Vaughn studied their newest client with great interest. He was wildly attracted to her – something he had been since the moment he had first heard that throaty voice of hers. Ignoring the very peculiar fact that she smelled like a mixture of all of them, he had no idea why such chemistry would be there. She wasn’t anything like his previous type in women. He had liked them tall, stacked, and dumb. It was superficial and shallow of him but that’s exactly what he had been before his relationship with Ronan and Seth. He had definitely been the love ‘em and leave ‘em type. He couldn’t even blame it on the fact that familiars rarely indulged in long-term relationships. He simply had no desire to commit to anyone – ever. That was despite the warm fuzzy feelings and rampant desire he’d suppressed for Ronan throughout the generations.
Until Seth had barged into their lives, Vaughn had honestly never contemplated acting on those desires. But the kid had made a compelling argument and he had never looked back. So why was he practically hypnotised by the sway of Ivory’s feminine hips as she preceded him up the stairs? It was very curious. And despite the old adage, ‘curiosity killed the cat’, he fully intended to indulge his curiosity.
“How long have you lived here?” he asked, taking the key from her hands before she could slide it into the lock, “Let me go in first.”
She pressed her lips together tightly but didn’t say anything, allowing him to insert the key and open the door, “Almost five years now,” she answered, as he stepped into the room, his heightened hearing confirming the apartment was indeed empty.
“Did you always want to be a bar owner?” he questioned, trying to get a feel for her as their client, but also genuinely interested in getting to know her better. She didn’t really have the look of a bar owner – wasn’t edgy enough.
The room he stepped into didn’t mesh with what he knew of the woman standing next to him either. It was filled with bold colours, over-sized furniture and a truly eclectic array of art. A huge built-in bookcase graced an entire wall, teal lounges with striped cushions sectioned off the living area from the open-plan kitchen with its white quartz counter tops and dark stained cabinets. The huge rug dominating the whitewashed floors was a striking magenta with the remaining furniture all dark wood and antique looking.
“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 really 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.