Page 144 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

She gasps. “Need.”

“We’re here,” Wes says.

The words don’t reach her.

Her thighs shake. Slick spreads beneath them. The heat has no interest in surveillance, warrants, or the stranger who has been watching her home. She needs pressure and scent. Her heat demands an alpha’s knot and a beta’s hands. Until her fever breaks, she needs every empty place filled.

Scarlet catches my wrist and drags my hand between her legs. Wes’s gaze finds mine, full of need. I touch her while he remains inside. Her body jumps against both of us.

“That’s it, love.” I kiss her throat. “Use my hand.”

Wes braces her hips as I work her through the next climb, our hands crossing over her body. He cups her breast. I pinch her clit. Scarlet grips his forearm with one hand and mine with the other, keeping us where she needs us.

The tablet shows the intruder crossing the greenhouse threshold. A wash of headlights sweeps over the rear fence, and the figure runs.

“Deputy coming in,” I say.

The motorcycle engine roars to life. Gravel spits behind the rear wheel as the rider cuts across the service path instead of taking the county road.

“Drainage route.”

Tom answers through the phone and gives another command. “Bellamy is moving.”

Scarlet shudders beneath my hand. Her orgasm catches all three of us mid-threat. She cries into Wes’s neck, her body tightening around his knot while her fingers lock around mine. Wes holds her through every contraction, his face pressed to her hair.

The heat scent changes again. For one breath, my scent vanishes from her awareness. I see it happen in her eyes. She looks at me with fear before recognition returns.

“Roman,” she whispers.

“I’m right here, love.”

Wes glances at me, then back at her. Scarlet pulls my hand to her mouth and kisses my palm.

The motorcycle engine fades toward the drainage road.

Tom swears through the phone. “Lost visual. Bellamy found fresh tire marks but no rider.”

“Preserve the track,” Wes says. “Nobody walks through it.”

“Already locking it down.”

A sound breaks from Scarlet as Wes’s knot softens.

Tom goes quiet on the line.

Wes reaches for the phone and ends the call. “They don’t get to hear her.”

The knot eases another fraction. Wes feels the change before I do. He shifts carefully, one hand supporting Scarlet’s hip while the other strokes her hair.

“Love, I need you to let him move,” I tell her.

Her legs tighten. “No.”

“He’s not leaving the room yet.”

“I need him.”

Wes kisses her forehead. “You have me.”