Hard Target (6 page)

Barely pausing for breath, he’d scooped her up. Set her on the rim of the sink. Flirty bottoms torn off, legs slung over his shoulders, she’d cried out when he’d pierced her pussy with his tongue. The depth and force of his rapid lingual thrusts had her clutching at his hair. Little mewling noises and her pleas for more filled his ears. He pressed the pad of his thumb against the nub of her clit. Circled, then flicked. A flood of juices hit his tongue, their musky-sweet stickiness tapping reserves of lust he hadn’t known he’d possessed.

His still-sensitive shaft pulsed against his leg, forcing a pleasure-pain groan from his lips. Alex gasped, clutched him harder and bucked upward. He hummed against her slick heat. Thighs quivering around his ears, fists tugging at his hair, she opened to him. Her sex pulsed its nectar onto his tongue and bathed his palate with the taste of her desire. Harsh breaths mingling, her scent perfuming the air, they came down from their lovemaking slowly. Neither of them moved for minutes, or maybe hours.

That had been a lifetime ago…

Simon met his reflection in the mirror. He stood alone, softening cock in his palm. Evidence of his successful self-pleasuring coated his fingertips. A quick glance confirmed he’d closed the bathroom door. He quickly rinsed his hands and tucked himself away. Catching his high color in the mirror he shook his head. No way should he still be fantasizing to memories of Alex. He didn’t care if he stood in her bathroom, in her apartment, or slept in her bed. He needed to keep his distance. Especially if he hoped to keep his heart intact. She had a way of getting under his skin. Of insinuating herself into his life in ways he’d never anticipated and couldn’t defend against.

Emerging from the bathroom, he paused at the end of her bed. She rolled her head toward him. Lids heavy, the stretch of her arms lengthening her torso and lifting her breasts, she presented the prettiest picture he’d ever seen. His belly tightened with longing and he swallowed down a surge of need.

“Comfortable?”

“No.” Her answer, filled with throaty need, tightened his already sated balls.

Somehow, Alexandra Valentine always managed to sound like ice-encased smoke—crystalline and husky all at once. Angel-sanctioned sin, one of Simon’s ex CIA colleagues said. She drove a man wild. At least a man who liked that sort of thing, which Simon emphatically did not. At least not from this woman. Not any longer.

He let a beat of silence pass. “If I let you go, can I sleep in the bed?”

She seemed to consider the question. To his surprise she answered honestly. “No.”

He sighed deep. Needing sleep more than a clear conscience, he drew the drapes closed on the morning sunlight. The bed creaked as he climbed under the covers. Back to her, head pillowed on his right arm, he closed his eyes.

“I hate you,” she murmured, sounding half asleep.

“Believe me,” he said, “I know.”

* * * * *

Darkness hadn’t yet fallen when Simon awakened. A subdued golden light peeked through the moss-green draperies, lending them a fairy glen glow. He rolled his head to the side and took in Alex’s still-sleeping form. The only thing different about this morning from any other he’d spent in her bed was their lack of tangled limbs. No soft curves pressed against him. Nothing warm, pliable and distinctly feminine rubbed his erection. Familiarity and regret stole over him simultaneously. So many times he’d awoken before her and made the coffee she loved, brought her a cup and sat on the edge of the bed as she sleepily took her first sip.

His attention traveled to the handcuffs that forced her to remain on her side of the bed. He snorted. As if she would have joined him had she been free. More like she’d have dragged him by his hair to the couch.

At some point she’d propped an extra pillow under her wrists to support the weight of the cuffs. Twisted as her arms and legs appeared, she couldn’t have slept comfortably. He’d put money on a crick in her neck. The only good thing about the pain she’d be in when he released her was that he’d be able to duck out of the way before she managed to slug him. A smile played about his lips. Despite the animosity casting a dark cloud over their tattered relationship, he still enjoyed sparring with her both verbally and physically. Always had. Though he outweighed her by a considerable amount, her skill at hand-to-hand had been slightly greater than his, making them fairly evenly matched when his height and greater weight came into play.

