23. Scarlet Sage
Scarlet Sage
Iwake to cedar, warm spice, and the quiet certainty that I put both men exactly where I wanted them.
Morning presses pale through my bedroom curtains. Rain has softened to a slow drip from the eaves. My cheek is tucked against Roman’s chest, Wes’s arm lies heavy across my waist, and one of my legs has worked itself between theirs beneath the quilt.
The bed is crowded. And last night was the best I have slept in years.
Roman’s chin rests against the top of my head. His dark-blond hair falls across his forehead, and his hand is curled loosely beside my face. Wes is warm along my back, his breath moving against my hair with the steady rhythm of an alpha who finally allowed himself to sleep.
Their scents have settled into the blankets so that my room smells like all three of us now.
My omega settles deeper into the warmth, pleased by what I built while no one was watching.
I could pretend the arrangement happened accidentally, blame exhaustion, the narrow mattress, or a migrating blanket.
But the truth is that I asked them to stay. I pulled them into my bed. Sometime during the night, I gathered their shirts and both quilts around us, because having their scents close made it easier to breathe. The admission leaves me exposed but not ashamed.
A low purr hums in my chest.
Wes’s arm tightens in answer.
Roman opens one hazel eye. “Good morning.”
“Debatable.”
His mouth curves. “You’re purring.”
“I’m comfortable. Try not to become unbearable about it.”
Behind me, Wes’s voice is rough with sleep. “Too late.”
I smile before I can stop myself.
Roman strokes one finger along my temple. “You stole my blanket.”
“It improved the arrangement.”
“You also stole Wes’s shirt.”
The black fabric is tucked beneath my cheek, soft from wear and saturated with cedar. “I’m holding it for evidence.”
Wes shifts closer, the hard line of his body settling along my back. “Evidence of what?”
“That you own clothing in colors besides black.”
“It’s black.”
“Then the investigation remains open.”
His mouth brushes the back of my shoulder through the thin sleep shirt.
Warmth moves down my spine.
Roman watches my face with sleepy amusement. “Thinking loudly again?”
“I’m remembering.”
The humor softens around the truth. My body remembers last night, how Roman was inside me first and then Wes afterward. Hands, mouths, praise, and the steady way they held me when pleasure stripped away every defense I had left, I chose those too. The knowledge settles low and warm.
Roman’s hand slides from the pillow to my hip, and his palm rests over the curve beneath my sleep shirt. Wes’s fingers spread across my stomach. Held between them, I let my body loosen. No one has to coax me into wanting this morning. I turn my face toward Roman and kiss him.
It starts soft and unhurried, carrying the comfortable intimacy of waking beside someone whose mouth I know. His thumb strokes my hip while I deepen the kiss.
Behind me, Wes’s breathing speeds up. I press back against him deliberately, and his hand tightens over my stomach.
Roman smiles against my lips. “That was subtle.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
The words make Wes purr. This time, I let my own purr answer without fighting it.
Roman kisses the corner of my mouth, then my cheek. “Look at you, owning your decisions.”
“They were excellent decisions.”
“Plural?”
I glance over my shoulder at Wes. “Very plural.”
His eyes are dark when they meet mine. The look sends heat curling through the softness of the morning. I shift again, giving him an invitation.
Wes’s hand slides beneath the hem of my sleep shirt and settles on my bare stomach. “Still sore?” he asks.
“A little.”
His palm stays warm and still.
I curl my fingers around his wrist and guide his hand lower. “Not too sore to be touched.”
Roman’s gaze moves to the movement before returning to my face.
Wes kisses my shoulder once more.
Then he pushes the quilt slowly down my legs.
“What are you doing?” I ask, though his scent has already changed enough to answer.
His mouth moves along my back as he follows the retreating blanket. “Tasting you.”
The answer is delivered with the calm certainty of a man announcing breakfast. It sends a pulse between my legs.
Roman’s smile presses against my temple. “He’s been awake for thirty seconds.”
“Long enough,” Wes says.
I settle more comfortably against the pillows. Wes catches the hem of my sleep shirt and lifts it over my hips. Cool morning air reaches my thighs. His mouth follows.
He kisses one knee first, then the inside of my thigh, slow and lingering. There is nothing hurried in the way he’s approaching me. Every touch of his lips feels like the beginning of a kiss he intends to deepen.
My breath becomes shallow.
Roman cups my face and turns me toward him again.
Wes reaches the place between my thighs and pauses. His purr deepens. “You smell so sweet.”
The words warm my face more than they should. “You say that like you’ve been denied.”
“I have.” His mouth brushes the soft skin beside my pussy. “For hours.”
