Page 21

My head snapped up at the sound of someone rushing into the stables. My instincts were too ingrained in me not to. I could be consumed with my Annie while keeping my back in check. The cadence of these steps was rushed, anger behind them, judging by how heavy they fell. No surprise attack, then.

Apple, pear, rose, and a hint of leather floated through the air, and I was instantly on alert, my heart pumping overtime.

Sistine came to a sudden stop in front of me. She was a few paces away and keeping as far from me as she could. She didn’t want to get too close to me or the horses. They stirred in her wake.

“You smell like apples to them,” I said. “They can’t help themselves.”

“Help what?” she snapped.

“Being attracted to you. They want to eat you up.” I winked.

I heard her intake of breath before she seemed to compose herself.

She waved an accusatory hand at me. “You almost killed a man!”

“Nah.” I got back to work. “He’s fine.”

“You could have broken his windpipe!”

“I didn’t.”

“Is that something they teach you in Fausti school? How to exert just enough pressure not to kill a man?”

“Does your family teach you to only send a warning shot and not a deadly shot with a gun?”

“Stop, this, ah, answering a question with a question!” Her eyes moved to the right, where the horse in the stall was sticking her neck out so far, it was straining.

The mare was even moving her lips, like that was going to bring her closer to the apple orchard.

Sistine glued herself to the wall, but she said to the horse politely, “I do not have any apples, so you can forget about biting me.”

“That’s why you’re afraid of horses.”

“Am not .”

I nodded to the distance between her and the horse, as if to say, the distance states otherwise.

She rolled her eyes at me. “You had no right to choke Hiram out!”

I moved away from the horse, close to her, and she backpedaled until she realized I was moving her. She planted her feet on the ground and lifted her chin in defiance.

“Say his name again.” I rolled my shoulders.

A second, two, three. Each one with a released breath from her. “No,” she said quietly, but her tone was full of spice. “Only because you ordered me to.”

Fuck me sideways.

She had a defiant streak that was going to drive me fucking insane, insane enough that I had to tamp down the urge to run a hand through my hair, making the shorter pieces as crazed as I felt. That, or I was going to kiss her. Kiss her until her knees gave out and she was moaning in my mouth.

Her eyes narrowed, like she could read my mind. She took a step back. Even so, our eyes started to lock, heat moving between us, caught in the slow-moving molasses of time. Whatever it was between us felt like it could stop time entirely when we were like this.

Her chest heaved underneath the tight tank top she wore.

She might have been slight, but she had breasts and an ass.

She also had a scar on her left shoulder.

There wasn’t a spot on her that I hadn’t memorized.

The less clothes she wore, the more I noticed.

When we’d be alone in the bedroom, I’d notice even more.

Her apple scent wafted around me in the heat, and like the horse, my neck automatically extended to get closer to her. A feral need to sink my teeth into all her juicy places almost overtook me. My mouth fucking watered.

Her eyes had gone from narrowed to lowered. Her lips were slightly parted, and from the rise and fall of her chest, I could tell she was trying to steady her breaths.

“Sorry to interrupt.”

I’d registered someone coming into the stables, and I’d clocked it was Ty, but I refused to sever the connection. Sistine startled, though, and her shoulder hit the wall. She righted herself and ran a trembling hand down her shirt as Ty moved closer, as if we had been caught doing something wrong.

“I just need to talk to Mariano for a sec.”

Sistine didn’t move. Ty grinned.

He nodded to me. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in joining the charity auction we host every year? The event is held to raise money for any ranches that are going under. It’s a cause close to our family, and we’re passionate about it. My sister also likes to donate to animal shelters.”

Sistine sent Ty a hard look. He gave her an apologetic smile and shrugged.

“What’s auctioned?” I asked.

“Men,” he said. “For dates.”

“No women?”

“Just men. Women donate things. Like my grandmother donates her sketches and baskets. Sistine donates a custom piece of jewelry. And so on.”

“I’m in.”

Sistine opened her mouth to say something but then snapped it shut. Ty looked between us and backed out. Even though the connection might have stilled, it still existed, whether it was moving or not. It started up hot as soon as we were alone again.

Sistine swatted the air, as if she was swatting away flies. “What if I agree to marry you?” she blurted.

This was getting fucking good.

I grinned. “You want to marry me because of an auction?”

