by Meg Maguire
“Oh, cheers.”
“You remember when I woke up with that huge bat in my hair in the jungle?” she asked. “It was a bit like that, only more grotesque, I suppose.”
“It’s good to have you back.” He smiled at her.
“I’m still pissed,” she said, but she sounded tired enough to call a truce, at least temporarily.
“Did you like it?” Ty demanded, unable to dance around the topic any longer. He hoped she couldn’t guess how much of his ego was riding on her answer.
Kate didn’t reply right away. She turned her jeans the other way around in front of the fire and swiveled her head toward him. Her eyes roamed his body up and down and back again, cold and appraising. He’d never felt so naked before in his entire life.
She looked back to the stove, attention trained on the fire through the open door. “Yeah, it was wonderful.”
A flutter of giddy relief upset Ty’s stomach. “Oh.”
Kate glanced over again. “Happy now?”
“A little,” he admitted, unable to keep the corner of his mouth from twitching into the beginnings of a smirk.
KATE CAUGHT TY’S SMILE and returned it, shaking her head with frustrated amusement. Why was it so damned hard to stay pissed at him? She could have managed it, too, if he hadn’t brought up the kiss. She’d shunted it to the back of her mind throughout the ensuing fight and the hurried preparations for the shelter. Now it was stampeding to the fore, demanding attention and drowning out her anger.
She glanced at his firelit body, at the six-foot-three-inch mistake she’d been aching to make for she couldn’t remember how long. If Kate was about to lose her daily access to this man once they got back to civilization, wasn’t this her last chance to slide that one missing piece of their puzzle of a relationship into place? If she was doomed to lose Ty anyhow, she might as well do it right—lose him completely. Boss, partner, friend and finally, perhaps inevitably, lover. She tossed her jeans over his on the chair with a loud sigh of acceptance.
Ty looked wary at first, only his eyes moving as she stepped close and reached out to touch him. Beneath her palms, the skin of his waist felt smooth and firm, and his stomach tensed with held breath. She’d seen the details of his body so many times before, no modesty between them, but now… Now she was allowed to touch. It was like Christmas, this sudden access. His skin was cool on one side, hot on the other from the fire. She breathed him in, eyes locked on his chest.
He reached out to touch her hair, the gesture cautious. “What’s on your mind, Katie?”
Staring at his mouth, she felt dizzy, teetering on the razor-thin barrier that had always stood between them. She could knock that final, flimsy wall down now, with just a few little words…. “You can kiss me again.”
No hesitation. Warm, firm, full lips rushed down to capture hers, strong hands grasped her shoulders. His mouth was rough and hungry, all the things she felt herself, reflected back in his kiss. Her fingernails dug into his sides. Goddamn, this body…tall and strong, always Kate’s territory in every way but this one. As his tongue slipped against hers, tasting her deeply, a streak of desire blushed and hardened between her thighs.
Ty came up for air and stared her dead in the eyes. His own were heavy-lidded now, glassy. “I want you,” he said simply.
She liked the helplessness in his expression and the feeling of being the one in control again. “Do you?”
“Yeah. For such a long time, Katie.”
“How long?”
His calloused fingers stroked her cheek. “Forever, it seems like. Since the first night I lay next to you in a tent and realized I could sleep because you were there.”
“Is that what you want from me right now?” she whispered. “A good night’s sleep?”
He huffed a sigh through his nose. “Of course not.”
She grazed her fingertips over his stomach, his ribs, his shoulder blades and watched his muscles tense. “What, then?”
“Your hands on me… You feel so good.”
“Do I?”
“Don’t tease me, Kate. You’ve got me in pain, my body wants you so much.”
She was thrilled at this proclamation. “Your body makes promises that I hope you’re prepared to keep,” she whispered, hands drifting down to cup the toned ridges of his hips.
“What promises?”
“Ones that keep a girl up at night.”
“What keeps you up at night, Kate?”
