Caught on Camera (8 page)

“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.”

K
ATE WATCHED
T
Y 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.”

“I want it so bad.”

Not half as bad as she did. She felt parched, as if Ty were the only thing that could quench the ache. Her body screamed for her to go to him, to fix this strange transgression, stop being a voyeur, join this man, her partner, and explore every inch of what he was offering. Her mouth was a desert, her hands shaky.

“Last chance, Katie.” Ty's arm pumped hard, his hips tensed and eager.

She held her tongue. She was certain that if she tried to speak nothing would come out, anyway. Before her, beyond the camera, Ty was coming undone.

“Oh, Katie…” His head rolled back, the muscles of his chest and abdomen clenched one last time, and then—

Nothing.

He stopped. His hand stilled and even on the tiny digital screen, Kate could make out the trembling of his fingers. After a few panting breaths, he hiked his shorts back up his thighs and over his erection and stood. Kate stood, as well, lowering the camera. She saw him in all the color and intensity of reality again, and the sheen of sweat made his body look at once powerful and desperate. His eyes were lit up bright and hot as the fire. She smelled him, as well—his need. He'd suffused their tiny, shared space with the musk of raw sex.

“I hope you're happy,” Ty said, breathless. He barely broke eye contact as he bent down for his jeans and tugged them back on, rethreaded his belt with an air of aggressive finality. He turned and gripped the shelf above the stove with both hands, seeming to fight to regain his composure. Or his dignity.

Kate shivered, too shaken to respond. She set the camera on the card table and clasped her hands to hide their
shaking. Across the room, the muscles of Ty's back flexed, and the motion of his ribs told her just how quick his breaths were coming. The rush of conflict and arousal had fled her bloodstream and she felt uncomfortable now, shifty. Her jeans had only half-dried and their dampness made her skin crawl. She got up and dug through the frame pack for her nylon hiking pants and changed into them.

Ty turned around after a couple of minutes' recovery. There was a cocky, threatening quality to his face when he stared at her, and it caught her off guard.

“You hungry, Katie?” It sounded like a double entendre at first, but he passed her to rummage in the pack, split her orange in two with his hunting knife. He handed her the larger half.

“Thanks.” She took it distrustfully, holding it in both hands like the spoils of the last couple of hours' strange, tiny war. Or perhaps it was a peace offering. She ran her thumbnail around the inside of the rind, hypnotizing herself with the activity so she could ignore Ty, standing a few feet away with his back to her.

Her body hummed. The throbbing of her pulse extended beyond her throat and heart and wrists—she felt it everywhere. Her eyes darted to the camera, the unassuming black device looking like Pandora's box, a bringer of secrets and truths and the regret that came hot on their heels. She swallowed. The mental image of what Ty had just shown her was indelible. No matter what did or didn't happen from this moment forward, it would stay with her. Haunt her, punish her. It would punish her for not trusting him to begin with, and haunt her with what she'd chosen to miss out on for the sake of her pride and anger.

 

T
Y WANDERED TO THE WINDOW
to check on the storm. Against the glass the snowflakes tumbled, the biggest he'd
ever seen, and he'd seen some serious snow since he'd left Australia. Staring at the flakes whirling in the wind, he tried to zone out, to make his mind go blank so he could begin to get over the ache pounding between his legs and strangling his heart.

Clearly all the time he and Kate had spent pretending to be indifferent to one another's bodies had been building up to this. Only a few short hours ago they'd not even kissed, and now he'd been within a dozen strokes of coming in front of her. On camera. She could be ruthless when she was after something, but what had just gone on was beyond that—a side of Kate Ty hadn't been prepared for.

He did trust her, of course. He'd trusted her with his life without a moment's hesitation countless times in the past couple of years, and he trusted her not to use that video against him, no matter how pissed she might be right now. Ruthless or not, she was a good woman. A good person. Ambitious, no doubt, but not a heartless opportunist by any stretch of the imagination.

It had been an undoubtedly creepy exchange, though, indicative of how desperate they'd become in such a short time, but so painfully different from how they'd always been, as a pair, up until this point.

Ty had been on the opposite end of a camera from Kate hundreds of times, but they'd always been on the same
side
. He didn't like this unexpected new power dynamic one bit. The competitive streak in him wanted to see the conflict through and to emerge the victor, but being pitted against Kate made him sick to his stomach. He wished there was a second chair so he wasn't doomed to stand. He wanted them back on par. He wanted normality restored. He wanted his partner back and he wanted her now, period.