Chapter 1 - Breaking and Entering

Disclaimer: I do not own Tomb Raider. Lara Croft and all related characters are the property of Eidos Interactive and Paramount Pictures. I do not own Catwoman. Selina Kyle and all related characters are the property of DC Comics. This story is for personal entertainment only. No financial gain is intended.



Lara Croft versus Catwoman, in

“The Sex Kittens of Bubastis”


Part 1: Breaking and Entering


WHOOMPHH!!

The top of Lara’s left foot slammed into the side of a six-foot punch-bag, and a fine mist of dust exploded into the air around it. The punch-bag jangled on its chain and swung wide, tracing a jerky parabolic semicircle through the air, before being knocked off course a second later by another powerful spin-kick. Lara swayed forward, ducking underneath the bag as it swung back towards her. She moved in close and started pummelling the canvas with her fists, driving home lefts and rights, jabs and hooks, uppercuts and back-fists, slamming her elbow deep into the bag’s worn surface first from one side, then from the other.

The tomb raider was at home in her private gym in Croft manor, working out a few frustrations.

It was a balmy midsummer’s night. The clocks had just struck eleven. Outside the day’s heat was dissolving in the cool evening breeze. But inside Lara’s gym the atmosphere was stifling. And therein lay the first of her frustrations. Zip had been promising to fix the air-conditioning in here for two weeks! As Lara’s gadget man and computer expert, he should have been able to resolve a problem like this with a veritable snap of his keyboard-bound fingers. And yet, here she was, yet again, stuck in this steam oven of a gymnasium, sweating like an Eskimo in a walk-in sauna!

WHAMM, WHAMM, WHAMM!!

Lara slammed three kicks up into the underside of the punch-bag, lifting it two feet, three feet, then five feet up into the air. It clinked and jerked on its chain and danced like a drunken marionette when she finally let it fall.

The English woman wrapped her arms around the bag and leaned into it. She let the chain support her weight for a moment as she wiped her brow against her biceps and took a breather.

Bloody British summertime... sodding air-conditioning... bleeding incompetent employees...

What little clothing she wore was drenched in perspiration. And her hair was loose and slick with sweat. It adhered wetly to her glistening skin, streaking her lightly tanned complexion with matted strands of luscious chestnut brown. It cascaded down over her honey-hued shoulders, and was long enough to plaster itself to the small of her lower back. She panted softly.

England was caught in the middle of a heat wave of unprecedented proportions, with temperatures topping 35 degrees Celsius on a daily basis. And as the summer’s heat had intensified over the past two weeks, Lara’s workout gear had gradually diminished. First she’d shed her jogging bottoms in favour of a pair of cotton short-shorts, and cropped her t-shirts four inches or so above her belly button. But even that hadn’t helped. Most days, she’d be sweating bullets and gulping water before she’d even finished her warm up. And then she’d overheat thirty minutes into her callisthenics--which was no good. So she’d had to strip down to the bare essentials, and was now reduced to working out in a tiny pair of black bikini briefs and a grey-marl cotton-spandex sports bra.

Of course, normally, under circumstances like these Lara would simply have skipped country; chartered a private jet and flown off to cooler climes in search of some long lost treasure of mystical antiquity. Antarctica was supposed to be nice this time of year. But therein lay the second of her frustrations. As of late, long lost treasures were proving to be a little thin on the ground. In fact, Alister, Lara’s head of research, hadn’t found her an appropriately antiquarian tomb to raid for several weeks, not since he’d sent her off to heist that jewel-encrusted bronze Bubastis statue from a pyramid in the middle of the Sahara desert. And that must have been more than a month ago now!

With renewed frustration, the tomb raider curled her upper lip and pushed the punch-bag away from her. She stepped back, shifted her momentum in a tight semicircle by spinning on her left heel, and slammed the side of her right foot full-force into the worn canvas.

WHOOMPH!! CRRRICKT...SNAP!!

