Javi had never done it in the open. And here he was, on a popular hiking trail—not so popular this late in the season—but still traveled and therefore exciting to the erotically-inclined part of his mind. 

 For the past five weeks Javi sometimes gave his arm a little pinch to make sure he wasn't dreaming. He had bagged the hottest chick this side of the Talkeetna mountain range. The woman was a sunlit diamond in a frozen forest: sweeping blonde hair, eyes bluer than deep glacial ice, alabaster skin warmed with peachy tones. And she was ambitious and tough and hard-headed, a mountain he sought to climb. In just five weeks Javi had been consumed by physical desire until even his brain burned with passion for the woman he viewed as the unbound queen of the north. He thought he might love her. And having never been in a relationship before, he knew, even if his love wasn't true, even if she didn't feel the same, he always would. He would always love her here, in this moment.

People like Dakota were rare. People like her were unforgettable.

Since graduating high school she'd been working toward inheriting her father's chain of fish and game stores. Had one of the best shots in the borough.  Drank beers and loved camping and hockey almost as much as he did.

Dakota was perfect for him, but Javi knew he didn't have the strength to hold onto a woman like her for long. Dakota knew it, too. She didn't mess around with what she wanted. She didn't play pretend or lead him on or make him think this might go past the winter when his contract with her daddy was complete. From the first moment they were alone—his room in her parents' attic hadn't even been unpacked yet—she went straight for the kill.

For his part, Javi rather liked being the prey, just like he rather liked not having to pay for expensive dinners or jewelry that a girl like her demanded. She wasn't wanting. Her parents had wealth and she'd do well enough on her own in a few years when she took over. He just couldn't afford to give her what he thought she deserved. A pretty throat like hers, beautiful ears, the curves of her body and lean legs: her physical stature demanded attention and fine goods. She never asked him for any of that, never asked to be worshiped (though in his young stallion's mind, he did). She knew the limits of his offerings, and she accepted it, him.

In the twilight vespers of a night filled with the Delphic magic of late October, Dakota was a zipper away from getting him again. Out in the open. Illuminated by nothing but the rising moon and a small lantern set to minimal light.

Well, he thought, settling into creaks of old wood on a bench overlooking the windswept mountainside. I may not marry her, but she's mine tonight. She'd always be his tonight. This was their night.

There was a giggle, a brief command, and then a rush of nippy air when she'd yanked his pants down.

Dakota had been named for the state she'd been conceived in.  She'd never say which state in particular, north or south, but Javi knew which cardinal direction she preferred.

Her lips skimmed the bare exposed skin of his thigh. She'd done it several times over the weeks, kissing him with that pretty pink mouth in places a woman had never kissed him before, but he jumped and squirmed all the same. Squirmed against the worn wooden bench, felt a sharp reminder not to move, and gripped the back of the chair to hold himself still.

South, oh yes!  South Dakota indeed!

A crackle of branches punctured the still fall air. Adrenaline courses through his veins in an electric surge. "Hey!" he whispered, frightened but unwilling to move.

The woman's head rose. Blonde hair fell gently against her cheek. "What?" she said with a breathy flush. 

"Someone's here."

A painted nail tapped impatiently against his hip. "That's the point, dummy. Almost getting caught is half the fun."

Javi craned his neck towards the somber forest; over the scent of Dakota's perfume he thought he smelled a hint of rot, unpleasant whiff that put doubt in his mind and took a little blood back from his lower half. "Seriously. I heard something."

Dakota, frowning at this new development, scanned the treeline. A thin snarl of leaves clung pinned against a rock near their feet. It rattled and hissed and scraped at the bench. Dakota yanked it out of place and tossed it to the side. She watched it tumble off the cliff, then turned back to him with a huff.

"Who gives a shit?" she decided. "Animal or human, they'll get their little peep show and keep on walking. Most folks are too embarrassed to do more than that."

"What if they don't?"

"My daddy's in Texas on business." Her shoulders rolled back in a sleek shrug. "So I repeat: who gives a shit?"

He didn't want doubt to ruin this, didn't want that faint pervading odor of fear getting in the way of a good blow job. She'd break up with him for sure, and while he knew he'd never marry her, he wasn't tired of looking at her yet. Winter sure would pass more quickly with a hot little thing like her sharing his bed.

