by Tawna Fenske
“Is it too stiff?”
Paul froze and blinked at Cami. “I’m sorry?”
“Your paddle. It’s new. Some of the new paddles are a little stiff at the outset. My shop is right over there, and if you want, we could try a different one with a more flexible shaft and—”
“It’s fine,” Paul assured her. “I promise.”
Kill me now.
Chapter Two
Cami had to give Paul Hammond credit for two things.
First, the guy had great balance. Big men like him often didn’t, and the result was usually an awkward tumble into the river on the first downward dog. While Paul wasn’t as flexible as some of her clients, he made up for it with core strength and a great sense of humor.
The second thing she could credit him with was taking her mind off the fact that she was starving. In the last hour, she’d only caught herself fantasizing about food a handful of times.
Not her mother’s health food. She knew exactly what she was having for her afternoon snack.
She was on all-fours with her body moving through cat and cow poses while her eyes devoured Paul’s muscular shoulders. It was enough to take her mind off snacks for the moment—at least the kind that involved food.
God, he’s sexy.
“This movement is extremely good for digestion,” Cami said, her voice high and tight as she pressed her belly toward the board and arched her back. Water lapped at the edges of the paddleboard, and Cami breathed in the scent of river water. Then she rolled her back upward, rounding her shoulders as she exhaled, tucking her tailbone as she moved. “Very soothing if you’ve had a really greasy meal or eaten something bad for you.”
And her snack would be bad. So very, very bad.
She arched her back again, pressing her knees and palms into the board as her mind began to drift to what waited for her in her freezer.
Beside her, Paul was unusually quiet. She turned to see him attempting cat pose while watching her with a curious expression. Cami flushed. “Sorry, that was silly. You’re a gourmet chef. You probably never eat bad food.”
Paul laughed, making his board tip precariously. “Depends on how you define ‘bad.’ I use a fair amount of butter when I cook, and you should see how much sodium there is in my pommes frites with black truffle oil and sea salt.”
Cami blinked. “You’ll have to pardon my food ignorance, but what’s a pommes frites?”
Paul laughed again, and Cami held her breath as his paddleboard tilted precariously from side to side.
“It’s a food-snob’s way of saying french fries,” Paul explained. “There are different terms for different cuts, of course. The thicker cut would be pomms pont-neuf, or pommes allumettes for matchsticks, or pommes pailles for potato straws, or you could just call them chips if you’re in England or Ireland, and then you have regional variations like home fries and Tater Tots, or you can use frites as an ingredient in dishes like the Québécois dish called Poutine or—”
Paul stopped speaking and tipping all at once. “Sorry, that’s a little too much food geekery for a simple question.”
Maybe she wasn’t the only one with an obsession. Cami licked her lips and tried hard not to stare. “No, really, it’s fine.”
“It’s not, I’m sorry. I have the tendency to talk too much, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” She smiled. “Okay, that’s a lie. I might have noticed a little.”
“You’re very kind to lie, even if you’re the worst liar I’ve met.”
“That might be the nicest compliment I’ve gotten all week.”
“I find that very hard to believe.”
Cami flushed. Conscious of the fact that she was still on all-fours, she pushed back onto her knees and felt the blood rush to her head. She looked at Paul and licked her lips again.
“Sorry, I’m a little fixated on food right now. My mom’s been visiting for the last week, so I’ve had nothing but organic tofu and cleansing drinks that taste like Draino.”
“With similar effects on your pipes, I imagine.”
“Ew.” She smiled to hide her grimace, wondering how she’d ended up discussing bowel movements with her secret crush. Gripping her paddle in one hand, she used it to brace herself as she moved from her knees to an upright position.
“So that’s how I get up?” Paul asked. “Just shift to my knees and—”
Before Cami could steady his board, Paul flailed to the side and toppled into the water.
Splash!
“Paul!” She grabbed for the back of his life vest, hoping like hell he hadn’t sucked in a lungful of water or banged his knees on the shallow river bottom.
He came up sputtering and laughing, and Cami felt a surge of relief. He rubbed his hands over his arms, hooting with mirth and possible frostbite.
“Holy hell, that’s not bathtub water, is it?”
“Not unless you use glacier runoff to fill your tub.” Cami grinned, pleased he was in good spirits about his dunk. “Here, take my hand.”
He clasped her fingers in his, and despite the icy temperature, Cami felt the heat chatter all the way up her arm. He smiled and grabbed the side of his board with the other hand.
“It’s shallow enough here that you should be able to stand,” Cami said.
