Caught on Camera (7 page)

“Kate?” He pushed the door in with his boot and found her kneeling on the floor in front of the woodstove, prodding the flames with a stick. She didn't turn, and Ty caught her wiping a sleeve across her cheek.

“Find some decent wood?” she asked, too casually. The sticky quality to her voice confirmed that she'd been crying and Ty felt his heart break. But he knew her. She'd never accept his sympathy, so he'd give her this charade instead.

“Not bad.” He let the wood tumble from his arms into a messy pile by the wall and shut the door. “Enough to keep us warm until the morning. Snow's not letting up, though.”

“Food?”

He shook his head. “There's nothing out there. What have we got in the pack?”

She turned, finally, and the skin under her eyes was
blotchy even in the dim light. “Not a lot. I just packed some random stuff for my lunch. A bag of cashews, some string cheese and an orange. Sorry.”

“Sorry? Do you have any clue how delicious that sounds on day three?” he said, hoping to make her smile.

“Well good, because that's all we've got. And I've got some snow melting in the thermos,” she added, pointing to where it sat on the stove.

“Good girl.”

She sighed, bitterness peeking through the diplomacy. “Don't patronize me, Tyler.”

Ty sighed, collapsed onto the folding chair and rubbed his wind-chapped face. He unlaced his boots and kicked them off, the slushy water sluicing out as one tipped over. He stripped his thick socks off and wrung them out before donning them again, dragging the chair across the room next to Kate and propping his wet feet up in front of the growing fire.

“I'm sorry,” he said quietly.

She glanced up. “For patronizing me, or for firing me?”

“I never said I was firing you. Don't be mad, Kate.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Don't you miss your regular life, after all this time? Clean clothes? Decent sleep? Hair dryers?”

“I'm not the same person I was when we met, Ty. I like this, okay?” Her eyes burned into his for a moment, unforgiving. She looked back at the stove. “I can't believe you're thinking of doing this.”

“I'm not thinking about it. It's done.”

“I am so royally pissed off at you.” She jabbed at the flames with her stick.

“That's fine with me. I can understand that.”

“Just shut up, Ty. Please.”

He sighed. “What you said before, about this being your
show, too…you're right. I mean, ‘the crew'? It's your name that's listed in the credits for how many other jobs? More than Dom Tyler, even.” He ticked her titles off on his fingers. “Additional Camera, Researcher, Travel Liaison, Assistant Film Editor, Mr. Tyler's Assistant, of course. We ought to rename the show…. Maybe to
Kate Somersby: Survive
This
Jackass!
”

Kate didn't reply.

Ty cleared his throat. “You know better than anybody what goes on out here. If the viewers knew how much you really did…well, I'm not all that bloody credible to begin with, but… You could ruin me. In the press, I mean. If you wanted to. Just don't ever think I can't see how hard you work.”

She frowned. “Why would I want to discredit you? My reputation's wrapped up in this as much as yours. And we never lied about anything, about the show being simulated, and you having help.”

“A hell of a lot of help.”

Kate took a noisy breath, sounding exhausted. “Not anymore… You've got to know there's no way I'll keep this job if you take the best part of it away.”

“There's still a lot left, Kate. You do about four people's jobs for me, now. There'll still be at least two left for you even with filming gone.”

Kate made a disgusted face. “That's like… That's like telling me I can have any part of the lobster except the meat. That offer is like a plate of antennae and eyes and shell parts and a lemon wedge—”

“You're a poet, Kate.”

“It's a terrible offer.”

Ty didn't attempt to argue further, just stretched his legs out and stared at his feet in their wet socks. “Well, when you get back to town you can exact your revenge,” he said,
hoping to reclaim some of their old, comforting banter. “You can go run to all the tabloids and tell them what a jerk-off I am, if you fancy. How I hit on you? Sell your exposé to all your beloved gossip rags.”

“Shut up.” She rubbed her temples as if a headache were overtaking her. “I can't believe you kissed me earlier.”

“It was pretty unbelievable,” Ty agreed, flirting recklessly.

She kept her eyes on the flames. “Did you decide to do that before or after you chose to ruin my life?”

“About a minute before. So don't worry, it still counts as unwelcome contact in the workplace, if you want to sue me for sexual harassment.”

“Don't think for a second that I'm finding you cute right now.” Her deadly tone cut him down. She'd always been good at that.

“All right,” Ty said, relenting.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, until Ty caught her shivering.

“Your clothes all wet?”

She nodded.

“Mine, too. You know the drill.”

He stood but she didn't follow suit. He poked her hip with his toe. “Come on. We've gone this long without anybody catching hypothermia. Let's not ruin our track record now.” He yanked the sweater over his head. “Mind you, look what an ironic death did for James Dean.”

She rolled her eyes at him but stood, and they both tugged off their damp clothes. Kate stopped at her T-shirt and underwear, holding her jeans up to the stove. She wasn't shy with her body. She had no reason to be—it was fantastic. And anyhow, seeing each other in their underthings wasn't a rare occurrence. Ty stripped all the way down to his boxer briefs and slung his clothes over the folding chair.

Kate kept her eyes on the fire. “You're no James Dean,” she finally mumbled.

“Because I don't play the bongos?”

She ignored him.

“Is this weird now, since we…you know?” Ty was dying to bring the topic back around to the kiss.

“Since you forced yourself on me, you mean?” Kate asked, but when her eyes met his he could see a glimmer of her old self in them. Ty rushed heedlessly forward with this tiny poke of encouragement.

“I distinctly remember you letting me.”

“I was too shocked to protest,” she said.

“I've never seen you shocked before, Kate.”

“It's just that I've never been confronted by such a horrifying experience before.”

“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.

 

K
ATE CAUGHT
T
Y'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—”