She went to snap at me but shut her mouth again. Her hands were balled into fists, and if I had to control the wild urge to claim her mouth a few minutes ago, it seemed like she was pinning down the urge to smack me.

“No!” she snapped. “I do not want to marry you, Casanova. At all. However, I cannot think of another way to get rid of you!” She was rushing her words, too pissed about me agreeing to the auction to really think about what she was saying.

She turned and started for the barn door, mumbling in Italian as she went. I was pretty sure she called me a two-headed cockerel, but it was hard to tell through the other insults she was slinging at me.

I snatched a lariat from the hook on the wall, twirled it over my head, and fucking bullseye…it easily went over her head and slipped to her waist. I tightened my hold, and she stilled.

She turned toward me, her lips so pinched, the fullness of them seemed to disappear into a thin line.

Fuck if I knew where that pillow-like softness disappeared to, but it was cute.

Her nose crinkled sometimes when she did it, like when she had flared her torch at me.

That memory made me grin at the same time another memory was made that would always make me grin.

I pulled her back to me, her boots kicking up dust around her as she dug in her heels. When she was right in front of me, I could feel her breath on my skin from her anger, and I felt fucking high off it.

“Continue with the conversation,” I said, fucking lucky I wasn’t slurring my words.

She huffed at me and, stooping down, flung hay at my face. It didn’t go far. It mostly floated around me.

“Continue that ,” she said. “Eat it. Choke on it.”

My eyebrows raised and my cock hardened. Eat it. Choke on it. On a basic level, my dreams of being with her in the bedroom. Or, where the fuck ever. Her ass in my face, my mouth over her sweet spot, her mouth over my cock…

She stuttered, trying to get words out, and then she started slinging Italian insults at me again.

“I take it back.” She waved a wild hand at me. “I would not marry you if you were the last man in this earth.” In this earth, not on it. “I would rather marry Rocky!” She shoved the rope down, stepped out of it, and, spinning on her booted heel, started toward the door.

Rocky was a kid—one who enjoyed using his head to ram asses.

So many fucking delicious visions she was giving me today as I watched her fine ass walk away from me.

I grinned, watching as she stormed through the barn.

She kicked a bucket, and it flew. I knew, though, that one of the hands had left a rake against the wall.

If she didn’t see it in her rage, she might stomp on the tines, and the stick might whack her in the head.

I reached her just as she stumbled over it.

She wasn’t expecting it, and she tripped over it.

Instead of going forward or toward the wall, she was going for a horse’s stall. A horse known to be a biter. His lips were up, and he was already showing his teeth, ready for his chance. He probably thought he was getting an apple.

I’d never seen fear on her face that great before. All the color drained from her cheeks, and she let out a quiet cry of anguish. My body brought hers in to protect her while my heart turned to fucking mush.

Once she was on her feet, in my arms for not nearly long enough, she stepped out of my embrace. I fixed her hair, residual hay from when she had flung it at me stuck in places, and she let me, but then she stuck her shoulder to the wall.

“You were bit before,” I said.

She nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “After I was thrown off.” She looked away from me for a few moments before she’d meet my eyes again. “I learn from mistakes, Casanova, even if they are not always mine. Once bitten, twice shy.”

“If you slathered yourself in honey, would bees surround you?”

“You’re saying he bit me because I smelled like…honey?”

“Apples,” I corrected. The forbidden fruit. “Besides, we’re not talking about horses. We’re talking about relationships.”

“Correct. I’m not some simple-minded woman who falls for a man because he has a gorgeous face. Love is not a game, Casanova. You, just like my sister, make it into one. Grazie , but no grazie .”

She went to walk off but stopped when I called her Annie . She shivered, like I’d breathed out against her neck. Her hand went there like she was trying to slow her pulse. She turned to me.

“You think I’m gorgeous.” I smiled.

She rolled her eyes. “You know you are gorgeous. The entire planet probably knows this. If a woman has seen you, all billions of them on this planet, I am not alone in thinking this. It is a fact at this point.” She shrugged.

“You love me, Annie. You know you do. You even said so yourself with the whole ‘love is not a game’ speech.”

“ What? ” she breathed out. “That is not what I meant!”

“You said it.”

She growled at me, and I ducked just in time to miss the bucket she flung at my head. Mr. Ed, the horse with the teeth, seemed like he was laughing at me. He was snorting and shaking his head.

Joke was fucking on him.

She loved me.

And fuck me sideways .

I loved the girl too.