by Amy Sumida
“Problem?” she asked, peering around him.
He must have been staring longer than he thought, “No. Your apartment …”
“What about it?” she crossed her arms over her chest, plumping up breasts that looked to be a convenient handful.
“It’s interesting – homey,” he added, seeing her frown. And it was. The whole space may have looked like a rainbow vomited everywhere, but it somehow worked with the colours complimenting each other, even though they should have contrasted.
She eyed him suspiciously for a moment before nodding her head, “It is homey – my home. I worked hard to create this space. You should have seen the state it was in when I bought it. I did all the renovations and decorating myself,” she smiled proudly.
“Yeah?” he was surprised. Most chicks weren’t really into drywall and plumbing.
“Don’t get too many ideas. I had help, I assure you. But it was fun and well worth the effort.”
“Bedrooms?” he queried, stepping further into the room.
“Three. Down the hall that way. As well as a master bathroom and another odd little room that’s too open to be a bedroom but too small to be another living area. I turned it into my study,” she explained.
He merely grunted, walking down the wide hallway and checking out each room for security and just plain nosiness. The spare bedrooms were roomy and both had decent queen sized beds, although there was no way he and his two men would fit in one. Looks like they were back to the rock, paper, scissors to see who would be sleeping alone. The bathroom was likewise large with an antique claw-foot tub and a big glassed-in shower. The windows in every room only had generic locks, so they were going to have to change those when they wired the windows up for …
He felt his thoughts derail when he came to Ivory’s bedroom. If he thought the other rooms in the house were bold and surprising, then what could he call this room? Every wall was painted pitch black and all the furnishings were white, including the wooden dresser and ornate chaise sofa under the large floor to ceiling window. The splashes of colour came in the form of a red shaggy rug, a huge painting of a brightly patterned sugar skull above her bed, and a yellow striped toy zebra that took up residence in the corner. But what really caught his attention was the bed; it was round. Ivory’s bed was fucking round! It was also huge considering the diminutive size of the woman. Hell, he figured he, Ronan, and Seth could fit on it with room to spare. Even their specially made king sized bed at their house wasn’t this big.
“Vaughn?”
Ivory’s husky voice had him jolting in shock. Since when did he allow anyone to sneak up on him unawares? When you start fantasising about your client naked in the middle of a round bed with your two long-term lovers, he answered himself.
“You have a round bed,” he uttered excitedly and without thought, before cursing himself when he saw her eyebrows rise. He needed to get a grip here. She had hired them to do a job and he was already falling down on it because of some misguided chemistry.
“Yes, I do,” she responded slowly, looking at him as if he weren’t all there.
Trying to recover from his rather inane comment, he went into full bodyguard mode; “Well, your security is pretty shit. That alarm system you installed is the cheapest one on the market and your window locks are pathetic.”
He saw her lips firm and her jaw clench as if she were holding back her words. It didn’t do much good because when she opened her mouth, all that came out was sarcasm; “My apologies. If I’d have known I was going to be stalked, I would have called the CIA and asked for their recommendation on window locks. And that alarm cost me four hundred dollars!
He heard his panther purr inside his head. The stupid animal loved to spar and Ivory was giving as good as she was taking, “Thank you for acknowledging your shortcomings. In addition to updated security, from now on, you don’t go anywhere alone. One of us will be with you everywhere you go whether it’s down in the bar or up here in your apartment.”
Her brown eyes looked hot enough to incinerate him where he stood, “Don’t you think that’s a little excessive?”
He shrugged, “Fine, then. You’re not interested in the way we do things, we’ll leave. Get yourself another bodyguard.”
“Boy, you really are a hard-arse. Not really a social animal are you, Vaughn?”
If she only knew exactly what kind of animal he really was, “No, Ivory. I’m not. But you didn’t hire me to be your BFF. We can help you – we really can. But if you’re not willing to listen to us, this will never work.”
“I’m not trying to be difficult – unlike someone else,” She added, tossing an imperious look his way.
He smiled widely for the first time since meeting her – the lady sure had some spine, “It’s best if you see the real me from the outset. That way, you can’t say you weren’t warned when you discover I’m not house-trained.”
Wait, was that a joke? Did I really just make a joke? He was definitely losing his edge here.
She smiled, even chuckled a little, “I bet you leave the toilet seat up, huh?”
She managed to startle a laugh out of him, “I live with two other guys – the toilet seat always stays up,” he saw her eyes dim a little with the reminder of his relationship status, but he didn’t think it was because she disapproved, “Anyway,” he began, rocking back on his heels a little, “who’s your contact at the police department? What did they have to say about all of this?”
She hesitated and shifted restlessly from foot to foot, “Not much.”
“Not much? That’s not very informative. I’m going to need a copy of all the police reports – see how far into the investigation they are,” Vaughn informed her. With any luck, the Po Po had already done half their work for them. They weren’t private investigators by any stretch of the imagination but sometimes they found themselves playing amateur detective. He had a feeling this was going to be one of those times.
Ivory winced, muttering; “That’s going to be a problem.”