“It was called sleeping.”
“Wasteful.”
Roman laughs. Then Wes kisses me. It’s a slow, open press of his mouth over my pussy, sensual enough that my entire body tightens.
He kisses me there the way he kisses my mouth.
With attention. With hunger held under control only because controlling it gives him pleasure too.
His tongue slides through my slick lips, and my hips jerk in response.
Wes’s forearms settle across my thighs. “Wait.”
The command rolls into my body before my mind catches up. I grip Roman’s shirt.
Wes licks me again, long and unhurried, tasting my pussy as though it belongs to him. The sounds he makes are obscene. Satisfied.
Roman watches my face while Wes’s mouth works between my thighs. “You like feeding him,” he says softly.
“Oh, shit—”
Wes sucks my clit, and my answer breaks off into a moan.
Roman’s eyes warm. “Very dignified.”
Wes releases me just as pleasure tightens low in my belly.
I lift my head. “Why did you stop?”
His mouth is wet when he looks up at me. “Because I told you to wait.”
“That instruction was unclear.”
“I’ll repeat it.” He lowers his mouth again. His tongue circles my clit, then flattens against me. He continues kissing and licking until my thighs shake, and he knows exactly how quickly my body responds now. Worse, he enjoys knowing.
Every time the pressure builds enough to pull me under, he slows. Or kisses the inside of my thigh. Or drags his tongue through my pussy without touching the place that aches most.
The third time he pulls away, I make a sound that should embarrass me.
“Wes,” I plead, practically feral with the need to come.
He looks up. Pleasure has gone dark in his eyes. “Yes?”
“You are being cruel before breakfast.”
“I’m playing.”
“With me.”
His thumb rubs one slow circle against my clit. “Obviously.”
My body arches. He removes the pressure. I glare at him.
Roman strokes my hair away from my face. “You’re beautiful when you’re furious.”
“I’m surrounded by terrible men.”
Wes kisses my pussy again, reverent and slow. “Wait.” Then his mouth closes around my clit.
My thoughts scatter.
Roman kisses me while Wes takes his time with me, unhurried and deliberate, his tongue moving with the patience of a man savoring the best meal he has ever been given. He gathers every sound from me. Every time I begin to lose control, his purr vibrates against my clit, telling me he feels it too.
My fingers fist in Roman’s shirt. “I’m close. Please let me come.”
“Not yet.” Wes slows, and I nearly sob.
“You’re insufferable.”
His tongue slides inside me. My hips lift against his mouth.
Roman catches my wrists and holds them against his chest.
Wes groans against me. His purr deepens every time I chase his mouth, and the sound gets rougher the more desperate I become.
He brings me to the edge again.
And again.
Each time, he pulls back just enough to leave me trembling. By the fourth, my legs are shaking against his shoulders, and my scent has filled the nest.
“Please.” The word slips out raw.
Wes goes still. His eyes lift to mine. There is hunger in his expression, but something gentler beneath it, care threaded through the control. “What do you want?”
“Your mouth.”
A smile touches his lips. “You have it.”
“I want to come.”
He kisses the inside of my thigh. “Good.”
Then he takes my clit into his mouth and stops playing. His tongue moves hard and sure. Roman kisses me through the first broken sound, one hand cupping the back of my neck while Wes keeps me open and drinks from me.
Pleasure tears through every place the night left tender. I come in Wes’s mouth with my hips lifting from the bed. He doesn’t stop. The first orgasm is still moving through me when he licks me again.
I gasp. “Wes.”
His arms tighten over my thighs. “One more.”
“That is not a reasonable morning goal.”
He sucks my clit.
My argument disappears.
Roman laughs into my hair and gathers me closer while Wes starts the game again, gentler but no less determined. He lets me build, makes me wait, tastes every desperate movement like it is meant for him.
My second orgasm comes slower, deeper, my body already softened by the first and helpless against the patient devotion of his mouth.
When I come again, Wes groans as though I have given him the pleasure.
He drinks every shudder from me until my hands go loose in Roman’s shirt. Only then does he stop.
Wes presses one last kiss to my pussy. Soft. Closemouthed. Reverent. It’s not meant to start anything else. It’s a quiet token of care placed against the most vulnerable part of me.
My throat tightens unexpectedly.
He looks up and sees it. Neither of us names it.
Roman kisses my forehead. Wes pulls the quilt back over my legs and settles behind me again, his mouth brushing my shoulder. I lie between them wrecked, warm, and much too safe.
“You’re both trouble,” I whisper.
Roman strokes my hip. “Only us, not you?”
Wes sounds smug against my back. “She’s tired.”
“I’ve been awake for ten minutes.”