“Yup, already figured that out when I stubbed my toe. What’s the easiest way to re-mount?”
“Hands on either side of the board to steady it, then up onto your knees again. Or you could just walk back to the riverbank from here.”
“No, I want to give this a shot from the water. From this side?”
“Either way.” Cami let go of his hand and reached out to steady his paddleboard. She pressed her weight into it, keeping her core positioned over her own board. It was a maneuver she’d done a million times before with clients, but this was the first time a client had left her feeling so off-kilter. She started to wobble and jammed her paddle into the river bottom to catch herself.
Too late.
Kerplunk!
Down she went, splashing into the frigid water beside Paul. Her toes squished into the muddy bottom, and her ankles tangled with his.
Nice legs, she thought absurdly as he caught her arm and pulled her up. She didn’t need his help—not in water this shallow, not as a professional who did this every single day—but her skin hummed pleasantly at his touch. He drew his other hand up and cupped her right bicep, holding her in front of him like he thought she might topple face-first into the water.
Considering how dizzy Cami felt, it was possible.
His grass-green eyes were sparkling with laughter, and droplets of water shimmered in his beard. Cami shook herself off, conscious of his hands on her bare skin. Paul’s eyes roamed her body, inspecting her for damage.
“I’m so sorry about that.” His grin suggested he wasn’t that sorry. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, no worries. I’d be a pretty crappy paddleboard teacher if I objected to getting wet.”
“At least now you can demonstrate the proper remounting technique.”
She laughed. “Yes, that’s exactly why I dove into the river. Always looking to properly educate my favorite students.”
“Favorite, huh? If I’m extra good, will you give me a gold star?”
I’ll give you something, all right, Cami thought, then flushed. Way to make it obvious you’ve been crushing on him for months.
She pushed the thought from her mind as she showed him how to grab his paddle and clamber back onto his board. Once they were both kneeling in puddles of cold river water, Paul sat back on his heels. He glanced at his watch and his eyes flew wide.
“Wow, it’s later than I realized,” he said. “The lesson ended twenty minutes ago. You gave me extra credit.”
Cami shrugged. “You’re my last client today, so I don’t mind going a little over. No charge, of course.”
“I appreciate that. I might have to hustle though. I promised the Monday night chef I�
��d drop off a couple knives for him before the dinner rush. Any chance there’s a changing area in that restroom by the parking lot?”
“There is, but it’ll be crowded this time of day. If you’ve got extra clothes in your car, you’re welcome to change in the studio. There’s a dressing room in back.”
“Good idea. I’ve been meaning to stop by anyway to check the schedule for some of your other non-soggy yoga classes.”
“Soggy yoga—I like that. I’ll have to use that in my brochure.”
“Way better than hot yoga or vinyasa yoga or any of the typical stuff on your schedule. You could do bacon yoga or naked yoga or ESPN yoga. I’d totally sign up for those.”
“You might be onto something.” Cami smiled, delighted he enjoyed her classes enough to keep coming. She showed him how to stand upright again and hung back as he began paddling toward shore. He had great arms, and the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen. Maybe he did carry a little extra weight through the middle, but it looked good on him. Solid. Strong.
“Nice form,” Cami called. “You’ve got a good stroke.”
“That’s what all the girls say,” he called back.
She laughed as Paul drove his paddle into the water to halt and turned to face her. “Sorry, that was crude.”
“I set you up for it.”
“It wasn’t very gentlemanly.”
“I omitted the gentleman’s agreement from your contract, so you’re good.”
“It isn’t even true,” Paul said. “There are currently no girls praising my stroke.”
“You can stop now.”
“I’ve only been in town six months, and it’s hard to meet women to stroke. Not that I believe in stroking women I barely know—”
“Anytime, Paul. Stop talking.”
He grinned. “Is that the first occasion you’ve had to tell a client to shut up?”
“No, but it’s the first time I didn’t really mean it. Come on. Let’s get to shore and out of these wet clothes.”
They trudged across the parking lot toward Cami’s yoga studio, making a quick stop at Paul’s car to grab his duffel bag. She unlocked the studio door and pointed him toward the dressing room at the back of the space.
“Take your time,” she said. “I’m going to run upstairs to dry off as well.”
“What’s upstairs?”
“My apartment.”
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be nosy.”
“It’s not nosy at all. I got a great deal on the space back before the real estate boom. It’s great to be so close to where I work.”
“I’m not sure I’d ever get out of my pajamas if I lived upstairs from where I worked. Not that I wear pajamas.” He frowned. “Not that I intended to announce to a beautiful woman that I sleep naked. I really need to work on that.”
