by Liz Crowe
Determined not to panic, or even worry too much—yoga was only a bunch of stretching after all, hot room or no—he closed his eyes and focused on something else that didn’t reek of old socks or make him feel like he’d walked into a steam room on a hot summer day. This couldn’t be hard, for crying out loud. He was in tip-top shape. He could run ten miles, take a few breaths and run ten more. He could bench press twice his body weight and do hundreds of sit-ups in a row. Noah opened his eyes when the lights came on, flooding the space and prodding everyone to their feet.
He followed their lead, casting a quick glance around the crowded room. He didn’t see her right away, since he’d had to tuck himself into a corner and was surrounded by mostly women in various stages of nakedness. He blinked, attempting to parse the amount of bare female flesh, some of it covered in sports bras and spandex.
The teacher lady was, in a word, hot. Okay, a few more—AF. He gulped and looked down at his feet, the heat filling his lungs and nasal passages while she made word noises he barely registered.
My God, I’m dripping with sweat already. How in the hell am I going to get through this?
When he realized everyone around him was shifting and assuming some kind of preparatory position, he copied them. When he looked toward the instructor chick, he looked right into her eyes and realized she remembered him. Her brow furrowed as she snuck a glance to her left, then glared back at him. He smiled, or at least he tried to. It might have not looked much like it. His brain felt as if it were melting into a warm puddle of goo. The teacher grinned at him, cleared her throat and the class began.
At first, it was only breathing. But it seemed to go on forever. And the realization he was sucking in huge lungs full of the stinking, overheated air made him dizzy. He tried his level best to follow along, to do what the others were doing. After the third, or perhaps the fourth, borderline torturous position he was asked to fold himself into, he reached for his water bottle, gasping, every inch of his skin drenched.
“Please hold off on a water break for one more posture,” the teacher bitch’s voice boomed into the room. He put the water bottle down.
The entire experience seemed designed to bring him to his knees, while everyone around him flexed and stretched and generally prezteled themselves with seemingly little effort. Everyone was dripping wet by the time they hit the floor, finally. But there were still forty minutes to go. He tried to obey the torturer-woman’s commands to breathe through his nose to calm his heartbeat but lying on his belly for some set of ‘spine-strengthening series’ made him gasp like a beached fish.
At one point, he realized he’d poured the last of the water into his mouth and could only sit and stare down at the wet towel beneath him as he attempted not to run out of the room—or throw up his guts. This had been the single most hare-brained idea of his stupid, woman-chasing life. He couldn’t wait to get the fuck out and never, ever come back.
“Now, please, lie back and let your body absorb the amazing experience you’ve just given it,” the woman trilled. Noah flopped onto his back. In all his years of working out—running, biking, lifting and swimming—he’d never once felt like this. It was the typical wet-noodle sensation he’d achieve after a hard two hours or so working up a sweat, but this was combined with a kind of hollowed-out, drained feeling that made him close his eyes and drift, even though he was still lying in this disgusting-smelling hot space.
When he finally opened his eyes, he realized someone was crouched over him. He flinched and propped on his elbows, embarrassed by the state of his skin and the stink emanating from his every pore.
“You didn’t do too badly,” Gayle said, holding out her hand. He frowned but took it and let her tug him forward and up to his feet. The room was dark and empty, but for the two of them.
“Shit,” he said, reaching for his water bottle before remembering its empty state. “I didn’t think I’d fall asleep.”
“It’s more relaxing than you think—I mean, when you’re doing it.”
Noah couldn’t resist the grin. She frowned at him, dark strands of her hair in sweaty curls around her flushed face. He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Sorry. Can’t sweat the letch out of me, I guess.” Realizing he’d probably blown it again, he reached down to roll his dripping towel up in the yoga mat. When he rose, Gayle hadn’t moved. But she was smiling—a kind of half-smile, both wistful and hopeful. He decided maybe this had been a good idea after all, sweat, stink and near-death experience included.
