Secure Target 1

by Rebecca Crowley

  “First, I want you to put the gun down.”

  It felt like his thoughts were trudging through heavy, sucking mud. He was an expert sharpshooter with extensive hostage training. He’d been in this situation so many times, often at much less close range, and he had never missed. He’d always hit the perpetrator rather than the victim.

  But the victim had never been Lacey. For the first time in his career, he doubted the steadiness of his hand.

  “Okay,” he acquiesced finally, slipping his finger out of the trigger guard and pointing the Beretta toward the ceiling. “I’m putting it down.” He lowered the gun to the desk.

  “On the floor,” Hardy instructed. Bronnik paused to look at Lacey again. Her eyes searched his, begging for reassurance he couldn’t offer. He knelt to a crouch, placing the gun on the floor beneath the desk.

  “Right, I’ve done what you—”

  In a single, swift motion, Hardy cast Lacey roughly aside and leapt at him as he was still inches off the floor with his knees bent. Instinctively he reached for the knife strapped to his thigh, but Hardy was on him too quickly, pinning him onto his back with uncanny strength as he took two punches to the face in quick succession.

  Bronnik felt himself snap into gear. When he was negotiating with Hardy time seemed to slow to a crawl, but now everything was happening so quickly he could barely process it into conscious thought. He was running on raw, animal instinct honed by years of training.

  He blocked Hardy’s next blow and returned one of his own. Hardy was squatting on his chest and reared back, his mouth bloodied, his eyes wild and rolling. He raised his hand, and Bronnik saw the glint of the blade he’d held to Lacey’s throat only moments earlier.

  Hardy brought it down with a grunt, but Bronnik thrashed beneath him, rolling his shoulder off the ground so Hardy sank the knife into the carpeted floor instead. In the split second Hardy spent wrestling to pull the weapon back out, he caught Lacey’s gaze over his shoulder. She stood frozen by the desk—she hadn’t run.

  Hardy raised the knife again, using his free hand to catch and grip Bronnik’s wrists to hold him in place. In their struggle, Bronnik had twisted halfway onto his side, and his own knife was now pressed between the floor and his leg, out of reach. As he shifted to avoid the next strike as Hardy’s knife dug into the floor beside his head, the sole of his boot tapped something on the floor.

  The Beretta.

  While Hardy pulled the knife from the floor with an enraged howl, Bronnik bent his knee and kicked the gun toward Lacey. Then he squirmed his way onto his stomach, wrenching one hand out of the killer’s grasp. He fumbled for his knife, but Hardy’s thighs were clamped around his waist, the smaller man’s calves pinned against his own with surprising power. Bronnik clawed at the carpet, struggling to pull free from Hardy’s hold, bracing himself for the next strike.

  Hardy brought the knife down. Bronnik felt the breeze of its movement along the back of his neck as the blade stuck in the floor just beside his ear.

  He turned his head to the side. The sharp steel glinted less than an inch from his eyes. Adrenaline surged through him, and he grabbed the handle. Hardy’s hand closed over his and together they yanked it free, tussling as Bronnik rolled onto his back.

  He put all his strength into straightening his arms and locking his elbows, putting as much distance between himself and Hardy as he could. He had to give Lacey a clear shot.

  “Lacey, shoot him! Shoot him now!” He couldn’t see her, couldn’t see anything but Hardy’s face as they fought over the knife, the killer’s eyes bulging with fury and exertion. He didn’t know if she’d seen the gun, didn’t know if she’d picked it up, didn’t know if she was even still in the room.

  Hardy redoubled his efforts and leaned all of his body weight into Bronnik’s hold, trying to force his arms to buckle. Bronnik’s muscles trembled, his forearms strained, and the tight scar tissue on his side tugged until he thought it might rend apart. He gritted his teeth, growling with effort, funneling all his strength into his arms and shoulders to hold Hardy at bay.

  “Dammit, Lacey, just—”

  The sound of the gun cut him off. On top of him Hardy roared and dropped the knife as he slumped over to one side. Within seconds Bronnik was out from under him and had him pinned to the floor in an arrest hold, his wrists held together, one boot on the small of his back.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Lacey stood holding the Beretta in two hands, visibly shaking.