Under the sheer power of Lara’s spin kick the ceiling chain gave way, and the punch-bag sailed through the air and landed with a heavy thump five yards away. It kicked up a cloud of dust and rolled halfway across the gymnasium, finally coming to a stop against the opposite wall. Incredulous, Lara stood and stared with her hands on her hips.

Oh... that’s just... bloody marvellous! How am I supposed to work out my frustrations now?!

She scowled and stamped her foot against the bare floorboards, the sudden movement sending a little shock-wave up her leg and causing her tight ass to jiggle slightly in the confines of her bikini briefs.

Bloody stupid hot weather! Sodding useless researchers! Bleeding unreliable gym equipment!

***

Zip sat back in his swivel leather chair and chuckled. He was spying on his sexy boss via an array of hidden cameras he’d installed in her gym last month while she was away in Egypt. And Lara was just so damn cute when she was angry. He flicked a couple of switches and three images flashed up on the screens before his eyes: one close up of Lara’s face, one close up of Lara’s breasts, and one close up of Lara’s ass.

On the first screen she was still scowling. Her big hazel almond eyes were still slivered in derision, her pouting upper lip still curled up at one side, revealing a row of perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth. Her groomed eyebrows were still contracted down towards the centre of her brow, creasing light concentration lines into her high patrician forehead, which was streaked with strands of wet hair. In a word, she looked adorable.

On the second screen her sports bra was drenched with sweat and clung to every square centimetre of her 36D breasts like it was painted on. In fact, to Zip’s eyes, the skin tight cotton garment appeared to be at least one size too small for Lara’s generous mounds. It didn’t quite stretch down far enough to cover their creamy undersides, and her luscious cleavage, beaded with tiny drops of perspiration, bulged above the neckline. The techie nodded his approval at Lara's choice of workout gear. Just the way he liked it, her sweat had rendered the garment near-transparent, and her nipples were clearly visible beneath the single layer of thin formfitting material.

But her ass, on the third screen, was best of all. As she’d kicked and back-flipped her way through her strenuous workout routine, Lara’s black bikini briefs had gradually worked their way up between her ass cheeks. They were now bunched up and wedged deep within her ass-cleavage, revealing the tomb raider’s sexy tan lines, and above them the smooth alabaster expanse of her pert buttocks. Zip’s breath actually caught in his throat as he took in the sheer perfection of his boss’s tight rear end. She was stood with her hands on her hips and her weight shifted slightly to one side, so her right butt-cheek flexed taut and bulged bubble-like, betraying not even the slightest hint of overhang. Her skin looked silky smooth; it glistened with perspiration under the gymnasium’s bright halogen lights. Zip felt his cock pulse solid as a steel bar when Lara stamped her foot like a peevish school girl, causing both her glutes to jiggle before his eyes. Complimented by the flaring Circean curves of her hips, they were dimpled concavely on either side, their upper curvatures just barely visible above the hemline of her bikini briefs.

“Daiy-um”, Zip whispered, “now that is what I call an ass”.

The techie kept his cameras trained on Lara as she cooled down and stretched out. He especially liked it when she spread her legs shoulder-width apart and bent over to grab her ankles. She held the stretch for two or three minutes, bobbing her head up and down between her knees, giving Zip ample opportunity to appraise his boss’s curves. He took her in from multiple angles: from the left side and from the right side, from in front and from behind, admiring the way her calves and thighs flexed and shifted as she gyrated her hips. Lara was flexible enough to brush her forehead against her knees, and as she did so she waved her ass high up in the air behind her, clearly unaware that she was giving her lascivious employee a virtual lap-dance in the process. By now her bikini briefs had all but disappeared between her flexing ass cheeks. Zip discovered that if he zoomed in to maximum resolution he could just about make out the darker pinks of Lara’s pussy lips on either side of the bunched up black cotton material. His eyes stung from staring so hard at the screen. He hadn’t blinked once in the past fifteen minutes.