“You,” she admitted with a small laugh, abandoning the taunting. “This,” she murmured, and she hooked her fingers inside the waistband of his briefs, pulling them down an inch to reveal the trail of dark hair that led into the intimate shadows below. He was already hardening, his cock straining against the cotton. She licked her lips, suddenly thirsty.
“Just ask me, Kate. I’ll give you anything you want.”
“Will you, then?” She remembered her beloved job and the thought dulled her pleasure. Maybe she could… No, that was stupid. What did she think this was, a sitcom? A soap opera? Like she could seduce him into signing some kind of contract to reinstate her old job description. Like anyone was that sick, using sex to try and manipulate a situation to suit their personal agenda—
Kate’s body cooled in an instant, the moment of understanding like a shock. Ty’s waistband snapped back against his belly as she yanked her hands away and retreated a pace.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “All this sudden flirting. You’re buttering me up.”
His brows rose. “For what?”
She aimed her gaze at the flushed skin of his neck, avoiding his eyes. “Because after we wrap this episode and I quit, you know I could go to the tabloids and tell them all sorts of nasty, scandalous lies about you. That’s what you were going on about before, isn’t it? You were feeling me out, to see if I was going to try and screw you over. Paint you as some kind of incompetent jerk or a fraud.”
Ty’s eyes widened and his posture slumped. “That’s not what I was doing.”
“It is,” Kate said, feeling as if she’d just put her finger squarely on the crux of the issue. Chemicals flooded her brain and she let anger carry her away from reason and patience and their temporary peace, transforming her into her impulsive, reactionary younger self, the one she’d spent all these years trying to obliterate. Well, screw reason. The old, angry Kate was driving now. “That’s why you kissed me to begin with, isn’t it? You’re trying to make sure I’m on your side. Well I’ll tell you something, I’ve always been on your side. I love this show.”
“I never said any of that—”
“I’m not stupid, Ty.”
He put his hands to his hips. “No, Kate, but you’re doing a bloody brilliant job of playing a paranoid nutcase right now.”
“Watch yourself.”
“No. You watch it.” His body went rigid with anger, an emotion Ty rarely expressed. He advanced a pace, muscles looking tight and fierce. “I never thought any of those things. I’m sorry we can’t work together in the field anymore.”
“Yeah, right.”
He frowned, narrowing his eyes as he studied Kate’s face. “And I’m sorry you’re making it like this. I want us to be friends when we get back to civilization. I want us to be friends for a long bloody time—”
“Ha!”
“Dammit, listen to yourself, Kate. This isn’t you.”
She paused long enough to take a deep breath, and to honestly contemplate what he was saying. No, it wasn’t her, not the woman she’d worked hard to become—the only version of herself Kate had ever let Ty see. But the pain of what she feared was true had overtaken her senses. The resulting chaos felt good, drowning out the vulnerability and hurt she still felt over losing the best part of her job.
“I never thought any of that,” Ty said firmly. “About you running to the papers on me. What have I got to do to prove that, Kate?” He seemed pained by this conversation but determined to find a resolution. Mr. Rise-to-the-Challenge.
Kate grabbed her still-damp jeans off the chair and yanked them up her legs. “Nothing. Just forget it.”
She shoved Ty’s clothes at him and dragged the chair back to the other end of the shelter, sitting down and picking up the camera from the floor beside her. Turning the power on, she toyed idly with the settings so she wouldn’t have to look at Ty. She listened to the fire popping and fabric rustling as he redressed.
“I never thought that,” he said again, softer. She glanced at him and his face looked tired, older. “I trust you more than I trust anybody else on the planet, Kate. You’ve got to know that by now.”
She shrugged, bitter. “I don’t feel like I know you at all, not after what you’ve decided.”
“I’m sorry it’s so upsetting. But I’m not doing it to hurt you. Just the opposite.”
Kate entertained a thought that burned in her stomach like acid. “Do you think that accident was my fault? That I didn’t prepare us well enough?”
