Page 60 of Claimed By the Guardian

He shifted on the couch, stretching his legs into a more comfortable position. “So you’re horny. Who isn’t?”

“Me. Ever. Not when there’re lives to save. A flu to end.”

He snorted as he folded his arms across his chest. “Welcome to puberty. I knew you’d get here eventually.”

She threw up her arms. “I’ve been through puberty, thank you very much. And have no need to revisit?—”

He shifted and glared at her, his expression annoyed but not unkind. “You’re fried, Dr. Lu. As in sizzled in a pan and done. So go. Get your freak on. Ride this guy until you both pass out from exhaustion because you’re not doing us any good here.”

She stared at him. “He can turn into a bear, Dennis. A big black bear.”

He snorted. “Never would have guessed you’d be into costume kink, but whatever. Yabba dabba do!”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s The Flintstones.”

He lifted his head a moment as he obviously sorted through his childhood memories. “Oh right. Play ball!”

“That’s Yogi Berra.”

“Fine,” he huffed. “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Then he rolled onto his side on the couch, firmly putting his back to her. “Kill the lights when you leave, will you?”

“You have a hotel room, you know.”

“Yeah, but it’s right next to yours and I don’t want to hear you being smarter than the average bear.”

She stared at Dennis. Damn it, she was actually in crisis here. Logically it made way more sense that she had a brain tumor than that shifters existed and magic corrupted data files. But she knew what she’d seen. She knew Abby had changed into a bear. Hank, too. And then there were the werewolves and Sammy and…

She dropped her head in her hands. “I need a CT scan.”

Dennis didn’t answer, but Hank did. She hadn’t heard him come in, but the big man was incredibly quiet. Even his voice was soft, soothing her ragged nerves.

“Let me take you out to dinner.”

His hand was warm on her shoulder, big and comforting. She felt it like a drop of oil on a turbulent sea. It expanded across her churning thoughts, quieting them though she didn’t know how. Normally when she was upset, she hated it when people touched her. But not Hank. She wanted to crawl up inside him and stay there forever. Instead, she thought about dinner.

“Is there anything still open?”

“I can cook.”

Of course, he could. He was the most perfect man ever.

“I don’t even know if you’re real,” she said. “Maybe I’m hallucinating you.”

Dennis groaned from the coach. “He’s real. Go away. Get your freak on.”

She dropped her head against Hank’s large, comforting chest. “What do you think?” she asked.

“About what?”

She tilted her head up. She saw his broad shoulders and large, dark face. Never in a million years would she have predicted being attracted to a man like him. He wasn’t an academic. He was a man of few words, and God knew everyone in her circle talked until forced to shut up. He was a building superintendent in a not-so-spectacular area of Detroit. An army medic and, she now guessed, a Zen master. None of that added up to anything she’d ever imagined in a man. And yet, looking at him now, she wanted to kiss him with everything in her. Worse, she wanted to go to bed by his side and wake up with him in the morning. She wanted to hear about his days and could think of no one better beside her when she wrestled with her own demons. She wanted him forever and always.

What was that if not a brain tumor? And yet, part of her didn’t care.

“So do you want to…um…get our freak on?” she asked.

His eyes blazed hot and his nostrils flared, but there was no other indication that he’d even heard her. She wasn’t sure he breathed.

“Hank?”