When Lara finally stood up straight she flicked her neck and her hair fanned out above her head, sending a fine mist of perspiration spraying up into the air around her.

“You ever get tired of raidin’ tombs, Lara, you would make one hell of a stripper”.

The techie knew his boss would skin him alive if she ever caught him doing this. But that was half the fun. He unbuttoned his cargo pants and prayed she was going to cool down with her usual yoga routine.

***

Meanwhile, just inside the boundary of Croft manor’s ornate perimeter fence, a twig snapped and something rustled in the undergrowth. The waxing August moon, half full, cast shadows of poplars across the lawns, and they swayed in the cool midsummer night’s breeze. Vapour trails and clouds stretched thin and pale grey against the midnight sky.

A slender figure emerged from the bushes. It glanced around, more like a prey animal than a predator, crouched and cautious, then stalked along the tree-line, moving with swift feline grace. It slipped from shadow to shadow in controlled bursts of speed, gazelling across the grass, avoiding the pools of moonlight. It made its way silently towards the manor house. Twenty yards or so before the rose beds, the figure pounced catlike at an old oak. It clung to the bark and scrambled up the trunk in three seconds flat and disappeared into the canopy above.

Two green eyes peered out from between the sticky summer leaves. A clawed hand, gloved and slender, brushed aside some branches to afford the voyeur a better view of Croft manor’s windows. They were lit up like little cinema screens in the darkness.

Purrrfect...

Lara could be seen in her gym, performing yoga stretches and finishing off her workout. The voyeur’s eyes lingered for a moment as the tomb raider contorted her limber frame into an upside down U-shape with her hands and feet still planted on the floor. Not bad, smiled the voyeur, but I could do better. She scanned the rest of the building’s facade through a pair of night-vision binoculars and caught sight of Alister in the second floor library. He was hunched over a green and gold bound book, sipping from a mug that read “Guybrarians Dig Stacked Women”. She rolled her eyes. Winston appeared to have retired for the evening. The old man servant could be seen sound asleep in his third floor bedroom, his penguin suit hanging on a rack by his bed with eleven others, all perfectly identical.

That’s three down... almost too easy... but where’s...?

The voyeur’s eyes widened in surprise when she caught sight of Zip. He was leaning back in his chair, bathed in the flesh-tones that emanated from an array of monitors before him, jerking off his big black dick. At first she thought Zip was watching pornography, but on closer inspection she realised with a sly smile that he was spying on Lara’s workout.

Hmmm, seems like I’m not the only one who likes to watch...

She clicked closed her night vision binoculars and crawled felinely along the branch on all fours, scanning the manor house’s side wall for hand-grips, sizing up all possible entrance routes. The figure paused for a moment, stretched her sleek frame and shook out her long legs. Then she crouched, coiled, and leapt from the branch, finally breaking cover.

She was caught like this for a second, in silhouette against the pale half moon, one clawed hand outstretched, her lower back curved in graceful flight, her long toned legs perfectly aligned behind her, her toes as pointed as a pirouetting ballerina’s. A skin-tight purple catsuit adhered itself like body paint to every curve of her supple figure, and a buckled leather bodice encircled her trim waist. Thin straps stretched down from its lower hem and were attached to a pair of formfitting thigh-high black boots which, owing to their provocative design, looked more like opaque stockings; but were in fact made of silklar, a paper-thin kevlar derivative that no knife could slash, nor even a bullet pierce. Elbow-length gloves of the same material adorned her forearms, and a black cat-eared cowl covered the upper half of her face, revealing below it a pair of purple-lipsticked pouting lips. A long leather whip with a wicked-looking hook at one end was coiled on her right hip, and a mass of luscious jet-black locks escaped the confines of her cowl and streamed out behind her head, shining in the moonlight.

Selina Kyle, Gotham City’s most notorious orphaned femme-fatal, The Batman’s sometime nemesis and one-time lover, alias Catwoman, grabbed hold of an adjacent oak’s lower branches and swung and twisted and slipped her way through the tree’s canopy.

