Catching the Cat Burglar (10 page)

I hear a faint buzz, and then his voice, muted by the cheap speaker: "Hello?"

"Chase, it's Joanna. Let me up."

"Joanna?" A pause. Confusion. "What are you doing here?"

"Can I come up? Please?"

Another pause. "Of course." There's a buzz, and I pull open the door.

I hurry up the steps to the second floor. My heart is racing. My mind is in a panic. What am I doing? What am I hoping to achieve? I stride down the hall to what must be his door and knock. A moment later Chase opens it, dressed in a white shirt and jeans, barefoot and looking ravishingly hot.

"Hey," he says, stepping aside to let me in. "What's going on? You all right?"

I'm flushed. I'm breathing heavily. I step into his apartment. It's almost ridiculously empty. Just a huge bed, a suitcase against one wall, and some clothing hanging in an open closet. White walls, white sheets, minimalist beyond belief.

Chase closes the front door and grins abashedly. "I haven't had time yet to get around to decorating -"

He cuts off as I turn around, the pistol out and pointed at his chest. He raises both hands reflexively, but doesn't seem afraid. More surprised, as if by an innovative move in a game of chess. "Joanna?"

"You're under arrest, Chase." I try to make my voice fierce. I can't quite stop it from shaking.

"Under arrest?" He says those words as if he's tasting them. As if they don't make sense. "What are you talking about?"

"The Countess Diamond. I saw you steal it. And for taking Rachel Wilder's staff. And Anita Hall's honey. You're coming with me, right now, down to the station."

Chase's eyes narrow. For a moment he looks downright scary, a predator, his eyes growing cold, and I can see him calculating the odds. Figuring how close he is to me, how quickly he might cover that distance. I raise the gun, holding it in both hands, a proper shooting stance.

"Joanna. Wait."

"No, I won't wait!" My voice rises higher than I intended. "You lied to me, Chase! You knew all along that I was trying to catch the thief - trying to catch
you
- and you never told me the truth! You took me out to dinner, you flirted with me, you led me to believe you care for me. And the whole time you were laughing. Laughing at stupid Joanna, who was too blind and love struck to realize she was being played for a fool."

There are tears in my eyes, and I feel like I'm falling apart, tearing my soul in two. It's impossible to keep my gun steady, but despite how it shakes I keep it pointed at his chest.

"Joanna. No." He almost sounds shocked. "Laughing at you? Stupid - what? No! Joanna, I care about you. I - I did this tonight to prove to you how much I care -"

"You stole the diamond to prove to me that you care?" I laugh. "I'm disappointed, Chase. I thought you were a better liar than that."

"I'm not lying!" His voice is a whipcrack, suddenly charged with anger. He drops his hands and turns, heading over to his suitcase, completely not caring about my gun. I tense, but he draws forth instead a large diamond. The prop that the chief must have used. "Here. I was going to find you tonight and give this to you. Tell you who I was. Hand myself over for you to do whatever you wanted with both it and my life."

I blink, then rub away my tears with the back of one hand. "Well, I'm glad I came here and saved you the effort."

"You still don't believe me." He tosses the diamond aside and steps right up to me, so that the muzzle of my gun is pressed against his chest. "I think I love you, you impossible woman. I've never said that in my life. Since I first met you I've been unable to stop thinking about you. About your smile, the sound of your laughter, your body, your eyes. I've been - it's like I've been haunted. By your beauty. Your wit. By - by all of you."

He sounds so fierce that his voice is almost a growl. I'm stunned by the intensity of his words, his green eyes almost aflame with passion and anger. "When I was growing up, I stole things to survive. I had no family. I grew up on the streets. When I got older, I stole because I enjoyed it. The thrill. Of going where I shouldn't, taking what wasn't mine. But - ever since a friend died - I've been doing it because it's all I know how to do. I don't want to be that person anymore. I'm
not
that person anymore."

Chase reaches up and closes his fingers around the barrel of the gun, moving it gently aside. "You make me want to be somebody new. Somebody I never thought I could be. You make me want to stop running. Stop hiding. To actually be myself. I'm sorry if I lied to you. I'm sorry if I hurt you. It was never my intention. And I'll do anything. Anything at all to prove it to you."

