My Cat Burglar Read online

  MY CAT BURGLAR

  Shelley Munro

  Middlemarch Shifters, book 8

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Bonus

  Excerpt – My Stray Cat

  About Shelley

  Other Works

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Laura Adams is a cop with ambition, and a job in Middlemarch isn’t what she wants for her future. Hooking up with the wrong man is responsible for the inappropriate turning, and she refuses to repeat the mistake, especially with a sexy thief.

  Leopard shifter Jonno Campbell takes one look at Laura and desires her as his mate. He’s enthralled with the fiery cop, and when she arrests him, he’s ready for a strip search. Convincing Laura he’s innocent and that they should work together to capture the thieves stealing from Middlemarch residents isn’t easy. A kiss laced with his easy charm does the trick and sparks fly. Passion escalates into primitive hunger. A night of hot loving convinces Jonno. He wants forever with the gorgeous Laura, but her ambition, his feline heritage and a gang of thieves stand in the way of his progress. Then there’s the ex-boyfriend who wants Laura back. This time charisma and erotic promises mightn’t be enough to win the lady.

  Chapter One

  “Hold it right there. You’re under arrest.”

  The man froze in the bright stream of moonlight, his muscular bulk rigid as a marble statue. Police officer Laura Adams scanned him, alert for the slightest sign of trouble. A head taller than her with tawny hair, he appeared more than capable of causing a disruption.

  She’d spied him as he’d prowled past the wooden display case in the Millers’ formal lounge, each studied move laced with leashed power and grace. She was positive she hadn’t seen him during her two weeks of working at the Middlemarch police station.

  Him, she’d remember.

  Her gaze skimmed his broad T-shirt-clad back and drifted over his tight arse, showcased in black jeans. What she wouldn’t give to strip away the cloth and stroke the firm, rounded globes of his butt. She’d bet his cock—

  Her breath hissed out in horror and her head jerked in a sharp shake of denial. What the hell? Since when did her fantasies include ripping clothes off men in the middle of a bust? A criminal, caught red-handed, dammit.

  “Put your hands in the air where I can see them.” Thankfully, her voice emerged on a steady note, hiding every sign of her disorientating sexual awareness. Laura grabbed the handcuffs off her belt and stalked closer, her boots a whisper on the thick carpet.

  “Are you gonna cuff me?” the man drawled, his rough intonation raising a series of goose bumps across her arms and legs. Not a shred of concern tinged his voice.

  How had he known she’d shifted position? She hadn’t made a sound. Perplexed, she dragged in a deep breath, cursing seconds later. How had criminals obtained these sneaky secret weapons? A sexy body and he smelled good. Crime number two.

  Laura stretched, standing on tiptoes to cuff one thick wrist. He was a tall sucker, topping her by six inches and she wasn’t a shrimp. She jerked his arm behind his back and reached for the other, trying to ignore his seductive scent of something vaguely Oriental. It sure made a change from vomit-scented Friday-night drunks.

  “There’s a bed in the other room,” he said. “Just sayin’, ’cause that sounds more fun. For both of us.” His smoky voice throbbed with innuendo and an underlying teasing.

  Immediately her body softened in reaction, her mind agreeing horizontal would work well with this man.

  “So what about it? You. Me. A flat surface.”

  Laura gasped, a swarm of heat engulfing her face at the man’s words and her inappropriate thoughts.

  Charlie, her partner, snickered behind her and the mortification intensified, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. “Have you checked the rest of the house?”

  “Yeah.” Charlie’s mien shifted to professional. “All clear. No one else here.”

  “Good.” Charlie was okay, or he would be once he understood there were boundaries in their partnership and they included nothing sexual. He probably resented the fact she had seniority and charge of the station.

  “The bed?” her prisoner reminded her in his sexy voice.

  Laura barely suppressed her shudder of awareness. Hot damn, this was ridiculous. She took care of her reputation—well, apart from one major snafu. Jumping men on the first date—no. And fantasizing about doing it with a prisoner never happened. Never. She preferred to get to know a man before thoughts of sex clouded issues and made a relationship complicated.

  Like every woman her age, she experienced sexual needs—a normal and healthy thing. But despite swearing off sex only two months ago, she obviously needed to score on her next day off—a hookup with one of her old boyfriends back in Dunedin. That might soothe away her edginess.

  “There is a bed for you in the holding cell,” she snapped. “What are you doing in the Millers’ house?”

  “A holding cell, huh? That could be kinky. Yeah, we could make that work.”

  Laura ignored the husky remarks with difficulty, just as she disregarded the urge to run her hands through his thick tawny hair and over those wide shoulders displayed to perfection by the tight T-shirt.

  What did he want? Why was he in the Miller house? And was he responsible for the recent jewelry thefts throughout the surrounding district of Middlemarch?

  They’d caught him trespassing. It was enough to take him in for questioning. He looked the part, dressed in black to blend with the night.

  Damn, she’d have to search him. Her hands tingled at the thought, images taking wing before she jammed on the brakes with a soft curse. Charlie could do the search. She scowled and shoved away the jealousy springing into her mind to concentrate on practical thoughts. If he’d stolen the jewelry, why had they captured him so easily? Laura knew she did a good job, but in her experience, thieves didn’t make solving crimes this simple. It made no sense. “What’s your name?”

