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

“Broken window,” Theo said. “A person with a brick, strong feelings, and a good arm. I’m fine. Jillian’s getting the first aid kit for me. Where’s Tiffani?”

“Master bedroom upstairs. I did a quick inventory of it and then let her go in to take a nap. She’s wrung out.”

“Good, thank you.”

He unbuttoned his shirt and laid it down on the granite-topped island, unbloodied side down. The cuts he’d sustained were light and already closing. If Jillian didn’t come back quickly, he would have some improvising to do to explain why he’d healed so quickly. Unless he could tell her now.

No, not like this. She had no reason to trust him to not be either delusional or playing some kind of cruel practical joke. That was right, wasn’t it?

He started to ask Gretchen—her constant diplomacy between humans and shifters must mean that she had explained the existence of one to the other before—but Jillian walked in before he could.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Everything in this house is always three bathrooms over from where you’d think it would be.” She snapped the case open and took out an alcohol-soaked wipe. “Let me just clean the blood off so I can see how bad it is.” Her brow furrowed in cutely, which distracted him from the icy chemical burn of the alcohol against his torn skin. “These are shallower than I would have guessed.”

“There are a lot of blood vessels right at the surface,” Gretchen said quickly.

Jillian’s skepticism showed in her raised eyebrows—of course, Theo thought, if you worked with energetic children and teenagers all day, you probably saw your share of minor injuries—but when she spoke, she sounded playful: “Dammit, Jim, I’m a youth coordinator, not a doctor.” She peeled the adhesive off a gauze patch and applied it to Theo’s arm.

“There. Done.”

“Doctor or not, I’ve never had better care,” Theo said.

Gretchen coughed. “Well, I’m going to go radio in about the brick just to get it on the record. You two kids have fun.”

Theo had rarely seen anyone move that fast.

Jillian said, “You told her about our date, didn’t you?”

“Approximately.” He could no longer stand being so close to her without touching her, so he put his arms around her waist and drew her near him. Her full bosom was against his chest, her plaid button-up against his ribbed undershirt. He thought about their clothes because to think about what was underneath them would drive him mad.

Jillian made a long mm sound of satisfaction and leaned into him, her head burrowing into the indentation below his shoulder. “I have a confession to make.”

“Me too,” he said without thinking. Dammit. “You should go first, though.”

She turned a little so that h

er lips were against him. He could feel her words as well as hear them. “I paid someone to throw the brick. I thought, hey, how could I get Deputy Marshal Theo to take his shirt off?”

“You work quickly.”

“Thank you. I value efficiency.”

“But believe me, you would never have to contrive a situation to get us here.” He raised her chin with his hand and kissed her, lingering on her lips. She did taste like cinnamon: like cinnamon, ginger, and vanilla. Spice and grounding sweetness. He could fall towards her. She was the new center of his gravity.

But he couldn’t afford to get distracted. If he hadn’t been so overwhelmed by her back in the office, he might have seen whatever car had slowed down outside, or whatever person had run by. The brick could have hit her because he couldn’t control himself enough to keep her safe.

He pulled back from the kiss with the greatest reluctance.

He said, “I thought you were hurt.”

“I thought you were hurt. And you were. Sort of. I kind of feel like a hypochondriac-by-proxy now, though.”

Now he was making her doubt her own judgment. This was all going so well.

Believe me, if you’d heard the cursing I did inside my head when the pain sank in, you’d know you couldn’t have overreacted to it as much as I did.

“That’s not your fault,” Theo said. He had to admit that sounded strange—It’s not your fault that I wasn’t more seriously hurt!—but he continued anyway. “Sh—St. Vincents have always been hard to knock down for the count. I tend to heal a little faster than most people.”

“A very gallant try, but I’m pretty sure there’s no constitution good enough to do that. Unless you’re one of the X-Men.”