Instant Temptation (10 page)

He reached for a branch above his head, using it to pull himself up with what appeared to be no effort at all. His T-shirt clung to all those flexing and bunching muscles as he straightened to a stand on the branch. He tested the branch above him, his jeans going tight and snug over his very fine ass.

“Here,” he said, crouching low again to hold out his hand for the baby bird, and caught her red-handed staring at his hind end.

He said nothing but did raise a brow at her.

She shrugged, but figured apologizing was a waste of breath. Besides, he’d ogled her in her wet shirt plenty. Fair was fair. She set the birdie in his palm and watched in awe and not a little bit of envy as he gently settled the little bird back into the nest. In thanks, the mom viciously pecked at him.

He pulled his hand back quickly, chuckling as he lithely leapt to the ground. “I don’t think she liked me much.”

Harley took his hand and looked at the blood welling from the new hole between two of his knuckles.

“Ouch.”

“It’s okay.” He gestured to her to precede him back through the bush to the trail, where they’d left their packs. She started to open hers to look for her first-aid kit but he already had his out. “It’s real y nothing,” he said. “Just want to make sure it’s clean.”

She took the kit from him. Since they didn’t have running water, she took his hand in hers and used an antiseptic spray. They both had their heads bent over their joined hands, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her jaw. Looking up into his eyes, she winced for him. “Hurt?”

“Nah.”

She smiled softly. “Now who’s the liar.”

Then she lifted his hand to her mouth and still holding his gaze, softly blew on the wound.

His eyes smoldered.

Later Harley would think she had no idea what the hell came over her, but she blew again, and he appeared to stop breathing. “If you’re doing that on purpose,” he said softly, his voice pure silk, “you should know, paybacks are a bitch.”

Next, she dabbed antibiotic ointment on the wound, then covered it with a Band-Aid, struggling with her conflicting emotions over him. The need to run far and fast—versus the need to crawl up his body.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally said, innocently.

He let her get away with that. Or so she thought, but when she turned to walk off, he snagged her, pulling her back against him. “Are we playing, Harley?” he asked, his mouth against her ear.

She could feel him, hard and warm at her back. Were they playing? Tilting her head up, she looked into his eyes, dark and heated.

“Is that question going to take you awhile?” he asked, mouth slightly curved.

“The question’s going to have to wait, since we’re losing valuable daylight.”

His slight smirk said he recognized a diversion tactic when he saw one, but he let her have it.

They had two hours left, she figured. She set the pace, and they walked in silence—which didn’t mean she couldn’t feel the weight of his thoughts, because she could. But he kept them to himself. It shouldn’t have made her like him even more, but it did.

An hour later, they cleared a ridge and came to a stop while Harley consulted her maps and GPS.

“There,” she said, pointing to the next ridge over. “That’s where the first camera is.”

“Where did you plan on staying tonight?”

“There, or as close as we can get to it before dark.”

From where they stood at the cliff, they were overlooking a wide meadow, which was abundant with plant and small animal life that her coyotes depended on for food. Some large elk were grazing, their impressive antlers glinting in the waning light. It would take an entire family of coyotes to bring down one of those beauties. “I’m hoping to get a visual on some of the tagged coyotes,” she said, “if they show themselves. According to their trackers, most of the red group is in this area. There’s six in their pack and—” She paused. “Listen,” she said as the telltale buzzing of flies sank in, along with a sudden dread.

Stomach dropping, she followed the sound to a cluster of trees. At the base of one was a large burrowed hole in the ground, reinforced with a fallen log. A coyote den. Lying just inside was a far too still ball of fur. With an involuntary gasp, Harley crawled closer. “Oh, no.”

TJ dropped to his knees beside her and leaned in to look at the coyote. His expression was grim when he sat back on his heels.

“Dead,” she murmured.

“Not just dead.” He looked at her, jaw tight. “Shot.”

Her stomach dropped, but she brushed past TJ to look for herself, and felt her heart squeeze when she caught sight of the tag. Red. The coyote had been one of theirs. Throat burning, Harley consulted her GPS and her maps, and shook her head. “She was right where she should have been. She just got in some asshole’s way.”

