Hard and Fast (Fast Track #2)(45)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Standing with his hands on his hips, he raised his eyebrows. “Why the hell would that matter?”

Just the thought had her crossing her arms over her br**sts. “I would be naked! What if there’s a bear or a deer or something watching?”

Ty started laughing. “Do you think the bear’s going to videotape you and put it up on the Internet? They’re animals, they don’t know the difference between you naked and you wearing a prom dress.”

It did sound irrational when he put it that way, but she had never changed outside in her entire life and the concept was foreign and disconcerting. “I’m changing in the tent,” she told him, standing up. “And I may just come out wearing a prom dress, smart-ass.”

He laughed harder. “I would love to see that.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she assured him, reaching for her backpack. “I was gawky and nerdy in high school and my dress was this horrible cotton candy blue that my mother picked out. It washed my skin tone out and I looked like I’d just had the flu for a month. My date went with me under the pressure of his best friend, who was going with my best friend, and he ignored me all night until he got drunk then tried to grope me. I gave him a shove and he threw up in the cab.”

“Wow. Sounds like a blast.”

“Not so much.” Imogen walked toward the tent. “How was your prom?”

“Actually, it was a good time. I took this girl Mindy. Real sweet and cute. And according to locker room gossip, a sure thing.”

Imogen paused on her way into the tent, and glanced back at him from her hunched-over position. “Was she?”

Ty winked. “Oh, yeah. Why do you think I had such a good time?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Guys devote so much time and energy to the pursuit of sex it’s a wonder they accomplish anything.”

“And explain how exactly girls are different?” Ty sat down on the rock and yanked his boots off. “How many times have you thought about sex today?”

“Hardly at all,” Imogen said. Ty had taken off his socks and he was removing his jeans, leaving him in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. Clearly the thought of a bear seeing him in the buff wasn’t a concern for him. “Okay, that’s not accurate,” she admitted, because she never could lie. “I’ve pretty much been preoccupied with sex since the moment I woke up.”

He smiled. “I like that you’re honest about it.”

Then he removed his T-shirt and his boxer shorts and was standing there in the clearing 100 percent naked. Imogen’s mouth watered and she had a sudden flashback to the feel of him inside her on the trail, her backpack against the tree trunk, her jeans partially down, his urgent thrusting inside her. She swallowed hard as her eyes raced across his hard, muscular body.

Ty pulled on his swim trunks and said, “What are you waiting for, Emma Jean? We’re burning daylight here.”

The look on his face told her he clearly knew what she had been doing and he was enjoying it.

“Don’t come into the tent,” she warned him. “If you do, we’ll never end up fishing.”

A squirrel had hopped onto the rock next to Ty and he turned to the furry creature and said, “Does she really think I care that much about fishing?”

“You’d better care. Or why else am I enduring it?”

“She’s got me there,” Ty told the squirrel.

The animal dropped his nut and ran away, and Imogen retreated into the musty, damp tent to change and try to work up some enthusiasm for dropping a wire into the water and waiting for a fish to hook himself onto it. Just the thought made her lip curl.

Maybe she should have just lured Ty into the tent after all.

IMOGEN was sitting next to Ty on the seat of the rowboat, diligently following his instructions as he showed her how to cast her line and how to reel it in. Ty liked that even though she clearly wasn’t comfortable with being in the boat or casting the line, she was willing to try it.

She was chewing her lip rather industriously as she practiced with her rod. “Damn it,” she said when her line got no farther than the floor of the boat, hooking the rubber of her boot.

“You’re getting it,” he told her, releasing the hook so she wouldn’t attempt it herself and manage to impale her finger with the sharp end. “Try again.”

She did, and this time her line sailed and dropped nicely into the water.

“Good one.”

“I did it.” She smiled. “Well, you learn something new every day, don’t you?”

“That’s the hope,” he told her. “And even if you don’t, you know what they say—every day aboveground is a good one.”

Imogen gave a startled laugh. “That’s rather macabre, yet drives home a crucial point.”

What she said. Ty grinned at her, fascinated as he always was by Imogen’s speech patterns. There was something damn adorable about when she slipped into her thinking mode.

“Reel your line back in. You need a worm on it now for this to work.”

“Oh, I guess I don’t have a worm, do I? Maybe I should have put one on before I threw this perfect arch. I might have caught seven fish by now.”

“Not likely.” And he was further amused because he was starting to recognize that when Imogen was enjoying herself, she got flippant. “But it’s possible, and I take complete responsibility for that missed opportunity.”

Imogen reeled her line in and Ty took the lid off the Styrofoam cup holding the bait and held it out to her. “Pick your worm.”

Most of the women he had dated in the past would have squealed and protested and insisted he do it for them. Aware that he just might be testing Imogen, he waited for her response.

“Just grab any one I want?”

“Yep. I’ll show you how to put it on the hook.”

“Okay.” Imogen frowned in concentration. “This one looks appropriately plump and enticing to . . . What kind of fish are in this lake?”

Ty felt the corners of his mouth turning up. So far, she was passing the test. “Uh . . . crappie, bluegill, and yellow perch, and a couple varieties of bass.”

“Crappie? I don’t want to catch one of those.” Imogen put her fingers into the cup and gingerly removed a worm. “This is a bass-catching worm, I’m certain of it.”

“Absolutely. It’s written all over him.” Ty plucked a worm out for himself and showed Imogen how to put it on the hook. “See? That’s it. Just watch your fingers.”