Kat and Mouse Read online

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Kat and Mouse

  Copyright 2012 by Lexxie Couper

  Edited by Chrissie Henderson

  Cover Design by Valerie Tibbs

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  For more information visit:

  lexxiecouper.com

  Prologue

  He hung upside-down, muscles burning with the need to move, eyes locked utterly on the slim woman crossing the room. She had a Glock .45 in one hand, metal-barrel torch in the other and a look of fierce purpose on her face.

  She’d made it here sooner than he’d expected, almost catching him red-handed.

  She’s getting better at reading you.

  Yes, she was, and that made her dangerous.

  He followed her steady progress across the gallery floor, an unexpected twinge of admiration twisting in his gut.

  He scowled and tightened his grip on the harness suspending him from the vaulted ceiling. The faint stirring in his groin was a problem, even more so than her developing skill.

  True. But what about her turns you on? The hot, firm little body made for sin, or the determined tenacity that’s made her the only cop to even come close to catching you?

  His scowl deepened. He didn’t know. That was more dangerous than anything.

  Letting his gaze travel slowly over her poised but wary form one last time, he pushed the entirely appealing image of her handcuffed naked to his bed from his mind. He had places to go, diamonds to steal. He couldn’t hang around here all night lusting after a woman who would—given half the chance—shoot him in point-oh-three seconds flat.

  The buyer for the Australis Night had been very specific: be in Los Magia, USA with the rare black diamond by Sunday or the “transaction” was terminated.

  He’d risked everything to steal the Australis Night. After this…

  He let his gaze linger of the woman’s face, on the full line of her lower lip. Imagining it pressed to his.

  With a shake of his head, chest, gut and groin tight, he reefed himself higher into the ceiling’s hidden depths. Some endings were never meant to be, no matter how much one desired them.

  It was time to leave the country.

  Chapter One

  He raked his hands over her breasts. Caught her nipples between thumb and forefinger and pinched. Ribbons of wet heat shot straight to her sex, making her gasp and squirm beneath him. His tongue plunged deeper past the folds of her sex, lapping at the juices she knew slicked the inside of her thighs, the juices that turned the air musky. Oh, God. How did he do this to her?

  His tongue flicked up over her clit, teased it, rolled over it again and again. She moaned and shoved her pussy harder to his face, fisting the sheets below her, ramming her head into the mattress. She’d said no when he’d first brought her into the room. No. It’s too soon. What had she been thinking?

  He’d thrown her on the bed before she could step away from him, crashing down on her, pinning her to the mattress, his hands snatching her wrists and forcing them still beside her head. She’d glared up at him, stared into hazel eyes of the sharpest colour. Get off me.

  No.

  Just one word. One word that had ignited her rage and turned her hungry pussy to liquid.

  His mouth had crushed hers, tongue plundering past her lips to demand she return the kiss. She bucked and fought against him, the steely length of his erection a turgid reminded of his power over her. With each thrash of her limbs he’d forced the kiss deeper, ground his cock—trapped by tight, worn denim—against the dampening junction of her thighs until, eyes fluttering closed, she’d stopped fighting.

  The moment her lips became receptive, he tore his mouth from hers, grabbed the front of her shirt and ripped it apart. Tell me you want this.

  She couldn’t. The words wouldn’t leave her tongue. Heat flamed in her cheeks, heat almost as hot as the molten lust surging through her veins, pooling in her pussy.

  Hazel eyes flared. Tell me.

  I want this.

  The admission tumbled from her lips and the fire in her face flared hotter. She squirmed beneath him, rubbing her sex over the solid ridge of his cock even as she turned her head to the side.

  Look at me.

  She refused to move, choking on the sinful ache invading her body.

  Hands, strong and firm, closed over her breasts and a gasp burst from her as raw pleasure shot through her body. Look at me. Tell me you want me to fuck you.