He shook his head and smiled with some sort of discomfort. “No. I’ve always had faith in your abilities.”
She felt her anger resurge. “It sure doesn’t feel that way at the moment.”
“And you don’t seem like the Kate I know, right now. But I do trust you.” He fell silent for several minutes and she played with the camera’s zoom lens. She popped the cap off and studied Ty’s image on the little view screen.
“Everything’s always about proving something with you,” she grumbled, centering him.
“I’m just trying to—”
“Actually,” she cut in, taken by sudden inspiration. “I know of a way.”
He blinked. “A way to what?”
“For you to prove you trust me.”
Ty stared through the lens at her, expectant. “Brilliant. Tell me. I’ll do it.”
She adjusted the focus.
“What’s on your mind, Katie?” She watched his expression on the viewfinder, curiosity mixed with a growing dose of trepidation.
Kate felt the corner of her mouth curl up with a devilish twitch. “Take your clothes off.”
“Beg pardon?”
“You heard me, Ty. Strip. You trust me? Get your clothes off, then.”
6
KATE WATCHED TY BLINK through the camcorder’s screen, his frown demanding a more satisfactory explanation.
“You trust me to go back to the city with this video and everything on it and not sell it to highest tabloid bidder,” she said, “and I’ll believe what you’re saying.”
“Of course I trust you not to do that.”
“Then prove it.”
He stared blankly for a long moment before saying, simply, “All right.”
Kate hid her own surely visible surprise behind the camera. She’d never seen him turn down a dare before, but still…
“I don’t get it,” Ty said, “but tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Good.” Kate’s incurable inner control freak warmed to this turn of events. As she pondered the possibilities, her body warmed, as well. “Take off your clothes again, like before. Everything but your underwear.”
Ty complied, in no evident hurry. His sweater and trademark Western button-up were tossed across the bed, leaving just the undershirt that bared his obscenely strong climber’s arms. Kate choked down the lump forming in her throat. The chemicals from her anger mixed with curiosity and nerves, a powerful cocktail brewing in her bloodstream. Ty eased the shirt over his stomach and chest. Kate’s breath caught. She’d just seen this, just touched him…but this was different, with her cast as voyeur, not partner. It felt wrong, but backing down would take away the only scrap of control she had left.
Ty’s eyes bored through the camera into hers. She felt it then, The Shift. Saw it in the way his muscles tensed and his lips parted. When Ty unbuckled his belt there was an aggression in the gesture, a challenge. He tugged it free as if unfurling a whip and Kate half expected him to advance on her. Instead he folded the worn leather in quarters and tossed it on the floor with a clatter.
He licked his lips. “This is really what you want?”
“Getting there.” Kate made her voice as smugly casual as she could manage, hoping the thick weight behind her words would pass for boredom.
Ty unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and let them fall down his legs, revealing the powerful thighs that haunted Kate’s dreams, and daydreams. And day-to-day reality. The fire backlighting the scene threw all the contours and shadows of his body into dramatic contrast, and lent a sinister quality to his face. He stepped out of his jeans and kicked them aside. All she’d ever seen of him was before her now, every square inch of bare flesh. Rock climber or not, Ty was built like a swimmer—he had a long, lean, tight body with cresting hip muscles that drew Kate’s attention straight between his legs to the bulge in his boxer briefs that she’d flirted with only minutes earlier. Lust banished Kate’s misgivings and cemented her determination to see this dare through.
“Now what, Katie?”
She grinned behind the camera. “Touch yourself.”
His shoulders slumped and all the cautious amusement drained from his face. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“If you trust me you’ve got nothing to be afraid of, Ty.”
His expression hardened. “I’m not afraid…but for someone who’s trying to convince me of her trustworthiness, you sure sound a whole bloody lot like a blackmailer.”
“It’s your move.”
