re seeing because it’s not control and it’s not quiet.”

“I see serenity.” She lifted her chin.

After a moment, he shook his head.

“You just can’t stand not to be in control,” he said finally. “You’re seeing what you need to see. What you want to see. Not what’s there. Today was wild and unpredictable. Not part of your plan. Or mine. But it was still amazing. Let it be what it was and leave the rest alone.”

“I need some real food.” She tried to stand but their stools were too close together. He needed to move first.

“Not until you tell me why you have this crazy need for control.”

“This is not the place…”

“It certainly is. What better place to explore passion than a chocolate shop?” Bringing a piece of toffee to her mouth, he traced her lips with the broken edge. “Suck on it.”

“Simon…” She groaned his name as a fullness flooded her labia, making her painfully aware of her pussy and a throbbing need that grew with every pulse of her blood.

“Do it.” His words were a thrilling rumble. “Do it or I’ll put my hand under this counter and stroke you until you come.”

She opened her mouth and sucked on the candy.

“Good girl.”

She whimpered and sucked harder.

“Eat.”

He popped the candy in her mouth and she bit down. Sweetness exploded along with a salty tang that reminded her of the taste of him on her tongue.

“Slowly…” he warned. “Savor it. The sharp little bits. The buttery smoothness. All that passion on your palate.”

She nodded, not caring about the murmurs of the elderly couple leaving the store.

“Now tell me.” His hot breath brushed her ear and he kissed the pulse point behind. “Tell me why control is so damned important. Tell me why you can’t just enjoy the memory of today.”

Alex breathed deep and let herself fall into memories she hadn’t dared broach in a long time. She swallowed the last of the candy past a constriction in her throat.

“My mother.”

Simon rested his hand on her thigh. “Your mother what?”

“She couldn’t take care of me. Not really.” Alex picked at a hangnail with some urgency. “I had to do it myself.”

“What happened?” Simon’s question rolled over her, quiet and chilled, like fog on a winter day.

“My father left when I was really young.” She swore she grew smaller as she replied. “My mother shacked up with half the town to make rent. Pretty much left me to fend for myself while she did what she needed to do to help us survive.”

“So you never really had the security of a family? A home?”

The perceptiveness of Simon’s observation made her tighten her hold on the fingers of the hand she hadn’t realized he’d placed over hers. “I graduated high school at sixteen—two years early—and I’ve been responsible for myself ever since.”

“Where’s your mother now?”

Alex traced her thumb over Simon’s knuckles, using skin and bone to anchor herself in the here and now. “Who knows? She moved and didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

Silence drew tight until Alex couldn’t bear not to look at Simon’s face. When she did, what she saw there made her eyes fill with tears. On one hand, his expression held a keen understanding of pain and loss—a need for family. On the other, she knew he remained mute because he didn’t know what to say and struggled within himself to help her break free of the ghosts haunting her. Having him look at her that way made her feel as if she might crumple under the weight of her life—of always having to take care of her own problems without a shoulder to cry on.

She squared her shoulders. He couldn’t be that to her and they both knew it. Best not to let herself pretend otherwise. One thing she’d never wanted from this man was pity. To be thought of as weak only made her feel fragile. Breakable. Vulnerable in ways she’d never allowed herself to experience—couldn’t afford to experience. Not when he’d only disappear from her life again in a matter of days or weeks. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

Somehow she stood and shoved the stool away. He encircled her wrist with his fingers. Not exactly holding her hand, rather he steadied her. She felt his support in the light strength of his touch and she wanted to sink into the sensation. Wished she still trusted him enough to find a permanent safe haven in his embrace, but it wasn’t that way and it never could be again.

“Stop coddling me.” Her breath came now like that of an overworked racehorse, her nostrils flaring and sides heaving. Any moment now a foamy sweat would break out on her skin.

“Tell me what you’re feeling, sweetheart.” He spoke low and quiet, in a tone he might use to approach a spooked animal.

“Afraid.” Past denying him now, she answered, the hoarse whisper tearing past constricted throat muscles. “Afraid you’ll hurt me.”

“I’m not hurting you,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”

“You already did.” The admission ripped open old scars, making it impossible for her to continue this conversation.

Simon released her wrist and withdrew his hand with painstaking slowness. He took one last piece of toffee and popped it into his mouth. Still chewing, he walked out the door.

