Page 43

Sistine

I n hindsight, I should have expected how fast he was. However, I never could have imagined just how fast he could run, even while carting me over his shoulder. The lion might have been his spirit animal, but I also thought he had cheetah in his blood.

The ground beneath me seemed to disappear as he sprinted toward wherever he was taking me.

After a minute or two, I had an idea. Butterflies flitted in my stomach at the thought of the old log cabin in the woods.

In the mornings, sunlight fell over it and bathed it in its glow.

From its many windows, the glow entered the cabin and always made me feel as if I was taking a walk in heaven.

At night, it was a shelter from all the wildness of the land.

It was almost as if it was situated on its own island.

A world away from the rest of the world.

My favorite time of the year to visit was during winter.

The snow would fall in drifts, packing the house up tight, and the entire area would turn white with pristine ice.

Herds of bison would pass through, and from the window, I would watch these spectacular beasts roam.

Keeping close. Coats frozen. Some of them even playful with each other.

The sound of their hooves on the frozen ground.

A black tongue sticking out. Glittering onyx eyes that I found to be full of animal wisdom.

The puffs of smoke from their nostrils and mouths as they made their trek to wherever.

Even the smell of bitter feral mixed in with the frozen clean of winter.

A tender wind blew past, and it brought me back to the moment we were in.

Fall.

The leaves were changing on the trees, and it was as if the bonfire had toasted them, bringing out brilliant colors. Auburn, pumpkin, and gold. The turn of seasons was thick in the air. So thick, I knew it was going to linger on our clothes once we were inside of the cabin.

Part of that lingering smokiness could have been the actual bonfire.

The glow of it seeming to follow us as well—although it was too far to literally touch us.

There was something about being with Mariano that made me feel this way.

As if whatever I was feeling inside was able to manifest itself between us.

Was all love like this?

I was not sure.

I had seen it before. Between Hannah and Clay.

Bianca and Bear. Atta and Angelo. Some of the Fausti couples that would come through.

Particularly Luca and his wife, Margherita, Scarlett and Brando, Dario and Carmen, Romeo and Juliette.

Even Nazzareno and his wife Ava. When the Fausti men loved, they seemed to love forever and beyond when they fully committed.

Mariano was no exception.

He had turned from the Casanova Prince into My Prince.

No frogs needed to be kissed.

Suddenly, I was righted, and I found my legs around his waist, my hands locked behind his neck, my arms resting on his shoulders, my lips a breath away from his.

He wasn’t even panting, but I felt the coolness of his breaths touch my skin.

He’d had a beer earlier, and I could smell it on his breath.

I wanted to inhale it. Get high off his essence.

“Annie,” he whispered.

“Mariano,” I whispered back.

He kissed me.

Kissed me until my hands couldn’t stay locked around his neck. My hands needed to feel him. To touch. To explore. To never forget an inch of him. To store him someplace deep inside of me where he would live forever.

“You are my bull,” I whispered when our lips separated for a second while he opened the door to the cabin.

“You are my mustang. My lion. You have challenged all other suitors and won my love, amore mio . Take me to bed. Make me yours forever.” With anyone else, I would have felt ridiculous saying those words, even if I was an Italian speaking to another Italian.

With Mariano, his passion ran as high as the romance in his veins, and if I did not say those things, I would have felt lacking as his woman.

For a woman to fall for a Fausti man, fully, without constraints, she had to be willing to give in to her urges to be a woman, allowing him to be her man. To take the lead in the dance once she gave him permission to.

I was a willing partner.

He said romantic things to me.

I said romantic things to him.

None of it sounded like nonsense or cause for laughter.

Not when he looked straight past my irises and hit my soul with an intensity so strong, it could have made glass shatter.

If the eyes were the windows to the soul…

His passion felt the same as fire barely touching my skin.

It felt as if it was candlewax dripping over my most sensitive areas.

It started in my toes and raced up to my chest, blinding my mind from anyone or anything but him.

The heat was concentrated between my legs, and an ache that had never beat before him pulsed with a need so great, I could not catch my breath.

The door shut behind him with a soft click .

