Hard and Fast(33)

"Right, of course." The man flushed red. "Well, nice meeting you both. Wow. Ty McCordle."

"You, too. It's been a pleasure." Ty stuck his hand out and shook the man's firmly.

"Happy Anniversary," Imogen said to both of them.

They beamed. The wife relaxed a little. "Thanks." She shot a sly look at Ty, then back to Imogen. "Enjoy your day and night ."

The woman might as well have winked at Imogen. Ty felt almost sheepish  as he followed Imogen, who smiled and waved, then started up the trail.  The couple waved back and continued in the opposite direction.

"Does that happen to you often?" Imogen asked. "People recognizing you?"

"Sometimes." He had discovered there was no rhyme or reason to when it  happened. It had happened in all sorts of different places, with all  different age ranges. Stock car racing drew a wide audience.

"Well," she said. "Given that you are in the public eye and recognized,  perhaps we should exercise a little discretion in the future."

He loved the way she said that-in the future. Implying there would be a future, in her very prim yet, to him, provocative voice.

Ty reached out and swatted her ass. " Perhaps. "

Imogen squawked and reached around to try to smack at his hand.  "Ingrate. I'm trying to look out for your public image, but if you want  to tarnish it, I suppose I can't stop you." Which made him laugh. "No,  you can't stop me. And the only thing I'm going to tarnish is your  chastity." She shot him a sultry dark-eyed look over her shoulder. "I  think you already have."

"Oh, yeah? Tell me how." Ty wanted to hear it from her lips, wanted to hear a description of all the things he had done to her.







But she just smiled and said, "I'm not talking about this until we are  at our campsite and safely in a tent, where no one can see or hear us."

He would just have to walk faster, then. "Fair enough," he told her. "Because I'm planning to pick up where I left off."

Imogen said, "I'm counting on it."

Damn it. She was smoking hot as usual, and he couldn't wait to get her into his sleeping bag.

CHAPTER TWELVE





IMOGEN sat gingerly on a rock and watched Ty moving around the campsite,  inspecting the platform tent, hauling wood to the fire circle, and  unpacking supplies. Her feet were killing her and she wanted desperately  to pry off her boots and rub them, but she knew it would only make Ty  feel responsible for her poor choice of footwear and she didn't want him  to feel guilty. It was her fault, not his, that she was inadequately  prepared for an outdoor adventure.                       
       
           



       

Aside from the feet, though, and nearly getting caught with her pants  down, literally, by total strangers, so far, so good. The park was  beautiful, and she had been in awe standing in the quiet staring at the  serenity of the wilderness and at the vastness of the sky. And then, in  that moment of unexpectedly pleasant discovery of the majesty of the  woods, Ty had tossed out Shakespeare at her.

That had stunned her, wowed her, aroused her. In that moment, with  Claudio's words for Hero flowing off Ty's lips, Imogen had known that  her heart was in jeopardy. Ty was thoughtful, interested in her career,  her likes, her opinions. He wasn't even remotely uptight or pretentious  or conceited. When that man had spoken to him on the trail, he had been  humble and almost sheepish about being approached.

Ty delivering that line from Shakespeare had been wildly romantic, yet  at the same time, there was nothing too gushy or melodramatic or whiny  about him, as sometimes overly romantic men could become. Ty was all  man, as was evidenced by how he'd followed up that quote. He had shoved  her against a tree trunk, and shown her exactly how much he wanted her.

Squeezing her knees together, Imogen swallowed hard and admired Ty's  butt when he bent over to grab the sleeping bag out of his giant  backpack. If she were inclined to write poetry, she could pen a sonnet  regarding the beauty of his backside in denim. Not many things in her  life had drawn such a tactile response from her. She always wanted to  touch his bum when it was in front of her. Always. Hell, whenever it was  in touching distance, she wanted a crack at it, no pun intended.

Maybe she hadn't consumed enough coffee yet, given the wild and  ridiculous nature of her thoughts. It had to be almost 10 A.M., and one  cup was way below her daily average for this time. She usually got up  about eight and, two hours later, was on her third or fourth cup. Lack  of caffeine and the arduous nature of the hike were clearly making her  punchy, because she was waxing poetic about the man's backside and not  feeling the least bit concerned about the physical discomforts of  camping that lay ahead.

She had already seen Ty toss a spider out of the tent and she hadn't even winced.

All she could think of was what difference did animals, insects, cold,  and the lack of a comfortable bed matter when she was spending time,  naked fun time, with Ty?

It seemed that feeling the way she did just might indicate that she was  more emotionally involved with Ty than she cared to admit. It might even  be that she was potentially falling in love with him, which was more  than alarming. Yet she had never been in love before, she was certain of  that, so how could she possibly know if she was even remotely close to  feeling that exalted emotion for Ty?

What she did know was that she was sitting on a rock, a hard, dirty  rock, in the middle of nowhere, with mosquitoes flitting around her  face, with aching feet, and yet watching Ty, she just wanted to sigh in  moony, googly-eyed girl fashion.

"How could you remember that quote from Much Ado About Nothing ?" she asked him.







Ty glanced her way and tapped his head before returning to the task of  making some kind of sculpture with the wood in the fire pit. "I have a  good memory."

"Obviously. But what made you think of it?" She shouldn't ask, shouldn't  ruin a good moment by probing into the why of it. She should just enjoy  the fact that he had said it and stop always searching for answers and  explanations. So she quickly added, "Never mind. You must think I'm akin  to a preschooler, always asking why."

Standing back up, Ty looked over at her, his expression unreadable. "Why  shouldn't you ask why? If you're curious, there's nothing wrong with  asking. And I'll tell you why I thought of it . . . Watching you on the  trail in the quiet of the woods, I was just grateful to be with you." He  shrugged. "That's all. And Shakespeare's words are better than mine."

There it was again, that fluttering-butterfly feeling in her chest and  the urgent need to heave out a massive sigh of aching contentment.  Imogen had never really experienced this level of infatuation since  early high school, and it was weird and wonderful and illogical. But  having spent the past few days interviewing six more wives of drivers,  Imogen had definitely seen a pattern-nothing about love was logical.  Plain and simple.

Not that she was in love with Ty.

That was ludicrous. But she was in serious like.

"I think that any words spoken with sincerity are of value." Imogen  leaned back on the rock and let the sun wash over her face as her eyes  drifted close. "Thank you for bringing me here."

"The pleasure is truly mine." Ty was moving around, his boots crunching  in the sticks and leaves. "And maybe you should hold off on the thanks  until tomorrow morning. After a full day you just might change your  mind."                       
       
           



       

"What are we going to do?" She was hoping it involved the sleeping bag  inside the tent and Ty doing delicious things to her with his mouth.

"Right now we're going fishing."

"Oh." That didn't quite have the charm of sex, but she could roll with  it. Imogen opened her eyes and glanced around. Just trees and more  trees. "I don't see any water."

"We have to hike there."

Right. Of course.

"And wear your bathing suit under your clothes so we can go swimming  afterwards." Swimming sounded more appealing than fishing, hands down.  "Okay. Where should I change?" Ty grinned. "There's no cabana here,  babe. You can change right where you are, or you can go into the tent."

Imogen felt her cheeks heat up at the thought of just stripping where  she was and wriggling into her bathing suit with who knew what's eyes on  her. "I'm not changing out here, there are probably animals lurking all  around us."

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 breasts. "I would be naked! What if there's a bear or a deer or  something watching?"