She let him go and visited a bath shop where she purchased some peach-scented soap before she instinctively sought out Simon in the bookstore next door. The hushed, slightly musty space quieted her nerves as she imagined it did his. Glasses perched on his nose, he perused a book of blue poetry by classical masters like John Donne.

So much had happened to him, between them, over the past forty-eight hours it made her mind spin to think about it. She’d known all this was coming—except for the part about being his handler—and she still found it difficult to digest. How must he feel? Attempting to put herself in his place, she walked up to him and waited until he lowered the book to examine her briefly over the rims of his glasses.

“Those look good on you,” she said. “They’re new, right?”

“I bought them with my first paycheck when I got out of prison.” The dimples in his cheeks didn’t so much as twitch toward a smile.

“I’m sorry,” she tried. “Would it help you to hear I know we both got hurt?”

He returned his attention to his book.

“You can be a withholding bastard you know that?”

The criticism made him glance up more sharply this time. “Pot meet kettle.”

A loudly purring gray tabby strutted up to them, its white mittens flashing. She wound herself around Simon’s legs until Alex crouched down to scratch her behind the ears.

Simon closed his book with a soft thud. “Ready?”

She nodded.

“Come on.” He stood. “Let’s go home.”

They exited the bookstore into the late-afternoon sunlight. “I can cook us dinner.”

“I’m full of chocolate.” Simon gauged the timing of the traffic.

The chocolate still tasted yummy on her tongue, but her belly had gone a little funny from all the sugar. “I need some real food.”

A few blocks farther, she keyed into her apartment and they entered the dim space. Simon flicked on the light. Alex let out a gasp as the overhead bulb exploded, showering glass on the sofa below. In the brief moment of illumination she’d seen the ransacked ruin of her home.

The quick search of her bath located no lurkers. Bending, she picked up the bedside lamp and placed it on the nightstand. Bulb unbroken, it turned on without any trouble when she snapped the switch. Simon righted a chair and two little tables. The shoji screen had been torn in half by its hinges, and the rice paper hung in tatters from most of the panes. Pillows had been slashed. The secret compartment in her desk chair, ransacked.

“We have to call the Bureau.” Photos of Simon pinned to the wall with the knives from her butcher block suggested a personal motive. “I need to know who did this, and they need to know my identity has been compromised.”

“Compromised? How?” Simon stepped next to her and stared down at the strip of snapshots from their day on Coney Island.

Alex jerked her chin toward the bedside table. “My safe is gone.”

“Let me make some calls?” Though his words sounded soothing, the dangerous spark in his eyes said he’d like to do some serious damage to whoever dared invade her home.

Too weary to be grateful, Alex crossed to the bed and sat on the edge. Springs poked through slashes in the mattress behind her. Dropping her face to her hands, she nodded.

“I’ll have Jenny come over. Help us clean.” Simon placed his hand on her shoulder and rubbed in soothing, little circles. Though they’d been arguing less than fifteen minutes ago, she found herself grateful for the gentle contact.

A minute or two passed. “I think Gun is good with wiring.”

Alex lifted her head. “Wiring?”

“They ripped the wires out of the wall sockets in your kitchen.”

“Why?” The question came out on her gasp. “It doesn’t even seem like anything was taken besides my safe. Why trash the place?”

“Because this was personal. Meant to hurt you…and send a message to me.”

“You?” A muddle of thoughts attempted to assert themselves all at once. She knew she should be able to think this through, but everything seemed so far away and hazy.

“My sister’s name.” Simon’s hand paused on her back. “In lipstick on your fridge door.”

His observation made sense. She nodded. Then she began to shake.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Simon smoothed a hand over her brow, pushing her hair back and providing welcome heat along clammy skin. “You’re in shock.”

“N-no.” Chattering teeth impeded her speech and she silently cursed herself for choosing now of all times to fall apart. “Stop. You n-need to call Gun. Make sure she’s safe.”

“I already texted him.” The bed dipped as Simon sat on the edge of the mattress next to her. “She’s being moved.”

Pulling her back against his front, his forearms covering hers, Simon created a safe haven for her within the circle of his embrace. The warmth of his skin took the edge from her chill. His hold on her tightened, stilling her rocking. Pressing his lips to her temple, he exhaled into her hair and murmured soothing words.

Determined to hold herself together, Alex clenched her jaw and nodded. “I’m okay.”