TJ covered the mouth of the den with large rocks, making it a grave so that other animals couldn’t get to it, but also marking the spot so that Harley could lead the authorities up there if she had to.

TJ called it in to the forest service, and then Harley worked on pulling herself together with sheer will as they hiked to the next ridge.

It was a challenging hike, and got more challenging as they climbed. The air was thin, and they were surrounded by peaks that had been formed more than 30,000 years ago beneath ice sheets and snowfields. Back then, the ice had piled more than 5,000 feet deep in places, and as it’d retreated, the meltwater had forced glacial troughs, forming the harsh peaks and outcroppings, creating a rugged, isolated, unfriendly land.

For humans.

But wildlife tended to thrive there. Especially coyotes—at least when no one was shooting at them. Proving it, Harley watched as a group of them moved as one through the meadow far below, bounding through the tall grass calling and yipping to each other.

She pulled out her camera and lost herself for long moments, taking pictures with her wide lens. The moist air rode out on southeasterly winds. Clouds were still sifting trough the trees like wood smoke. The weak sun hung as low as possible in the sky, seeming to perch precariously at the horizon line for a beat, then sank down in a blaze of glory. After that…utter darkness.

In that darkness, the air was heavy with humidity from the storm and fragrant with late autumn wildflowers and pine. It was gorgeous, and Harley felt a rush of excitement and adrenaline from all of it, the moon-streaked landscape, the wildlife’s natural music.

The company.

“What now?” TJ asked when she’d put her camera away.

“Make camp.” Which was really his expertise, not hers. She felt a little nervous pulling it off in front of his watchful eyes, but he’d let her lead all day long, and didn’t seem in any hurry to take over.

She knew that was out of deference to her, that he wanted this to be her gig as much as she wanted it for herself. She appreciated it, more than he could know. Being out there, being in control and in charge, had fueled her soul in a way she hadn’t expected.

Even with the unexpected emotional trip down Memory Lane, and finding the dead coyote.

Standing in the clearing where she’d planned on staying the night, TJ shook his head, pointing to signs of a recent campfire. She stared at it, wondering if whoever had shot that coyote had camped there.

Beneath the ambient moonlight, he took her hand. “Not here.”

“A little higher?”

“Definitely.” He squeezed her hand. “I’d like our backs up against the mountain and a good view in front of us.”

She nodded, and for the first time all day, let him lead, which he did with expected efficiency, using his Maglite. He moved them along as fast as they could go in the dark, and in less than ten minutes, he’d found a better spot. It was higher and, as he’d wanted, had the added advantage of them being able to keep their backs to the wall.

As they stood at the new spot, Harley realized for the first time that they were going to spend the night.

Together.

Her body gave one traitorous little quiver of excitement, which her brain worked hard to shut down, though it wasn’t entirely successful.

It’s not like the last time you spent the night with him, she told herself. For one thing, this time, you’ll be fully dressed.

No getting naked, she repeated to herself several times.

No getting naked.

CHAPTER 8

“Here, where the ground is dry.” TJ used his flashlight to better reveal the spot in the clearing. He dropped his pack on the ground and looked at Harley, who nodded but didn’t speak. She was hugging his jacket to her and seemed pale. He figured it was due to the combination of the shock of finding the dead coyote and being cold and wet. “I’m going to get wood for a fire,” he told her. “You need to change into dry clothes.”

“No,” she said, and pointed to a fallen log. “Sit.”

He arched a brow. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah,” she said toughly, ruining it by shivering. “You’re going to sit. And stay. Just like you told me to stay before.”

“But you didn’t stay.”

“Okay, true,” she said. “But you’ve already walked through a rainstorm, climbed a tree, got a hole pecked into your hand, and dragged rocks for a grave for that coyote, all for me. Hell, you even gave up your warm jacket. So now you’re going to sit and let me do the rest, as I would have done for myself anyway.”