“Fine,” Ty said, smiling darkly. “Get comfortable.” He seemed prepared to do the same. He grabbed the sleeping bag from the bed and laid it on the floor. As he dropped to his knees, Kate followed him with the camera. The device that had brought them together professionally felt like a shield now. For a few moments Ty did nothing, merely stared her down through the lens. Then slowly his hand snaked across his stomach, dipping beneath his shorts as he adjusted himself. “You sure?”
Mouth dry as chalk, Kate nodded.
He withdrew his hand and cupped it over his bulge.
“Good,” she heard herself say, reality fading behind a cloud of dark excitement. She watched him fondle himself, wishing it was her hand touching him, caressing the only bit of him she’d never seen. She’d spent more than one lonely evening imagining such a thing. Her lips twitched, so close to muttering his name.
His touch intensified, the fondling now stroking. She could see him growing, the outline of his erection pressing insistently against the cotton. The muscles of his stomach tightened and swelled alternately with his breathing, tendons standing out in his arm. He stroked the ridge of his cock rougher, making Kate’s heart pound with impatience and curiosity.
“Enough?” Ty whispered.
She couldn’t be sure if his tone was one of arousal or anger but right now she didn’t give a crap. “Not even close.”
“How long have you wanted to see this, Katie?” he asked, turning the tables on her. His hand slipped inside his shorts, again stroking hard.
“This is only to prove a point,” she lied.
“I don’t believe you.”
She swallowed. “That’s the point I’m trying to make,” she said, only paying partial attention to the argument. He’d met her challenge and was starting to intimidate her. She liked it.
“How long have you wanted this?” His voice turned deep and harsh, hand quickening behind the fabric, taunting her. “From the very start?”
“Show me, Ty.”
“Show you what?”
“Show me your cock. Let me see it. Show the camera.”
She’d expected further protest, but Ty was done playing. He called her bluff. He tucked his thumbs into his waistband at either hip and pushed his underwear halfway down his thighs, exposing his erection. A charge of fear, hot and thrilling, zapped straight down Kate’s spine. His sex looked dark and heavy in the dim, dancing light, and he ran a fist slowly up and down his length, just how Kate would touch it if she could. Her body shuddered with
marrow-deep desire.
Ty’s breathing was heavy, his lips parted, eyelids looking heavy. “Happy now?”
“Don’t stop.”
“How far do you want this to go, Katie? You want to watch me come?” His touch slowed, pure torture. “Or maybe you want to help me, instead?” A droplet of clear fluid shone at the tip of his head, then more. He slicked it down his cock.
Kate could feel her core melting, mimicking his example. The camera was unsteady in her hands, every second putting Ty more firmly in control. Yet staring at his body in the firelight, so fierce and ready…for once in her life Kate didn’t think she’d mind being the one taking orders. The idea brought a fever to her skin.
“You want to help me, Katie? You want your hands on me? Your mouth? Tell me what you think about. About us. How did you imagine we’d be, together?”
“Keep going,” she commanded.
“Put the camera down, Katie.”
She held it tighter.
“You’ve got me so hard it bloody hurts, but I’m not coming until you make me yourself.”
The heat and wetness between her legs reached a maddening intensity, demanding she take action. Just paces away knelt the man she’d dreamed about for years, lusted after and also cared for. She’d seen this man ill and injured, strong and unflappable, calm and also racked with mysterious anxieties. In all kinds of weather and in nearly every climate on Earth. The sole part of him that Kate had never before been allowed to lay her eyes or hands on was being offered to her now. Yet she found herself unable to lower the camera for a better look, let alone to stand up and claim it for herself.
“Come on.” Ty’s hand slowed to long, explicit pulls, teasing her. “Tell me what you think about when you’re alone.”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you what I think about.”
She wanted to shout, “Yes, yes, tell me!” at the top of her lungs, but her need to stay in control—stay safe—kept her mute.
“I’m so close, Katie.”
She managed to mumble, “Keep going, then.”
