He makes a small sound of protest, but he doesn’t move—and neither do I. And I sure as hell don’t put my hands back, no matter how much I want to.
The next one hundred and twenty seconds tick by So. Excruciatingly. Slowly. By the time he finally moves back to start pose, my nerves are stretched taut as a circus high wire. And that’s before I get a look at his face, all harsh planes, tight jaw and burning hot eyes.
God. If I’m not careful, I’m going to end up against the nearest wall again, screaming his name as he buries himself balls deep inside me. The thought should horrify me—God knows I spent most of Sunday traumatized by my behavior in that bar—but all it does is get me hot. There’s just something about Shawn that breaks down my normal inhibitions, that has me forgetting all the reasons I don’t do things like that with men like him.
And that scares me. A lot.
Because doing that, throwing caution to the wind and leaping before I look? That’s my mom, not me. She’s spent her life like that, jumping on each and every adventure that comes her way. More times than not, she lands on her feet. But the times she doesn’t?
The times she doesn’t are terrifying. And they would be way worse than they have been if I wasn’t around to catch her as she falls—and to pick up the pieces.
There’s no one around to catch me if I leap, no one around to keep me from shattering like Humpty Dumpty falling off his wall. Which, in my opinion, is a more than good enough reason for me not to leap at all.
“Hey, Sage.” Shawn’s voice is less growly now and more concerned. “You good?”
It snaps me back to the present, snaps me back to the reason we’re here to begin with. “Yeah, absolutely. Now, do it again on the other side.”
Instead of dropping into the pose, he stays where he is, watching me. Because I can feel myself getting sucked in, feel myself starting to drown in those black magic eyes of his, my voice is sharp when I say, “Well? Are you going to do it or are you just going to waste my time?”
His brows go up, but
he doesn’t say anything before dropping into thunderbolt pose on his other side. The next two minutes tick by in silence, and when he returns to starting pose, I’m ready for him.
“The next one is a variation of Locust pose moving into Cobra pose. You need to lie on your stomach, both hands crossed, palms up, on your lower back.” I demonstrate, turning my head to the left as I wait for him to move into position.
“Yoga isn’t just about doing the movement correctly,” I continue when he’s lying on the ground, mimicking my pose. “It’s about how you breathe while you’re doing the movement. So in Locust pose, you’re going to breathe out as you lift your upper body off the ground.” Again I demonstrate and wait for him to follow my instructions.
“Good. Now, we’re going to add on. Exhale as you lie back down on the ground. This time, when you come up, you’re going to inhale and sweep your left arm all the way out and around until you can rest the edge of your hand on your forehead, like you’re giving a salute.”
He does as instructed, and we spend the next half an hour—before the studio officially opens—going through various poses. A few times it looks like Shawn wants to say something that has nothing to do with yoga, but each time, I cut him off before he can hijack the session and take it someplace I have no intention of going.
We end in Corpse pose, and I keep him there for several minutes, even though I can feel the impatience radiating off of him. I don’t know if it’s because he’s anxious to get out of here or because he wants to force the conversation onto the weird attraction between us or if he just doesn’t like sitting still.
It could be all three, but whatever it is, he’s going to have to learn to deal with it. Yoga isn’t just a series of stretches and if he wants to get the therapeutic benefit from it, he really needs to give its proper practice a chance.
“So, how do you feel?” I ask after I finally let him climb to his feet. “How’s the tightness in your shoulder and back?” I don’t make the mistake of trying to find out for myself by touching him again. I’ve worked too hard for the last half an hour to bring us back there with one careless press of my hand.
He stretches out his neck, rolls his shoulder. “Better, actually.”
He sounds so surprised that I can’t help but laugh. “Yoga isn’t all incense and meditation, you know. It actually does work.”
I may not be the typical yoga teacher, all calm and peace and the universe has a plan for us, but I’ve been around it my whole life and I know the physical aspect of it works. It’s all the rest that I don’t have any interest in.
“Maybe it does,” he agrees, but he still sounds a little incredulous. “So where do we go from here?”
Because a dozen or so ideas flood my brain at his words—and only one or two of them actually have to do with yoga—I take a big step back, mentally and physically. “If you want to come to the registration area, I can fill you in on the different packages we offer, see what classes you think will work for you.”
“I thought Emerson told you. I can’t do classes. The last thing I need is for the team docs to get wind of the fact that I’m taking therapeutic yoga. It’ll raise all their alarms.”
“And get you fined again.”
He shrugs. “Fines I can handle. I’m afraid it’ll get me benched. Or traded.”
“So, why’d you do it, then? If you knew it was against your contract, knew you could get hurt and might end up ruining your career, why take the risk of jumping off some of the most dangerous cliffs in the world?”
“I never said the cliffs were dangerous.”
I shoot him a look as I steer us toward registration—and other people. It’s humiliating to admit, but being alone with him isn’t good for me. Not when the sizzle is still there, no matter how much physical distance I try to put between us.