Undercover Lover

by Tibby Armstrong

  Stopping atop a stile, she gazed ahead at the river and a meadow in the distance. Günter saw her breathe deeply and roll her neck—knew she relished her first moments alone in a week.

  He frowned when she jumped down without so much as glancing over her shoulder. She was shit at observation. The past several days they’d worked on opponent disarm, blending into a crowd and losing a tail. Apparently the last had been putting the cart before the horse because you had to notice the tail before you could lose it.

  They walked the remaining mile to the gun range with her none the wiser that she’d been followed. Determined to teach her a lesson when she emerged, he waited outside the gun range for four hours, consoling himself in his boredom with the notion that he’d been on tougher stakeouts with less-pretty targets in mind.

  At 11:30 his cell buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket with a frown.

  Lunch? her text message asked.

  Where? he texted back.

  The tavern around the bend of the footpath, about a mile back, appeared on his phone twenty seconds later and he laughed. That she’d bested him at his own game gave him an unexpected thrill. She was fun to play with.

  Sure, he answered.

  Ten minutes later the door squeaked open, metal against metal, and he pushed away from the wall with his foot to meet her.

  “Did you manage it?” he asked, intending the question to come out as a taunt. Instead it sounded hopeful, and she looked at him with surprise.

  “No.” She shook her head, disappointed. “I don’t think I even got close to a cluster.”

  They both fell into silence for several minutes, the rustle of dead grasses and the crunch of rocks beneath their feet the only soundtrack to their journey.

  “Where did you get the code to the range?” he asked, knowing Ian wouldn’t have given it to her.

  “I covered the pin pad with clear fluorescent paint the day before yesterday, then came back that night to read the prints with that light Ian has,” she said. “You guys should use more than three separate digits for the code. After listening to the tone all week, it’s too easy to crack.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied, impressed with her ingenuity. “You’re quite resourceful.”

  “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” she said over her shoulder.

  He quirked a lopsided smile at her as they neared the tumbled ruins of Godstow Abbey. “Did you know this place was a nunnery and an infamous brothel?”

  “Was it now?” she asked, stopping to take it in with an apprising look. “Fancy a look inside?”

  Günter glanced over her shoulder into the abbey’s main enclosure. Their eyes met again and he read her thoughts. She wanted that kiss, and she wanted it now. His belly tightened in a pleasurable rush at the thought of tasting her again.

  When he’d kissed her at the range, it had been a test of sorts—to see if he could make her back away from the rough handling she might experience when posing as his lover. That she’d leaned into the experience, relished it with a wild abandon that left her sagging against his knee, had excited him almost past the point of no return. If she hadn’t spoken he would have taken her against the cinderblock wall of the gun range without remembering they had company.

  He crowded her through the crumbling stone entry into the wide expanse of winter landscape that had long ago replaced the abbey floor. Wide-eyed, she stared at him, breath quickening, pulse visible along the expanse of creamy skin where her cherry-red scarf had slipped away from her jaw.

  His payment might be late, but he’d make it with interest.

  Sunlight broke through the clouds, illuminating the abbey’s gray enclosure. Over the centuries, fallen stones had given the walls a crenulated toothiness, which the season decorated with rivers of ice and frothy peaks of snow. The place couldn’t have appeared more like a fairyland, glistening as it did in the precious winter light.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jenny said, keen to study the scenery while she got up the courage to demand her kiss.

  What if he’d changed his mind? She couldn’t stand the idea of begging him again, and she wouldn’t. The way he held himself taut, vibrating with the effort of his self-restraint, said he was as ready as she to take this thing they had to the next level.

  Since that kiss in the range, he hadn’t touched her except to throw her to a sparring mat, or adjust her firing stance. Each time he laid a finger on her cost her concentration, to the point he grew frustrated with her distraction and would goad her with bets and threats.