  She turned back to him, gazed up into his burning eyes and her sex clenched at the naked desire she saw there. She sucked in a shallow breath. I want you to fuck me.

  A bitter smile pulled at his lips. Because I’m dangerous.

  It was a statement, but a question as well. Dangerous. Yes. He was dangerous. Everything in her world had been about safety. Everything in her upper-class life had been about keeping safe. But not him. Yet that wasn’t the reason she was with him. Here. Now. She was here with him because…

  His mouth closed over one nipple and he nipped on its puckered nub. Exquisite pain shot through her and she’d cried out. Oh, God.

  She grabbed at the sheets, fisted them into crumpled balls, her pussy flooding with a need she’d never dreamed possible until this moment. She’d bucked her hips, pushing her sex harder to his cock, wordlessly demanding he do what he’d threatened to do the second they’d first met.

  But he didn’t. He’d dragged his mouth from her breast, scored a wet, hot line down her stomach to flick his tongue into her navel. She’d bitten her bottom lip to stop her moan, a bottom lip he’d described as full and sinful, but when his strong fingers released the button-fly of her jeans, when his hands yanked them down her hips, when his lips took possession of her pussy the moan burst free. Filling the room with its raw sound.

  You taste so good. I knew you would.

  The words were muffled, his breath like hot mist on the sodden folds of her sex, his hands like warm velvet sliding up her stomach to capture her breasts.

  And now, here she lay. In the throes of sexual eruption, the man between her thighs driving her wild with his tongue, his teeth, his knuckles and his fingers…and two words floated through her pleasure-clouded mind. Two words. Dangerous. Love.

  The two fit too well together. She squeezed her eyes shut. God, she was in too deep.

  She rolled her head to the side, the burring friction of his tongue on her clit making her tremble, making her want to forgot who he was, what he was.

  Bright light glared against her closed eyelids, stark and confronting and she opened her eyes, looking at the overweight, sweaty bald man sitting beside her.

  “We’re touching down soon,” he said, showering her in half-chewed peanut crumbs. “Isn’t it exciting?”

  Australian Federal Police Officer, Katrina O’Lauchlan blinked, squinting at the man and the light beaming through the small window behind him. Hot mortification poured through her and she bit back a groan. She was in a luxurious private jet somewhere over the United States, for Chrissakes, not a dark and seedy hotel room in the Outer Sydney Suburbs. Bloody Hell, O’Lauchlan. You were dreaming.

  Another wave of shame rolled through Katrina and she scrubbed at her eyes with her palms. No. Not a dream. A memory. A memory of a time and a person she thought she’d erased from her system.

  Not just one person, O’Lauchlan. Two. Who you are now is nothing like who you were back then…right?

  Katrina ground her teeth and clenc
hed her fists. She wanted to scream. Or shoot something.

  Turning away from the fat bald man with dubious personal hygiene beside her—one of Australia’s most powerful media tycoons, of all things—she stared blankly up the aisle. Shit. A memory. Thought you were over him?

  Katrina suppressed a growl. She was over him, damn it. She’d spent the better part of the last seven years obliterating paper man-shaped targets at the firing range getting over him. She’d spent the three years before that, before she could legally fire a gun, beating the crap out of unsuspecting sparring partners at her taekwondo class getting over him. What the bloody hell was she doing reliving that moment again?

  “Are you ready to party?”

  Katrina swung her head around and frowned at her new-found multi-billionaire chum. “Excuse me?”

  The balding man gave her a wide grin. “Los Magia.” He leant toward her a little and she got a whiff of expensive cologne, expensive B.O and even more expensive scotch. “Party.”

  Katrina scowled. “I think you’ve done enough partying for us both.”

  The man chuckled, his sizeable gut wobbling under a designer suit she knew cost more than her annual salary. “Babe, you have no idea what’s waiting for you.”

  Katrina rolled her eyes and turned away again, wishing to God she had her gun.

