Hard and Fast (Fast Track #2)(47)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Imogen beamed at him. “I caught a fish. Wow. I can’t wait to tell my mother. She’ll never believe me.”

“What’s your mother like?”

“She’s like me, actually. Logical, boring. She owns an art gallery.”

Somehow that didn’t surprise him. He knew the world of art galleries and traffic and fine dining was Imogen’s home, but sometimes he had a hard time swallowing it. While she had big-city polish, she also had small-town curiosity.

“Babe, there is nothing boring about you at all.” He meant that straight up. She entertained him every second she was with him.

“Thanks.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “So do we keep fishing? Is there a goal in mind for the number of fish we want?”

His goal had simply been to relax and introduce Imogen to something he enjoyed, nothing more. “Nope. In fact, I’m thinking we should jump in and go swimming. I didn’t bring these inner tubes with us to let them go to waste.” Ty shucked off his T-shirt. “You ever been tubing?”

“I don’t even know what it is, so I don’t imagine I’ve done it.”

“I don’t know,” Ty said with a grin. “Sometimes you do things without knowing they have a name, and then you find out that the thing that gives you so much fun and pleasure is actually called something.”

She shot him a suspicious look. “You’re talking about sex again, aren’t you?”

Ty touched his chest. “Did I mention sex? I think you have a dirty mind, girl.”

“Probably,” she said. “Because right now I’m wishing we were back in the tent instead of in this wobbly boat.”

That made him grin and go hard, all at once. “Don’t worry, we can make something work.” He tossed the two tubes he’d brought with them into the lake and glanced around. They hadn’t seen anyone in the whole hour they’d been out on the water, which was a good thing. “Now we just jump in.”

Ty stood up and dove into the water, hearing Imogen shriek behind him when the boat rocked. He hit the water in an arc and came back up to see Imogen gripping the sides of the rowboat. “Come on in, the water’s nice.”

“It’s October, you know. Isn’t the water cold?”

“Nah. It’s over eighty degrees outside, the sun is shining. If this was spring, it might be chilly, but the water holds its temperature in the fall.” It was a little brisk, but he wasn’t going to admit that. Ty paddled over to an inner tube and climbed into it. He sank in and relaxed. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“That’s tubing? You just lie in a black rubber doughnut?”

“Well, I guess technically tubing is moving down a river in your inner tube, but we’ve got a lake, not a river.”

Ty dipped his fingers in the water and flicked some in Imogen’s direction. It hit her on the arm and she stared at it like it was acid.

“Hey. Watch it.”

He did it again.

She was fighting the urge to laugh, he could tell. But she didn’t say anything, just carefully took off her glasses and tucked them in the pocket of her jeans. She stripped off her T-shirt, revealing a whole lot of Imogen in a tiny black bikini. He wasn’t sure why, but he wouldn’t have taken her for the string bikini type, but it was barely there, and he was thoroughly grateful. She stood up cautiously, back hunched over, clearly not even aware of the power she could wield over him posing in that bikini.

Instead, she pinched her nose shut with her fingers, which he found absolutely adorable. Then she jumped, feetfirst, in the most ungraceful, sinking-stone leap Ty had ever seen, covering him with water from head to toe from the massive splash.

He was shaking his head like a dog to rid his hair and eyelashes of the water when she emerged coughing and shivering.

“Oh, my God, it’s freezing! You’re a big fat liar.” Imogen treaded water and swiped at her eyes. “Did I splash you?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m soaking wet.”

“Good.” She grinned. “You deserve it.” She swam over to the second tube and tried to pull herself onto it awkwardly, with two failed attempts that had her bottom wiggling two feet away from his face.

“Need some help?” Ty contemplated swatting her wet, bikini-covered bottom, but figured that would send her face-first into the water. Imogen wasn’t exactly a natural-born athlete.

“I got it,” she said breathlessly, slipping back into the water and assessing the tube from all angles with her head tilted.

“Get in the middle,” he suggested. “Then just pull yourself up.”

She lifted it over her head, put her arms on either side, and tried to haul herself up. She immediately sank back into the water. “Huh,” she lamented. “Guess I need better arm strength.”

“Come here.” Ty tugged on her tube, pulling her over to him. He leaned over. “Put your arms back up.”

She did, and he caught her around the middle and lifted. “Bring your legs up,” he ordered, but she overshot the mark and sent them both tumbling backward into the water.

“Oops, sorry,” she said, squeezing water out of her ponytail and giving him a sheepish look.

“Not a problem unless you did it on purpose. Then I might have to punish you.”

“I didn’t.” Which he knew, but it amused him to see her vehemently shaking her head. “I’m just a klutz.”

Ty hopped back on his tube and said, “Let’s try this again. Come closer so I can lift you up by your arms.”

Imogen treaded water in front of him, but didn’t comply. “I’m not sure I should get closer. Are you going to punish me?”

The way she said that—her eager, throaty voice immediately shifting the exchange from playful to sensual—had Ty grinding his teeth to keep from groaning out loud. “Do you need to be punished? Have you been bad? Did you knock me into the water on purpose?”

She shook her head quickly, but she didn’t answer. Her mouth was open, eyes wide, her finger trailing across her bottom lip in a way that told Ty she wasn’t kidding when she’d said she’d rather be in the tent. She was regretting that they’d been interrupted on the trail and was looking for him to finish the job.

Damn, she turned him on, made him hot and hard and demanding.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said. “Now get over here and lift up your arms before I have to come and get you.”