“And why is that?” he folded his arms over his chest, awaiting her slow response.
She sighed, “Because there are no police reports. And the reason the police haven’t had much to say is because I haven’t reported anything to them.”
That was certainly interesting. She would have no reason not to involve the police unless she had something to hide. Despite the surprising reaction his dick had around the woman, he hadn’t forgotten his reservations about the coincidental nature of the case. Not to mention the bizarre fact that she smelled like them all. He didn’t necessarily think her unique scent was connected to why she was being stalked, but it was another strange piece to the mysterious puzzle that was their newest client.
“Why haven’t you gone to the police?” he demanded.
She shrugged, negligently, “Because I hired you instead.”
“Try again, sweetheart. These threatening messages began months ago. Any average, single woman living alone would have been on the phone to the authorities in a heartbeat, crying her eyes out and pleading for help.”
“Well, I’m not your average woman, am I?” she answered, her tone turning snotty.
She certainly wasn’t. He was pushing her deliberately, trying to judge her reactions and also to see if she would slip up and reveal her secrets. However, their continued banter was having a different effect on him – in the crotch area. The spark of defiance and the sass in her vocabulary was making him hard and he fought the urge to readjust himself.
He leaned closer, using his height to intimidate, and backed her up three steps until her back was against the hallway wall, “What are you hiding, Ivory?”
Her head tilted back and the annoyed heat in her eyes would have flayed a lesser man, he was sure, “None of your business.”
“But you admit you are hiding something,” he pointed out, surprised. He hadn’t been expecting her to disclose that.
She shrugged, doing her best to appear uncaring when she reall
y wasn’t. Vaughn could hear her heart, and it was beating far faster than normal, “Sure, I admit it. But I’m entitled to my privacy. As long as it has no bearing on my current situation, I don’t see how it’s your business.”
“How do you know it has nothing to do with the case? It could be directly related to your stalker. But we can’t determine that until you tell us,” he told her. He was leaning in closer now, his body a bare inch from hers. He saw her pupils dilate and her nostrils flare. That was the exact same reaction Ronan had when he was aroused.
“You’re just going to have to trust me the same way I’m going to have to trust you.”
Her words were whispered, the warmth of her breath sighing against his lips. Definitely aroused, he decided. Before he could decide what to do, Ivory moved fast, ducking under his outstretched arm and clearing her throat;
“If you’ll excuse me, I have some accounts to go over. The bar opens in less than an hour but I took the liberty of taking the day off today. I assumed we’d need time to go over things, plan a course of action. But I have employees that need to be paid, so I’ll be spending some time working from my computer. Make yourself at home,” she added, spinning on her heel and striding away briskly in the direction of her study.
He took the moment of privacy to bang his head soundly against the wall. She was going to be trouble. He could feel it.
Chapter Eight
A knock on the door forced Vaughn from his head-bashing. Ivory had escaped to her study twenty minutes ago and he had been staring after her ever since. Shaking himself from his stupor, he unlocked the door to find Ronan and Seth on the other side loaded down with their luggage and equipment.
“Ivory?” Ronan questioned, dumping their stuff in the centre of the room.
“In her study,” he replied, “Don’t worry, I checked it out. It’s relatively secure but we’re going to want to go over this place in more detail, set up our own system, change some locks …”
Ronan nodded, looking around the living space with blatant curiosity, “This is nice. Really nice,” he said, “Very much like the bar downstairs – unexpected.”
He snorted sardonically, “Wait until you get a gander at her bedroom. Doesn’t really match our dowdy client, does it?”
“She’s not dowdy,” Seth defended. And he was right, she wasn’t at all. If she had been, he wouldn’t have looked at her twice, let alone be so interested in her.
“My point is, she’s not an easy person to pin down. She seems so plain and yet has this vibrant, sexy home. She’s scared and vulnerable and yet fearless and strong at the same time. She’s got enough initiative to hire us but not enough to go to the cops.”
“She hasn’t been to the police?” Ronan’s voice held shock, but also suspicion.
“Nope. And is very firm about not wanting to as well. Freely admits she’s hiding something – something she assures me is unrelated to her being stalked. We’re going to have to get it out of her eventually.”
“I don’t want to doubt her – my gut tells me we can trust her,” Seth volunteered, frowning in the direction of the hallway. Vaughn saw him raise his head and sniff as if he were homing in on her exact location, “We need to be careful,” he muttered quietly and had Vaughn wondering if he was talking to himself or all of them.
Watching their reactions, he decided right then and there to be completely transparent with his partners, “We’re going to have to be careful for a number of reasons,” he established, “None the least, the fact that she’s pretty damn attracted to me – to all of us if I’m not mistaken.”
“What?” Ronan looked shocked, but Vaughn thought there was also a hint of relief and happiness in there too.
“I made sure to get in her way earlier – you know – invade her personal space a little.”
“Vaughn!” Ronan reprimanded.
“Oh, relax. You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. I just wanted to see what her reaction would be. As we established before, she smells like us. It’s pretty damn strange.”
“And what did she do?” Seth asked.
