Page 116 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

He drives forward. The swelling presses against my entrance, broad enough to sting before my body opens around him. The knot pushes through in one controlled thrust.

Fullness steals my breath. Roman holds me through the sharp edge while Wes locks inside me. Pleasure follows, deep and consuming.

Wes comes with his face against my neck, teeth skimming my throat without closing.

Roman strokes my clit until another orgasm rolls through me, and I lose myself in the waves of bliss.

Later, after Wes’s knot softens, they clean me with warm cloths and rebuild the nest around us. Wes places his shirt beneath my cheek. Roman tucks his sweater against my stomach.

The evidence waits downstairs, proof that Maribel’s bundle and the arrangement at my home carried the same contaminated materials. My grandmother’s words remain unfinished. But tonight, I rest between cedar, cinnamon, and cardamom, held by men I choose even when I’m afraid.

Chapter 27

Wes Osprey

Scarlet sleeps with my shirt bunched beneath her cheek and Roman curled around her front. Morning light filters through the curtains, turning the nest into a tangle of faded quilts, dark fabric, and auburn hair. My scent covers her skin more heavily than it ever has, and a low, proprietary satisfaction moves through my chest at the sight of it.

She asked for what she needed last night. The knot left its mark in the way her body rests, loose with exhaustion and trust, and my alpha wants to read her ease as an answer. It isn’t one. She isn’t mine in any way that would hold outside this room, and she won’t be until she chooses it on a morning when fear is not doing half the deciding for her.

I keep my hands gentle. The rest of me doesn’t feel gentle at all. How can she choose me when I can’t keep her safe? I was the alpha watching the property when someone walked through the rain and left poison in her grandmother’s flowerbed.

Roman opens one eye when I ease out of bed. His palm remains spread over Scarlet’s stomach.

“How is she?” I ask.

“Warm.” His voice is rough from sleep. “No fever.”

Scarlet makes a soft sound and presses her face deeper into my shirt. Roman brushes two fingers along her temple, then checks the side of her neck where my teeth touched without closing.

I wanted to leave my mark. The clean skin eases one concern and stirs another.

I set water, crackers, and pain reliever on the nightstand. “Keep her upstairs until Pepper clears the greenhouse.”

Roman’s mouth curves. “You could stay and try telling her that yourself.”

“I prefer assignments with a chance of success.”

Scarlet’s eyes remain closed, but her hand reaches behind her until she catches my wrist.

“Coward,” she whispers. Affection softens the word. After what we learned last night, it stings anyway.

I bend and kiss her hair. “Rest.”

“I’m resting.”

“You’re eavesdropping.”

“That requires little effort.”

Roman’s sleepy laugh follows me downstairs.

The word mine keeps pressing through my alpha instincts. I want to return to the nest she built from our clothes, pull both of them against me, and guard the door until every threat in Sweetheart Haven grows old waiting. That isn’t what Scarlet needs.

Last night she needed proof that fear had not rewritten her choices. Today she needs answers and the freedom to decide what the knot means after the comfort fades.

I start coffee, open every window except the ones facing the greenhouse, and pull up the footage from the night the bundle appeared.

The figure enters at 11:47 p.m. Rain turns the image grainy. A hood hides his face, and he stays beyond the porch light. He steps over the low section of fence without testing it, crosses behind the rain barrel, and follows the narrow strip where the greenhouse blocks the view from upstairs.