  Being a cop usually meant she was never without it, but this trip—going undercover to capture the country’s most notorious jewel thief—required leaving her glock at home. She felt naked. Well, not entirely naked. She did have her cuffs. For some reason, her stainless steel government-issue handcuffs didn’t seem to cause a problem for the Los Magia airport security team back in Sydney, a fact Katrina found both intriguing and disquieting. She’d been ready to deliver her elaborate excuse for carrying them aboard, but all the gentleman—the very sexy gentleman, she had to admit—checking her luggage had done when he’d seen them was give her a knowing grin.

  Knowing what still bugged her. It wasn’t like she had “cop” tattooed to her forehead.

  Her aisle buddy leant toward her, expensive false-teeth flashing. “Los Magia is like no other city you’ve ever dreamed of.”

  “I can’t wait,” she muttered, trying to inch away surreptitiously and longing for her gun even more. She wasn’t going to party. She was going to catch a thief. All work. No play. As always.

  “Los Magia will change your life.”

  “It’ll change someone’s life,” she answered, thinking of her target, the man waiting—albeit, unknowingly—to be arrested somewhere in the exclusive destination. “But it sure as hell won’t change mine.”

  The media tycoon smirked. “I’ve heard that before. A pretty little thing like you doesn’t go to a place like Los Magia to sleep.”

  Katrina faced him squarely, giving him a level look. “Ever been investigated by the Federal Police for unlawful practices?”

  The man’s eyebrows shot up. “No.”

  “Want to be?”

  He stared at her for a second before mumbling something under his breath about frigid cows and turning back to his window, stuffing another handful of peanuts into his mouth.

  Katrina suppressed a dark grin, shoving aside the unsettled fluttering in the pit of her stomach left over from the unexpected dream of a moment she’d left behind. She had a job to do. Somewhere 30,000 ft below was The Mouse. Australia’s most wanted jewel thief and all-round bane of her existence.

  She’d been trying to catch the illusive bastard for two years now. He was an annoying blot on her otherwise spotless record. Every time she thought she had him, every time she thought she knew his next move, he proved her wrong. But this time…

  She thought of the clues leading her to the mysterious desert city in the United States of America—over seven thousand miles from home.

  This time he hadn’t been as clever at covering his tracks. This time she knew exactly where he was headed. He was off-loading the Australis Night to someone in Los Magia. If she didn’t know for a fact he worked solo, she’d have thought his clumsy exit trail from Australia the work of a disgruntled, double-crossing partner. She did know better however.

  Except for who he was, she knew almost everything about him. His height, his weight, his preferred jewel—diamonds, the hard-to-get-because-they-belong-to-someone-else-and-are-priceless variety, his style… everything she could know without actually meeting him.

  Almost like an obsession, really.

  Katrina curled her lip. No. Not an obsession. More like a…a…

  An obsession?

  She rolled her eyes again.

  The Mouse had taunted her too many times. Too many times he’d played her—leaving false clues which led to a slap-in-the-face: an empty hotel room in which waited a vase of deep purple irises and an unsigned card addressed to her; a paper-trail leading to another empty room, this time with a black velvet cat collar, complete with tiny bell, sitting in the middle of the folded-down bed; a digitally printed image of Katrina herself left on the empty remains of a display case, the photo captured just as she climbed from her car—gun drawn—outside the crime scene mere minutes earlier.

  All taunting her. All twisting her gut tighter. She didn’t know what she loathed more. The man’s brazen criminal acts, or the way he humiliated her at almost every turn. There was no way she’d let him escape her this time. No matter what she had to do, this time she was getting her man.

  Los Magia may change people’s lives, but it wasn’t going to change hers. Or The Mouse’s.

  She was going to change his life. And that was all.

  She’d changed her life once already, and one lifetime life change was one enough.

  Los Magia would just have to work its magic on someone else, thank you very much.

