Free Dragon's Flame by Jory Strong

shoulder burn. She ought to give him another, much harder punch for giving her a hickey, except…
    His biting her in the moment of orgasm as he’d taken her from behind had added to the ecstasy. Even thinking about it was enough to slicken and swell her sex.
    “Behave,” she said, not quite succeeding in sounding calm, cool and collected. “Tell me about sorcerers.”
    “There’s a mood killer.”
    They resumed walking down the hallway. He said, “Think of sorcerers as rechargeable batteries. They attract and hold magic in varying degrees and can channel that magic into spells that accomplish various things. Most often the magic is transferred into charms like those you saw at the supernatural fair. But, as you’d suspect, not all sorcerers are equal and there are plenty of charlatans.”
    “Meaning a lot of the charms were worthless.”
    “Without magic, though sometimes the power of belief leads to the desired end result.”
    “A placebo effect.”
    “Exactly.”
    “What’s the connection between a sorcerer and the fires last night?”
    “The fires were the result of a spell working. What we don’t know is whether the spell was a success, or whether it was a failure. Ground zero will be our first stop.”
    They entered a room. In the center was a short round table surrounded by comfortable chairs. Against the walls were cubicles, making this a law-enforcement bullpen housed in high-end real estate.
    Taine guided her to a cubicle cluttered by knickknacks and glittery objects. Her hands twitched with the urge to grab a box and sweep everything into it, or to at least restore order.
    More than a few objects depicted dragons. There was a belt buckle with a fire breather, a snow globe with what looked like a dragon fucking a virgin, a stack of poker chips with winged dragons that if they were real gold, had to be worth at least fifty grand.
    “This stuff is somehow case related?” she asked.
    “No. It’s all mine.” He picked up the snow globe. A blonde woman had her palms pressed to a large gray boulder and was being mounted from behind by a silver-and-black dragon. And damn if that wasn’t erotic as hell.
    Taine shook the globe, making it snow inside. Naked and snow shouldn’t go together, but with a dragon…
    Got fire? Yeah. Snow wouldn’t be a problem.
    He set the snow globe down on his desk and gave her a heavy-lidded look. “Arousing, isn’t it?”
    Not going there. Oh hell no. They were not going to explore kinky fantasies.
    “How can you stand the clutter?”
    “It helps me concentrate.” He undressed her with his eyes. “Or used to.”
    “Behave,” she growled, eliciting a smile that had her fighting against leaning forward and doing the complete opposite by kissing him.
    Taine stabbed his keyboard with an index finger. The screen came to life, revealing several rows of faces.
    “Suspects?”
    “A six pack of sorcerers to show the elderly couple who rented the house where the fire started. We’ll go there after ground zero.”
    It felt surreal for an instant, as if she’d stepped into a cop show. How many times had she watched detectives put a picture of their primary suspect with five others, creating what  they called a six pack in the hopes a witness would identify their suspect as the guilty party?
    Taine stabbed the keyboard again. A printer hummed then spat out several pages, each with six faces. She picked them up, studied the images. Roughly seventy-five percent of them were men, but no one race dominated. “Do you think there will be more fires?”
    “I think by the end of the day we’ll have a pretty good idea of how bad this might get.”
    They left the house. Seeing her little red Corolla among all the expensive sports cars, Saffron said, “Do I have to worry about it getting towed?”
    “Word will quickly spread that it belongs to you, and you’re with me.”
    There was a wealth of satisfaction in his voice. She ignored it. Or rather, her brain did while her body