He locked the door with me in his arms, and after, he carried me to the master bedroom.

The room glowed with tender light from lamps set on each side of the bed.

A fireplace made of antique brick rose up to the ceiling but was not lit.

Did not seem as if it had been for years.

A white fur rug was spread out in front of it.

A chill in the air made me shiver, but I thought it was from the clash with the heat he stoked inside of me. I almost felt as if I could light the fireplace with my fingertips alone.

He set me down on my feet, and even that distance was suddenly too far. My head was swirling, and he kept a hand on me while he walked me until my back was against the wall.

His arm rested next to my head. His other came up, boxing me in.

Trapping me.

I wanted him to trap me forever, if he was this close to me.

I lie .

Even closer.

“Say those words to me again.” He rolled his teeth over his bottom lip, adjusting his shoulders.

“If I say no?” I breathed out, my heart about to beat out of my chest.

His face was set into stone, his eyes molten lava. “You will kill me.” He reached down and removed a knife from his belt, taking my hand, setting the glinting silver blade in it.

He was drammatico when it came to romance, no?

“I do not want to kill you, my love,” I whispered in Italian. “I want to make love with you.” I went to reach up, to fix his hair, but his entire hand wrapped around my wrist. The knife dropped to the floor with a clank. He pinned my hand against the wall.

His body was pressed against mine, and if we were the same height, his heart would have pounded against mine.

I repeated the words I had spoken to him earlier—he was my bull, my mustang, my lion, my forever mate; he had challenged all other suitors and won not only my love, but my body.

I said these words to him in Italian, and the look in his eyes intensified, his eyes almost closed, his pupils dilated, his breath coming faster.

“You have carved these words on my heart and soul,” he said in Italian.

Another elk call rang out. It sent chills down my spine.

This man had one of those as well, but it was silent, only recognized by his forever mate.

Me.

It was in his eyes. In his scent in the air.

“We don’t have to do this,” he said.

“We do,” I whispered, bringing my hands underneath his flannel, running them over his shoulders, until the piece of fabric dropped to the floor. “I need this. Need you. We both know we will both die, strangle from the lack of air we need to live, if we do not.”

He studied my face. “Once I am inside of you, you will be mine, in all ways,” he said in Italian, unbuttoning my— his —flannel, allowing it to fall over his on the floor.

I shivered at the heat in his words, the conviction. “ Sì ,” I said, “and we shall be one for always. I say I do .”

The fire sent off waves of heat, the glow of it highlighting the goosebumps puckering my skin. It was not from a chill, but from the overwhelming feeling of Mariano’s touch.

I was aching all over from our first time.

My hips. My legs. Between my thighs. Blood stained the fur rug and Mariano’s chest, where he’d made a vow.

He had cut himself, right over his heart, and mixed it with my virginal blood on his palm, setting it over his chest after, sealing the promise with the beats of his heart.

I was his and he was mine. Per sempre .

My arms wrapped around him, bringing him as close as possible, my body squirming…needing more. I did not think we could stop. I was not sure if any worldly need was greater than the one our bodies demanded.

To be one.

Warm tears slipped down my cheeks, turning cold even being so close to the fire. “ Shhh ,” he whispered in my ear, kissing them away, as he entered me again. “ Shhh .” His mouth was over mine, kissing me. “You were made for me.”

I made a garbled noise, part pleasure, part pain.

He was long and thick, and truly, I was not sure how it was going to work between us at first. However, he was patient, moving slow, and after the first initial pain, I relaxed into the rhythm and…

I could not accept not doing this with him every second of every day.

It felt so good the way he slid against all my sensitive nerves, not missing an inch of space, and then again…it was almost too much. Too powerful. No space existed between us. When his eyes became so intense on mine, there was no place for me to retreat to inside of myself.

He was inside of me.

All through me.

Pushing me to madness, then sanity, then madness, back to sanity again.

All of it so delicious, I moaned into his mouth as he pushed a little deeper.

He groaned, his throat trembling with the deep bass of it.

He pushed into me even deeper, and I gasped at the flash of pain and the intense rush of pleasure.