  Yesterday he’d taught her more holds and breaks. Tired from their morning run, she’d complained that she didn’t need more self-defense training. He’d cocked his head to one side, appraising her with a slow sweep from her toes to her head, taking time to enjoy her more feminine attributes.

  “Prove it,” he’d challenged. “And we’ll take tomorrow afternoon off.”

  Circling one another on the mat, she’d found his weakness. He considered her too short to need to protect his upper torso. Focusing his stance on her size rather than his defense was his first mistake. Taking her to the ground after she’d landed a flying blow to his sternum was the second.

  This time she pretended to fight when he tried get her underneath him, and he squeezed her tightly enough to make her see black spots. She gasped for precious oxygen, and realized her opening. She shuddered and went limp in his arms, and he’d frozen, mid-roll.

  “Jenny?” he’d asked, panic edging his voice.

  She remained limp and he’d braced himself on his elbows.

  “Jenny?” He’d shaken her a little then and moved his fingers to feel for her pulse.

  That’s when she’d kneed him just to the left of his testicles. The blow, falling so close to his precious package, had startled him into cupping his hands protectively over his balls and rolling a little to the side. Whereupon she’d bolted to her feet and ran like hell.

  He hadn’t followed her then, but today, she sensed he remembered the incident and was merely biding his time until he could exact his revenge. Walking the perimeter of the abbey walls, she heard him behind her, his boots crunching against the brittle, frost-laden grasses. Her nape tingled and she pictured him taking her down, sinking his teeth like a lion into the bundle of nerves at the back of her neck and making a meal of her tender flesh.

  She stopped, breath catching in her chest, and waited for him to step up behind her. Heat radiated from him, warming her back, telling her he stood mere centimeters away. Wanting to have a little fun with him, she put a foot of distance between them. He moved silently, and she felt his heat again.

  And then she ran.

  This time he chased her down. Fifty feet separated them, then two, then none, in the span of five seconds. He caught her and tossed her, in a twisting motion, into the air and over his shoulder. The world turned upside down. She grabbed a fistful of his ass and screamed when he slapped hers hard, but she didn’t let go. The hard muscle tightened and released beneath her grasping palm as he strode across the main hall into a tiny vestibule with stairs leading to the sky.

  Plunking himself down on the stone, he slid her off his shoulder and into his lap. The hardness of his erection pressed into the soft flesh of her hip as she met his eyes. Taking her head between his palms, he positioned her just so until her lips were his for the taking. He forced a half-mewl, half-squeal from her when his tongue plundered her mouth in one sweeping stroke. He kissed her breathless, until she found she had less oxygen now than she’d had on the sparring mat yesterday. Winding her arms around his shoulders, she adjusted her position to ride astride.

  Shins resting on the stone, Jenny canted her hips forward to seek out the ridge of his erection. Grabbing her bottom, he pulled her close—so close she couldn’t mistake the shape and hardness of him. The combined heat of their bodies stoked her internal furnace as she explored him in a fully clothed frottage that had him gasping into her mouth and digging his long fingers into the roun
ded firmness of her ass.

  Their noses bumped and teeth clacked as he sought deeper access to her mouth with his tongue. He tasted bitter like coffee and sweet like cream, and she opened for him, taking him in with a warring of tongues and a tangling of lips.

  Pushing his hand between them, he discovered the button of her jeans and popped it open. The sound of her zipper sliding open made her pussy clench until she swore he’d feel her wetness through their clothes. Sensitive tissues swelled and her clit throbbed in time to her pulse as Günter’s wide palm splayed over her abdomen.

  “Please,” she gasped into his mouth as he toyed with her navel and followed the line of her panties with his fingers.

  “Hmm,” he said.

  His taciturn response told her he enjoyed taking his time with her. Torturing her. She could just wait.

  “Please,” she gasped again.

  This time he brought his hand down hard on her ass, making her clit jump along with the rest of her flesh.

  “God,” she screamed at the contradiction in sensation.

