Tomorrow, Sunday, was the Fourth of July, but Monday was a workday for Eric. He’d already talked to Evie on the drive up about leaving around eight in the morning on Monday so they’d get back to San Diego by noon and in plenty of time for his meeting.
He set the phone back down and released a deep breath. He had one more day with Evie. And he was selfish enough to take what he could from it, and her, even knowing he was going to walk away in the end.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tantric yoga . . . Yeah, Eric hadn’t been thrilled about attending the spiritual, get-in-touch-with-your-emotions-and-sexuality session, but he’d promised Evie’s mom that they’d be there. Something she’d been very excited about, and even though Evie assured him that they really didn’t have to go, he hadn’t wanted to disappoint Lauren. When the hell had he grown such a huge conscience?
It was a half hour. He could survive this.
There were eight couples sitting on mats on the floor in a room at the lodge, facing their partners, holding hands, their crossed knees intimately touching. There was Lauren and Gene, him and Evie, Garrett and Aaron, Graham and Raquel, and four other married relatives who’d been curious to learn all about the benefits of tantric yoga.
Calming, lyrical music played in the background while Lauren guided them all through breathing exercises in a soft, soothing voice as she talked about cherishing your body and your mind and harnessing your sexual energy to make orgasms more intense. Yeah . . . not really what Eric was into, but he followed along . . . including the part where they were supposed to stare into their partner’s eyes.
Before long, he heard Raquel muttering beneath her breath about how stupid it all was and how bored she was . . . and while Eric would rather have been anywhere else, he wanted to tell Raquel to shut the fuck up and stop being so disrespectful to the couples trying to benefit from Lauren’s lesson. It was just common courtesy.
Because there was no talking allowed, Evie rolled her eyes at her cousin’s whiny complaints, and Eric winked at her as he caressed his thumb across the back of her hand. She smiled at him sweetly, shyly, and he wanted to lean forward and kiss her . . . which wasn’t part of the exercise. Actually, holding back on your desires was the theme of Lauren’s lesson, which she promised would create a spiritual bond that, when finally released through sexual intercourse, would heighten the physical and emotional connection between a couple.
“Keep staring deeply into your partner’s eyes,” Lauren instructed. “Feel their passion and desire. Let them feel yours. Open yourself completely, be vulnerable, and trust that they will do the same.”
Eric kept his gaze on Evie’s, following through on what was expected . . . but somewhere along the way, his sole focus became the woman sitting in front of him, as if the two of them were the only ones in the room. And suddenly, everything went from I’m-just-going-through-the-motions-until-this-session-is-over to something so intense he felt like he’d just been pushed over a cliff without a fucking parachute, because staring into Evie’s vulnerable blue eyes was like staring into her soul. And what he saw there, what he felt deep inside himself shook him to his core.
She was a woman he could spend the rest of his life with. And he was never going to know what that was like.
“The best way to skip a rock over the surface of the water is to first find a smooth stone like this one that’s about the size of your palm.” Evie held up the flat stone she’d found at the lake’s shore, where she and Eric had wandered down to after lunch.
“Like this one?” he asked, scooping up a similar-looking rock and showing it to her before giving her a sinful smile that made her belly flutter. “Except my palm is much bigger than yours.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she murmured, unable to forget how those big hands had covered her breasts, how his long fingers had done wicked things to her body. “But this is about finding a well-balanced stone . . . and not about your sexual prowess.”
He chuckled and arched a brow. “I might have sex on the brain after that Tantric exercise. Though I’m not a fan of the whole holding back on my desires when I could easily spend the afternoon doing really hot, dirty things to you.”
She laughed, because she knew he was trying to make light of the earlier session. They’d been following her mother’s instructions to breathe and relax, to look into each other’s eyes, to let their partner feel their passion, longing, and need and be open and vulnerable to each other.