  “Jonathan Campbell.” His voice lowered to intimate. “You can call me Jonno.”

  It wasn’t the name that popped into Laura’s head first. Lover beat Jonathan and Jonno by a wide mile. She shook herself and urged her prisoner from the room, alert for trouble. Her heart pounded faster than normal and Laura cursed again.

  The application of chocolate…ah…the eating of chocolate might help soothe her peculiar mood and the plain weird sexual urges. Yeah, a good, old chocolate splurge to hold her until the weekend when she could let loose and get laid in multiple positions and places. She mentally paged through her address book, considering her past boyfriends and current male friends while she narrowed the field of fuck buddies.

  Hell, listen to her.

  Concentrate, Laura.

  Her gaze swept the man’s shoulders again, drifted over his butt, and her friends-with-benefits plan flew right out the door. Damn and blast.

  “Move it.” Laura gave him a shove in the middle of the back to get him moving. A charge of electricity shot from her fingertips and up her arm. She jerked away in astonishment, squeezing her hand into a fist and shaking it.

  “Where are we going?” Jonno asked.

  “The police station.” Laura read him his rights, rattling off the requisite words while she directed him from th
e luxurious and formal lounge of the Miller property into the passage and toward the front door.

  Damn, she hated this situation.

  Jonno Campbell prowled rather than walked, restrained power emanating from him. If he attempted an escape, she suspected the cuffs wouldn’t hinder his determination. To her relief, he didn’t offer resistance, playing the model prisoner.

  She let out a thankful sigh when the rear door of the police car slammed shut, trapping Jonno Campbell inside. Unfortunately, she could still see him, and the front view looked even better than the rear. Big, yet he moved without a hint of clumsiness. His hazel eyes twinkled—bright, wide and full of mischief whenever they lit on her. The impish quality echoed in his generous mouth while his nose appeared a trifle on the big side yet fit with the rest of his body. His face begged a second glance, and Laura bet he never had a shortage of girlfriends.

  “Fuck,” she whispered, knowing she’d landed in a mess of trouble. One thing was certain. Her dreams would turn X-rated tonight.

  Charlie walked around to the driver’s side and climbed inside the vehicle. She opened the passenger door and perched on the edge of the seat. The man watched her. She could feel his scrutiny on her back. To her consternation, her breasts prickled, arousal letting out signals in the form of tight nipples. She resisted the urge to cross her arms to conceal the evidence. Just.

  The engine of the vehicle hummed to life, seeming to echo through her sensitized body. Only a short trip to the police station. She’d book him, finish her shift and head back to the house she shared with Charlie as part of her wage package. She’d forget Mr. Sexy. Forget him.

  “Remember your seat belt, sweetheart,” came a husky reminder from the rear. “I don’t want that pretty face scraped.”

  “Shut up,” Laura snapped.

  “Has anyone told you that you curse too much?” the prisoner asked, amusement tingeing his voice this time. “Didn’t anyone ever wash that sexy mouth out with soap?”

  “Nah, they gave her prunes instead,” Charlie quipped with a sideward glance.

  “Drive,” Laura snarled at Charlie.

  Men. She fumed all the way back to the police station.

  * * * * *

  Jonno cooperated, walking into the police station even though he could have escaped in an instant, or told them Saber Mitchell, one of the Feline council, had arranged for him to enter the Miller house. Heck, he should have moved the instant he’d recognized the cops’ presence, but her scent had shocked him, robbing every ounce of good sense. One whiff of her, and he’d become rooted to the spot. Hell, instead of evading capture he’d hesitated. The cuffs rubbed his wrists as he leaned to counteract a corner in the road, reminding him of his willing captivity. A mature feline shifter, such as himself, needed stronger restraints than the piddly handcuffs the female police officer had secured around his wrists.

  He scowled, thinking back to the scene inside the house. Someone had lifted the Miller heirloom diamond necklace before he’d arrived, not that he’d bothered enlightening the police. Not yet. Besides, he was enjoying the attentions of the female officer. Her hands had developed a faint tremor when she cuffed him, letting him know she experienced the same power shimmering between them, even though she didn’t understand what it meant.

  A mate.

  Jonno hadn’t expected to find one so soon. Not that it mattered. He’d go with the flow. Excitement pulsed through him at the thought of a mate, his feline pushing him to touch and exert his claim. Instead, he looked his fill. Tall, she had brown hair with a decided red cast to it and a snappish temper to match. Her baby-blue eyes watched him in confusion, and she muttered under her breath, most of it pithy curses. Jonno decided he’d cut her some slack on the swearing, since if she felt anything like him, the wheels had fallen off normal with everything he knew turned askew. He couldn’t see much of her figure since the police uniform wasn’t formfitting.

  An older woman.

  The Mitchell twins would laugh if they heard, since he’d always gravitated to women older than himself. Even so, he’d expected a younger mate and accepted a wager with his best friends. Looked as if he’d lost the bet. Not that she appeared much older than him—five years maximum.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Police Officer Adams,” she said.