  He turned back to Hardy. He pulled plastic cable ties from his pocket and cuffed the killer’s hands and ankles, then rolled him over onto his uninjured side. Hardy stared up at him in eerie silence as he swept the knife from the floor and deposited it on the desk.

  “He’s not—did I kill him?” she asked, her voice high and thin.

  “You got him in the shoulder.” Bronnik looked down at the captive killer. “He’ll be absolutely fine.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Agent Carver, then began speaking as soon as he heard the call connect. “Hardy’s down. I need everyone on the scene now. He smashed my radio, and I don’t know what the rest of the damage is.” He ended the call without waiting for a reply.

  Lacey stood behind him, the Beretta still clasped in her hands. His chest heaved, his blood pounded in his ears. He was numb and disoriented, still somewhat detached from his normal, rational brain. Everything he did was practical, efficient, but not emotional, not yet. He reached out and took the gun by its muzzle, flipped the safety and shoved it into the holster around his waist.

  Removing the gun from Lacey’s hands had the same effect as deflating a balloon. The color drained from her face as her knees shook and gave way. He rushed to her side and gripped her waist, easing her into the chair.

  Police sirens wailed outside, followed by the slam of the front door. Within seconds men swarmed into the room, radios crackled, orders were shouted and everyone wanted his attention, but his focus remained fixed on Lacey’s face as he knelt before her. The lids of her eyes drooped sleepily, then snapped open, their brilliant green depths honing in on him.

  “Bronnik,” she whispered, and reached out to rest her cool, soft palm on his cheek.

  The sound of his name brought him back to himself like a drowning man breaking the surface of the water and drawing a desperate, lifesaving breath.

  “Lacey,” he managed roughly, dragging her off the chair and into his lap. He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her, holding her as tightly as he dared. Gratitude washed over him as he felt how small, how vulnerable she was, how close she had come to being lost to him forever.

  He pressed his face into her hair and felt her grab fistfuls of his T-shirt as she sobbed into his collarbone. He was dimly aware that Hardy had been bundled away by the FBI, that Harris stood a few feet away watching him and that Thando had appeared in the doorway with a vicious cut bleeding over his eye. He ignored them all.

  “Shh, it’s okay, it’s all over,” he murmured, tucking a lock of hair behind Lacey’s ear. “You saved me, bokkie. You saved us both.”

  With the police station humming around her, Lacey felt like a boulder in the middle of a fast-moving river. She sat on a plastic chair at the edge of the packed briefing room, wrapped in the same blanket the EMT had put around her shoulders several hours earlier. She’d had to repeat her version of events a few times, but other than refusing the occasional cup of coffee or sandwich she’d been sitting, silent and motionless, for the last hour and a half.

  She didn’t mind—in fact she was grateful for the stillness. The police and FBI seemed to have endless amounts of administrative detail and paperwork to complete, and the technical vocabulary and masculine posturing was flying thick and fast around the room. She was perfectly happy to sit it all out.

  For the most part, her mind was a comfortable blank. Her recollection of the altercation in the office was hazy and felt more like something she’d seen in a movie than experienced firsthand. She supposed it would
all come back in time, but at the moment it was just a series of isolated snapshots: Hardy’s surprisingly fierce grip despite his slight build, the dull sound of the knife as it rammed into the carpet, seeing the gun shaking in her trembling hands as she tried to remember what Bronnik had taught her at the firing range.

  Bronnik. Her heart fluttered at the thought of him, at the memory of his warm embrace, his voice resonating soothingly in her ears. The EMT had coaxed her out of his arms to be examined and treated for shock, and she’d only caught glimpses of him since then, occasionally circulating amongst the teeming mass of officers.

  Briefly she wondered what happened next but then banished that line of thinking like she was stomping out a fire. That was a question for another day. Tonight she was alive, Bronnik was alive and Hardy was in custody. That was all that mattered.

  He emerged from the crowd then, wearing a warm smile, and dropped into the chair beside her.

