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She flicked through the book to the pages she’d dog-eared during the many breaks she’d taken, to give her unconditioned legs some downtime in between the more strenuous climbs. She studied the pictures. Then lifted the binoculars again. Surely it was an eagle? Wasn’t it too big to be a hawk?
Her heart beat a giddy tattoo as the bird swooped straight down into the waves, then climbed again with a small silver fish clamped in its beak. As it skimmed above the surface of the water, carrying its prey back to its nest, she followed its progress, marvelling at its speed and dexterity, but then she saw it fly over something in the water.
For one moment she thought it might be a seal, but then the dark shape ploughing through the waves morphed into something sleeker and more defined.
A swimmer in a wetsuit.
Luke.
She focussed the binoculars on him, her gaze fixed on the solitary figure, and all the thoughts she’d been keeping so carefully at bay during her gruelling hike flooded back.
He seemed oblivious to the violent action of the waves as he moved towards the shore, battling against the retreating tide, each tumble of surf dragging him back out to sea. He kept heading in the same direction, unfazed, uncompromising, ruthless, resilient and totally focussed on his goal.
Was he in danger? What if he was drowning and she was just watching?
The visceral fear faded, though, before she had a chance to act on it, as he found his footing and stood in thigh-deep water.
Her heart pulsed hard as she thought of the sixteen-year-old boy, left alone but unafraid. Determined to survive and make a staggering success of his life, despite what must have been impossible odds.
The tide continued to buffet him as he made his way through the rolling waves, but he seemed oblivious to its energy, arriving on the sand moments later undaunted. His dark hair lay plastered to his head, curling slightly around his neck, and his tanned face was burnished by the sun as he stood with his legs apart, his hands fisted on his hips, the clinging suit creating a powerful silhouette. He closed his eyes to tilt his head back and the sun gilded his features once more, making him for one fanciful moment look like a sea god, confident in his ability to command the ocean and win.
Cassie’s breathing slowed, and then accelerated as relief that he was okay, that he was safe, sent a well of emotion through her tired body.
He looked magnificent. Powerful and intimidating in his masculine beauty. The yearning which was never far away flowed through her again. The same giddy exhilaration which had blindsided her in San Francisco was somehow more intense now, and even more overwhelming—despite twenty-four hours of avoidance and several more hours of his disapproval.
He shifted, twisting his arm up his back to grab the strap which dangled down. He tugged the zip tab to peel off the wetsuit.
Look away. Look away now.
She was invading his privacy—and only making the agitation she’d been trying to control the last couple of days worse again. But she couldn’t seem to force herself to lower the binoculars...couldn’t stop looking.
Her gaze was riveted to the taut contours of muscle and sinew as he freed his arms from the suit. She absorbed every inch of exposed skin, her fingers trembling as they tightened on the binoculars. She studied the curls of hair around his nipples that meandered in a line through his abs. She didn’t move—couldn’t move—as he shoved the wetsuit off his hips and down his legs. Her gaze clung to the tensed muscles of his flanks, sprinkled with hair, then honed in on the dark thicket at his groin. The tattoo which curved over his hip pointed her to his sex, which hung limp but still looked remarkably impressive despite his cold swim.
A hot weight sank like a fireball between her tired thighs and made her own sex throb.
But it wasn’t just the memory of their intense physical connection that first night which had her throat thickening.
It was the memories of the man she had met in San Francisco—playful, demanding, flirtatious, so into her before he’d turned against her. The man who had wanted her as desperately as she’d wanted him. Who hadn’t judged her, hadn’t despised her.
Why did her throat hurt so much as she remembered that man now? The man she’d thought she’d glimpsed again when he’d offered to teach her how to make Jambalaya and had shared things she never would have expected him to share with her?
Why should she still be moved by that man when she wasn’t even sure he was real?
Kicking the suit away, Luke picked up a towel resting on a piece of driftwood and began to dry himself. Still Cassie watched, unable to deny herself the pleasure and the pain of those memories and the glorious sight of her first lover.
The fact that Luke Broussard would always be her first lover shouldn’t really have any great significance. That was what she’d told herself at the time. What she still wanted to believe. But how could it not?
She swallowed, aware of raw desire and the sting of tears. She had to stop looking—had to walk away. She had a long trek back to the house and she needed to get there before he did and get a grip on her wayward emotions. Which really made no sense whatsoever. What had happened between them that first night wasn’t going to happen again. He’d made that abundantly clear. And anyway she didn’t want it to happen again.
Did she?
Hadn’t the emotional fallout from that mistake already been devastating enough?
But just as she made the decision to stop looking his head jerked up, his gaze locking on the exact spot where she stood. For a second she stood frozen, still staring back at him through the binoculars. Caught. Trapped. Unable to escape from that hard, magnetic gaze. Then she lowered the binoculars and scrambled back, snapped out of her trance by panic and guilty knowledge.
She hid for a few precious seconds, long enough to get her breath back, before she finally she got up the guts to take another look.
The spurt of terror and guilt—and adrenaline—faded as she watched him head to a pile of clothing and dress himself with slow deliberation. Without the binoculars he was little more than a speck on the landscape... He couldn’t possibly have spotted her all the way up here, unless he had better eyesight than the eagle.