  Chapter Two

  Oppressive heat wrapped Katrina the second she exited the airport. Dry. Baking. Sucking the moisture from her flesh before it could bead as perspiration. It turned the light cotton tank-top and worn denim jeans she wore to a prickling overcoat. She fidgeted, hitching her tote bag higher up on her shoulder. Australia was hot in summer, but not like this. This felt like she’d stepped into Hell.

  She cast a look around herself. On second thoughts, Hell probably didn’t have as many beautiful people, looking divine and smouldering sensuality. She scowled, feeling dowdy and jet-lagged. Damn, she should have packed some make-up along with her cuffs.

  She pictured locking them around The Mouse’s wrists and a squirming sensation unfurled in the pit of her stomach. Okay, in the junction of her thighs actually. She huffed at her bangs. Getting turned on about arresting a jewel thief? She needed a holiday.

  The irony of the thought made Katrina snort. Here she was in a city that, as far as she could tell, rivalled Las Vegas for glitz, glamour and escapism, and she was thinking about having a holiday when she left it?

  You have a sad life, O’Lauchlan. A sad life.

  Shaking her head, she started striding along the footpath, threading her way in and out of the people around her, studying them, the buildings and everything else her gaze fell on. It was unlikely she’d bump into The Mouse on the street during her first ten minutes in the city, but she wasn’t going to play tourist just yet. The first thing she needed was a map of the city. After she’d familiarised herself with the layout, where the key resorts and casinos were, where the resort she herself was staying in, she’d formulate a plan.

  Tracking The Mouse down wasn’t going to be easy, but it sure as hell was going to be easier when she knew—kinda—where to look.

  Get a feel for the place and the people. Know your surroundings.

  On a less-professional level she found herself wishing she was here on holiday, forgetting everything for a few days, just relaxing and take it all in. The lights, buildings, the people. She threaded through them, aware of their body-heat caressing her skin. The people were everywhere; laughing, holding hands, taking in the sites, flapping their wings…

  Katrina blinked. A wi
nged person, male and more gorgeous than legally allowed strutted past her, his sculpted bronzed body gleaming with a fine sheen of sweat. God, was Los Magia that kind of city? One where the non-humans of the world came to party?

  “Crikey…”

  The whispered word fell from Katrina’s lips before she could stop it. Crikey? Crikey? She hadn’t used the term ‘Crikey’ since she was a teenager. Thank God no one had heard her. She wasn’t doing much for the cultured Australian image.

  “Ms O’Lauchlan?”

  The silky male voice in her ear made Katrina start and, scowling, she spun about. Damn it, why was she so edgy?

  A towering man stood beside her, liquid-blue eyes sparkling with an ambiguous light that made Katrina’s nerves tingle. He seemed to radiate energy, a thrumming power that reached out and threaded around her like warm fingers of low voltage. Her nipples pinched tight, as if an unseen caress brushed one and then the other, and she gasped. The urge to take a step back rolled through her, almost as powerful as the urge to take a step toward him. To close the distance between them, slide her arms up his back and bury her fingers in the thick blackness of his hair and offer herself to him. Her mouth, her neck, her sex, her soul. To let him invade her completely and –

  Katrina blinked again, the strange compulsion fading from her being. She stared at the man, mouth dry, scowl deepening. “I’m sorry, but you are?”

  The man smiled, and an unexpected wave of wet warmth pooled in her pussy. “I am Abaddon.” He tilted forward slightly at the hip, an archaic action of respectful greeting, intense blue eyes holding hers through the artful tumble of midnight-ink hair. “I must apologise for missing you at the airport. Unfortunately I was detained elsewhere when your jet touched down.”

  She frowned, incapable of missing how gorgeous the man—Abaddon—was, despite how little sense he was making. “Missing me?” She shook her head, hitching her tote a little higher on her shoulder. “I think you must be—”

  He cut her off with a soft chuckle, and again, wild flutters of heat pulsed through her sex. “I am with The Wicked Lynx.”