Reaching to the nightstand, he found his cell and peered blearily at the time—six p.m.—then rubbed his eyes. He needed to check his email, but that required his glasses and those were in the other room. Silently, and with as little motion as possible, he slipped out from under Alex’s white coverlet and padded to the little galley kitchen. He slipped his glasses from his go-bag and perched on a kitchen stool before activating the touch screen on his phone. He slid the frames on his nose. Smears of black on white became individual letters. For once his email held nothing of note. Lots of spam. A red indicator said he had one text message. He tapped at the screen and the message opened. From Gibbons, it read,
How’s the new girlfriend
?

Simon automatically glanced around to see which windows were in view of the street, though he already knew. Wooden shutters, currently closed, assured his privacy. The sleeping area drapes concealed the only other window in the apartment.

He dialed Günter. His friend answered on the first ring. “All right?”

“Yes. Well, no. But yes.” Simon took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’m fine, but there’s a potential problem.”

“What’s that?” A door closed on the other end of the call.

“Am I interrupting…?”

“No. Just going over some stage blueprints with David.”

Remembering Günter’s long-standing gripe with the musician, Simon cringed. “Hey, are we okay?”

“Depends. Did you steal the documents the FBI accused you of taking?” Leave it to Günter. The man knew how to cut to the chase.

“No.” At least one question in Simon’s life offered an easy answer. “I didn’t.”

“Then we’re good.”

Simon focused on the sea of books scattered across Alex’s counter and homed in on a biography of Gustav Klimt. Returning his glasses to his face, he lifted the book and flipped through its pages, reading almost as fast as he turned them.

“I didn’t do it, so technically I didn’t lie when you hired me.” Though he’d been forgiven, he still felt the need to defend himself.

“Exactly.” A chair squeaked. “You never told me what you did for the CIA. Or is that classified?”

“It’s classified, but you already know my Ph.D. is in computer science with a specialty in security.” Simon closed the book and rifled through Alex’s snail mail.

“You were a professional hacker?”

Simon coughed and continued shuffling through the pristine newspapers and unopened bills. Apparently Alex hadn’t been home in quite awhile. She must’ve been hot and heavy on this op if she hadn’t kept up with the financial section of the
Times
at least.

“Right then. How did you two meet?”Günter asked.

“At a guest lecture I gave at Columbia on financial systems security.” Simon recalled Alex’s swishing ponytail when she’d walked up to him after the question-and-answer session. “I thought she was a student. On our third date I figured she might be a foreign operative so I hacked into her computer. Turned out she was FBI.”

“How did you get to be so good with history and all that other stuff you dabble in if you’re a computer whiz?”

“They’re just things that interest me.”

“Is there anything you can’t do?” Günter laughed, clearly self-conscious, though Simon didn’t know why. The man was intelligent and accomplished in his own right.

“Sports…women…life?” He dug up several things he knew for certain he’d never be good at.

“Hate to tell you, mate, but other than the sports? That’s called being a bloke.” Günter chuckled at his own joke. “Now what’s the problem?”

“Gibbons already knows I’m with Alex. I’m not sure if he knows who she is.” Simon fingered the edge of Alex’s electric bill. “If he does? I’m dead.”

Günter sighed, sending a rush of breath over the cell.

“She’s your handler. Go to her with it,” he said finally. “See what she wants you to do.”

Simon ran a hand through his hair to his nape. Massaging the muscles there, he tilted his head back and wished for a professional massage.

“Mate?”

Simon grunted his response.

“You don’t have to
do
what she says. Just ask her opinion. Keep her informed.”

Sounds of a keyboard tap-tapping in the background showed Günter’s preoccupation with other matters on his already overflowing schedule. The predicament they found themselves in thanks to Simon couldn’t exactly be helping.

“Sorry.”

