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She clapped quietly after I did, giving me a tender kiss on the lips.

She asked me to sing another. She sang along, rocking back and forth, and after, she pulled out a baggie she had packed earlier.

We fed each other, and after I made a face at the marshmallow thing she had squished up and tried to feed me, she laughed until she was on her back, wheezing.

“Your face!” she barely got out. “Make it again.”

This laughter was different from the laughter when she thought a snake had been chasing her. This laughter was fucking carefree, and another vow was sealed in my heart. My old man said Mamma would have laugh lines. She did.

Sistine would have laugh lines too.

Her laughter was good for my soul. It put me at peace.

I was quiet for so long, soaking up the sound of her laughter like I was holding it inside of me, that she opened an eye.

“What face am I making, Annie?”

She grinned, her cheeks puffing. “This one.” She brought her eyebrows down, making her face squish up, and she looked at the leftover marshmallow thing like she was suspicious of it.

Maybe I made the fucking face again, because she exploded, rocking back and forth.

“Some hunter I am.” I joined her on the blanket, pulling her in. I touched her on the side, and she went off like a firework. Almost cackling like a witch. “My dinner laughs at me.”

“Ahhh, you will eat me?” She looked excited at the thought.

“Fucking right I will,” I said, my voice full of gravel.

“You will have to catch me first.” She winked. “ Ah ! Let us see if you have the same issue, Mariano Fausti.” She wiggled her fingers at me and went for my stomach.

“Highly fucking doubt—” I doubled up when her little chilled spiders contacted my suddenly sensitive skin.

Her face went blank for a second before it was taken over by who I could only describe as mischievous Annie. Fucking trouble. No one had ever discovered all my vulnerable spots like this woman could.

She wiggled her fingers at me again, and again went for my stomach.

We started flipping in the tent, me trying to ward her spider fingers off, while she was insatiable until she got me.

When I grunted, she got the biggest fucking kick out of the noise.

I fucking refused to laugh. Grunts. I kept grunting.

Somehow, she ended up on top of me, and neither of us brought the position into focus until our eyes locked and we couldn’t seem to escape the spell.

She was breathing hard.

So was I.

“Annie,” I whispered, reaching up to touch her face.

Her eyes closed and she released a deep breath. “I need to breathe as well,” she whispered. “I do not think I can until you are inside of me. I am… aching…all over.”

I flipped her over, her breath catching at the sudden movement, and looked down at her. I looked down at her until she started to squirm.

“I am caught.” She breathed out, lifting her chin to me, offering me her racing pulse.

Every instinct inside of me seemed to come to life as I slowly leaned toward her, a breath away from setting my lips over her life—my life.

If she ceased to exist.

I ceased to exist.

I breathed her in, running my nose up and down her neck, kissing her until I got to the spot that I fucking ached to touch. To nibble on. To suck. To mark.

A breath away from relieving both of our aches, a sound seemed to come from the woods and slipped between us.

Sistine grabbed my flannel. “What was that ?” she rushed out in Italian.

“Shh,” I said, picking her up, keeping her close to me.

The noise came again, this time louder. At first it sounded like a pig squealing, or a donkey screeching, and then it became higher pitched, with a few whuah, whuah, whuah noises after it.

Sistine whispered the equivalent of what the hell when it happened again and went on longer. An answering call to the challenge came a few seconds later. I could hear stomping, hooves digging into earth, probably running.

Yeah, I’d fucking run toward that instinct, too, if the woman next to me was waiting and watching.

“Mariano!” she hissed at me.

“It’s elk, Annie,” I said. “Mating season. He’s bugling.”

“This means he is a bull.”

I had to hide my grin. She said bull with an extremely heavy Italian accent. Booool-ah .

“Yeah, he’s the bull, Annie.”

“Does not sound too bullish to me.” She shrugged, but her eyes were wide, even in the faint darkness. The bonfire was still burning outside, and the tent was glowing softly.

“Doesn’t have to sound like much when he has antlers that’ll spear a man to death.”

“Does the cow respond to the size of his…ah, antlers?”

I laughed quietly. “She responds when two bulls fight over her. She wants to mate with the strongest bull. So, yeah, of course she fucking does.”

“Mariano!” She went to grab me. “Where are you going?”

She held me by the back of my jeans, refusing to let go.

“To check and see if they’re close, Annie.”

“You are leaving me?!”

“No fucking way. I’m just going to look outside of the tent.

We might have to leave, depending on how close they are.

They’re concentrated on each other, but if the fight extends out, or when one of them loses, and we’re here when the cow shows up, he might get overprotective. It’s mating season,” I repeated.

“In here as well.” She mumbled something, going for her bag as I stuck my head outside of the tent.

Two bulls were close, one pawing at the ground, antlers down, readying to charge.

They were about to ram their antlers in a fight that might kill one of them.

The cow was not far off, watching from the sidelines.

When I stuck my head back in, a phone was thrust in my face, its light a blast to my retinas, then pulled away.

Spots danced in my eyes until they adjusted to the dimness again.

“I have never encountered one here,” Sistine said. “This is what Google says we should do.”

Rio was able to track our phones out this far, even though, on the regular, we were too far off the grid to have access to the Internet. Sistine read off a few points quietly, then looked at me and narrowed her eyes, wagging her finger at me as she read the last piece of advice.

“If we cannot find shelter, we should run .”

“What do you think I’m going to do?” A hard laugh was stuck in my chest, but I could see she wasn’t having it, so I held it in.

“Challenge it,” she whisper-hissed at me.

“Do I look like I have antlers to you, Annie?”

“You are hardheaded!” She knocked on my head and made a dunk dunk dunk noise. But she was being fucking serious.

“That I fucking am.” I sighed. “But while they’re fighting over their cow, I’m going to take my lady and get the fuck out of antler reach.” Even the fire wasn’t deterring them. Their need to mate was stronger than the threat of heat. The heat that was consuming them was instinctual.

Sistine went to open her mouth, but I cut her off by hauling her up, her bag dangling from her fingers, throwing her over my shoulder, and racing toward a place of safety.