Free Dangerous to Touch by Jill Sorenson

is illegal, whether she presses charges or not.”
    The man groaned.
    “You’re both going to jail,” Marc decided. “Can you control him without the leash?” he asked Sidney, glancing down at Blue.
    “Yes,” she said, releasing the leash and handing it to him. Putting her arms around Blue’s neck, she narrowed her eyes on the woman, daring her to feel lucky. Marc tied the strange couple together, back-to-back, and jerked them to their feet.
    “Take the cell phone out of my pocket and call dispatch,” he ordered. She did, holding the phone to his ear as he requested a patrol car. Within five minutes, both assailants were on their way downtown.
    “Boring desk job, huh?” she teased.
    “It has its moments,” he allowed, casting an admiring glance her way. “I should deputize you. That was pretty fast thinking.”
    She smiled at the praise. “I couldn’t let you have all the fun.”
    His grunted response told her wrestling with lowlifes wasn’t his idea of fun. “I’ll have to go to the station now to write up a report. You want to take a rain check on this, or have you had your fill of police work?”
    Looking down at Blue, sitting stoic and regal, she found she couldn’t say no. “Maybe you should deputize him,” she murmured, wondering if the dog’s reaction to men and violence was a reflection of what happened to his owner, or something he’d learned long ago.
    Marc arranged for Lacy to pick him up at Pacific Pet Hotel, where Sidney invited him in to clean up his scratched neck.
    He didn’t want her touching him, but he couldn’t politely refuse, and he needed an infection from a homeless prostitute’s fingernails about as badly as he needed hepatitis from Agua Hedionda Lagoon.
    When she sat him down and pressed a cool washcloth to the back of his neck, he corrected himself. He
did
want her touching him. He just didn’t want to want it.
    It didn’t matter that she wasn’t his type. It didn’t matter that she was probably a liar. It didn’t matter that she was a suspect. All he could think about when he looked at her was having her naked body underneath his, making the same soft panting sounds she’d made by herself last night. Listening to her, he’d wanted to order Lacy out of the room so he could finish himself off the same way. Instead he’d spent a miserable night contemplating his own perversity. With plenty of other women at his disposal, why was he lusting after this one?
    She sprayed something that felt like stinging nettle on his neck, and he hissed out a breath, welcoming the distraction. “What’s that?”
    “Antibacterial spray.”
    She rubbed salve on the raw scratches, soothing the pain but inflaming his desire. If he didn’t get away from her soon, she wouldn’t need to read his mind to know what he was thinking. She’d only have to glance down at the front of his pants.
    “Your arm needs some attention, too.”
    He cranked his head over his shoulder to see what she was talking about, noticing the dull throb in his elbow for the first time. Blood was crusted in a large circle, the makings of a nasty scab, and dried rivulets snaked down his forearm. Again, it was in an awkward place, difficult to clean on his own.
    “Go ahead,” he muttered. While he stood over the stainless steel sink, she washed bits of debris out of the wound. It was uncomfortable enough to keep his thoughts pure. “You aren’t wearing gloves,” he noted.
    “Yeah. I should be.”
    Damn right she should. He’d never touch a stranger’s blood with his bare hands. She rubbed triple antibiotic ointment on his elbow then wrapped it up with gauze and tape. “Thanks,” he said, curling his arm up to test the bandage. Tight, but not too tight.
    “I wanted to be a vet,” she said wistfully.
    “What happened?”
    She shrugged, looking away from him, and he thought she was much too young to be giving up a dream.
    “You’ve got some battle wounds yourself, Deputy,” he said, indicating the