  “Oh, Bronnik, your face,” she breathed. He had a welt on the left side of his jaw where Hardy had punched him. It was already turning black and blue.

  “I don’t know, I think it adds a certain bad-boy charm.” He grinned, and it was so infectious that she couldn’t help but reciprocate. “Anyway, if I hadn’t had Topeka’s greatest sharpshooter on the case, it would’ve been much worse.”

  She shrugged, mildly embarrassed by what she felt was everyone’s exaggeration of her contribution to the scuffle. “I learned from the best. How’s Thando?” she asked, eager to change the subject.

  “Other than eight stitches and a headache from hell, he’s absolutely fine. He’s gone back to the hotel. Actually,” he said, his tone losing some of its joviality, “we’ve all been cleared to head out. I can take you back to the hotel to collect your things, and then you’re free to go home.”

  She squinted at him, trying to read any potential insinuations in his language, but his face and voice were frustratingly neutral.

  “My car’s at the dental practice, and it’s probably covered in a foot of snow. I don’t really want to dig it out in the middle of the night.”

  “We can get you a ride back to your house tonight, and then another one to your car in the morning.”

  She gritted her teeth. It was now or never. If anything had changed over the last few days, it was her willingness to take advantage of every moment of her life.

  “Can’t you take me?”

  “I can,” he replied slowly. “If you want me to. I just thought, after last night—”

  “I’d like you to drive me, if you don’t mind.”

  He dipped his head. “I’m at your service.”

  Her house looked bleak and empty when they pulled up shortly before midnight. All the lights were off, and the untouched snow on the driveway and front walk gave away the lack of habitation over the past few days. Lacey picked her way over the snowy paving tiles carefully, her keys ready in her hand. Bronnik followed with her bag, having changed out of his gear into jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater back at the hotel.

  The door was still locked when she reached it, and Lacey felt the strange, unexpected relief of something she hadn’t realized she’d been worrying about—that Hardy had somehow been inside her house. She hurried through the house, switching on lights as Bronnik shut the door behind them. Everything was exactly as she’d left it.

  “Luckily I was too distracted on Tuesday to remember to turn down the thermostat, or it’d be freezing in here,” she chirped happily, bustling through the familiar surroundings, drawing curtains and switching on lamps. All of her self-consciousness at its shabbiness was gone. She hadn’t realized how important her home was to her until she’d thought she might never see it again.

  She motioned for him to follow her into the narrow kitchen. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? I can put some coffee on—”

  He was on her before she could finish her sentence, his tall form pinning her against the stove as his mouth found hers. She responded instantly, savoring the insistent press of his lips. It felt almost as familiar and reassuring as stepping into her house after days away.

  He pulled back and stared down at her, his blue eyes searching and serious. “I can’t excuse the way I acted last night, and I know it’s hard for you to understand, and—” He paused, frowning, for a moment.

  Lacey nodded, encouraging him to go on. After a second he smiled sheepishly. “And I’m no good at saying these things.”

  “It’s okay.” She reached up and guided his mouth back to hers. She didn’t care about last night. They were different people then, facing an uncertain future. Tonight was real and definite. They were alive, and they were together.

  The hot press of his lips, so long denied yet so instantly familiar, cleared her mind of everything except a heady, relentless awareness of the present moment. The sensual heat of his mouth gave way to the insistent push of his tongue, and she dropped her chin to give him access, simultaneously shifting her hips as she imagined what it would be like to welcome him into another, more intimate part of her body.

  This time Lacey broke contact, and gently pushed him backward as she took his hand in hers.

  “This way.” She tugged him toward the bedroom. He craned his neck to see past her down the hallway, and he must have spotted the bed, because he bent down and hauled her up over his shoulder as though she weighed nothing.

  She squealed his name in shock and delight, and couldn’t keep from laughing as he sauntered into the bedroom with one arm clamped across the backs of her thighs. He deposited her on the bed with unexpected grace and then stood over her, his slight smile undermined by the intensity burning in his eyes.

