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

“No one’s claimed credit yet for bombing Gordon Marcus’s house.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not. But if it’s a vigilante, usually we see at least some anonymous chatter about it, some grandstanding. Not a peep on this one. Nothing on the internet, no letter to the editor, nothing. And if it’s a vigilante, they’re a shortsighted one, blowing up the house after Marcus can’t enjoy it anymore anyway. The reparations that could go to the victims just decreased significantly.”

“Maybe they didn’t realize that before and that’s why they’re not claiming credit now.”

“Theo,” Martin said. “You and I both know what you’re not saying.”

Yes. That Gordon Marcus had torched his own mansion. Maybe in some complicated and likely misguided attempt to collect on insurance—if he thought Tiffani or Jillian would give it to him, if he even thought they’d get a payout in the first place—or maybe to eliminate some evidence of further wrongdoing.

Or maybe, the dragon in him suggested, he just didn’t want his hoard falling into anyone else’s hands.

Theo hated that he could understand that. He didn’t consider everything in his possession to be part of his hoard—his apartment, as he’d told Jillian, was full of meaningless gloss and shine, modernized emptiness—but he’d had some of his treasure all his life. There was a huge, uncut ruby that had been his first birthday gift from his parents (by all accounts, he had promptly tried to chew on it, which showed good instincts). There were golden chain bracelets he longed to see on Jillian’s wrists. These things felt as much a part of him as his own bones. Could he imagine letting someone else have them? Would he rather destroy them than see them fall into another dragon’s hands?

He thought—he hoped—that he could bear that loss if he deserved it. If he’d lost his honor, as Gordon Marcus had, what use would he have for treasure? Better to let it go, let it restore someone else’s life so he could begin the hard work of once again becoming someone worthy of respect.

But from everything Jillian had said and everything the evidence had shown, Gordon Marcus didn’t seem like the kind of man much inclined to hard work.

So—

“Yes,” he said to Martin. “I know what I’m not saying.”

This time when his gaze went to Jillian, he didn’t have the sweet distraction of losing his focus. Did she suspect something about her father that she hadn’t been telling him?

“Talk to her,” Martin said gently.

Not for the first time, Theo wondered what Martin’s marriage had been like. Once, he’d taken Martin’s non-mated marriage as a sign that he was right to think the mate bond didn’t matter. Now he didn’t know what to think, except he knew that no one could possibly compare to Jillian. Nothing could compare to the connection he had with her.

But he didn’t have that connection with his teammates, and that didn’t mean he didn’t care about them. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t be grief-stricken if they were gone.

So what did he know? If he knew more about being mated, Martin knew more about being married, about the responsibilities of being tied to another person. Even if you were tied by the purest and most complete love. If Martin said he should talk to Jillian, he should talk to Jillian.

“I will,” he said.

He hung up and put the phone down on the bench. Then, in full defiance of Dr. Mendoza’s orders, he stripped down and joined Jillian where she was floating in the spring, her eyes closed. They shot open when he splashed her.

“You’re getting your bandages wet!”

“I know.” He groaned as his muscles finally relaxed at the sensation of the heat soaking into them. “It’s worth it.”

“You could get an infection!”

“Everything is closed up.” He was ninety-nine perfect sure of that, anyway. “At this point the bandages are mostly to remind me not to shift yet. She still has to give me the all-clear for that.”

“I think she’d like to give you the all-clear for hot springs, too,” Jillian said, “but since you’re here...”

She floated over to him and slid onto his lap, her thighs to either side of his hips. His body responded immediately to her hot center pressing lightly against him. Then her mouth found his and he forgot any concerns he might have had. He forgot everything but her and the sweet, almost persimmon-like taste of her lips. Talk about a little heat to relax the muscles.

She was delicate with him, attentive to everywhere he was still bruised and mending, but no one, not even Dr. Mendoza, knew better than Jillian which parts of him were still completely alive to sensation and pleasure. She licked a line down his throat and curled her fingers against his shoulders. She slid up and down his lap, her lower lips parting and easy along his agonizingly hard cock.

Surrounded by gauzy white steam, completely naked, and flushed with desire, she looked like Venus coming out of the sea. He yearned to bury himself in her softness until all the aches and pains and uncertainties were gone from him.

He kissed her breasts and drew one of her nipples into his mouth, closing his lips around the stiffened peak and then dragging his tongue over it slowly, and then just as slowly around the pebbled circle of delicate, sensitive skin. She moaned his name, her body riding further up on his.

He reached under the water and ran his fingers over her mound, parting her and stroking her clit. She shook hard against his hand.

“Please,” Jillian said, her voice low and throaty. “I need you. I need you inside me. I’ve missed you so much, Theo.”