He was about to ask her to join him for coffee, or a shot of something healthy, like kale juice, when she turned away and walked out of the room, sending a glorious puff of cool air across his body. He shivered and followed her, sheepish when he realized everyone had been watching them but were now busily pretending they hadn’t been.
His flesh prickled into goosebumps and he tugged his sweatshirt down his bare torso. The effort made him almost topple over, so he dropped onto his butt on the bench and propped his elbows on his knees, trying to regain his equilibrium. A few deep breaths later, he thought he might live. But there was no way he was going to walk out of here just yet. He lunged forward and refilled his water bottle, gulping it down so fast it leaked out of the sides of his mouth. As he went for a second refill, a hand touched his shoulder, making him flinch and send water flying across the sealed concrete floor.
He was shaking now, having some kind of DT freak-out. He circled right back around to this-was-a-stupid-idea-land. “Jesus.” He ran a hand down his face and watched the teacher drop a fresh towel on his spillage and calmly mop it up. As he stood, staring like a dumb-ass, Gayle emerged from the ladies’ locker room, her hair up in a towel, her skin red and shining, her body covered in a batik-blue sundress that made his poor, overworked heart stutter in his chest.
He smiled, then stepped back from her, hyper-aware of how much he reeked, but unwilling to let this opportunity pass. “Hey, uh, so could we…could I buy you… I mean…”
She leaned her head to one side, the smile he wanted to kiss so badly ghosting across her lips. He put his hands on his hips, looked down, took a breath then stared into her eyes. He was usually better at this. But she’d turned him into a rattled, stuttering, teenager-like mess. The teacher was standing next to Gayle now, her dark eyes narrow when she glared at him. He nodded in her direction. “Interesting stuff in there. Thanks. I think.”
She crossed her arms. “You’re pretty stiff, but I can tell you’re in good shape.” Her gaze darted down his front then back up again. He blushed hot, her double entendre settling into his psyche. These women were messing with him. He stood straighter, part of him wanting to prove to them both—but mostly to Gayle—he wasn’t here to stalk her or anything more than to get to know her. But it sure as hell wasn’t what it looked like and he knew it.
He held up both hands. “Okay, all right, ladies. I get it. I’m at your mercy.” He used his best seducer-smoky gaze on the teacher. She took a step away. Satisfied he’d set her back at least a half second, he turned his attention to Gayle. She was studying him like a specimen under a microscope. He cleared his throat. “Could I buy you something super healthy to drink, after I’ve had a shower?”
Her beautiful smile widened, which made his entire body clench in anticipation. Dear Jesus, but she was perfection, despite what he knew about her backstory. It wasn’t like his was anything to write home about. And all he wanted was to sit, drink something gross but good for him and talk to her.
“Tell you what,” she said, after smiling at her friend the teacher. “You come back tomorrow and get through another class, and I’ll think about it.”
He gaped at her. “Tomorrow? Hell no. I’ll need a week to recover from this shit.”
“Actually, the more classes you can string together, the better.”
“Fuck. That. No offense.”
“None taken.” The teacher put a hand on Gayle’s arm. “I’ll leave him to you.” Her dark eyes flashed when she looked at him. “
I think you can handle it.” He wasn’t quite sure whom she meant but it didn’t matter.
“So, about that kale juice…”
She chuckled and walked past him, brushing his arm with hers. He ground his teeth, dying to reach for her but stuck in his cloud of stink, and, frankly, mortification at how amateurish he sounded. “I told you. Come back tomorrow. Then I’ll consider it.”
He stared straight ahead, not willing to give her the satisfaction of staring at her ass as she left him there.
When he showed up the next day, more prepared for the sensory onslaught, she wasn’t in the yoga room. By the time the instructor flipped on the lights, she’d still not shown. Noah stood, met the teacher’s steady gaze for a few seconds then focused on himself for the next unbearable ninety minutes and left the studio without a word to anyone. Gayle, it seemed, had decided to give the hot room a skip.