She landed gracefully in its shadow, hitting the ground running, and disappeared into the darkness behind Croft Manor’s East wing, already formulating a plan for the evening’s heist.

***

“Shit yeah”, Zip said under his breath, “you like that, Lara, huh? you dirty little English slut, huh? you like taking yo’ daddy’s big black dick in that tight little white ass o’ yours?”.

He was re-watching the tape of his boss’s latest work out, jerking off under the desk with one hand, while tapping commands into the keyboard in front of him with the other: pausing the tape, rewinding it, zooming in, switching camera angle, and just generally indulging himself with multiple erotic images of Lara’s perspiration-drenched, curvaceous athletic figure.

“Zip”.

In fact, the techie was so caught up in his voyeuristic fantasy that he could have sworn he just heard Lara say his name. But, no way, that was impossible. He hadn’t installed mics with the cameras. He decided he must have been staring at these damn screens for way too long, if he was starting to hear voices now. Time to blow his load and call it a night.

Unless...

“Zip?”.

“Oh, shit!”. The techie had all of two seconds to tuck his erection back into his cargo pants and bring up some design schematics on screen, before Lara walked into the room.

“Ah, good, you’re still up”, she said, “I’d like to have a word with you about the gymnasium, please, if you’re not too busy”. The sarcasm in her voice was lost on Zip. He was too distracted willing down the tent-pole in his trousers.

“Oh, er... hey, Lara”, he blurted out, “yeah, yeah, I sure am *ahem* still up. You know me, huh huh. Burnin’ the midnight oil ‘n’ all that!”.

When he glanced over his shoulder Zip’s jaw dropped.

“Well, I was just on my way up to bed”, Lara walked towards him, “But I’d like to get this off my chest right away, or I’m sure it shall be bothering me all night”. She wrapped a towel around her hair as she spoke, fortunately for Zip distracted as she tried to tie it behind her head.

“Er... o-kay...”. The techie’s eyes bulged. His crotch bulged more. Lara hadn’t even bothered to get dressed after her shower. She’d just wrapped a towel around her torso. And the thin cotton material had dug itself deep into the middle of her breasts, cinched tight as it was around her bust. Zip’s eyes wandered down from his boss’s face, and he swore he could make out the pink aureoles of Lara’s nipples against the smooth white tit-flesh that bulged above the towel’s neckline.

“So you...er... you wanna get some thing”, he swallowed hard, “off... your chest?”

“Yes, Zip, I do”, Lara huffed. She walked around to the front of his desk and stood with her hands on her hips.

“For one thing, I’ve had quite enough of your lacklustre attitude, mister. Just how many times have I told you about my gym’s air-conditioning? hmm? ten times? twenty bloody times?”, she shook her finger at him.

Zip felt the tip of his dick press hard against the underside of the desk in front of him.

“Er... yeah, somethin’ like that, I guess”, he muttered. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes on Lara’s face. In the periphery of his vision he could see how short her towel was. It barely even covered a quarter of her thighs. It’s ends separated in a deep upside-down V on one side, like a chinese dress, revealing a smooth swathe of moist skin all the way up to Lara’s hip.

“Do you really have to guess, Zip?”, Lara tutted. She simply couldn’t conceal her irritation any longer, and started pacing back and forth before her employee as she berated him.

“Can’t you give me a hard figure? I mean, honestly, what’s the use of all your fancy qualifications, all your so called computer expertise, if you can’t even fix a sodding malfunctioning air conditioning system?”

