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I grab the back of Theo’s shirt. “Wait. We should consider strategy.”

Theo turns his head slowly.

“We can take him,” I say.

Ezra pauses two stairs up. “That sounded like a challenge.”

“It was,” I call back.

Theo moves. Ezra yelps and takes the stairs two at a time. I make it exactly one step behind him before Theo catches me around the waist and throws me over his shoulder.

“Theo.”

“Teamwork,” he says.

My hair falls over my face. My shirt rides up my thighs. I’m upside down, laughing, and entirely too delighted with the situation.

Ezra looks back from the landing. “Traitor.”

Theo carries me up the stairs. “You stole from our omega.”

“Our omega needs the excitement of a good chase before going into town.”

I smack Theo’s back. “I didn’t say that.”

“But you did run,” Theo says.

“I was walking briskly in support of justice.”

Ezra reaches the bedroom first and holds the notebook high. “I’m willing to negotiate terms.”

Theo sets me on the bed with more care than the silliness of the situation calls for.

“Give it back,” Theo says.

“And if I don’t?”

I sit up, curls falling everywhere, and hold out my hand. “Ezra Heron, return my field notes before I develop a revenge plot.”

His eyes heat. “Why is that so hot?”

“It really is,” Theo says.

Ezra tosses the notebook onto the pillow beside me and lunges. I catch his face between my hands before he can dodge and kiss him, laughing. He tastes like coffee and trouble. His body comes down over mine, light but solid, and the joy of that knocks the breath from my chest.

He’s here and mine to kiss.

Theo’s weight dips the mattress beside me. His hand slides along my thigh, warm and sure, while he leans across my shoulder and presses his mouth to the back of Ezra’s neck. Ezra shivers into me.

The scents in the room deepen as play turns soft at the edges. Then soft turns hungry.

Ezra kisses down my throat, hands pushing Theo’s shirt higher on my hips. Theo’s palm cups my belly, then drifts lower, stopping where my body already aches for him.

I reach blindly to my side and find Theo’s face. His beard scratches my palm when he turns to kiss the inside of my wrist.

“Day suddenly got busy,” Theo says against my skin.

Ezra laughs into my neck. “We’re on a tight schedule.”