Chapter Twelve
Gayle sat, staring at her computer screen without seeing it, her coffee long gone cold in the cup at her elbow. Her mind refused to settle, to let her focus on the work in front of her. With a curse, she pushed her chair back from the glass-topped desk, swiveling her chair so she faced the floor-to-ceiling window. The view—of the carefully groomed courtyard below being used by a group of warehouse employees for some kind of a celebration—didn’t help her state of mind either.
She shouldn’t have skipped the damn yoga class last Sunday. It’d been a real bitch move and she knew it. Because she also knew in her soul Noah would show, she’d sat, frozen behind the steering wheel, staring at the door, watching people head in for the class. Then, without understanding why, she’d sped out of the parking lot, gone home and sat in her frilly, teenaged room for hours in silence.
She didn’t need this aggravation. She didn’t want anything from him. Being the sad widow suited her. It was her life now and she had no reason to change it.
Well, no reason other than the fact of Noah’s extreme, handsome, somehow calming attention.
“Crap.” She rose and started pacing her office, dragging her fingers through her hair and spending another forty-five minutes ignoring the emails piling up in her inbox. It was that or allow her thoughts of him to turn in a direction which was, without a doubt, erotic and utterly inappropriate in a most breathtaking manner.
When she’d stood there, inches from his sweaty, bare torso, it had taken everything in her not to reach out and swipe her finger down his chest, across his shoulders, up his neck. Hours later, she still hadn’t shaken the fact of that effort. Not to mention how half-flirty, half-bitchy she’d been to him about his innocent request to go out and have a chat. She found herself facing the blank wall, graced by innocuous framed photos of random Michigan scenes, once again not seeing anything but a line of sweat trickling down the young man’s neck.
“Hey, Gayle?”
The sound of the voice behind her, intruding on her mental battle not to imagine Noah’s young, strong, naked body alongside her somewhat less young, but newly strong one, made her jump away from the wall and turn to face her assistant. “Yes. What? Sorry.” She ran her hand down her face, furious at her weakness, her non-thinking about her dead husband and son. What’s wrong with me?
The next few hours were spent putting out a fire or two, something she normally despised since it implied a lack of planning on someone’s part. Today, she welcomed the distraction of it—making calls to a large grocery chain to calm someone’s ruffled feathers, dealing with a riled-up brewery owner, chewing out the printing company that screwed up their latest order of shelf-talkers. It was such a relief to re-locate her focus on this—her job, the one thing that mattered to her now.
At three-thirty she came up for air and realized the reason her stomach hurt was because she’d not eaten since a morning slice of toast. With a sigh, she leaned back in her chair, still clutching her phone where she’d just spent a half-hour reassuring three different brewery owners they were not being dropped from the TriCities portfolio. She closed her burning eyes for a few seconds, letting her mind rest from the fire-fighting efforts. She drifted, taking long, deep breaths in and out through her nose. Part of her realized she was about to doze, even as the already dozing part treated her to another flash memory of Noah—his deep brown eyes, chiseled face and dripping wet torso. The dream filled her mind. She tried to force herself awake, but instead, her subconscious took over, and she let it.
* * * *
“Why did you stand me up?” the dream-Noah asked. His hands rested on his hips and his handsome brow was furrowed with anger. “Kind of a real bitch move, Gayle.”
She took a dream step back from him, afraid, and yet wanting to touch him, to lean forward, to go up on her tiptoes and run her eager tongue across his broad shoulder. But the more moves away from him she took in her mind, the closer the man seemed to get. His face filled her vision—full, lush lips, nose that looked like it had been broken at least once and those huge, brown-gold eyes. Gayle’s skin prickled in response to his dream-proximity. His nostrils flared. His cheeks flushed even redder. His breathing changed, moving into a faster gear. The wall pressed against her back as he continued to loom over her, not touching her but apparently getting turned on in spite of it all.
His skin was warm—hot—under her hands. The sculpted musculature of his chest, his abs, his shoulders, arms, back and ass felt exactly the way she’d imagined them. She looked down at her fingers, marveling that they stroked, traced, gripped and groped his flesh while he stood and let her do it, immobile other than his chest, which moved faster the busier her hands got.