He wanted to argue, wanted to say he could get a fire going in three minutes flat, and that she needed to get warmed up quick. But those things were counterproductive to his plan, which was getting her back to relaxed and enjoying herself. He really wanted that for her, so he obediently sat. “You going to cook for me, too?”

They both knew damn well she could burn water with little to no effort, but she shot him a considering look over her shoulder. “You know what, Mr. Smart-ass?” she murmured. “I think I will.”

Now he paled.

And she smiled.

Another mission accomplished, he thought, but as she turned her back to him to gather kindling for the fire, his smile fell away. Because he…was not relaxed. He had questions, lots of them. Most centering around the little bombshell he couldn’t stop thinking about.

They’d had sex.

Jesus Christ, he’d had sex with Harley, his greatest fantasy come true, and he was too much of an idiot to remember any of it.

Harley came back with a load of twigs and branches in her arms. She kneeled in the center of the clearing and started with the small twigs, graduating up to sticks, crisscrossing them over each other so the hot air would rise through them and help them catch. Then she set a big log on top before she lit the kindling, and he opened his mouth to correct her.

But she was frowning, concentrating deeply, and muttering to herself as she worked, looking frustrated and chilled, and so fucking adorable he shut his mouth.

He’d had her. Naked. Beneath him.

And he didn’t remember.

Yeah. That was going to haunt him for a damn long time to come.

In spite of not letting the kindling catch fire before she put the big hunk of wet wood on it, the fire actually smoked and flickered. He watched as she kneeled there in the dirt over the small flame, blowing on it, babying it along with soft coaxing murmurs that cracked him up, and then blowing some more, which didn’t crack him up but made him hard.

“Look,” she said triumphantly, turning to him, catching him staring at her mouth. “I got it.”

“Nicely done.” His voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “You’re going to change now, right?”

She turned back to her fire and watched it proudly.

“Let me rephrase,” he said. “You are going to change now.”

She shot him a look over her shoulder. “I knew you were too alpha to sit there and follow directions for long.”

“I’m not all that al—” He stopped at her get real look. “Fine. Am I allowed to get up and move closer to the warmth?”

She smiled. “Sure.”

Except just then, the fire died.

“Dammit,” she said.

“Maybe you didn’t talk to it enough.”

She shot him a look and he let out a laugh. “It’s not your fault, Harley. Everything’s wet.” He opened his pack and pulled out a bag of Fritos.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Yes, actually, but not for food.” Even in the dark he could feel her blush. “The chips are my emergency fire starters,” he explained.

“Get out.”

“I’m serious. All the grease makes them highly flammable.” Crouching beside her, he removed the big log from her pile, then opened the bag and placed a chip beneath the stacked kindling. He lit a match and set it to the chip, which immediately lit.

“Wow.”

He waited a few moments until the pile was really flaming before he added the log.

“Neat trick,” she said.

He stared at the flames. “It was Sam’s.”

She was quiet a moment. “You learn a lot from her?”

“Yes. But mostly what not to do.” He smiled because the ache from her death had dulled, leaving just good times and good memories. “I loved her, but she was wilder and more reckless than even me.”

She raised a brow, looking amused. “That’s saying a lot.”

“Yeah.” And it’d been the death of her, literally. She’d died due to her own negligence and not being properly prepared for the turbulent waters on the river. She hadn’t been wearing the proper gear, and when she’d hit a rough rapid and gone under, she’d drowned.

For TJ, it’d been a senseless tragedy and an unwelcome wake-up call.

He’d been prepared, maybe overly so, for every single trip since. “She discovered the Frito trick by accident one night,” he said softly, a fond smile curving his mouth. “We were out of food and it’d been raining buckets for days. We had one match left, and one bag of Fritos, which we used to build a fire. Afterwards, starving, we tried to convince ourselves that being warm was better than full, but truthfully it was a toss-up.”

Harley smiled, but reached out and squeezed his hand. “So that trick was hard earned.”

“Yeah.” Leaning back, he looked up at the sky. Perfectly clear now, it was littered with stars like diamonds on a blanket of black velvet. Not a single cloud, which meant no more rain—and boded well for sleeping in the open. “You sure you’re not frozen solid? You really should change.”