I can't breathe. Shivers run down my back. Chase moves toward me and I back away until I hit the wall. He's right there, his face inches from mine, his gaze so intense I feel like he's devouring me. And, oh, god, I want to be devoured.

"If it takes arresting me and sending me to jail, then so be it." His voice is a raw whisper. Its need and hunger reach right into me and set my blood afire. "But I need you, Joanna. I need you like I've never needed another woman."

Chapter 11

I can't think. My whole body yearns for him. I see the truth in those jade eyes. He really means every word he says. Gone is that hidden reserve, that enigmatic depth that I can't sound. I see right into his soul, into the core of his being, and I truly believe every word that he says.

"Oh Chase," I whisper, and then he lowers his head and kisses me. The slow burn in my blood flares into a raging inferno, and with the last of my presence of mind I thumb the safety onto the gun before he takes it from me and tosses it onto the bed. He moves his tongue over my own, tasting, exploring, and my need, my hunger, rises to meet his own. I kiss him back passionately, wrapping my arms around him as he rumbles his approval, pushing his whole body flush against mine.

Chase deepens the kiss, and I feel intoxicated, delirious, overcome with desire. I hear myself whimpering, and feel my nipples harden to the point of aching. I need him like I've never needed anybody before, my fury and pain from mere moments ago transforming into an almost uncontrollable level of arousal. A feeling of intense urgency suffuses me, and I feel my panties growing wet with how slick my throbbing pussy has become.

Chase kisses me savagely, his hands moving over my body, his hips pressing against me, his cock rigid through the fabric of his jeans. I want him, all of him, I want to touch his skin, feel his heat against my own naked flesh, to take his cock in my hands and feel his tongue between my legs. It can't happen quickly enough. I rake my nails over his back, pulling at his shirt, and he breaks the kiss to reach over his head and yank it off.

And oh, what a sight he is. His upper body is ripped, lean and muscular and broad across the shoulders, sculpted by his incredible athleticism and agility. I place my hands on his broad pecs, and then trace my fingers down over his rippling abs, marveling at the perfection of him, how his smooth skin radiates the heat that only shifters can emit. Chase grins and leans down to press his mouth to the side of my neck, causing me to lift my chin and exhale as he runs his tongue up to the hollow behind my ear, then nips the lobe.

His breath tickles me, sends pounding waves of arousal down to my core like riptides surging through the ocean. His hands are bold as they explore my curves, moving up to cup my breasts, squeeze them, press them together and give some measure of relief to my aching nipples. I run my hands over his back, scratching at him with my impatience, and then he lifts me up by cupping my ass, turns and drops me on the bed as if I weigh nothing at all.

"Chase," I say as I stare at him. His hair is mussed, his eyes almost glowing with need. He can see the question in my eyes. The moment of hesitation, of doubt, and he almost growls.

"You are mine," he says. "I must have you. I want you more than anything else." He rests one knee on the edge of the bed and moves forward over me, languorous like the great cat he is. "I need to taste you, kiss you, lick you everywhere. Tonight you are mine. All of you."

His words are like lashes of fire across my soul. My hesitation evaporates. Tonight I am his, and he is mine, and we'll leave the complexities for the morning. He reaches down and tears open my shirt, buttons popping off, and then groans and lowers his head to my large breasts. My bra is satiny black, and he unclasps the clasp between the cups and pulls it free.

"Fuck, Jo," he growls, voice raw. "You are the hottest fucking woman I've ever seen."

I almost cross my arms over my chest, self-conscious before his burning gaze, but before I can he lowers his lips to my left nipple and takes my hard bud into his mouth. I gasp as he works it back and forth, playing with it with his tongue, sending jolts of pure pleasure right through me like zaps of electricity. His other hand cups my breast and kneads it gently, then ever more firmly, as his mouth moves from one nipple to the other.

I quickly begin to lose myself in the sensation, my hands in his hair, his stubble rasping gently over my skin, his mouth hot and deliciously wet on my tight nipples. "Oh, Chase," I moan. "Oh, Chase. Like that. Please. Just like that."

