by Cara Adams
The Cat Burglars 1
Leah’s Triplet Mates
Leah Crawford needs to reclaim her father’s stamp albums from Mr. Lutterworth, a con man. Panther shape-shifters Saxon, Hardy, and Bram Stewart are planning to break into that house, too, and she’s in their way. The last thing they need is a feisty amateur getting in the way of professionals like them. Leah’s family badly needs the money selling her father’s stamp albums will bring them. She doesn’t plan to let anyone stop her from retrieving her property, not even if there are three of them, all identical, big, strong, black haired, and delicious looking.
When catching her, tying her up, and locking her in the trunk of their car doesn’t stop Leah for very long, the three men have to think of other ways of attracting her attention. Maybe if they chained her up in their dungeon, naked, that might work?
Genre: BDSM, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 36,711 words
LEAH’S TRIPLET MATE
The Cat Burglars 1
Cara Adams
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
LEAH’S TRIPLET MATES
Copyright © 2015 by Cara Adams
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-105-0
First E-book Publication: March 2015
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
About the Author
LEAH’S TRIPLET MATES
The Cat Burglars 1
CARA ADAMS
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
Leah Crawford walked purposefully down the sidewalk, letting her tight black boots clack on the concrete and carefully keeping her gaze facing straight ahead. She looked as hard as she could with her peripheral vision at the old brownstone building she was passing, but she didn’t notice anything new about it. This walk was dangerous, but she couldn’t feel truly prepared to burgle a property until she’d been around the perimeter on foot, no matter how many hours she and her sisters had already spent in surveillance.
Her short, bobbed brown hair was tucked under a navy knit cap, and a navy scarf was wrapped around her neck and lower face. Her dark blue jeans and black boots were sold in the thousands at Walmart, as was her plain navy coat. What was not so usual were the two thick sweaters that extended past her hips and were several sizes too large for her, but they filled out the coat and made her look much fatter than she really was. All of which was important in case any CCTV cameras were recording her.
And in these security-conscious days, she had to expect someone somewhere would be videoing her. Fortunately all her clothing came from Walmart and was the most popular cheap brands. No security guard would ever be able to identify her by her clothing. Leah just hoped no one would ever think a woman was the guilty party in the theft anyway.
She continued for two blocks more before turning left, walking two blocks, and then turning right into the shopping mall where she’d left her car. Still bundled in the heavy coat, she drove out of the parking lot and several miles away to another mall. Here she stripped off her coat and the two sweaters, placing them in the trunk of her car.
Circling back toward the brownstone, she dropped the scarf and knit hat into the footwell of the car as she drove and found a parking space outside a boarded-up minimart. She took a few things out of the glove compartment and then locked and left her car, keeping her back to the store even though she was certain it was free of CCTVs. Her two sisters had videotaped this route twice, but she still didn’t plan on taking any chances. Leah might have decided to step into a life of crime, but she didn’t plan on being caught if she could possibly avoid it.
Now in the road behind the brownstone, Leah stopped under the cover of a large tree. It was very dark here, much darker than in the parking lot or on the main road. She waited silently, looking around, but saw and heard nothing except the traffic on the main road, the barking of a dog at a distance, and the faint rustling of the leaves above her. Satisfied, Leah tugged on the neck of the one remaining sweater she was wearing, pulling out a hood that completely covered her neck and head, leaving only her face exposed. She took thin, tight gloves from the pocket of her jeans, pulled them on, and then switched off her cell phone.
Remaining where she stood, Leah looked all around one more time and then stepped lightly out from under her tree and walked past the rear of two more houses. She broke into a run and leaped for the top of the high fence surrounding the third house, shinning up it and over it so fast anyone not watching her would think they’d imagined the presence of a woman in the narrow street.
Leah dropped lightly to the gro
und on the inside of the fence, landing only inches from where she’d planned and still on the grass, not the concrete path that led to a raised vegetable garden.
Step One satisfactorily completed, now for Step Two.
