Hard Target Read online

  Hard Target

  Tibby Armstrong

  Book three in the Covert Attractions series.

  With a body hot enough to inspire a second Trojan conquest—of the latex variety—FBI agent Alexandra Valentine could be Simon Jakes’ match made in heaven. If only she weren’t the reason his career as a CIA hacker ended in a pile of ash.

  When Alex returns after six years, it’s with a proposition he can’t refuse. Work with her or return to prison. Compared to negotiating the powder keg of their relationship, the job should be simple. Take down a criminal organization run by one egomaniacal billionaire and try not to get killed along the way. The problem is, with a woman as sexy as Alex by his side, Simon has trouble keeping his mind on the mission and out of the bedroom.

  At their darkest hour, each has a decision to make. To trust despite the fog of lies and deception being spun around them, or to fail because a second crack at love proved the hardest and most impenetrable target of all.

  A Romantica® erotic romantic suspense from Ellora’s Cave

  Hard Target

  Tibby Armstrong

  Dedication

  To Alexandra Müir for your friendship and tireless dedication to Simon’s story. May you find your sexy “ginger” posthaste!

  Acknowledgements

  Mom, I tried to write a book you could read without making me blush. It didn’t quite work out that way. Thank you for your love and support. There are no words to tell you how much I love and esteem you. You’re first in my heart.

  So many people read and assisted with this manuscript. It was truly a community effort, and a Herculean one at that, though of course all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

  Thank you to my editor Grace Bradley for encouraging me to do my best work and for helping me to get it right.

  Denise Tompkins, author and bff, you are going places, lady. Thank you for having me along for the ride. So far the scenery is breathtaking.

  Thank you to my beta readers, Catharine Lindsey-White, Janna Bonikowski, Karla Doyle and Cecile at All I Want And More Books. Incredibly, some of you read this book not once, but twice. I couldn’t have told Simon’s story without you.

  Sarah Wishnevsky, thank you for reading my outline and encouraging me to get the story down on paper. Your foot and my pants make a great team.

  Elaine, thank you for your faithful support on Twitter and Facebook, and just about everywhere else too!

  Last but not least, thanks to “Dave the cop” for the arrest lesson. Every time I see a man in blue I think of you. Polyester blend will never seem drab again.

  Chapter One

  Sweat trickled in an incessant line down Alexandra Valentine’s spine. Sap coated her suit jacket, sticking it to the tree behind, and a mosquito’s high drone tested her patience. Forcing herself to remain as still as the nonexistent breeze, she focused on the canopied entrance to the Central Park Boathouse and waited. Sounds of revelry, distant and muffled, blended with the chirp of crickets and rush of cars to form a nighttime symphony that might have been soothing had this been any other night. Or any other mission.

  “Target moving north.” Special Agent Ryan Dare’s warning sounded in her earpiece.

  Gravel crunched under a shoe, the only warning of their target’s approach. Hands jammed in the pockets of his tuxedo trousers, he rounded the corner and paused to take in the night sky. Hair deliberately mussed into unruly spikes, the dimple in his right cheek visible even from this distance, he appeared, as ever, part bad boy, part boy next door.

  The scent of Grey Flannel drifted to Alex on the night breeze. She inhaled deep and intimate memories rushed to the fore. A kiss to her cheek. A sigh in her ear. The thrill of deft fingers tracing a line from her collarbone to her upper arm. When a phantom hand cupped her breast and brushed a thumb over her too-taut nipple she nearly moaned aloud.

  “As good as you remembered?” Ryan’s question made her start.

  He sat in the air-conditioned surveillance van at the far end of the parking lot while Alex waited, ready to take Simon Jakes down at a moment’s notice. Of all the nights to draw the short straw…

  Jamming her arousal into its Pandora’s Box, Alex caught Simon’s frown. Ever vigilant, he scanned the small copse of trees where she hid. She pressed harder into the tree, willing its fully leafed branches to conceal her from the scraps of moonlight. She and Ryan should’ve secured more cover, but Alex needed to be able to close in quickly.