“Nearly kissed me, that’s what,” he replied, rubbing his lips. They were still tingling in anticipation of feeling her skin pressed to his.
“Did you want to kiss her back?” Ronan’s voice was quiet.
Vaughn took his time answering. This was tricky – yes, he wanted to kiss her back, and he also wanted to do much more while he was at it. But he didn’t want to hurt his two lovers. Three people together in a relationship may not be commonplace, but there was no mistake – the three of them were committed and had been exclusive for a long time. Hell, he may not have been the most articulate person but he was very much in love with the both of them and couldn’t imagine his life without his two panthers. He also couldn’t imagine touching anyone else or sharing his men with another – until now.
In fact, his panther was extremely possessive and just the thought of anyone touching Seth or Ronan made him see red. He’d quite happily kill anyone who touched them, be they male or female. They were his. But when he pictured the smaller woman with her soft curves, husky voice and bowed lips sandwiched between their three bodies as they moved as one, he felt horny as hell.
Both men were watching him intently, awaiting his answer. Given their few previous comments and observations, he was pretty sure they were all on the same page, “Yeah, I wanted to kiss her back. A lot,” he admitted, watching them closely for their reactions, “Does that bother you?”
Ronan frowned as Seth shifted uncomfortably, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times without answering. Vaughn felt his stomach plunge, had he misjudged the situation and hurt his lovers? He was about to beg forgiveness when Seth finally spoke, raising clear green eyes to meet his;
“No. It doesn’t bother me. Not in the slightest,” he admitted, “Why is that?” he asked, looking his way and then Ronan’s, “Ro?”
Ronan was still frowning but Vaughn could now see that it wasn’t in anger – it was his thinking frown – and his pulse began to calm once more, “I feel the same way. Last night at the bar, when I ushered us all out of there so quickly? It was because my panther and I wanted to jump her bones. I felt guilty as hell.”
They all stood in silence, absorbing the information and lost in their own thoughts for a few moments, “Where do we go from here? We’re all attracted to her – an oddity considering I haven’t gotten it up for anyone but the two of you in years,” Vaughn freely confessed.
Ronan shrugged, “Even if we wanted to do something about it, there’s no guarantee she’d be interested.”
“Oh, she’d be up for it,” Vaughn assured them, remembering the heat in her eyes as she had leaned in for that kiss.
“It doesn’t matter if she is,” Ronan’s voice was firm now, “She’s vulnerable at the moment. She’s been terrorised for months now by some sicko who wants in her pants and who knows what else. We’re here to keep her safe. Nothing else.”
“And you think you’ll be okay with nothing else?” he asked doubtfully, because he was nothing if not honest. And honestly? He was worried he’d even make it through one evening without wanting to taste Ivory. Especially now that he knew his lovers didn’t have a problem with it. They were all on the same page. And then there was that round bed …
“I have to be,” Ronan responded, but he didn’t look convinced.
“Okay, fine. Subject change; what about the other unexpected turn of events?” Seth asked, “She smells like us. That’s just fucking weird. What do you think it means?” he turned dark green eyes towards him, “Could she be a witch from our coven?”
Vaughn hadn’t been expecting that. Why the hell would Seth think that? The mere mention of the possibility was jarring. He accepted that Seth still believed there was a member of their coven’s bloodline out there somewhere. The kid could believe whatever he wanted. Didn’t make it true. But he hated it when Seth kept bringing it up all the time. It was the one thing they ever really fough
t seriously about.
Luckily, Ronan spoke up, blocking him from his thoughts and his automatic scathing response to Seth’s question, “Our coven has never smelt like that before, Seth. Besides, we don’t recognise the bloodline through scent. We recognise it through power. And I don’t sense even a hint of power on her.”
“Then what’s with the connection we all feel? It’s not just chemistry – I don’t just want to screw her. I want to talk to her, get to know her. I want to protect her, make sure she doesn’t get hurt. I want to make her happy,” his green eyes were dark with confusion, “Isn’t that what familiars do for their witches?”
Vaughn reminded himself that Seth had never served a witch before, so his persistence was due to ignorance rather than malice. But this was a touchy subject for Vaughn – and Ronan – and he was beginning to feel twitchy. Praying for patience, he reasoned with Seth in what he hoped was an even tone;
“Ronan is right. The coven’s power calls to the panther. Trust us Seth, if she were our witch, we would know it beyond a shadow of a doubt,” he watched as his young lover’s jaw clenched stubbornly and Vaughn knew Seth was going to press the issue, “There is no-one in the bloodline left,” his voice was flat, “And even if there was, do you really think we’re just going to stumble across a coven member in some random, podunk town at the bottom of a mountain?”
“Why not?” Seth retorted, “We’re going to stumble across them somewhere. Could be here.”
His panther stretched inside his mind, gearing up for the perceived fight. He didn’t usually mind these battles of the wills with Seth because they invariably led to sex. But now wasn’t the time or the place. They had a new client to protect and a new mystery to solve, “Why do you insist on harping on and on about this? This is the second generation Ronan and I have been born into without a single member of the Panthera Coven. The bloodline is extinct. End of story.”