  She practically preened under his gaze. She kicked off her shoes and sat up. Keeping her eyes locked with his, she slowly drew her top over her head and cast it aside, then raised a challenging brow.

  She’d never seen a man move so fast. Within seconds his boots, socks and sweater had joined her knit top on the floor, and he was propping himself up above her with one hand while the other fumbled to pull off his T-shirt.

  “Hang on.” She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Let me do it.”

  He sat back obediently, and she slipped her fingers under the soft cotton hem. Freeing Bronnik’s lean, tanned torso from the thin white material was like unwrapping the best Christmas present she’d ever received. She let her eyes feast on the defined contours of his chest, the smattering of golden-blond hair that narrowed into an enticing trail down his abdomen.

  He pushed her back down on the bed with a firm hand on her collarbone. He trailed his lips over her neck and across the sensitive flesh just above her bra, his touch leaving a tingling trail across her skin. As he undid her jeans and pulled them over her hips, his head dipped lower, his mouth finding its way down her stomach and lingering tantalizingly at the elastic edge of her panties.

  She thrust her hips upward, both to hasten the progress of her jeans as he slid them down her legs and to encourage the pressure of his mouth, which sent electrified shivers dancing across her nerves every time his lips closed on her body.

  He dragged her jeans past her ankles and then dispatched his own. Stripped to just a pair of light blue boxers, Bronnik’s arousal was evident, and the barest hint at its size made her breath catch in her throat.

  He lowered himself onto the bed beside her and cupped her face, drawing her in for a tender, lingering kiss. His hand kneaded her waist and came to rest on her hipbone, his thumb sweeping under the upper hem of her panties. She ground her pelvis against him in response, her breath quickening as she felt the hard length of him.

  He pushed the strap of her bra off her shoulder and replaced it with his mouth, his tongue moving in a sultry rhythm over the sensitive area at the base of her neck. He undid the clasp between her shoulder blades with one dexterous hand, and as she let the garment slip down her arms and over the side of the bed, he leaned back to take her in, his eyes wide and ravenous.

  He bent his head to each breast in turn, his tongue
making swift, teasing work of the hard peaks of her nipples and inciting a low throb between her legs. She thrust her hands beneath the thin cotton of his boxers to cup the taut curves of his rear and let her fingertips drift forward around his narrow hips, just brushing the insides of his rock-hard thighs.

  Bronnik emitted a low growl. He yanked her underwear free and pulled her onto her side, taking her calf in his hand and draping it over his leg. With her thighs parted, he captured her mouth with his own as his fingers found her hot, wet center.

  That first, whisper-soft brush of his hand was almost her undoing. She moaned involuntarily, pressing herself against him wantonly as she was overcome with a sudden urgency. She tugged insistently at his boxers, frantic to feel his rigid arousal in a way that was new and mildly concerning to her. She’d never wanted sex with anyone so desperately, and at the same time she felt her yearning, if unfulfilled, might drive her insane.

  She pushed her hand beneath the elastic waistband of his boxers, moving it lower and lower until her fingers closed over the rigid, hot flesh that was the core of his maleness. Bronnik paused, exhaling in a momentary submission to pleasure, before shedding the final garment separating them.

  Finally naked before her, he leaned over the edge of the bed and rifled through the pockets of his discarded jeans. She took in the long length of his body, licking her lips, her heart thudding with anticipation. When he hauled himself back over the edge he had a small, foil square in his hand.

  His face was dark with need, his eyes burning, and she knew he must be keeping a tight rein on his desire. Yet his arched brows still asked her permission.

  A good man, she reminded herself as warmth flooded her rib cage. She felt filled with a new, unfamiliar emotion. It was tender and exhilarating and consuming and terrifying all at once.

  She smiled at him and nodded.

  He rolled the condom down and drove into her without hesitation, then paused, his forehead creased with concentration as he savored that initial joining. Already on the brink of climax, she gripped his hips with what little self-control she had left, urging him to continue. His eyes snapped open, and she was sure she caught his rakish grin, but within seconds she gave in to sensation, allowing it to overcome her vision and her reasoning.