Hard and Fast(35)

"Of course." Ty watched her, trying not to grin. She did everything so  cautiously, so precisely. When she held her palm out, he dropped three  pretzel twists in it and she popped them in her mouth.

"Whew, it's hot out here on the water," she said when she was finished chewing, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Drink your water."

"I don't want to."

"Why not?" Ty drank some of his just to make a point.

"What if I have to go to the bathroom? We're on a rowboat in the middle of the lake."

"You go in the water."

She shot him a look of horror. "I am not a man."

"So I noticed."

"Therefore, I cannot take aim and just send it into the lake."

"Yeah, but we're going to go swimming soon, so go then."

"In my bathing suit?" Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "No, thank you."

"So take your bathing suit off and go skinny dipping. I'd like that."

"We're in public. We'll get caught. We'll get arrested."

She had an answer for everything. "So you're just going to dehydrate?"

"It is a conundrum," she admitted. "I am really thirsty. And hot." There  was no questioning that. "Here, I'll hold your rod. Take a sip of your  water before you overheat.

One sip won't make you have to go to the bathroom. Taking your jeans off  will cool you down, too, and we're going to want to go swimming soon  anyway. Just be careful moving on the bench. You don't want to capsize  us."

"No pressure or anything," she said, handing him her rod. After sipping  her water and handing it to him, she unsnapped her jeans and began  delicately tugging them off.

Ty blatantly watched. Her ponytail flopped around and her glasses  slipped down her nose as she tried to wiggle out of her pants with as  little movement as possible. After a couple of precarious minutes, she  had them in a puddle on the bottom of the boat and had her flip-flops  back on her feet. Imogen was wearing black bikini bottoms with a little  tie on each side, and Ty appreciated the nice view of her long, pale  legs.

"Better?" he asked.

"Much." She took her pole back from him. "Thank you."

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, the sun hot on his  arms, a sleepy and pleasant lethargy stealing over him. Now, this was  the way to spend his day off-out on the lake with a woman whose company  he really enjoyed.

Imogen sat up straight suddenly. "Oh, something's happening!" She had a  look of fear on her face and held her pole like it had suddenly come  alive.

"Hold steady," Ty said, leaning over and peering out into the water. He  could see the ripples of movement where her line was cast. "Okay, just  start reeling it in, slow and steady."

"Just turn the little handle thingie?"

"Yep."

"Okay." Imogen took a deep breath and started reeling in her line.

Ty reached over to feel the line. It was taut and there was definitely something on it.

"What are you doing?" she asked, pausing.

"Just checking it. Keep going."

She did, biting her lip and spreading her feet to brace herself. Ty just  sat and watched her, enjoying the concentration on her face,  appreciating the beauty of her face in profile. He turned to the water  right at the moment a striped bass emerged, dangling and flopping on her  line.

"Alright!" he told her, pulling the line forward so that the fish fell on the floor of the boat. "You got a bass, babe."

"I did?" Imogen stared at the fish jumping around, then smiled. "Well, of course I did."





Ty laughed. "Exactly." He released the fish from the hook and dropped it  into the small cooler he had brought with them. "Very impressive."                       
       
           



       

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.