“Yeah, er... sorry, Lara. I’ll get right on it, like, first thing tomorrow morning, ok?”, Zip squirmed in his chair. In truth, the techie had disabled the air con himself, and could have fixed it in two minutes flat; he just liked to see Lara sweat. But right now, the manor’s maintenance was the last thing on his mind. Lara’s pacing was giving him the perfect opportunity to check out her tight ass. Every time she turned away from him his eyes made a swift downward movement. “Ho-ly shit”, he whispered under his breath. Her towel was soaked through, and Lara had pulled it taut over the curves of her buttocks. It was so short that it barely even concealed their creamy undersides. As she walked back and forth in front of his desk her ass-cheeks flexed and dimpled before his eyes. He just couldn’t take it any longer, and surreptitiously reached under his desk, slipped his hand down his cargo pants, and started jerking himself off. Each step his sexy boss took pushed the hemline of her towel another couple of millimetres higher.

“No Zip”, she narrowed her eyes, “that will most certainly not be OK. You know what I think, Zip? hmm? I think you and Alister have both become just a little bit too accustomed to the easy life”. She pushed aside the paperwork on Zip’s desk, and put her hands flat on its surface, leaning towards the techie and getting right up in his face as she bollocked him.

“Just don’t you forget who pays the bills around here, mister!”, she scowled, “And don’t even for a minute think that I won’t throw you two freeloaders out on your arses if you don’t get your acts together!”

“Yeah...”, Zip breathed in slowly, “I’ll er... I’ll get right on it, boobs-I mean boss”.

Lara’s presence was intoxicating. He could smell her hair conditioner and her body moisturiser. And something else underneath them, something more natural, like skin in the sun. Sweat. Pheromones. She was leaning over his desk, her face less than eight inches away from his own, and he could see all the way down her cleavage, down to the upper part of her toned belly. He could feel her body heat. A tendril of luscious brown hair had escaped from her head-towel. It curled down the side of her face, and a tiny droplet of water had collected on its lower end, swaying as Lara’s breathing moved her body slightly. He jerked himself off underneath the desk as hard as he could without drawing attention to his arm’s movements, imagining Lara’s naturally pouting lips wrapped around the girth of cock. He could almost see her down on her knees before him, those big beautiful hazel almond eyes of hers, which were now slivered in disdain, staring up at him adoringly as he gathered up her hair on top of her head and forced his hot boss to swallow all eleven inches of his thick pulsating pole, until his balls rested on her chin. He was about to explode at any second.

“Well, you’d bloody well better”, Lara scowled “either that or start looking for a new job, mister, starting tomorrow! preferably one that doesn’t require a reference!”.

Lara leaned all the way over Zip’s desk, until their noses almost brushed, and stared him down with her iciest of glares.

“Do. I make. Myself. Clear?”

Zip could actually make out each individual bead of perspiration of Lara’s brow. He could hear her tongue flick wetly in her mouth as she pronounced her words. He could almost taste her she so near.

“Yeah, absolutely clear”, his eye was twitching like crazy, “er, clear as the driven snow. Like a freshly squeegeed windowpane, Lara. Glacier-like, in fact, babe-boobs-boss!”.

Lara’s eyebrow arched.

“Zip”, she breathed in his face, “what are you doing underneath the desk?”

“Oh, this? Yeah, yeah, I’m er... I’m just scratchin’ my leg. Y’know, I er... I got an itch”.

Lara regarded her employee with suspicion for a moment. Then she shook her head in disgust and started out of the room.

“Daiy-um”, Zip let out a long sigh of relief. That had been way too close--or maybe not close enough, he couldn’t quite decide which. He was just about to relax and at long last blow his load in his shorts, when suddenly he felt his chair being pulled backwards, and heard Lara’s indignant voice in his ear.

“And just what in the bloody hell is the meaning of this?”, she hissed.

The techie almost had a heart attack. He thought he’d been caught red-handed, so to speak: “N-No, Lara, it- it ain’t what you think. I mean, well, okay, it is- but I din’t mean to... I, er- it’s jus’ you wus so...y’know and, and I wus so...well, y’know, so”.

He realised Lara was ignoring him. She seemed more interested in something on one of his monitors. She’d crossed her legs at her ankles and was resting one elbow on the desk in front of her, cupping her chin in the palm of her hand as she leaned forward to peer at the screen. The pose curved her lower back and thrust her ass out behind her.