Leah remained on the grass, moving fast and as lightly as she could toward the rear of the brownstone. When she was two-thirds of the way across the yard, she began to run, leaping up the wall of the building and catching hold of a water pipe. Using her feet to brace herself against the wall, Leah pulled herself the rest of the way up the pipe to the second floor, jamming one foot and one arm behind the pipe to hold on and using her free hand to slide the bathroom window open.
She’d practiced this at home and knew she could reach, but doing it hanging off a pipe wasn’t all that easy. All her practice had been done on a pole-dancer’s pole in a dance studio, which was simpler to grip than a fucking water pipe. But she managed it, stretching her free leg out until her foot was over the window ledge and then gripping hard with one hand and letting go with the other to get inside.
Leah was very conscious of the need to hurry. There was a security alarm on the front and back doors and on a sliding first-floor door that led into the front garden. Her sisters had seen no signs at all of security on the upstairs floors or the windows. But now was sure as hell not the time to find out they were wrong.
In and out, Leah. In the window, into the study, grab the stamp albums, and get the fuck out of here.
She forced herself to stand still long enough to catch her breath and steady her inhalations and then tiptoed to the bathroom door. As her sisters had promised, the house was still and silent. The thieving fucktard and his wife were supposed to be in D.C. for a few days attending some important party or other, and from the silence surrounding her, Leah hoped like hell her sisters’ information was accurate.
She walked silently out of the bathroom—leaving the door open for a faster exit—and down the hallway to the rear corner of the house where the fucktard’s study was supposed to be. The door was open, and she peeked in, but the curtains were closed, the light off, and the room silent.
The entire house felt empty, to Leah’s relief, which was what she was hoping and praying was the truth.
Praying. Oh yes. Her father would insist she pray.
Please God, help me get these stamp albums. You know they don’t belong to the f—Mr. Lutterworth. Thank you. Amen.
Leah looked all around the architraves and doorjamb but saw no signs of an alarm, so she stepped into the room ready to run if she was wrong. There was no sound, so she hurried across to the huge wooden desk. It was piled high with files and papers. She rested her head on the desk, making sure only the hood touched the wood, not her actual skin, and sighted up and down each pile looking for the distinctive dark red fabric of her father’s stamp albums. Not in the three piles she could see from here. Leah moved around the desk to the next side and repeated her actions. Then the third side. Still no.
Fuck! Where else might they be? Leah wanted to start checking the bookcases, but she forced herself to look at the piles of papers and files on the final quarter of the table, and there they were, only three or four items from the top of the pile.
Carefully she pulled a mesh bag from her back pocket and lifted the top items from the relevant pile onto the desk chair. She slid her father’s stamp albums into the bag, replaced the files, carefully lining them up with the stack she’d taken the stamp albums from, and checked she hadn’t moved the chair at all.
Leah slid her arms through the straps of the mesh bag, turning it into a sort of backpack, and tiptoed from the room. She hurried down the hallway and into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Climbing out of the window was more difficult than getting in because she couldn’t see the fucking drainpipe and had to reach for it with her foot, shove her foot behind it, then slide most of the way out of the window, grip the pipe with one hand, and close the window with the other.
Finally she managed it. The back of her sweater was damp with sweat dripping down her spine, and she hoped it wouldn’t hurt the fabric binding of the stamp albums. But at least she had them, so it was all good.
Leah slid down the pipe, jumped onto the grass, raced across the backyard as fast as she could, and vaulted over the fence.
In her desire to get the hell out of there, she forgot to look over the fence before she jumped, and when she landed on the ground, it was to see a big, dark-haired man staring at her.
Fuck!
Leah took to her heels, running with all the speed the adrenaline rush of fear had given her. She wasn’t stupid enough to head back to her car, sprinting left at the end of the street instead of right, and going as fast as she could toward the mall, which was the only place she could think of to lose the man.
She didn’t want to look behind her, as she knew that would slow her down, but she thought she could hear him running. He wasn’t stomping or panting or anything that would definitely prove he was there, but the area between her sweaty shoulders itched with the knowledge the man was after her.
