One Unforgettable Night: Wild at Heart / From This Moment On / Her Last Best Fling

Once he reached the platform, he was struck again by the spectacular view. This platform would be an awesome place to watch the sunset. He’d keep that in mind for later.

She glanced over at him, her color high. “Here.” She took off her binoculars. “Take a look.”

“Thanks.” He accepted the binoculars, but he couldn’t resist cupping the back of her head and giving her a quick kiss. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She sounded breathless.

That was good. She would be even more breathless before long. Adrenaline rushed through his veins. Eagles and a hot woman. What could be better than that?

“I think the nestlings have grown a little.” She came to stand next to him. “Tell me what you think.”

With her standing so close and radiating warmth and the tantalizing scent of arousal, he couldn’t think very well at all. But he made a valiant attempt. Lifting the binoculars, he focused on the nest.

To his surprise, he did notice a difference, even if it was slight. “They’re growing, especially the bully. Look at that little sucker, shoving the other one out of the way. C’mon, you. Let the little one have some food.”

She chuckled. “So you root for the underdog?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” Between having her right beside him and the incredible view of the eagles, he was on sensory overload.

“Humans often do. We’re at the top of the food chain, so we can afford to worry about the weak link. Wild animals don’t always have that luxury.”

“Good point.” Luke desperately wanted to slide one arm around her and pull her close, but he knew what that would lead to. Once he touched her, there would be no eagle watching going on.

“Most of the time they’re focused on survival.” Naomi sighed. “They’re so vulnerable.”

“You mean the babies?”

“And the parents.”

He focused on the sharp beaks and strong talons of the male and female eagles. “They look so powerful.”

“I know. But all it takes is a shortage of food, or a car windshield, or an electrical wire, or a gun. We nearly wiped them out.”

“Thank God we didn’t. Now people are into watching them instead of shooting them.”

“Which means I’m employed. That reminds me that I need to make some notes. Can you keep track of the feeding session and report what’s happening while I type?”

“Sure.” He missed her warmth the second she moved away to sit at her folding table, but he couldn’t forget that she had a job to do. That’s why he’d planned to stay overnight. She wouldn’t be watching the eagles once darkness fell.

He hoped she’d go along with the plan. Now that he thought about it, he wondered if he should have checked with her first. They’d been hot for each other last night, and he was still burning, but she might have cooled down since then.

Well, he’d find out soon enough. In the meantime, he’d act as her research assistant, which wasn’t a bad deal. In fact, he considered it a privilege to be involved, even a little bit, in her work.

“After they leave the nest, will you have any way of tracking what happens to them?”

The steady click of the keys stopped for a moment. “No. I won’t be banding them. It’s too invasive.”

“I agree.” He went back to describing the movements of the eagles, and she continued to type.

Then she paused again. “I take it you got the afternoon off?”

“Yes, I did. Okay, it looks like the father is getting ready to leave the nest.”

She started typing again. “When do you have to go back?” The keys clicked rhythmically.

“Tomorrow morning.”

Her typing came to an abrupt halt.

Although his back was to her, he swore he could feel the intensity of her stare. Suddenly it seemed several degrees warmer on the platform. “If that’s okay with you.”

Behind him, the laptop closed with a soft snap.

“I won’t interfere with your work.” Lowering the binoculars, he turned around, hoping he hadn’t misjudged, hoping he would find…Yes. The same emotion sizzling in his veins heated her blue gaze. His pulse hammered as he held that gaze.

Slowly she stood. When she drew in a breath, her body quivered. “Interfere with my work.” She stepped out from behind the small table. “Please.”

6 (#ucac4a8a1-7841-5598-815e-8eccc658dbec)

EVER SINCE LUKE had come charging toward her across the meadow, Naomi had felt like a shaken bottle of champagne ready to blow at any second. Intellectually she’d known that leaping from his horse and scaling the platform would be silly, but her romantic heart had wanted him to do that all the same. She’d wanted to be taken in a mad rush of passion that gave her no time to think.

But he’d taken freaking forever to deal with his horse, which was a good thing but didn’t scream eagerness on his part. So she’d concluded he was here as much to see the eagles as to see her, especially after he’d mentioned them before he’d ridden over to the campsite.

But now…now he looked the way she felt. His throat moved in a quick swallow. “How sturdy is this platform, anyway?”

Her heart rate climbed. “Sturdy enough, but—” She thought of the logistics. Both of them were wearing complicated clothing.

“Right. We’re both way overdressed for this.”

“We are.” She thought longingly of her transparent nightgown and the entrance she could make if they were in a hotel room instead of on a wooden platform twenty feet above the ground. Instead she wore extremely unsexy hiking shorts, a T-shirt and, most problematic of all, hiking boots.

No man should be forced to remove his lover’s lace-up hiking boots before they had sex. So that meant she needed to undress herself. Then she thought of what fun it would be to watch Luke strip down right here on her observation platform. Anybody could make a luxury suite seem seductive, but how many people could say they’d had sex in a tree?

She turned and grabbed her camp stool. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to slip into something more comfortable.”

A slow smile made him look even more breathtakingly handsome. He took off his hat and laid it brim-side up on the platform. “I knew we were going to get along.”

“That’s a different hat.” She unlaced her boot and pulled it off along with her sock.

“Sarah’s going to see what she can do with the other one.” He unsnapped his cuffs as he watched her pull off her other boot. “But if you ask me, one ruined hat is a small price to pay.”

Her body tingled from the gleam in his eyes. “You don’t know that yet.”

“Yes, I do.” He unsnapped his shirt.

“I might be lousy at sex.”

He laughed.