  Fire spread across her ass cheek to meld with the heat in her pussy until she didn’t know where the pain ended and the pleasure began.

  “Want another?” he asked, resting his forehead against hers so that their frosty breaths mingled in the afternoon air.

  “Please,” she whimpered.

  He chuckled. “You beg so prettily. Though I’m beginning to wonder if it’s the only word you know. Tell me what you want, sunshine.”

  “I want you to spank me,” she said, blushing at the admission.

  This request he honored without hesitation. In short order, she found her jeans at her knees and her ass in the air as her belly rested against his knees.

  “So pretty,” he said, palming first one cheek and then the other.

  Jenny squirmed and flexed against the cold air. Before the chill could seep into her flesh, however, a series of quick smacks warmed her skin, the blows vibrating muscle and softer tissue until her pussy clenched with need at each successive spank.

  His cupped hand scooped at her flesh, making her ass bounce. The sound would be unmistakable to any passerby, but she didn’t care. She knew he found her pretty—knew he liked the way her bottom danced under his hand. Her ass grew hot until she was certain it glowed cherry red, but it wasn’t nearly as on fire as her pulsing clit.

  “Touch me,” she gasped, wanting him to bring her over into orgasm. It wouldn’t take much.

  He paused, the increasing tension in his fingers telling her he’d decided they’d gone too far.

  “No,” she wailed when he sat her up.

  “Jenny…” he said, his voice a warning—he wouldn’t be able to stop if they took this any further.

  Buttoning her jeans, she stalked away from him and tried to ignore the contradictory aches in the lower part of her anatomy.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said as he caught up to her. “You’re Tallis’ kid sister. It’s my jo—”

  She hauled off and slugged him in the jaw, snapping his head back and clacking his teeth together. Her hand ached from the blow, but she wouldn’t dare clutch it as she walked away.

  Breath left her lungs in a whoosh as he brought her to the ground. In one deft movement, he had her trousers unfastened again and his fingers stole beneath the line of her silken panties.

  He hesitated, a question etching itself in the line of his brow. Did she really want this?

  She bucked her hips in invitation.

  Lowering his mouth to hers, he skimmed his fingers over the bud of her clit, separated her pussy lips with a slick sound and delved into her swollen channel. His invasion pulsed over her, sending waves of sweet need through her belly. She clenched around his fingers, her body questing for just the right pressure. He curled his fingers over her G-spot, wriggling rhythmically until a silent scream tore from her throat and she bucked against his palm in shudders of repeating release.

  “Damn,” he said, and rested his forehead against hers. “You’re even more beautiful when you come.”

  Jenny’s laugh came from a place of breathless exhilaration.

  “That was some kiss,” she said.

  Darkness fell over his face and he tried to pull away, but she held fast to the lapel of his leather car coat.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t pull away now. I want this. I want you.”

  He met her eyes and shook his head.

  “What do you mean no?” she asked and slid her palm down to his still-hard cock. His shaft jumped in her hand and she marveled at the sensation. “I know you want me.”

  He pulled her wrist away.

  “I want many things,” he replied. “It doesn’t mean I allow myself the luxury of having them.”

  “Afraid?” she taunted.

  His face grave, he looked down at her. Cold seeped into her back while he contemplated his answer.

  “Very much so, Ms. Ainsley,” he murmured, pushing himself to his feet. “Very much so.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jamming the new target into the metal clip, Jenny threw the switch to send the bull’s-eye to the far end of the alley. She didn’t need to turn around to know Günter stood close behind her. So close the heat of his body radiated against her skin as he stared over her head.

  The elbow-height shelf on the dutch door at her waist would be perfect… All he’d have to do is lift her on her toes and bend her over. Squirming against the seam of the thong teasing at her folds, she closed her eyes. The memory of his fingers playing over her clit, sliding first one then two at a time into her clenching pussy, had her biting back a moan. If he didn’t want her, why did he have to stand so near?

