The Dragon Marshal's Treasure (U.S. Marshal Shifters 1)

He was hot to the touch, almost feverish. It was like kissing the sun.

Sun-kissed. I’m sun-kissed.

She didn’t care about anything except getting as much of him as possible. Never mind the lack of real privacy, never mind the weird circumstances. She felt such an incredible, slippery heat between her legs. She felt her clit throb as he bit her lower lip, a feeling which only intensified as he tugged at her hair.

“Theo,” she whispered. “Please. Close the door.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have never been surer of anything in my entire life.”

He looked like she was water and he was dying of thirst. “Me neither.”

He closed the door. She hopped up on the desk and spread her legs so he could step between them and continue the kiss.

Then the brick came through the window.

She was so absorbed in him that at first, bizarre as it was, she almost mistook the sound and the sudden flare of glittery brightness in the air for her own climax. That was the only shattering she had expected. But: broken glass, everywhere. The window had shattered like crystal.

Theo had pulled her close and held her against him before she had even really heard the sound. Held like that, she could hear his heartbeat, which was running rabbit-quick. When they finally separated, though, he didn’t look scared. He looked furious.

Then all she saw was his back, because he’d darted for the window.

“Dammit!” he said. “They’re gone.”

He slammed his hand against the wall and then shook his head rapidly, like he needed to clear it. He drew the blinds and curtains down over the busted window.

“At least now they can’t see us. No one’s going to hurt you on my watch.”

Jillian, still shaken, only then noticed the brick on the floor. A sheet of paper was wrapped around it. Someone had typed, “GET OUT NOW!!” Oh, sure. To be honest, she had expected the first one of those days ago. She said as much.

“But it’s the extra exclamation point,” she added, “that I didn’t see coming. That was a twist.”

Theo wasn’t so cavalier. “You could have been hurt. They could have hit you, they could have hurt you—or the glass could have—”

“I’m fine.” She did a brief twirl, showing off the lack of blood. “See? I’m just a little shaken up, but really, this was going to happen sooner or later. Hopefully they got it out of their system.”

“No. It isn’t acceptable for people to be unfair.”

“Now who’s being quixotic?” She spotted streaks of blood on his shirt. “You’re hurt! Let me help you, okay? You’re not going to go running after whoever did it, they probably peeled away the second they threw the damn thing.”

But now that she knew he’d gotten cut by the flying glass, she understood his rage a little more. As she rolled up his sleeve to examine his arm, her hands were shaking with anger and adrenaline.

“I should have gone after them right away,” Theo said.

“Believe me, I care a lot more about the fact that you wanted to keep me from getting hurt than I care about you wanting to pummel the world’s most incompetent bricklayer. And,” she reddened a little at saying it, but she wanted to break the tension in his face, “the world’s most obnoxious cockblocker.”

He was leaning against her head and she felt his mouth curve upwards. Good. So like most well-spoken people, he liked the occasional bit of vulgarity.

“Come on,” she said. “Let me get you the first aid kit.”

4

Theo

Gretchen, with an enterprising spirit Theo admired, had decided to stick it out with the cookies and was holding one half-submerged in a cup of coffee. She dropped it and reached for her sidearm the second he came in with blood on his shirt.

“What happened? Are you all right?”