  “Günter?” Their target cocked his head. “Did you get any radio interference around the north side?”

  Alex dug her fingernails into the tree bark. Of course an ex-CIA operative and his ex-MI-5 partner would use a band similar to that of the FBI. Even on a routine security job.

  “I’m not paranoid,” Jakes said into his mic. “The last time the press crashed one of David’s events he threatened my favorite body part.” Dress shoes scuffing against pea gravel, he walked a few paces farther west and shook his head. “No, that’s your favorite.” He laughed, and the music of the sound twined through Alex’s middle to give a good, hard tug. “Of course it’s my brain. What good are balls without brains?”

  Tuning out the one-sided banter, Alex blinked her relief at the implications of what she’d heard. As long as he suspected the press merely pursued his high-profile musician client David Tallis she and Ryan remained safe from discovery. She hoped.

  “We’re on a clear channel now,” Ryan said.

  Alex pressed her lips together and kept her attention on Jakes. If he was expecting any company, their target showed no sign as he toed the gravel and whistled a spritely tune.

  Had he grown that complacent? So laissez faire he’d conduct the handoff in the open air? If the dead drops they’d discovered in the past were any indication, this meeting was not only unorthodox but unprecedented.

  A beat passed before Ryan asked, “Hanging in there, Valentine?”

  Despite seven layers of emotional armor, forged and honed over the last year of this operation and another four years without Simon in her life, Alex knew she wouldn’t have been able to answer that question had she been able to speak freely. Was she doing okay seeing the love of her life for the first time since their very messy breakup? If her sweaty palms and dry mouth were anything to go by, then no.

  A car turned down the drive. Alex’s awareness of her weapon resting in its holster and the weight of the cuffs at her waist heightened. She steeled herself. Past attachment or no, she’d promised she could do this when the time came, and she would.

  “Plates trace to Max Gibbons,” Ryan said, his tone now all business. “A/V signals clear. We’ll get the footage.”

  A purring red sports car, top down, rounded the curve of the drive and pulled alongside the entrance. Simon looked to his left and right before stepping up to the vehicle.

  “This is a private party, sir,” Simon said.

  Gibbons, a man more round than tall, raked a hand through hair so black it reflected the lamplight like an oil slick.

  “We had a deal.” Gibbons kept his voice low, but the mic they’d planted in a potted frond picked up the conversation.

  “The event is closed, sir,” Simon said, jaw clenched.

  Alex tensed. That was code for we’re being watched. Was it the radio interference that had given them away? To have come so far only to screw up now. She resisted the urge to bang her head against the tree.

  The motor of the Italian sports car revved as if Gibbons considered driving away. When he remained in the drive, Simon folded his arms across his torso and drew himself up to his full six-foot-one height.

  Gibbons strained to lean over, reaching for his glove box. Simon reached inside his own jacket. Hearing a faint popping sound, Alex tensed and prepared to step in i
f things got ugly. When Gibbons withdrew a silver cigarette case and flipped it open, Simon dropped his hand to his side.

  “Crap on a cracker,” Ryan whispered in her ear.

  Alex let out a quiet breath.

  “Got a light?” Gibbons asked around the cigarette. “Mine’s busted.”

  “If I had a match?” Simon placed both hands on top of the door. “You’d be on fire by now.”

  Grunting, Gibbons pulled the cigarette from between his lips and returned it to the silver case. “Well, I don’t want to keep you.”

  “Yeah, I’m not too fond of you either.” Simon shoved away from the car. “But you’re useful. Like dental floss when I have seeds stuck in my teeth.”

  Alex suppressed a snort.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow.” Gibbons gunned the motor again, partially drowning out Simon’s curse word.

  The car roared away and Simon pressed his fingers to his right ear. “No. It’s nothing, Gun. Just a-a party crasher.”

  “We have enough to nail him.” Ryan’s voice, a whispered vibration, tickled her ear.

  Really? Alex resisted the impulse to look toward the parking lot.

  As if he heard her question, Ryan answered, “Yes. Really. He’s still got the documents in his pocket. The meeting plus the papers are enough to connect the two of them.”