He was, in a word, perfect. Like some kind of a young, studly god, dropped into her world at a moment when she was only just getting her mind wrapped around her new, Michigan-based reality. He was unreal, but yet completely real under her now trembling hands. She was on some kind of a weird cougar-kick, but heaven help her, she could not stop touching him.
“Kiss me,” he whispered. His hands were propped on the wall behind her. He wasn’t as tall as her dead husband had been. But with her standing next to him, sweaty skin to skin and barefoot, apparently post-hot dream-yoga, he was tall enough so when she decided to do what he’d asked, she had to go up a bit on her toes to get to his lips. She stared at them, auto-comparing them to Ethan’s as they filled her vision.
“Stop,” he said, perhaps reading her mind. “I’m not him. I’ll never be him. He’s not coming back. But I’m here.” He kissed her then, this too-handsome young man in her midafternoon office dream. But it was short-lived. When he broke away, leaving her gasping and leaning forward so far she almost fell into him, he gripped her elbows. “Stop it, Gayle. I mean it. Just stop.”
“Stop…what?”
“Stop being sad.”
Her heart raced as she reached for him, needing his lips on hers, wanting his arms around her so badly she felt tears welling behind her eyes. “I’m a widow. I lost my little boy. I’m supposed to be sad.”
But Noah was retreating from her now, taking his near-naked body and firm, full lips with him. “Not anymore,” he said, his voice fading. “I don’t think you should be sad anymore.”
She stopped and crossed her arms, coming just short of stamping her foot on the floor in anger. “You don’t get to tell me how to feel.”
He’d turned away from her and was fading into the clouds of her dreaming mind, but when she said that, he whirled back around, grabbed her and dragged her close, so close she felt every solid inch of him. But he didn’t kiss her again. He just stared into her eyes. “No, I don’t get to tell you. I get to show you.” He traced his fingertip across her lips, her jaw, down her neck and shoulder, leaving a line of virtual fire on her skin.
“Then fucking show me already,” she demanded, threading her fingers into his still-damp hair. His lips—her current point of focus—turned up in a slight, wistful smile. Anger filled her chest. She reached down with her other hand and cupped the erection straining the front of his shorts, smiling when he flinch
ed and closed his eyes. “I can tell you want to show me…something.”
As she was leaning forward to press her lips to the sweat on his neck, he broke from her, fading away into the mist of her dream, leaving her hanging, as horny as she’d been in years. “God damn it,” she spat into the gathering darkness. “God damn you…God damn you, Ethan.” But she’d meant Noah, hadn’t she?
The tears—the infernal, eternal tears—spilled down her cheeks when she shivered in the aftermath of dwindling adrenaline. She was still pressed against the wall, its solidity keeping her from falling to the floor. But her body was now wracked with tremors, sobs bursting from her, filling the air around her, and she slid slowly down until her butt hit the floor.
“Gayle, stop,” Noah’s voice floated out of the mist around her.
“Go to hell,” she croaked, wrapping her arms around her bent legs. “Go. To Hell. Leave me alone! I’m fine. I don’t need you!”
“Gayle…stop,” he repeated.
“Stop…what? Stop bossing me around.”
* * * *
“Gayle.” A hand landed on her shoulder, another one seemed to cup her elbow and lift her up. “Calm down. It’s all right.”
Her eyes flew open. The first thing she saw was the acoustic tile ceiling of her office. The next thing was Noah’s face. His golden-brown eyes were full of concern. His lips—dear Lord and sonny Jesus help her, those lips—were pressed together. She saw another face—Susan’s, her assistant’s. It was also creased with worry. She blinked fast, confused by the fact that she seemed to be lying on the floor.
Mortified, she rose up on her elbows, noting her desk chair now lying on its side nearby. “Stop,” Noah said, making her shiver all over at the dream memory of him saying those words to her as she tried to sit, to stand, to regain the tattered remnants of her dignity.
