Chapter 28
Luna
I sit with my legs crossed near the front window of the shed. My fifteen-inch laptop is balanced in my lap, its screen glowing green in the shadows as I type out the final commands.
Next to me, taking up roughly eighty percent of the available oxygen, is Reed. He’s pressed so close I can feel the heat radiating off him.
The shed itself is a cramped, barely big enough to house a tall metal shelving unit loaded with tools, hoses coiled on the wall, and a slumped stack of feed sacks in the corner. It’s definitely no palace, but it’s the only spot on the property that gives us a clear view of the target.
I hit Enter on the laptop. Green text starts scrolling down the screen and the webcam blinks its little light.
I slide the computer onto a stack of wooden crates right in front of us, angling the webcam so it peers directly through the window glass, giving us a clean line of sight out to the staging bay.
“There,” I say, leaning back with a grin as two hours of work finally pay off. “It’s armed.”
Reed shifts beside me and I catch the flash of his teeth.
“What,” I say. “Why are you smiling like that?”
He tips his head back. “Just thinking you came up with the best plan I’ve ever seen. Who looks at a problem like this and goes, cardboard camera, plus a laptop that snitches?”
“A desperate librarian,” I say.
“Can you just walk me through this again?” he asks. “Just so I don’t mess up.”
“I don’t think you can,” I say. “But sure. See that camera?” I nod out at the bay, pointing to the dummy security camera we spent fourteen minutes cutting out of a box, painting black, and outfitting with a glossy scrap of plastic for a fake lens.
But zip-tied to a steel beam, it looks remarkably real—and obvious.
“Anybody with clean hands who approaches and sees that isn’t going to care,” I explain.
“But someone with bad intentions? They’ll spot it and turn right back around.
” I tap the laptop screen. “That’s where the webcam catches them.
If someone steps into frame and leaves within ten seconds, or if the program clocks them running, the terminal pings us. ”
Reed huffs a laugh, a warm rumble that travels straight through my thigh where his leg is pressed to mine. “Genius.”
“You learn to get creative when you have a book thief, no time to watch hours of tape, and a budget of zero dollars.” I lean my shoulder back against him. “Anyway, the rest of the plan is simple: when the program flags a suspect, we go get physical. Well, you do.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that.” Reed looks at me and his scent goes thick. My Omega lifts her head, and before I know it, I’m purring.
Whoops, I tell myself as Reed bites his lower lip. I probably shouldn’t be encouraging a climate of fornication in a tool shed.
Except... uh, why not, actually? The program is the one doing all the heavy lifting. The laptop will scream if anything interesting happens out there, which technically leaves us with absolutely nothing to do in the meantime.
“So do you realize you’re basically a spy?” Reed asks, a lazy swipe of his tongue dampening his bottom lip. “Brainy, beautiful, running stakeouts... I need you to know it’s doing a lot for me right now.”
“Glad you noticed.” I meet his eyes. “People hear librarian and think cardigans and shushing. Now you know cardigans are just camouflage.”
“That’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever heard,” he murmurs. He shifts, and his hand lands on my knee. Sliding slowly up my thigh.
My heart thuds against my ribs.
“Your heart’s going,” he says.
“Anticipation,” I whisper.
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
His fingers slide higher, dragging the fabric of my leggings. A heavy, pooling heat settles low in my belly, slick already gathering between my thighs.
Every instinct I have tells me to climb into his lap. Do it, my Omega says, already on her feet. He’s right here. He’s ours. What are we waiting for.
He leans in. The tip of his nose drags up the side of my throat, along my jaw, and I tip my head into it. “So what are we gonna do until your laptop pings?”
Fuck it.
I turn my head and drag my tongue up his jawline, slow. He goes completely still. “We can keep each other company.”
Now he’s the one turning his head and his mouth is on mine, then both hands.
He tastes of the bitter coffee we split an hour ago before heading to the shed. His tongue slides into my mouth and I melt, fisting the front of his jacket to haul him closer.
“Reed,” I breathe, and he uses the gap to drag his mouth down my throat, his teeth scraping my collarbone.
He lifts me to my feet, guiding me backward until my spine hits the cedar wall. In one fluid motion, his hands hook into my leggings, pulling them down. The shed air catches me with a cold shock, but then he’s touching me, sliding right into the slick, and the gasp I let out is embarrassingly loud.