  “Unless you want me to shout out ‘babe’ or ‘sweet cheeks’ when I fuck you, you’d better give me your Christian name. Police Officer Adams doesn’t do it for me.”

  Thick, dark lashes swept down to block his clear visual of her emotions. “Someone should have washed your mouth out with soap,” she snapped after a shocked pause. “I’m not interested in you.”

  “Oh, they did. It didn’t stop me speaking my mind.” Jonno took pleasure in her sharp inhalation and the increasingly loud pounding of her heart. Police Officer Sweet Cheeks Adams experienced the same attraction and fought, not understanding her struggle was wasted energy. “Hasn’t anyone told you lies make your nose grow?”

  Her hand rose halfway to her nose before she cursed under her breath and jammed it back against her side. “Why were you in the Miller house? What were you after? Jewels? Their heirloom diamond?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” He did, of course. He’d missed the thieves by minutes. Although he didn’t recognize their scents, if he met them again, they’d never escape a second time. At least two of the thieves were shifters, which narrowed the field. Shifters joining a group of human thieves didn’t make sense since any shifter must realize Saber and the council would react swiftly to stamp out a crime wave.

  His mate pushed his arm to make him step farther down a passage toward the holding cell. Jonno sucked in a hasty breath, the electric surge of arousal ripping through his body at her touch. Damn, he’d heard details of feline courtships from the twins after their brother Saber hooked up with Emily. He’d heard them say how powerful this mating shit was but hadn’t believed a word.

  He came from spotted leopard stock rather than black like the Middlemarch shifters, and since his feline line lived in pairs instead of groups, his knowledge of mating remained scanty. It didn’t help that his father was an asshat and had kicked him out of their home in Australia once he’d turned sixteen. Big for his age, he’d worked several jobs and continued with his education before he’d drifted across the Tasman, met the Mitchell twins at a party and found a home of sorts.

  “Are you responsible for the jewelry thefts in the area?”

  “I’m not a thief.” A persistent woman. Jonno couldn’t wait to get her naked and push his cock into her moist pussy. One glance at her bright blue eyes told him she sensed the rightness. Despite pretending to ignore the attraction, the bloom of arousal in her face gave her away.

  “In here.” She indicated the holding cell with a jerk of her head.

  He stepped inside, and she unlocked the handcuffs, standing back with caution. She backed from the cell and the door clanked shut behind him. He heard her small sigh of relief and grinned. He made her nervous. Good, because this thing between them scared the crap out of him. It couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  They had a thief, or a team of thieves in Middlemarch as he’d discovered tonight, and Saber and the Feline council had asked him to skulk around the place to help capture them. They’d wanted someone unknown, just in case the culprit or culprits were local. He came to the job with no biases. The thieves had bloody good taste because they stole jewels, the biggest hit being the Miller diamond necklace tonight. From what Jonno knew of old man Miller, he guessed there’d be hell to pay. Luckily, Saber had talked the man into replacing the necklace with a fake and giving them permission to enter the house in the hope of capturing the thieves. He wondered how long it’d take the thieves to discover they’d stolen worthless booty.

  “Do I get a phone call?” Best let Saber know what was happening. Besides, he’d hate to spend any longer than necessary playing prisoner. The thieves remained on the loose, and the narrow bed looked as co
mfortable as a blanket harboring fleas. Not what this kitty had in mind. “I want to arrange my getaway.” One eye closed in a wink, and he took pleasure in her gasp of outrage.

  “We caught you trespassing,” she snapped. “What were you doing there? What did you take?” Her gaze slid down his body toward his crotch.

  Jonno laughed, not even trying to control his unruly body. The steal of color across her cheeks charmed him. A blusher. He wondered how big an area the flush covered. “I’m not hiding any jewels there, aside from the obvious, although you’re welcome to investigate.” A sly grin slid across his lips. He hadn’t had so much fun with a woman in ages.

  “You’re trying to embarrass me.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “Are you satisfied? You’re making me behave in an unprofessional manner.”

  “I’m not making you do anything, sweet cheeks.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Then tell me your name and I’ll call you by that. Go on, sweet cheeks. You know you want to.”

  “Laura,” she snapped, goaded by his teasing. Her chest rose and fell in heaves, a glimpse making his cock jerk against the fly of his jeans. He attempted to ignore the rush of pleasure surging through his veins, the subtle purr of his feline as it pushed against his control. Jonno wondered how this starchy human would deal with his feline nature before deciding it didn’t matter. Together they’d work through any problems they encountered.

  Laura was the one.

  His.

  “Laura,” he said, rolling her name around his lips like a ripe and juicy peach. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Knock it off. I’m a cop and you’re a prisoner.”

  Jonno nodded, his brow creased in thought. “Sure. We can do role-plays. I’d have thought you’d want to try something more adventurous. How about a slave and owner? I’ll be the slave if you want. I’m an equal-opportunity kind of guy.” His mouth curled into a smirk and it widened at her indignant sniff. He focused on his words, creating mind pictures of them naked. Together. He’d strip naked for her any time. “My phone call?”