Page 138 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

“I wasn’t going to.”

Her answer surprises me.

She reaches for Roman with one hand and me with the other. “I want the map brought here,” she says. “And the photographs. If the route matters, I can work from the bed when this eases.”

Roman sits on her other side. “That sounds reasonable.”

I glare at him.

He raises one brow. “She said from the bed.”

“Not happening.”

Scarlet’s thumb strokes my knuckles. “I’m not asking you to choose between me and the case.”

“There is no choice.”

Her expression softens. “I believe you,” she says.

The words reach places I’ve kept locked down since we entered Sweetheart Haven.

Another cramp tightens through her. This one bends her forward between us, her breaths turning strained as her scent floods the room.

Roman gathers her hair away from her neck. I place my palm low on her stomach, feeling the muscles contract beneath her burning skin.

Scarlet leans into the pressure. “That helps.”

I keep my hand there.

Her scent swells again, richer than before. My alpha pushes against every limit I’ve built, and Roman’s breathing deepens beside me as his beta responds to her need.

Scarlet lifts her face. Her pupils are wide. Her lips part around another unsteady breath. She looks from Roman to me, then pulls our joined hands against her body. “Stay close,” she says.

A motorcycle engine carries faintly across the swamp and cuts off before it reaches the road.

Chapter 32

Scarlet Sage

The first wave of intense heat tears me out of sleep before dawn. It pours through my body in a long, brutal rush that leaves the sheets wet beneath my thighs and my hands twisted into the blankets. My nest smells of cedar, cinnamon, cardamom, and the green sweetness of my own omega perfume. Every scent is amplified until breathing feels like swallowing.

Wes lies behind me, one heavy arm across my waist. Roman is curled against my front, his face tucked close to my throat. My body recognizes both before my eyes open.

Alpha. Beta. Mine. The thought rises from a place beneath language.

I push closer to them, desperate for skin, pressure, anything that might quiet the ache hollowing me from the inside. Wes wakes with a rough sound, his body hardening against my back as my scent changes around us.

“Scarlet.” His voice is thick with sleep and the deepness of an alpha.

I reach behind me and catch his hip. “Closer.”

Roman lifts his head. Cardamom and cinnamon roll through the nest, warm and grounding, but it’s not enough. I need him against me, inside my space, wrapped through every place Wes can’t reach.

He reads the plea in my face and slides one thigh between mine. “It’s all right. We’ve got you, love.”

His mouth meets mine while Wes’s hand moves along my stomach. The cramp rolling through me tightens, and I bite down on Roman’s lower lip.

He groans.