A Thrill To Remember. Lori Wilde

      “Wrap up your plate,” he said, barely remembering to keep up his Spanish accent. “Take it to go. We’ll have a picnic in the forest.”

      “The forest?” Her eyes widened and for a moment he thought he’d panicked her and she was going to back out of their little masquerade.

      “Twenty yards right outside this door, and you’re in the Tongass National Forest.”

      “You don’t say.”

      He waited. “Well?”

      “I don’t think I’m really in the mood for food,” she murmured.

      “No?”

      “My appetite is of a different nature.”

      Caleb thought he was going to break out in a sweat right then and there. “Mine as well.”

      “You go on ahead.” She cast a surreptitious glance around the room and settled her plate on an empty table. “And I will follow. One can never be too careful. There might be spies.”

      “Spies?” He knew this was just part of her charade, but damn if he wasn’t turned on by the thought of being observed. “Who is watching us?”

      “Why, any number of your women, or my men.” She winked. “We must keep our clandestine affair secret. No sense making our other lovers jealous.”

      Caleb gulped.

      Potential scenarios tumbled through his head, each more stimulating than the next. He was cast iron hard, and the leather pants did nothing to arrest his arousal. All she had to do was glance down and she would know his every illicit thought.

      “Go,” she urged in an imperative whisper that charged his libido. “Hurry, before we are spotted. I will meet you in the forest. Wait for me.”

      She pressed her hand to his forearm, setting off monster ripples of sensation straight up his shoulder and into his chest, to his belly and beyond—a tautness, an electrical impulse, a dynamic combustion that made it difficult to string two words together.

      “Don’t stand me up,” he growled.

      “I won’t. Now just go.” She pushed him toward the front door.

      Then, before he could respond, she turned and disappeared out the side exit adjacent to the stage.

      Caleb had never done anything like this before—scheduled an amorous rendezvous with a woman he did not know and might never meet again. He was by nature a quiet, solitary man guided more by his brains than his body or his heart. But ever since putting on that Don Juan costume, he’d been transformed.

      Tonight he was different.

      And so was she.

      Caleb sensed this was as much an erotic adventure for the mysterious Klondike Kate as it was for him, and he was bound and determined to make it a night neither of them would ever forget.

      3

      WHAT IN THE HELL had she just done?

      Had she gone completely mental? Could the stress of the past six months have caused her to take leave of her senses and chase after the first man who showed her some attention? So what if Don Juan was sexy and handsome as Hades, and apparently more than willing to indulge in flirtatious games? None of this explained her uncharacteristic behavior.

      Her brain squawked, telling her how foolish she was to take such a chance, but a tiny voice in the back of her head whispered, “Seize the moment. For once in your life, Megan Marie Scofield, live a little.”

      Then again, maybe her real motivation was more of a compulsion than any sincere desire to take charge of her life. From the moment she’d spied him lounging so lawlessly against the wall, she’d felt…well, something special.

      As she picked her way through the forest in the twilight, her condom-filled clutch purse tucked beneath her arm, Don Juan’s cape flapping about her shoulders, her heart rate thudded faster and faster, headed straight for the danger zone. Still, she couldn’t seem to make herself turn around and go back to the party.

      She was like a songbird unaware it had been caged until one day the door was left open and the opportunity to fly presented itself. Should she take wing and explore the brave new world extending before her? Or stay safely hunched on her perch, watching life pass her by?

      The answer wasn’t difficult, even to her conflicted brain. Don Juan was simply too exciting, and too good-looking, the prospect of making love with him far too sweet to be denied.

      Besides, when was the last time she had been so sexually aroused? Never? Ever? Could he actually teach her to let go of her hang-ups in bed? She owed it to herself to find out.

      Her shoes bogged in the mossy carpet of undergrowth beneath the towering hemlocks and swaying Sitka spruces. She was glad she’d taken the time to change into the sensible footwear she kept stashed in the trunk of her car.

      A blueberry bush, devoid now of its berry harvest, grazed her leg, startling her. The air was heavy with moisture and she heard nothing beyond the gurgling creek and the faint hmm of voices and music from the party she’d left behind.

      Oh dear. Where was Don Juan? She had expected him to stay close to the perimeters of the forest, where she could find him easily.

      “Come.”

      She heard the whisper, low and seductive. She wasn’t certain from which direction it originated.

      He was concealing himself from her, ratcheting the game up a notch.

      Meggie bit down on her bottom lip, tasted the opulent flavor of her own lust. She was nervous, confused, curious and extremely turned on.

      What was going to happen next?

      “Don Juan?” She heard a faint rustling in the trees, then nothing more.

      In the phantom of rapidly dwindling daylight, she walked through the forest, pushing back vegetation, stepping gingerly over tree roots, eager not to fall and sprain her ankle. A sprained ankle would definitely blow the moment.

      And the last thing she wanted was a dose of reality. She wanted to escape, as she had of late in the pages of fantasy romance novels. What she longed for was to disappear in this dreamy netherworld. She could easily envisage unicorns and fairies, woodland sprites playing flutes and dancing around magic toadstools. She ached for a pretend world of virginal maidens, stalwart knights and deep, undying passion.

      Her friends had regaled her with their own tales of acute throbbing desire. Of lust at first sight. Of being drawn helplessly into earthly pleasures beyond emotional control. She’d never really believed those stories, even though she had desperately wanted to. Hadn’t known such intensity of physical feeling was possible.

      Until now.

      She stopped walking.

      He’d been here. On this path. Right where she was standing. She could smell him. As individual as a fingerprint, his scent hung in her nostrils like a primal memory.

      A faint fear, tinged with escalating anticipation, pinched her solar plexus in a dazzling heat that hastened her footsteps and sent her heart staggering headlong into a restless, thrashing rhythm.

      Another step deeper into the gloaming. Another and then another.

      Twigs crunched beneath her feet. A fingered fern crept across her ankle. A bubble of fear caused her to jump, and then laugh at her own spooked state.

      Nothing to be afraid of. She was in control of the situation. She wasn’t little Red Riding Hood evading the Big, Bad Wolf. She could turn if she wished and go back to the party. Nothing was keeping her here except her own inquisitiveness and her escalating imagination.

      Walking up a slight embankment, she glanced left and then right, saw only the tall, thin thrust of tree trunks and the full orange moon rising over the horizon.

      Was