She raced around another corner and up ahead of her were two more large men standing, staring at her. Damn! He must have phoned a friend. Two friends.
Leah cut across the road and bolted toward a side street, but the men moved damn fast, and she was starting to tire. She wasn’t a distance runner or a sprinter unfortunately.
And then two strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist tugging her backward, and she would have fallen if not for his tight hold of her.
Desperately she wiggled in his grasp. She was so close to retrieving her father’s stamp albums. There was no way she was letting this man take them from her. The fucktard had already stolen them once.
The big man gripped her arms and turned her to face him. Instantly, she slammed her knee with all her strength up and into his family jewels.
He let go of her and dropped to his knees, but she was already running back the way she’d come.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get far. Another man grabbed her from behind, and this time something crashed into her head, and the world went black.
Well fuuuuuck.
* * * *
“Jeez, Saxon, I can’t believe you fell for the old knee-in-the-nuts trick. No one’s done that to me since middle school. Hardy, go get the car right now. Any minute some well-meaning Good Samaritan is going to offer to dial 9-1-1 for us. Get the hell out of here and get the car, now.”
“You’re always so bossy, Bram. You’re the youngest, remember, not the oldest. I’m on my way, but you’d better think of a good lie about why you’re holding an unconscious woman and standing next to a man about to upchuck on the sidewalk.”
“Upchuck? Shit, Saxon, act your age and stand up.” Bram Stewart pulled the woman into his arms more comfortably and tried to pretend he was walking beside her, rather than carrying her across to a low brick fence. Saxon did look pasty-pale and as if he was going to puke.
“If you have to vomit, do it in the garden, not on the sidewalk,” he advised his brother.
Saxon just grunted and hobbled, bent over like a very old man, to the fence. He made no attempt to sit but sort of leaned over it.
“If anyone speaks to us, you’re both drunk and Hardy’s gone for the car, okay?”
Saxon nodded slightly. Bram hoped drunk would cover any questions. He wanted to laugh at Saxon’ predicament, but no red-blooded male could help but feel the shared pain of having had his prized possession battered by a woman. He turned her slightly to look at her, sitting her over his knee and hoping he appeared like her lover, not a kidnapper.
She was wearing a hood over her head, but when he went to pull it off, he found it had been stitched tightly to the neck of her sweater. Bram wrapped an arm around her, holding her securely on his knee while he leaned her forward and examined her sweater, finally working out how to slide the hood off her head and tuck it back down inside her collar. Her hair was brown and cut short. It was also sweaty, likely from
all that running. She’d moved damn fast for a human female.
If she was human. She sure felt nice in his arms, her soft breasts pressed against his forearm. He sniffed behind her ear, but there was no scent of a shape-shifter about her. She was human. A lovely, warm, soft human woman. It was a fucking shame she was working against them.
Bram wiggled the straps of the backpack off her arms, catching it before it fell and balancing it on her legs so he could open it one-handed.
“What the fuck?”
“Huh?” Saxon voice was weak and high-pitched, but at least his brain was starting to work again. Likely he’d have bruised balls for a while. It wasn’t as though he could pack them with ice in the middle of a public road.
“She’s stolen a couple of old stamp albums.”
“If Lutterworth’s involved, they’ll be worth a shitload of money.” Saxon voice was still high-pitched, but he was obviously recovering fast. That was a complete coherent sentence.
His brother was right. Lutterworth moved in the mid-to-upper echelons of society and only offered to sell items he could resell for a hell of a lot more than he told his clients. Apart from the stuff he stole outright. That was one hundred percent profit for the conman.
Saxon picked up one of the albums and opened it to the first page. Written in faded old ink on the inside of the red leather cover was a childish signature and date. “John-Paul Crawford. Christmas 1953.”
“Fifty-three? That’s more than sixty years ago.”
“And that’s why these albums will be worth money. I bet there are stamps in here that haven’t been available in stores for forty or fifty years.”
