7. Roman Osprey
Roman Osprey
Iglance at Wes from the passenger seat. “Please tell me you aren’t planning to sleep in the SUV again.”
“The sheriff’s office is too public, and the SUV isn’t secure enough for the full case file.”
“You mean the sheriff’s office is full of people who stop talking when we walk into a room.”
“That too.” He keeps both hands on the wheel. His posture is controlled, but cedar fills the SUV, darker than it was when we arrived at Scarlet’s cottage. Wes flexes his hand once against the steering wheel.
I decide to enjoy myself. “You scent-marked her.”
“I had permission.”
“You looked like you wanted to carry her into the house and hold her until that hollow note disappeared from her scent.”
His jaw tightens.
“That wasn’t a no.”
“She is touch-starved and suffering.”
“She’s also beautiful.”
“That isn’t relevant to the investigation.”
“Your alpha disagrees.”
His cedar scent spikes.
I grin and turn toward the window before he can see how pleased I am. I knew Scarlet affected him the moment her scent hit us in the bakery and Wes stopped breathing. He is trying so hard to reduce her to a case consideration that his restraint has become visible in every controlled movement.
Despite teasing Wes just to rile him up, Sweetheart Haven doesn’t really do hotels.
My search for lodging brings up exactly what I expect.
Everything here is bungalows and love cottages, each designed for couples chasing forever.
I guide Wes toward the closest thing to a central lodging location.
The place sits two blocks from the square.
It’s a cluster of renovated cottages painted pale yellow, with flowering vines climbing every porch column, and wooden signs promising Romance Is Always in Season.
Wes stares at it. “No.”
“We need rooms.”
“We need a building that doesn’t attempt emotional manipulation on the front porch.”
“You survived the bakery.”
“Barely.”
I follow him inside.
The lobby contains heart-shaped pillows, framed photographs of bonded packs, and enough rose-scented air freshener to qualify as chemical warfare. A smiling beta behind the desk recognizes us before Wes finishes presenting his identification.
“Agents Osprey. Sheriff Bentley said you might need an extended stay.”
Small towns, so predictable.
She slides two registration cards across the desk. “We have adjoining rooms available.”
“One suite,” Wes says.
Her gaze flicks from me to him, taking in our matching surname and pack marks before her smile warms. “The Everlasting Suite has a separate sitting room.”
Wes closes his eyes briefly.
I pat his arm. “We’ll endure.”
The suite is aggressively romantic.
A carved wooden headboard surrounds a king bed. Pink flowers cover the quilt. A basket beside the window contains local honey, two souvenir sweetheart stones, and a brochure explaining six ways to strengthen a bond before breakfast.
Wes drops his bag beside the dresser. “I hate this town.”
“No, you hate decorative pillows.”
“They serve no purpose.”
I remove three from the bed and stack them on a chair. “There. The threat is contained.”
He ignores me and checks the locks, windows, adjoining door, smoke detector, and underside of the desk. I unpack our equipment while he finishes making sure the honeymoon suite hasn’t been weaponized.
Two laptops go on the desk. Case files remain inside the locking travel box.
I set up the encrypted router and spread the regional map across the small dining table. Wes calls the field office, confirms our location, and requests the latest GatorX comparisons and victim timelines.
By the time he hangs up, the room looks less like a romantic getaway and more like the temporary headquarters of two men investigating chemically induced bond collapse. Only the flower petals scattered across the bed undermine us.
Wes’s attention returns to the map. “What exactly happened today?”
“We met Scarlet.”
“That’s not an answer.” He braces both palms against the table. For a moment, the only sound is the air-conditioning unit rattling beneath the window. “Her scent hit me before I saw her.”
“Me too.”
“Not like that.”
I lean against the table beside him. “Tell me.”
His shoulders rise with a slow breath. “My alpha reacts like she is already mine and she is in distress. I have an overwhelming need to protect her and make the deprivation leave her scent.” His voice turns rough. “It’s not just attraction. She smells like mine, and right now it’s all wrong.”
I think of Scarlet leaning into his jacket. “You want to fix it.”
“I want everyone away from her.”
“Including me?”
His head turns sharply. The answer comes through our bond before he speaks. Never me.
I slide my hand against his lower back.
Wes exhales. “I want you closer,” he says. “I want her between us.”
The truth settles warmly in my chest. There’s no real surprise in it. Wes and I have discussed an omega for years, always in distant terms. A future person with no face or scent, just an idea. That idea no longer feels theoretical.
“She connects to our frequency,” I say.
“I know.”
An omega doesn’t need a bite bond to feel whether a pack’s rhythm settles her. Bond attachment can begin long before anything permanent does. And, Scarlet fits our rhythm, like her frequency was made to tune to ours.
“She was frightened by it.”
“I know that too.”
His frustration pushes through the bond. Not anger at her. Anger that desire cannot make him safe in her eyes.
I turn him toward me. “You did well today.”
His mouth flattens. “I gave her three rules and touched her hair, Ro. I was barely able to contain myself.”
“You kept yourself in check and listened when I warned you. You were honest with her and gave her space to make her own choice.”
