Read Online Hard Target by Tibby Armstrong - Free Book Online Page B

and Alex blinked at the fading tendrils of a red-gold sunset stretching overhead. Inside, the door closed behind her, she stared open-mouthed at the glorious sky with gilt-edged clouds floating past and ignored the books and other artifacts scattered across the wide-open loft. The entire space was one big atrium.
    “This is your place?” she asked.
    “Technically, it belongs to David Tallis.” Simon tossed his keys onto a pile of papers on the entry table. “He could have it back anytime he wants.”
    Around the edges of the room, and in every conceivable nook, he’d jammed bookcases. Books cascaded from a haphazard pile about his bed. On the surface of a giant glass desk stacks of books all but obscured an enormous computer monitor. Alex trailed her fingers over the gilded spine of one of her favorite classics— Jane Eyre —and tried to ignore Simon’s bed in the far corner of the loft. A mechanical-appearing contraption, it hung by a metal pulley system attached to steel beams overhead, and could be raised or lowered for sleep as space needs dictated.
    “This place must be great for entertaining.”
    “I wouldn’t know.” Simon disappeared into the bathroom and reemerged with his toiletry kit. Holding it, he frowned at the small leather bag in a way that made her want to smooth the lines from his brow.
    “What?” she asked as he disappeared into the bathroom once more.
    “I need to use the equipment in my and Günter’s business space downstairs,” he said. “We need to stay in the building.”
    The intimacy of being in his place compelled her to scramble for emotional cover. “We— I mean, wouldn’t that be obvious to Max? That you’re keeping me a little too close to your home base?”
    Toothbrush in his hand, Simon stuck his head out of the bath. “I’ll just tell him I’m playing double agent if he figures out who you are.”
    “And have you?” Alex raised one brow. “Been playing double agent?”
    Simon ducked inside to rinse his mouth, then returned to approach her. Recognizing the predatory glint in his eyes, Alex resisted the urge to retreat several steps. He crooked his fingers through her belt loops and jerked her toward him and she gasped.
    “I’m not half the liar you seem to think.” He dipped his head to whisper in her ear. “I told him exactly what I intend to do with you.”
    “Simon.” Alex halfheartedly pushed at his shoulders. “Don’t toy with me. It’s not fair.”
    “What’s not fair?” The hot wash of his breath rumbled along the shell of her ear and she shivered. “That I’m manipulating you? Or that you like it?”
    Arousal and panic dueled in Alex’s midsection, adrenaline doing nothing to slow the spread of warmth to her core. Pulses of white heat teased at her clit, making her acutely aware of Simon’s ability to play her like a finely tuned instrument. At the thought of the word play , suspicion kicked the supports out from under her equilibrium.
    She cast a searching eye over the loft. “Do you do your work for Gibbons here or in the space you share with Günter? If I get a warrant what will we find?”
    A door slammed on his expression, cutting off the spark in his eyes and he turned away. “Thank you.”
    Though she’d meant to break the intimate contact, she found herself regretting her ham-handed tactics. “For what?”
    “For proving me right.”
    Alex gave a quizzical shake of her head. He was making no sense.
    “I’ve always wondered if you were just more interested in fucking me over than in fucking me.” As she gasped and stuttered, he continued in a bored tone. “You really should try not to make it so easy for me to hate you, Alexandra.”
    Hate?
    Like a lumbering beast crawling from some dank pit, the concept of Simon’s antipathy pushed into her awareness. He really hated her. Hand fluttering to her throat, she searched for oxygen and her voice, stared at his back as he bent to plug in the laptop. She had five seconds to pull