"Javi," Dakota snapped. She'd been waiting for his reply.

"Not me," he said quickly.

"That's right," she purred and kissed him on the cheek. In the dark her blue eyes shone with a wild intensity. "Not you. I've been waiting all day to get you alone. Don't turn chicken on me now."

"No," he agreed absently, his mind elsewhere, his ears straining to hear the forest. "But don't you think the woods feel a bit. .. spooky this close to Halloween?"

In a supple movement she was on his lap, her palm directing his chin up. She leaned over him in the dark and kissed his lips, kissed, and then bit him. "Ouch!" he said, pulling away. She sat back balanced against his knees.

"Don't ignore me," she told him.

"No, babe."

Sucking on a drop of his own blood, the part of Javi that thought they both might be prey relaxed under the dominance of his partner. This was what he liked. She was in control. Dakota ruled the night, not some crunch of dead leaves in the distance, a deer, he told himself, another prey animal.

His head rolled back against the bench when she found him again. He stared up into the whirling leaves of late fall, tried to think of exercising the dogs for winter and making sure the cabin was prepped for—

There it was again, a sharp crackle. Only this time, it was followed by a shivering whine of twigs pressed against bark, as if something were forcing itself through the brush. Panic pulsed through his heart. There was something there. There was definitely something there. His fingertips stretched for the metal grip of the lantern.

Just as his hand brush the cool surface, his eyes caught sight of something large and black and snorting, a thick neck thrust out, and a heavy dark body to follow. It stopped in between trees, head blocked by pine boughs.  Bear, he thought immediately, why is it out so late? And then it moved in a ripple of equine muscle and hooves.

His eyes followed  the arched neck and flared nostrils of a horse as black as the space between galaxies. Atop it, covered in thick furs, was some kind of a man. He couldn't see his head, there was just a skull, lit by tiny flames of green fire. The rider, reins in one hand, started to direct the horse toward him.

The entire moment had maybe taken half a second, tops, but to Javi, that first glimpse lasted a lifetime.

And then his pulse was roaring in his ears to move. His voice caught up to the rest of his senses. He screamed, stood so fast Dakota's head bounced against his knee. She fell into the dirt as he yanked his pants on.

Dakota spat curses into the ground, pulling herself up on the edge of the bench. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and then, it seemed she froze. Her hand dropped. In the little yellow lantern Javi watched her pupils widen.

"Who the hell are you?" she shouted.

Javi, who had sometimes dreamed about protecting Dakota and thus winning her affections forever, dreams which mostly involved punching that asshole coworker of hers that moved here from Boston....Javi looked at that spiraling antlers, red in the moonlight, and he ran.

He stumbled over the lantern, kicked it with his foot. The light shattered. Bursts of light flared and dimmed. Dakota was on her feet now, lips drawn into a hard line. The light around her buzzed and died, and then there was only the forest in Javi's view. He tripped and fell and scrambled on down the moonlit trail.

The woods snarled behind him, and suddenly, suddenly there was a hound behind him, a tremendous animal of dark fur and haunted orange eyes. Embers rose up from its feet. It was gaining on him, howling and snarling and always gaining on him as he burst onto trailhead and into the road. And God, where was the car? Where had he parked his car?

A sharp, low whistle cut through his thoughts. The hound's footsteps skidded across the gravel. Had it stopped? he wondered in what little space there was left for thought. But he kept running, running until there were no other sounds but his blood in his ears and the ragged heaving breaths he blew as he hurled himself into the passenger seat of his jeep, scrambled over to the driver's side and drove off. His hands were so jittery he crashed it a mile down the road. He tried to find his cellphone, where had he left it, where had he left it?

And then in the shattered, crooked review mirror he saw one horse after another come crashing through the woods. The hound was with them. He could only crouch low in the seat as hooves crashed over the sound of a hissing radiator, paused at his car door for what felt like an hour, and finally carried on into the night.

His cell had fallen down beside the brake pedal. When he felt safe, Javi fished it out and dialed the police.

The end.

This is a prequel to my recently completed story, Hunted! Please feel free to check it out if you haven't!

Overwinter will be continued next~