“I told her not to go into the swamp alone.”
“You’re still you.”
That earns me the beginning of a smile.
I place both hands on his chest. “Her fear is not a judgment of your worth. You’re a good alpha.”
His gaze darkens. “Careful.”
“Or what?”
His hands settle on my hips.
The room shifts as arousal awakens in our bond. It always does when Wes stops directing his control outward and turns it on me. “Or I remind you who you belong to.”
Warmth rolls through my body. “Please do, Alpha.”
He kisses me. There is nothing tentative about it. His mouth takes mine while he walks me backward toward the bed. My knees strike the mattress, and Wes follows me down and covers me with his weight.
Cedar floods the ridiculous pink room. I pull his shirt over his head and run my hands along the broad lines of his back. He groans against my neck when my nails drag lightly against his skin.
“You’ve been wound tight since the bakery,” I say.
“Why are you still talking?”
“You love when I talk.”
“I love finding ways to stop you.” His hand closes around my throat without pressure, thumb resting over my pulse.
My cock hardens.
Wes’s smile goes slow and alpha-sharp. “Good beta.”
Praise moves through me hotter than it should after all these years.
I catch his belt and pull him closer. “If you’re going to be smug, take your pants off.”
We undress each other with the ease of long practice, the kind built from years that started in a cramped dorm, where Wes barely spoke and I talked enough for both of us.
It deepened through late-night study sessions that turned into shared meals and soft kisses.
It sealed the first time he chose me as his.
My body knows his. Every scar and sensitive place has been mapped through years of pack life, from that first hesitant touch to the certainty we carry now.
Wes kneels between my thighs and takes my cock into his mouth, wasting no time.
My head falls back. “Fuck.”
His hand presses my hip into the mattress while his mouth works me slowly, deeply, with the same focused attention he gives everything he decides matters.
I fist one hand in his hair.
He looks up, his brown eyes dark with intent. The sight nearly ends me.
“Not yet,” he says when I tighten.
He lifts his mouth and strokes me with one hand while climbing over me again.
I kiss him hard enough to taste myself.
He grabs the courtesy bottle of lube from the nightstand before pumping some into his hand.
“One perk of love-land.”
He grunts in begrudging acknowledgment and slicks himself.
His fat cock presses against mine. I wrap my hand around both of us, and Wes braces his forehead against mine as we move together.
I keep a tight grip on the downstroke, our hard dicks sliding through my grip. Friction builds between our bodies.
His breath breaks first, turning ragged. I love that it does.
“Imagine what it would be like with her?” I say.
His hips drive harder against mine. Our cockheads catch as the slick heads brush against each other. He rocks into the tunnel of my curved palm. “I can’t stop thinking about having both of you under me.”
The answer goes straight through me. Scarlet with us. I stroke faster.
Wes catches the back of my neck and keeps our foreheads together. “If she chooses this,” he says, voice strained, “she gets all of us. I can’t do half measures.”
“She won’t accept them anyway.”
A rough laugh escapes him.
Then his expression changes, more vulnerable than I expect. “What if I scare her?”
I stop moving.
Wes’s body remains hard against mine, but the intimacy shifts.
“You will,” I say.
His brow furrows.
“She will scare you too. That’s what happens when someone matters before you understand why.”
His thumb moves along the side of my neck.
“You’ll listen,” I say, continuing. “I’ll help when the two of you get stubborn, and she’ll call me on my own nonsense too.”
“Likely.”
“And we will keep choosing one another while she decides whether she wants to join us.”
His bond settles against mine.
Wes kisses me again, softer this time. “I love you.”
“I know.”
His eyes narrow.
I smile. “I love you too.”
Then I roll us.
Wes lands beneath me with a surprised grunt. I settle over his thighs, take both our cocks in hand, and move until his control begins to fray. I drag my hand up and down his length and squeeze at the swelling base of his cock where his knot wants to grow.
“That’s it,” I tell him. “Let go for me, Alpha.”
His hands grip my hips.
I stroke us together, watching pleasure strip the last of the tension from his face.
Wes comes first, hot across my hand and stomach, his growl low enough to vibrate through me. I follow seconds later, bent over him with his mouth against mine.
For a while, we stay there. Breathing. Touching.
The room smells like cedar, cardamom, cinnamon, and us.
Wes reaches for the tissues on the nightstand and cleans my hand before his own body. I catch his wrist and finish the job for him.
Afterward, he draws me against his side beneath the flowered quilt. I rest my head on his chest.
“The hotel will charge us if you tear that quilt,” I say.
“I didn’t tear it.”
“You considered it.”
His hand moves through my hair.
Music from the square drifts faintly through the windows. Sweetheart Haven continues selling forever below us while the case files wait on the table.
Wes’s breathing begins to slow. “We meet her at first light,” he says.
“Five thirty.”
“That is not first light.”
“Swamp hours.”
His chest moves beneath my cheek with a quiet laugh.
When sleep pulls at us, the last thing I feel is his bond warm around mine, and the last thing I smell is the trace of sage and rain still lingering. I want to see what it feels like when I carry her scent too.