“Look”, she pointed at the screen, “Section 2B of the perimeter fence. All the security cameras are off-line, and the power to the electrification’s been cut”.

Zip heard every word she said but they didn’t register in the techie’s mind. Lara’s ass was mere inches away from his face. Her legs were still wet from her shower and tiny rivulets trickled down the insides of her upper thighs.

“Well... that’s a damn shame”, he muttered in reply, staring at his boss’s up-thrust derriere.

Lara’s towel had ridden up over her buttocks, revealing the seat of her satin panties. They were matte blue with a creme lace trim, high-cut, more like lingerie than everyday wear. And they’d adhered themselves to the curves of her bum like a second skin, showcasing the tomb raider’s alabaster ass-cheeks as though she were a high class glamour model. Her skin was moist and looked immaculately smooth. Zip just couldn’t help himself, and leaned over to sniff his boss’s perfect butt. Passion fruit. Fresh cut pomegranate. Water melon. Honey. She had the best one-inch gap he’d ever seen in his life. The urge to spank was almost irresistible.

“This simply will not do, Zip, do you hear me?”

“Oh, I think it’ll do jus’ fine”, Zip murmured, before realising Lara was talking about the perimeter fence.

“Right, that’s the last sodding straw, Zip”, Lara stood up straight and glared down at her underling, “either you get your act together right now, fix the air-conditioning in my gym, remount my punch-bag, which is broken by the way, investigate and rewire every last inch of the manor’s external security system--tonight!--or I’m terribly sorry, mister, but you are fired. No excuses, no exemptions. Un-em-ployed”.

“What?!”, Lara’s words finally got through to Zip, and he felt his erection deflate in the face of looming redundancy. “You can’t fire me. I’ve got a contract!”

“Good for you”, Lara deadpanned, “I don’t care. Now get to work!”. She turned on her heel and stomped out of the room. Alister had chosen this rather inopportune moment to pay Zip a visit, and he was almost knocked off his feet as Lara barged past him.

“Watch where you’re bloody going”, she grumbled. Then she half-turned and shouted over her shoulder: “And find me some new artefacts to track down, you sodding waste of space, or Zip won’t be the only one lengthening the dole queue next week! Understand?!”

Incredulous, Alister watched as Lara stomped her way up the manor’s sweeping central staircase, then flinched as she slammed-to the hall door behind her.

After a moment he turned to Zip.

“That time of the month again?”

“Nah, man”, Zip shook his head dejectedly. His hard-on had all but died in his shorts. “Jus’ Lara bein’ Lara. Only, more so”.

“Look, forget about all that”, Alister’s grin widened, “And listen up. I’ve got a plan. And if tonight’s events unfold as I’d like them to, well, let’s just say we may see something of a change in our benevolent employer’s attitude before the evening’s over. I’ve got it all mapped out. But I’m going to need your help. Interested?”. His eyes were bloodshot from staring at books for too long, but they held a kind of infectious glee.

“I’m listenin’”, Zip said slowly.

“Well, I’ve been conducting some research...”

***

Lara slammed-to the hall door behind her.

And burst out laughing.

Ah Zip, when will you ever learn...

She had found the gadget man’s hidden cameras in her gym the day after she’d returned from Egypt. And she was well aware of his nocturnal proclivities: spying on her as she worked out, masturbating over her tight sexy body. Well, he could look all he liked; Lara never intended to give the techie a chance to touch.

The tomb raider just loved to tease men with her irresistible curves. She’d been stringing Zip and Alister along for years now, playing them for fools, paying them a mere pittance of a salary, yet always ensuring their loyalty and obedience by... Oh, I don’t know, bending over to tie my shoes at opportune moments; pouting my full glossy lips during our conversations; subtly arching my back to accentuate my beautiful breasts when we have a tête-à-tête regarding an upcoming mission? Lara had a million ways of seducing men.