  Since the afternoon in the abbey he’d kept his distance, having Simon or Ian train her more often than not. When he did participate in her training, each throw to the mat, each adjustment of her stance, every glance and every touch had her bruised and battered nerve endings crying out for him to love her. To make her his. She didn’t know if it was the stress, as he’d said, or something more substantial, but she craved things from this man she’d never wanted from anyone else. Not like this.

  Any minute now he’d tell her he didn’t have all day, and this time she might pull the gun on him. Tell him to shut up and put up, or she’d shoot him out of sheer frustration. Hands shaking with the bad idea—one she knew he’d turn around on her with another hateful lesson as soon as he disarmed her—she pulled back the slide to chamber a round.

  The cool abrasion of the checkered metal grip still felt foreign—the kick of the gun and the flying shell casings a surprise whenever she fired. Which was a lot. Dropping one aching hand, she tried to fire one-handed. The gun kicked hard and the shot went wide.

  “No! You hold it with both hands. What do you think this is? A Hollywood Western?” His frustration with her registered over her hearing protection. “Just hit the fucking target.”

  Jenny gritted her teeth and clapped both hands around the butt of the gun to steady her aim. She winced as her bruised palm—raw from the repeated kick of the gun—gripped the metal. Usually she did well with this piece—knew from experience that the recoil was under her control. Tired and unsettled, she blinked and shot left of the target, letting the blast kick her wrist as the shell bounced off her baseball cap.

  She felt Günter tense. Knew he swore under his breath even though she couldn’t hear it.

  “Bend your elbows,” he admonished and reached out to adjust her arms.

  The first few days of her training, he’d had to do this constantly—to show her how to handle the weapon. She’d behaved for the most part, but this time when he touched her she melted toward him. Buttocks sliding against his groin, she tested his nearness. Relished the human contact in this inhuman place.

  He wrested the gun from her hands and she let him have it. Sick of trying.

  “You’re going to get us both killed,” he said, the mantra familiar enough that she didn’t have to take off h
er hearing protection to understand the low growl of his words as he stalked away and ejected the magazine from the gun.

  The kick of his rejection reminded her of the booming recoil of the weapon he’d had her practicing with for hours yesterday until her arms ached and she no longer hit the target at all.

  Tearing off her safety gear, she heard Simon say, “You’re working her too hard.”

  Dimly, she wondered if she and Günter were at one another’s throats because Simon had been gone all week, building up their contacts in London. He’d only returned yesterday afternoon and was due to leave again tomorrow morning. Without his good humor the tension of their looming mission pulled at everyone’s nerves.

  “She’s fine,” Günter answered, but Simon wouldn’t let it go and followed him to the table where they’d lined up the gun cases for the afternoon session.

  “The recoil on the .45 just about took her arm off yesterday. Of course she can’t shoot today.”

  “She has to know what she’s up against,” Günter answered with a light shrug.

  Up against?

  That was it. She’d absolutely, positively had it.

  Engrossed as Günter and Simon were in conversation, she was almost on them before either man noticed her.

  “Uh oh,” Simon said when he saw her coming.

  Fists braced on the table, Günter turned his head to look at her. Simon snatched up a broom and got busy sweeping up the shell casings littering the floor.

  “You know what I’m up against?” Hands on her hips, she looked up at him.

  He straightened and folded his arms over his black tee.

  “What now?” he asked, sounding bored.

  “You.” She shoved her hand against his chest and pushed hard, making him stumble backward before he caught himself on the edge of the table. “You’re what I’m up against.”

  Eyes narrowed, hair falling around his face, he bowed his head and stalked toward her. She didn’t move an inch. Not even when he got up into her face.

  “What is it about me that you find so problematic?” he asked. “Is it that I make you get off your throne and work for my praise? Or is it that I’d rather see us survive this mess than watch your blood spill, shiny and wet, all over a London club floor?”