  But they wanted this arrest to be ironclad, didn’t they? Something Jakes couldn’t lawyer up over when the feds tried to use it as leverage to make him play the game their way.

  Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, she nibbled at the flesh and watched Simon rake a hand through the spiked russet-red strands of his hair. He blew out a breath then pulled his mic from his lapel and dropped it onto the pavement where he ground it beneath his heel. Finished, he looked directly at the copse of trees where Alex hid.

  “I know you’re there.” Simon’s hand went to his weapon. “You might as well come out.”

  Heart thundering from the starting gate of her chest, Alex flicked a thumb against the snap on her holster. Before she could warn him off, Simon drew his weapon and aimed it in her direction.

  “FBI! Drop it! Now!” She unholstered her gun, knowing down to every Quantico-trained fiber of her being that if he hesitated for even a second she had no choice but to shoot him. Probably already should have.

  “Alexandra?” Shock evident in the lift of his brow, Simon leaned down to place his gun on the driveway.

  “Kick it away!” Cool metal rested heavy and solid in her hands.

  Simon kicked his gun toward her. The sleek black weapon spiraled across the drive and onto the lawn.

  Alex stepped from the trees. As she neared Simon blinked slowly, calculating. His gaze drifted down to the gun at her feet and he looked up through his lashes. “Of all the gin joints…”

  “Save it, Jakes.” Alex kept him fixed in her Glock’s sights as she stepped over his discarded weapon. “You’re no Bogart and this is no accidental reunion.”

  His eyes narrowed, expression part ha-ha-very-funny part screw-you. She was not four feet from him now—could detect the moonlight glinting off the gold tips of his lashes and shading fine lines around his eyes.

  “I’m afraid you’re too late, Alex.” Simon squared off with her, mirroring her movement. “I burned your love letters a long time ago.”

  Her fingers tightened on the weapon and she palmed the grip hard enough her hand ached.

  “Turn around,” she said, speaking through clenched teeth. “Hands behind your head.”

  A rustle from the trees focused her attention in that direction, but she never took her gaze from Simon’s too-green stare. In the lamplight his eyes shone like sea glass worn smooth and iridescent in the north Irish waves, mesmerizing her. He broke the spell when he glanced over her shoulder at Ryan’s approach from the parking lot.

  “Turn around,” Alex repeated.

  Simon presented his back and automatically spread his legs. With no place convenient to rest his hands while she frisked him, she’d have to cuff him first. With Ryan nearby, she at least had cover before she holstered her gun.

  Moving closer, she removed her handcuffs from her belt. With one hand she grasped Simon’s right wrist and brought it to the center of his back. The starch of his cuff rasped her palm, the only barrier between her and his naked skin. The wide expanse of his shoulders stiffened and Alex tensed, thinking he might fight her, but metal jangled against metal as she snicked first one cuff and then the other closed without incident.

  Taking a deep breath of humid night air, Alex forced herself to place suddenly too-small hands against her ex-lover’s torso. She tried to make the motions brisk. Professional. Yet every muscle she touched sprang memories free of hard biceps flexing with power as he poised above her. Entered her. And pushed deep inside.

  Slight fingers and small palms gripped Simon’s flesh. First he tensed, then swallowed hard as the heat and pressure from those hands permeated his flesh. Gripping and grasping, they searched his torso…ass…thighs…calves. Memories of those same palms wrapping around his cock and squeezing downward, milking pre-cum in pearlescent beads from his slit, forced a shudder through his limbs.

  Alex crouched low and Simon twisted to take her measure. Pink lips parted, cheeks flushed, she looked like every fantasy he’d made himself forget. Save one detail. Instead of the mane of ebony hair he remembered, a sleekly tied knot emphasized high cheekbones and lips tailor-made for kissing.

  When, head held high, she’d stepped from the trees, time had frozen as pain, stark and raw, crawled out of a dark hole he’d thought long since filled. It’d taken everything in him not to move toward her. If only to fill that void before it sucked all the substance from his universe and left him incapable of any movement at all.