She wiped her eyes on the back of hand, and sashayed down the hallway to her bedroom, still giggling at Zip’s reactions. She’d particularly enjoyed bending over her randy employee’s desk and thrusting her ass in his face. In fact, she’d intentionally worn this provocative pair of panties just to see what his reaction would be; and he hadn’t disappointed, panting and drooling like a dog in heat, wanking himself off under his desk like that--like she hadn’t noticed. Lara felt it was part of her skill as a professional tease to make her mark as hard as a rock, tease him until he almost lost control, keep him right on the brink of orgasm for as long as she could--before pouring ice-water on his lust and walking out before he could achieve any manner of satisfaction.

Screw him. If his incompetence is going to make me frustrated- well then, I guess I’ll just have to make him even more frustrated.

Lara entered her room and strolled over to her wall safe to inspect her latest treasure. She tapped a six digit code into the electronic keypad and a landscape painting up-scrolled into its own frame, revealing a shiny metal door behind, which clicked and swung open a second later. And there she was. Bubastis, the ancient Egyptian goddess of the moon. A ten inch tall statuette fashioned after the form of a stately siamese, solid bronze, encrusted with jewels and smothered lavishly in gold leaf. Lara picked the goddess up. She felt wonderfully cool in her hands having spent the day sat in Lara’s wall safe, and condensation blossomed where her fingers touched the surface. The statue’s weight was otherworldly, as though time had seeped into its metal like water into a sponge. And given her age--pushing three thousand years this century--she was in immaculate condition.

“My, you’re quite the beauty aren’t you”, Lara murmured.

She puckered her lips and placed a soft kiss on the feline’s forehead, then returned her to her wall safe. Feeling a sudden weariness, Lara yawned, stretched, and flopped down on her bed. The tomb raider’s eyes fluttered closed, their lids suddenly as heavy as Bastet’s bronze, and she fell into a deep sleep before she could even squirm her way all the way underneath her silken sheets.

***

“At last”, Selina whispered under her breath.

The Catwoman was staking out Lara’s bedroom, crouched felinely in the shadow of her balcony wall. She waited and watched the English woman for another couple of minutes, measuring the rise and fall of her towel-wrapped chest just to be sure she was really asleep, then eased open the hardwood French windows and slipped inside.

Not too shabby at all... the intruder thought to herself, glancing around the room, appraising Lara’s belongings with professional approval. A B and Eers dream come true- I bet I could get a cool mil for the oil paintings alone!

Now, now Selina, she admonished herself, don’t be greedy. Just keep your eyes on the goal, girl.

Moonlight streamed in through the window panes, casting criss-cross shadows across the patterns of Lara’s Persian rugs, and shining brightly off the curves of Selina’s catsuit-clad ass as she stalked across them. She heard a faint murmur nearby. The swish of skin on silk sheets. And suddenly she froze, her heart in her throat. Her hand was on the pommel of her whip in a microsecond. But on closer inspection she saw Lara was still fast asleep. She was just writhing softly in a dream.

Hmmm, jumpy tonight... must be the jet-lag. Still two pm yesterday by my watch.

Her eyes lingered on Lara’s slumbering form for a moment, taking in her moonlit curves. She was still wrapped in her towel. But by now it had ridden up over her hips and come loose and fallen away from her breasts, revealing one of Lara’s perfect nipples to the Catwoman’s gaze. In the moonlight her skin shone like pearled silver. And her long toned legs were twisted in the sheets, their state of semi-concealement somehow making them even more alluring.

Selina had never really considered herself a lesbian. But neither was she entirely averse to a little girl-on-girl action. She’d often found herself checking out other women’s physiques along with her appraisal of their jewellery collections. But more often that not she would compare their curves with her own--and up against such a picture of feminine perfection as Ms Kyle, the competition always came up short.

Well, a girl must set standards for herself...

