44. Roman Osprey
Roman Osprey
Scarlet wakes in Wes’s lap. She fell asleep there sometime after dawn, wrapped in three blankets while he sat against the headboard, pretending the bruise across his chest didn’t hurt. I wake beside them to the sight of her cheek pressed over his heart and his hand buried in her hair.
For a moment, neither of them knows I’m watching. Wes traces the curve of her ear with one finger. Scarlet makes a soft sound and presses closer. His alpha purr deepens.
“You’re staring,” he says.
“So are you.”
“I’m allowed.”
“Interesting legal theory.”
Scarlet’s mouth curves against his borrowed shirt. “Both of you are loud in the morning.” Her voice is rough with sleep.
Wes looks down. “How do you feel?”
“Like I was chased through a swamp, held at gunpoint, and slept under an alpha who believes circulation is optional.”
His arms loosen.
Scarlet catches them before he can release her. “I didn’t say move.”
His expression softens so quickly, it’s adorable.
I slide closer and tuck her feet beneath my thigh. “She wants to complain from the preferred location.”
“Exactly.”
Wes lowers his mouth to her hair. She reaches for me without looking, and I give her my hand.
The three of us remain tangled together while morning fills the room.
The house smells like a secure omega, wood, cedar, cinnamon, cardamom, and the faint remains of the soup Honey left on the porch after Tom drove us home.
Wes lifts a cup of water from the nightstand and holds it to her mouth. She drinks while watching him.
“You’re bruised,” she says.
“I know.”
“You need ice.”
“I had ice.”
“You removed it after three minutes.”
“It was cold.”
I laugh before I can stop myself.
Scarlet turns in his arms and examines the darkening mark above his sternum. Her fingertips move around it without pressing. “I thought I lost you.”
Wes covers her hand. “You didn’t.”
“That’s not the same as not being afraid.”
“No.” His voice loses its defensive edge.
Scarlet looks between us. “I need both of you to hear this without turning it into an argument about protective equipment.”
“That seems targeted,” I say.
“It is.” She shifts until she sits upright in Wes’s lap, one knee on either side of his thighs. The blanket falls to around her waist. Her hair is wild from sleep, her eyes tired but clear. “I don’t want yesterday to be the reason we bite-bond.”
Wes goes still beneath her.
I sit closer.
Scarlet continues before either of us can answer. “I don’t want fear or my heat making my choice. Not this town or the case or Myrtle’s grief. No one gets to decide what forever means for me but me.” She touches Wes’s face, then mine. “And, I want you. For myself.”
The simplicity of it steals my breath.
She looks at Wes first. “You make safety feel like a place I can rest without losing myself inside.”
His eyes close.
She turns toward me. “You see every part I try to hide and never make me feel exposed. You make being understood feel safe.”
My throat tightens.
Scarlet’s hand slides to the back of my neck. “I choose you both. I want the life that begins when you stay.”
Wes’s purr fills the room.
I lean forward until my forehead rests against hers. “You already have us, love.”
“I want the bonds.”
Wes opens his eyes. “Outside heat?”
“Yes.”
“After everything yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Because you choose it?”
Scarlet takes his hand and places it over her heart. “Because I love you.”
His control breaks. He pulls her against him and buries his face in her neck. The sound he makes belongs to no version of Wes the rest of the world has ever seen.
I wrap around both of them. Our scents rise together, thick and warm, until the cottage feels less like Scarlet’s old refuge and more like the first room in a home we are building.
Wes lifts his face.
His eyes are dark, but his control is intact.
Nothing in his expression resembles the alpha who carried her out of the swamp yesterday.
He is not trying to outrun fear or prove he can keep her safe.
He is looking at Scarlet as though she has placed the rest of her life in his hands, and he understands exactly how carefully it must be held.
“Not yet,” he says.
Her brows draw together. “I just told you I want it.”
“I heard you.” His thumb strokes beneath her eye. “You survived a drug exposure, a heat, and a gun pointed at your throat. You slept four hours. You have eaten half a bowl of soup since yesterday morning.”
“I ate the crackers Roman brought me.”
“You fed one to a raccoon.”
“It looked hungry.”
“It was outside the window.”
“It had a compelling face.”
Wes’s mouth twitches, but his voice remains gentle. “I will bond you when you are rested, fed, and strong enough to choose it without your body mistaking relief for need.”
Scarlet studies him. The answer could sound like refusal from another man. From Wes, it sounds like devotion. She cups his face and kisses him softly, until his purr rolls beneath all three of us. When she pulls back, she turns toward me. “Breakfast,” she says.
