Hot & Heavy (Lightning 2)

Five minutes after I left, I’m back at the door of my workout room, watching Sage as she gazes out at the pool and patio area. I spend a lot of time outdoors, so the back patio is actually the first area I set up when I bought the place. The pool and hot tub were already built in, as was the huge covered patio. But I added the built-in grilling area, the fire pit complete with round benches surrounding it, the half basketball court and the various sitting/lounging areas throughout the backyard for people to relax in.

I spent a lot of time designing it with the landscape architect, and even more time picking out the furniture. I’m curious to see if Sage likes what I’ve done.

“You ready?” I ask, stepping into the room.

She turns at the sound of my voice. “Your backyard is gorgeous.”

Relief sweeps through me at the words, which is strange because it’s no skin off my nose if she likes what I’ve done. Except, for some reason, it does matter to me. It matters what she thinks of me and it matters what she thinks of the house I’m working so hard to make a home.

“Thanks. It’s a work in progress, but I like it.”

“Work in progress? What else could you possible do to it?”

“I’ve got some ideas. Maybe you’ll give me your opinion on them over dinner.”

She looks at me with eyes gone true hazel. Half-green, half-brown and all mysterious, they make me want to dig until I know everything that’s inside her.

“Maybe I will,” she finally says. Then she nods to the yoga equipment I set up in the back corner of the room. “Ready to get started?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“I promise, it won’t be bad at all,” she says with a laugh. “Now come here.”

She gestures to where she’s laid out two mats, and I move to stand on one of them. She joins me on the other, then says, “We’re going to start with two sun salutations. They’re a good way to warm up all your muscles, and then we’ll move into the position sequence I came up with to help get your shoulder back to one hundred percent.”

“Sun salutations?” I ask. “Isn’t that a little hippie-dippie for therapy?”

Sage rolls her eyes. “Just do the moves, dude, and let me worry about what’s hippie-dippie and what’s not.”

She takes me slowly through the motions of first one sun salutation and then a second one. And even I’ve got to admit my whole body feels looser by the time I move into the backward stretch that is the last part of the salutation.

I don’t mention it to Sage, but then I don’t have to. The smirk on her face says she already knows.

“From here I want to do a couple of the poses we did yesterday. Thunderbolt and then cobra, which will really get that shoulder warmed up before we start to do some more intense stretches. Do you remember what thunderbolt looks like?”

I get into position on my knees, then lean over, sweeping my arm around to the back of my waist like she showed me two days ago.

“That’s good, Shawn. But let’s see if you can extend a little more with your right arm.” She’s right behind me now, smelling like cinnamon as she takes hold of my arm and shows me what she wants me to do. It’s not hard, but it’s damn hard to concentrate when her breasts are pressed up against my back and her knees are straddling my lower legs. There’s a part of me that wants to turn around and give her something else to straddle.

“Almost,” she says after she takes me through the routine twice more. “But I still think you can extend more right here.” She puts one hand under my arm, pretty much in my right pit, and wraps the other around my wrist. And then she pulls up, up—

Pain lances through me and I yelp, my whole body stiffening under her ministrations.

Sage freezes. “What hurts?” she demands, dropping my arm and moving around to look me in the eye.

“My shoulder’s just a little tender, no big deal.” I lift my arm again to show her I’m ready to try a second time.

But Sage’s eyes are narrowed as she looks at me. “Your shoulder wasn’t that sore when I saw you on Tuesday. What happened between then and now?”

I think about yesterday’s adventures in dangling off a mountain, but I’m not about to tell Sage what happened. She already thinks I’m an adrenaline junkie. No reason to make her think I’m crazy as well.

“I worked it out pretty hard yesterday. I must have strained it a little.”

If possible, her eyes narrow even more. “And how exactly did you work it out?”

I have to fight to keep my gaze even with hers—the woman definitely has the evil eye and knows how to use it. “Oh, you know, the regular way.”

“And does this regular way have anything to do with how skinned up your left hand is today?”