As she drank in Lara’s reposing form however, the Catwoman couldn’t help but lick her lips. She felt a little pulse of lust in her lower belly when the English woman turned over and nuzzled her forehead into her pillow, her full lips pouting ever so slightly, her brow lightly creased as though in thought. Lara had one of the sexiest sleep faces Selina had ever seen--and as the world’s most prolific cat-burgler, she’d seen a few. The temptation to slip her hands up under the tomb raider’s towel and softly slide her panties down her thighs was almost irresistible. But no. She shook her head. This was business.

And Selina was a professional. She tore her eyes away from the sleeping beauty before her and tiptoed over to the wall safe. She had been watching Lara’s every move through the window earlier, so she had no problem tapping in the six digit code. The canvas rustled as it up-scrolled. Selina flinched. A tiny click and a faint hissing sound as the metal door swung open. Her toes curled. Her spine tingled, and she glanced over her shoulder. But Lara was still sound asleep.

“Cake walk”.

A wide-eyed glee lit up the Catwoman’s face as she admired the latest addition to her collection of feline figurines. It was a beaut! One of a kind, from what she’d heard. And here was Lara, intent on locking this wonderful work of art away where no one could even appreciate it! The philistine!

CLICK.

Selina froze.

Damn, that wasn’t the safe just now was it...?

Light illuminated the room behind her, and a shapely silhouette loomed large on the wall before her. She turned slowly, already anticipating the sight that awaited her eyes. And she wasn’t disappointed: one semi-naked English woman with two big guns--and two .45 calibre pistols, both of which were levelled at Selina’s abdomen.

“Well, well”, Lara arched a well-groomed eyebrow, “look what the cat dragged in”.

***

Zip stared at Alister in amazement.

“So, what do you say?”, the antiquarian enthused, “Are you in?”.

“Jus’... lemme get this straight”, Zip rubbed his palm over his face. “You’ve spent the last two months holed up in yo’ library upstairs, schemin’ away on this madcap plan o’ yours ‘cause you found some er...some...”.

“Ancient Egyptian”, Alister cut in.

“Yeah, right, ‘cause you found some ancient Egyptian scroll that shows how King, er... I wanna say, Chaka-kahn?”.

“Shosheq the First”, Alister corrected.

“Yeah, right, whatever. But this scroll shows how he came up with this whole unholy ritual that’ll only work on midsummer’s night, right?”.

“Right”.

“And in order to work this big ol’ ritual o’ his you gotta have the little ol’ cat statue Lara brought back from Cairo?”.

“Absolutely”.

“And if all this goes according to plan--and now this is the part I’m havin’ trouble with--our boss, Lara Croft, is not only gonna be transformed into an obedient lil’ sex kitten ‘til sunrise, eager to fulfil our every request, act out our every fantasy”, Zip could feel his hard-on coming back, “but she’s also gonna wake up tomorrow mornin’ none the wiser. Maybe a little sore around the nether regions, for sure. But basically she ain’t gonna remember a single thing from the night before?”.

“Indeed, that is the plan”, Alister grinned, “but there’s more. I happened to let it slip to a certain black market criminal contact of mine, that Lara is in possession of said lil’ ol’ cat statue. And, well, I think we both know who the world’s most avid underground collector of feline figurines is, don’t we?”. Alister flicked a switch on Zip’s desk and an image of Lara’s bedroom flashed up on-screen.

Zip’s jaw hit the floor. “Is that... who I think it is?”

“The one and only, my good man. Say hello to tonight’s sex kitten number two, the very lovely and curvaceous Ms. Selina Kyle, alias Catwoman”.

“Er... I think I see a tiny flaw in yo’ plan, man”, Zip pointed at the screen, where Lara was aiming her twin pistols at the intruder’s torso. “She ain’t gonna be much of a sex kitten if she’s dead”.

Alister just grinned and held up two metallic oblongs. Ammo clips.

Zip’s face lit up.

“So what do we do now?”

“Now, Zip, we sit back, relax, and enjoy the cat-fight of the century”.

End of Part 1