I blink. “That was easier than expected.”
“I’m learning that arguing with him only makes his ego stronger.”
“Excellent progress.”
Wes narrows his eyes.
Scarlet slides off his lap and reaches for us when her legs wobble. We steady her between us.
“Food,” Wes says.
“Then a shower,” I say.
“Then sleep,” he replies.
Scarlet looks from one of us to the other. “Then bonds?”
Wes bends and presses his mouth to her forehead. “Then you ask us again.”
She does. Three nights later, with an empty dinner plate on the nightstand, color returned to her cheeks, and rain whispering against the cottage roof, Scarlet asks us again.
She stands in the middle of the upstairs bedroom while we finish turning it into ours. Boxes crowd the upstairs hall. Our boxes.
Wes called our landlord two days ago and explained that we would not be returning to the apartment except to sign final paperwork, and BESTF arranged the move. The agency relocation crew collected clothing, books, kitchen equipment, and the chair Wes insists is good for his back.
The first shipment arrived before midnight.
Scarlet cried when she saw our names written beside hers on the delivery sheet. She denies this. There is security footage.
In the room that will be our pack’s, her quilts remain layered across the nest. Her grandmother’s dresser sits beneath the window, and the moon-shaped lamp casts soft light over our unpacked boxes.
My books fill the lower shelves beside her folklore collection, and my sketchbook rests next to her tarot cards.
Wes’s clothes occupy one side of the closet with military precision.
Mine have already escaped their assigned shelf.
Nothing that belonged to Scarlet has been removed.
We have fit ourselves around her life instead of asking her to clear space for ours.
She likes our shared space. I can tell from the way her scent deepens and the shine that gathers in her eyes.
“You moved into my house in less than a week,” she says.
“Efficiently,” Wes answers.
“Alarmingly.”
He sits against the headboard and opens his arms.
Scarlet crosses the room without hesitation. She climbs into his lap and settles astride him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Wes places his hands on her waist and waits.
I kneel behind her, gathering her hair over one shoulder.
Her gaze finds mine. “I’m rested,” she says. “I ate.”
“Wes made you prove it,” I say.
She smiles. “And I’m clearheaded.”
Wes’s hands tighten slightly.
Scarlet touches his bond gland. “I choose you, Wes.” Then she reaches back for me. “I choose you, Roman.”
I take her hand and kiss the center of her palm. “You never have to earn your place between us.”
“I know.”
Wes watches her closely. “And if you change your mind?”
“I tell you.” Scarlet’s expression softens. “That is why I can say yes.”
The words move through the room like a vow before any teeth break skin.
Wes kisses her first.
His hands rise along her back, supporting rather than directing as her mouth opens beneath his. I press close behind her and kiss the exposed curve of her shoulder.
Her purr starts quietly. Wes feels it and answers with one of his own. The frequencies meet, and she arches between us as if the sound itself is a touch.
I slide my hands around her waist and beneath the hem of her shirt. Her skin is warm under my palms. Wes catches the fabric and lifts it slowly, then pauses when it reaches her ribs.
Scarlet raises her arms. He removes it and lets it fall beside the nest. I kiss each newly uncovered inch of her back. Wes takes his time with the front of her, his mouth moving along her collarbone and down the soft curve of her breast.
She trembles.
“Still with us?” I ask.
She turns her face enough to kiss me. “Completely.”
We undress her together. Then she returns the care. She unbuttons Wes’s shirt and kisses around the dark bruise on his chest. Her mouth never touches the tender center, but each careful press of her lips makes his breath rougher.
“You protected me,” she whispers.
“I would do it again.”
“I know.” She looks up at him. “But you came home too.”
His eyes close as though she has offered him a mercy he did not know he needed.
She turns and pulls my shirt over my head. Her hands travel my chest, learning me without urgency. When she kisses me, she tastes like cinnamon tea and the life I never let myself imagine wanting this badly.
Wes leans forward and kisses the side of my neck.
His hand slides around my hip and pulls me closer until Scarlet is held between us.
Nothing about this feels like taking turns.
Every touch belongs to what we make together.
Wes lowers Scarlet onto the quilts and settles between her thighs.
The first sweep of his tongue makes her fingers close in his hair. Her breath catches.
He looks up. “Tell me what you want, sweetheart.”
“You.”
“You have me.”
“Your mouth.”
His pleased growl sends a shiver through her.