“Damn,” he whispers against my ear, his breath hot. “Already so wet for me?”
Two fingers slide deep, and my head cracks back against the wall as a white-hot shock tears straight up my spine.
He zips his jeans open, and then he’s there—hot and thick against my thigh. I loop a leg around his waist, fisting his jacket.
“Fuck me,” I say.
He pushes in.
It’s a deep, grounding, splitting fullness, and everything inside me lights up like somebody just threw a switch—that high, clear, ringing note of rightness I keep trying to resist but never can.
Mine, my omega sighs, finally satisfied.
“Luna—” Reed’s voice is a wrecked growl, his hips stuttering as the thickness catches at my entrance, stretching me wider on every drag back.
“Yes,” I whisper, my fingers buried in his hair, my walls clamping down around him. “Reed, yes.”
He seats himself deep, the knot expanding fully inside me, locking us together as he spills into my core. A long, shuddering sigh escapes him, his forehead resting in the crook of my neck.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, holding him tight against the cool air of the shed.
For fifteen minutes, we just stay there, locked together in the quiet, his heartbeat a steady thud against my chest. His arms are wrapped secure around my waist, keeping me flush against his heat and I feel safer than I’ve felt in months.
Slowly, the knot deflates. Reed slides out with a soft, reluctant sigh. He reaches down to help me pull up my leggings and—
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Reed mutters, zipping his jeans.
“Trap’s sprung,” I say, checking the scrolling green text. “Someone’s moving.”
He swears under his breath. “Behind me,” he says, and pushes the door open.
We burst out into the blinding light, Reed already covering the gravel to the staging bay in a flat sprint. I do my best to keep up, but he’s obviously faster, and it doesn’t help that with every stride, his warm cum slides down into my underwear—the wetness incredibly uncomfortable.
Up ahead, a figure is walking quickly away from the entrance of the staging bay, casting a nervous look back at the cardboard camera zip-tied to the beam.
“Hey!” Reed barks.
The figure bolts, but he’s moving too fast and slams straight into a wall with a loud yelp.
We close the distance and discover a teenager dressed in oversized jeans, a faded Honeycreek High hoodie, and red Chuck Taylors. He has a crowbar gripped in one fist and looks like he’s about a second away from wetting himself.
“Drop it,” Reed says, grabbing him by the sweatshirt.
The crowbar clatters onto the gravel.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” The kid’s voice cracks, his hands coming up. “I saw the camera and was gonna leave! I didn’t break anything, I swear. I was just supposed to knock some bins over.”
I stop beside Reed, chest heaving. “Who told you to do that?”
The kid looks up, wide-eyed, trembling. “Some guy. In town. He gave me forty bucks cash. Said it was a prank on the orchard guys.”
“What did he look like?” Reed asks.
“I don’t know! Just some alpha. White, brown hair, average height. Thirty-something, maybe. I’d never seen him around Honeycreek before yesterday.”
Reed lets go of the kid’s hoodie with a heavy sigh. “The cash. Hand it over, and get off the property. If I see you back here, I’m calling my brother Bram. He’s with the county sheriff.”
The teenager scrambles to pull two crumpled twenty-dollar bills from his pocket, shoves them into Reed’s hand, and bolts.
Reed watches him go, folding the bills.
“White, brown hair, average height,” I say, crossing my arms. “That really narrows it down.”
“He said he was new in town,” Reed says. He shakes his head, the tension leaving his shoulders. A faint, dry smile touches his mouth. “Well, I’ll talk to Bram about getting real cameras set up.” He taps the bills against his palm. “Maybe we can use this to buy some better coffee.”
He steps closer, wrapping his arm around my waist to pull me against his side. The warmth of his body cuts through the afternoon breeze, his woodsmoke scent folding over me again.
“For now,” he murmurs against my hair. “Very good job, Inspector Luna.”
I lean into his side, my body still warm and slightly tender from where we were locked just minutes ago. From the way his arm tightens around me, he isn’t ready to let go of the quiet we found in the shed either.
“By the way, what we did was just round one,” he whispers against my ear.
“I’m holding you to it,” I murmur.