“No worries,” Gun answered. “There’ve been plenty of times when someone should’ve given me the same advice. I’m not exactly famous for asking for help.”

“You’ve improved.” Simon dropped his hand to his side. “I was going to ask if you and Jenny wanted to meet us for a planning session, but maybe that should wait a bit. Until Alex and I strategize?”

“Let me know when you need us. We’ll be there.”

“Faust, we had a meeting,” David interrupted, apparently annoyed at being kept waiting.

“I’ll let you get back to diva sitting,” Simon said. “Catch you later.”

Günter gave a rueful snort. “Thanks.”

Pressing the
end
button, Simon set his cell on the counter. He’d shower, then wake Alex. The discomfort of the cuffs probably kept her from sleeping well earlier. Twenty minutes later, still damp, dressed in only his jeans, he stood over Alex. Tracing the line of her cheekbone to her lips, he dared test their softness. Her tongue darted out to lick the place he’d touched. He watched, fascinated, as her lashes fluttered open to reveal pools of dark chocolate brown.

Rather than give in to the impulse to kiss her, he lifted the handcuff key between his fingers. “Ready to get up?”

“Ready to kick your ass into next week, more like.” She raised her wrists along the metal dowel securing the top and bottom of her headboard together.

“Nice thing about keeping you bound for ten hours?” He inserted the key into one tiny lock. “The immobility in your shoulders when I let you go will slow you down.”

Lip curled at him, she rattled the cuffs. “Just do it.”

He released her and she tried to bring her arms to her sides. Eyes squeezing shut, nostrils flaring, she hissed a breath through her teeth and arched upward as pain flared in her muscles. He reached a hand toward her shoulder. “Want me to—”

Jerking away, she rolled to the other side of the bed and curled into a ball. Unwilling to let her suffer alone no matter how much he loathed her and what she’d done to his life, he moved in behind her and tugged her close. Tucking her bottom to his abdomen, he wrapped an arm around her and held her. Little shudders took her as she rode the waves of pain. Minutes later, her breaths deepened.

“Better?”

She nodded and he felt her wince. Removing his hand from around her stomach, he gently pulled the thick mass of her hair up and away from her neck to drape it over her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

She sniffed.

“We need to get some breakfast.” Sitting up, he gained physical and emotional distance. “Shower and dress. I have things to tell you.”

Wordlessly, she left the bed and pulled open dresser drawers to remove jeans and a black tee. He tried not to notice when she snagged lacey black panties and a matching bra. As she showered, he snooped. He opened drawers, hacked her personal laptop and her cell. From a hidden compartment under the seat of her desk chair, he withdrew a photo album. In the front pages a meager number of snapshots showed Alex as a little girl sitting on a woman’s lap. Face vacant and limbs too thin, the woman stared off into the distance. Next, a few snaps of Alex’s graduation from the FBI Academy at Quantico, professionally taken. One picture of him and Alex as a couple, laughing in a Coney Island photo booth. All normal enough.

Engrossed at a peek inside her life he’d never seen, he flipped the next plastic-covered sleeve. And nearly dropped the book. What came next couldn’t have surprised him more than if he’d discovered the launch codes to the United States’ nuclear arsenal tattooed on Alex’s ass. Page after page of surveillance photos, all of him, filled the rest of the album. When Alex exited the bath, he still stared at a long-range shot of himself walking into a restaurant with one of the few dates he’d had after his release from prison.

“Jesus.” She breathed the word.

He met her horrified expression and grappled for words. “Why did you take these?”

Going from pale to beet red in a matter of seconds, she charged him and grabbed for the album.

Simon held the book high above his head. “Answer me!”

Had she loved him? Regretted what she’d done? Couldn’t let go any more easily than he? All these questions and more tore his mind into itty bitty pieces he struggled to paste together again.

“They’re
Ryan’s
surveillance photos!” She spun away from him and slapped her hand flat against the wall. Back jerking in rhythm to her breathing, she leaned there for some time.