My words incite him on, and he squeezes my breasts hard, pushing the nipples together so he can take them both into his mouth at once, nipping at them in a way that makes me gasp. I can feel myself creaming behind my panties, my need growing ever more demanding. I need release. I need it so badly.

He moves up to kiss me again, and my hands are on his jeans, unbuttoning them and pushing them down. He holds himself up with one arm and uses the other to help kick the jeans off, and then I have his cock between my hands, hard and smooth and rigid. I break the kiss and push him over so that he falls on his back, and then shimmy down so that I have his cock right before my face.

It's beautiful, long and hard, and I caress it delicately, tracing its length with my fingertips. Chase groans as if I'm torturing him, which perhaps I am. I grin at him and open my mouth, taking my time as I run the tip of my tongue up his shaft to the engorged crown. There's a bead of precum there, which tastes salty and delicious, and I slowly lick the whole of his head, spreading the precum across him along with my saliva.

"Damn," he moans again, putting both hands to his head. "You're going to drive me insane."

"Good," I purr, taking his balls in one hand and grasping him around the base of his shaft with the other. "It's what you deserve."

"You fucking minx," he says, and then gasps as I take all of him at once, burying his cock smoothly and deeply right into the back of my throat. He fills me completely, wider than any other man I've been with, and for a moment I just let him luxuriate in the back of my throat before I slowly raise my head again.

"I'm going to punish you," I say, smiling wickedly up at him. "For what you put me through."

He laughs and closes his eyes. "This kind of punishment I can live with."

"You say that now." I begin to stroke at his cock with firm motions of my hand, and suck at his head, looping my tongue around it with lascivious hunger. Just as he begins to reach for my head I plunge it back down, and he gasps and falls back again.

I say I want to punish him, but those are just words. I've never wanted anybody this badly. Never wanted to please anybody like I want to please him, never wanted to be pleasured by anybody like this either. I'm feverish, my skin burning, want pooling in the core of my being. As I work his cock, I hear him groan long and hoarsely, and the sound only fires my arousal further.

I pick up the tempo, hands and mouth moving faster and with greater urgency, and I feel him respond, his hips rising to meet me, his perfect body straining as he tenses over and over again, each muscle visible in delicious relief as he comes closer to orgasm.

"Joanna," he groans, and hearing him say my name with that need, without any pretenses, naked in both body and soul, sets me afire with desire. Then, to my complete shock, he growls savagely, pulling away from me, coiling on the bed as if to spring away, and shoves me down, pinning me by the shoulders to the mattress.

His eyes are wide and fiery, like twin pools of flame, and for a moment I'm shocked, almost afraid. "Not yet," he growls. "I'm not ready to come without tasting you. Licking you."

Without another word he unbuttons my pants, and I raise my hips just in time for him to pull them free. His need is almost frightening, but it merely matches my own. He pulls aside my panties, pushes my knees open, and buries his face in my pussy. I cry out as his tongue licks my slit, the broad flat of it causing a flood of fiery pleasure to course through me, and then whimper as he circles the tip around my clit, around and around before diving back down deep and plunging his tongue inside me.

He's voracious, unstoppable, and I feel like I'm lost at sea, my hips rising and bucking, my head turning from side to side, my pleasure mounting and growing as he teases and torments me, pleasures and tortures me to the peaks of ecstasy. I bury my hands in his hair and urge him on, and when he slides one, then two fingers inside me, the growing knot of tension within shatters and I'm almost ambushed by my orgasm, my whole body shaking from the intensity of it.

I cry out, squeezing my eyes shut, and though Chase slows down his movements, he doesn't quite stop, undulating his fingers and lapping gently with his tongue, driving aftershock after aftershock of pleasure through my quivering body.

Finally he moves up to me, taking my face between his hands, and kisses me deeply, truly, bringing me back from the shores of pleasure to the land of the living.

Our eyes meet. His are still afire with hunger, but there's more there now, a sense of tenderness. I reach for him and pull him close, holding him tight, his face buried in the crook of my neck. "Oh, Chase," I whisper.

"My Joanna." His voice is gentle, but the erection that's still stiff against my thigh belies his words. There's still a fire burning within him. "I need you."

"Then come inside me," I whisper, daring everything. "I want you. All of you."