  “Are you finished?” Simon issued the question from between clenched teeth when her fingers skimmed his calf for the second time.

  “No, but I bet you are,” Alex said low. “You were always quick.”

  In the face of her sarcasm, reality collided with the dream, evaporating tender emotion and stranding him in the icy blackness of an empty universe. After six years, disguising that void proved as easy as breathing.

  “With you, sweetheart,” he said, “there was no reason to go slow.”

  She blinked her surprise and Simon offered her his best Cheshire cat grin.

  Tou-fucking-ché.

  “Simon Jakes. You are under arrest—”

  “I gathered that when you cuffed me.” He raised one brow at her. “Unless of course you were thinking of this as foreplay and your buddy is in the mood for a threesome?”

  “Watch yourself, Dr. Jakes,” her partner snapped.

  Sensing a rival for Alex’s dubious affections, Simon found himself bristling. He stared down the chestnut-haired agent. Neither man blinked until noise from the Boathouse grew louder and the entrance doors swung open. A blond giant of a man stepped out.

  Simon suppressed a groan. Now they were all in for it.

  “What the bloody hell are you doing?” Günter Faust asked. The length of his stride proved him livid and the high color in his chiseled cheekbones underscored the emotion. Ryan stepped toward him, one palm held up.

  “This is none of your concern, Mr. Faust,” Alex said. “We’re taking Dr. Jakes in for questioning.”

  Simon frowned. Questioning? Or arrest? He filed the information away for future contemplation and focused on his partner. Finding a way to get Günter untangled from this mess constituted the first objective. He’d worry about himself later.

  Günter tilted his head toward Alex. “She one of your nutter ex-girlfriends?”

  Cuffs tightening with the jerk of his shoulders, Simon snorted his response, half tickled and half perturbed at how close Günter had come to the truth.

  “At least I’m not an ex-con,” Alex said.

  Simon didn’t have to come up with a retort. Günter rounded on Alex, pushing up his sleeves in an aggressive gesture. That made her shut t
he hell up. She would quickly gauge the man to be at least six foot three of solid muscle. Trained solid muscle. While her hand-to-hand skills were undoubtedly more current, her advantage could easily be negated by Günter’s size.

  Ryan stepped between Alex and Günter. “Are you aware of the nature of Dr. Jakes’ business with Max Gibbons?”

  “No. He has no idea I moonlight.” Simon leveled a warning look at Günter before addressing Alex. “You got the cuffs on and I just confessed. Can we go now?”

  “Wait just a—”

  “He had no idea!” Simon cut Günter off again. “You want my cooperation? Leave him out of it.”

  “You’ll give your willing cooperation?” Alex folded her arms under her breasts. “Not that your word is worth much, but can I take you at it?”

  The front door swung open again. A petite woman wearing a gold sequined evening gown sashayed outside. Burnished highlights in her riotous mass of brown hair gleamed in the lamplight. Her eyes grew wide. Step faltering, she broke into a wobbly run, hampered by sky-high heels.

  Hands thrown to her hips, Jenny Ainsley glared at Simon. “You said you’d call me if anything went wrong.”

  One corner of his mouth quirked. “And I told you to stay inside tonight.”

  “Another accomplice?” Alex tilted her head. “Ryan, I don’t believe we have enough handcuffs.”

  Her not-so-veiled threat elicited a low growl from Günter.

  “You know this woman how?” Alex asked Simon.

  Günter’s placed a protective arm around Jenny’s shoulders. Whatever reply Alex might have made died on her lips as the door opened yet again. A man and woman exited, arm in arm, she with red-gold curls in a sophisticated updo and he with all of the presence only the truly famous possessed.

  Oh. Shit.

  One dark brow arched, David Tallis stepped up to their little gathering. His girlfriend Kyra Martin on his arm, he examined each of them in turn. When his indigo gaze rested on him, Simon began to sweat. If they lost Tallis’ business, both he and Günter would lose everything. Their number-one client waited in silent disapproval. He clearly wanted an explanation for finding his employee in cuffs.