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“I told you she would know it was us,” Noa says through a laugh.

“Where is Leni?” I demand.

“In her dorm,” Noa reveals from somewhere beside me. “Eating pizza and counting her money after the best performance of her life.”

Tears prickle behind my eyes. “I thought she was out here alone.”

I’m lowered to the ground, but the bag over my head stays on.

“What is a fear that cannot be outrun?” Cave murmurs beside my ear.

I’m shaking, but I know what this is: the Harvest Moon is all about facing your deepest, darkest fears.

“Losing the people I love.”

“She is safe, you are ours, and nothing on the island touches what is ours,” Cipher says, and I love how much bolder he becomes around me. They know my fears; I have a file in Nixie’s drawer just like everyone else. My biggest fear is losing the people I love, and I don’t know if I could handle it a second time.

“Color,” Cipher says, his thumb moving across my wrist, checking my pulse.

I could end it all now. There is always a way out on the island; they don’t want to trap you if you don’t want to be here. My heart is pounding in my chest, but the panic has gone while the adrenaline remains.

“Green,” I pant. “Don’t you dare stop.”

“Oh, thank god. The debrief would have been so awkward tomorrow.”

“Noa,” I whine.

“Shutting up now,” he says with a laugh.

Their hands touch me everywhere, removing my boots and undoing the buttons on my work shirt. They remove all my clothes, not that I’m worried about being out in the open, as I know they would never expose me like that. I place all my trust in them. Once I’m naked, they continue to run their hands over my body.

“The blindfold,” Cipher says, even though we all know it’s a bag over my head. “It stays or goes—your call.”

Being unable to see when you think someone is kidnapping you inspires pure terror, but when you know you’re safe and your men have their hands on you, it sparks every nerve ending alive. There is no way I would miss this.

“Stay.”

The wind moves over my bare skin, and so do their mouths. The bag is moved upward, so now it’s just covering my eyes, and instantly I know it’s Cave’s lips touching mine.

Noa’s lips drag down my stomach, and he narrates as he goes. “Gorgeous, just look at you. Best night of my life, and once I found a coffin full of whiskey.”

Cipher’s mouth closes over my breast, and I arch up off the grass, splayed out between the three of them, unable to tell whose hands are whose.

Noa’s head keeps going lower, and he stops narrating when his tongue slides through my slickness.

My hips jerk and Cave’s arm pins me down as Noa works me over. He doesn’t ease up on me, licking and sucking like his life depends on it until I come embarrassingly fast.

“One,” Noa says smugly from between my thighs.

Cipher gathers me into his lap, my back to his chest, then takes his time sliding his fingers inside me while his mouth moves on my neck.

“I used to think I understood how things worked,” he whispers. “I would take them apart to see what they did.” His fingers curl and my thighs shake against his, the trinkets on his jacket pressing into my back. “But you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I didn’t have to fix you. You just walked in, utterly perfect, and you’re mine. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

His thumb finds my clit, and my head falls back against his shoulder as he turns his mouth to my ear. “I get to wake up next to you. I get to be one of the men who loves you. Come for me, Valli. I want to feel how lucky I am.”

And I fall apart on his hand, with his name spilling from my lips and his arm locked around me, his heartbeat hammering against my spine.

The bag is pulled from my head, and I see Cave, fire blazing in his eyes. He lifts me off Cipher and lays me back on the grass, while Noa and Cipher move to my sides. They each take one of my hands as Cave undresses, then his weight comes down over me.