Cami laughed and gave him a nudge toward the dressing rooms. “Even if I were offended, you negated that with the beautiful comment. Nicely done.”
“I try.”
“Go get changed. I’ll be upstairs.”
She turned and moved across the cork floor as Paul made his way the opposite direction to the dressing room. She paused, stopping to tidy the stack of yoga mats in the corner. Maybe she should dust off the front counter, too.
You know you’re just stalling while a hot guy takes his clothes off on the other side of that door.
Okay, so maybe that was true. She really should get upstairs to change.
There’s more temptation upstairs. Just another kind.
Sometimes, Cami hated her subconscious.
Still, she couldn’t deny it. She took the spiral stairs two at a time, pausing at the top to unlock her apartment door. She stepped inside and shoved the door shut behind her, making a beeline for the freezer.
Time for a sinfully delicious snack. Cami yanked open the door and grabbed one of the big, white bags. She glanced over her shoulder before tearing it open, revealing the forbidden contents.
“Tater Tots,” she breathed with reverence. She closed her eyes and buried her nose in the bag. A full bag, 64-ounces in total. How many had she earned? At least a dozen. Or two dozen. No more than three dozen, or maybe—
She glanced back at the freezer, doing a quick tally. Five bags left? She’d have to do a Costco run soon, though she didn’t want to admit how soon.
Cami flipped her oven to preheat, then reluctantly set the bag back on the counter and headed down the hall to her bedroom. Once there, she peeled off her wet clothes and dropped them into the hamper. She kept her eyes averted from the bedroom mirror, worried what she might see there.
Why? Your mom isn’t here, and you’ve been keeping the weight off.
Cami worked hard to stay in shape, exercising, eating healthy, and never experimenting with dangerous tactics like weight-loss pills or starvation diets. She ate all the foods her mother suggested—the gluten-free, dairy-free, raw foods and whole proteins. No junk food, only meals with no preservatives or chemicals. She ate carefully, deliberately, wisely.
Now if she could just shake her craving for Tater Tots.
Cami rummaged in her dresser for dry clothes, still keeping her eyes off the mirror. Even if she caught sight of her flat tummy and sculpted legs, she still never believed it was her. She felt guilty, plain and simple.
It had been like that since she went to college and ate her first Pop Tart. Then she discovered candy—bags of it, pounds of Skittles and Tootsie Rolls and Starbursts—before moving on to fried foods. French fries, mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers, Tater Tots. She gained the usual freshman fifteen and then some, much to her mother’s chagrin.
“You’ve been eating junk, haven’t you?” her mother chastised the first time Cami came home from college for Thanksgiving break. Her mom’s tone was the same one she might use to accuse her daughter of selling crack to third graders, and Cami felt instant shame.
Since then, she’d admitted her weakness and gotten back on track. Cami had been so good all these years, exercising regularly and sticking with healthy, nutritious fare.
Mostly.
Not entirely, her subconscious chided.
It’s just the Tater Tots, she argued. I deserve rewards sometimes.
You call five bags a reward?
I’m not eating all five tonight. Just half of one. Or maybe the whole bag…
Okay, so her subconscious had a point. Obnoxious bitch.
Still avoiding the mirror, Cami rubbed her body dry with a fluffy green towel before tugging on a pair of gray yoga shorts and a tank top with a built in shelf bra. Not that she needed the bra, but the extra padding was nice.
Dressed and dry, Cami returned to the scene of the crime. Her oven still wasn’t done preheating. She cast a longing look at it before turning to the wall beside the fridge. She stared at the photo without blinking, trying to sear the image into her brain.
“Control,” she said out loud to herself. “Control your urges or you’ll end up like that again.”
She reached out and touched the picture, not caring that she smudged the glass with fingerprints. Her mom had posted the picture there when Cami first moved in, and Cami lacked the guts to take it down. It was a photograph of Cami that first year of college, carrying the freshman fifteen. Fine, call it the freshman forty. She was sitting at a picnic table in an oversized T-shirt and baggy sweatpants that did little to hide her voluptuous form.
She wasn’t smiling for the camera.
Cami turned away from the picture and moved through the living room toward the door leading to the yoga studio. She trotted back downstairs to see Paul emerging from the dressing room, rubbing his head with a towel. He wore plaid shorts, a wide grin, and a T-shirt advertising a local brewery.
Cami quirked an eyebrow at the shirt. “A gourmet chef who likes beer?”
“Are you kidding? This is Bend. Around here, beer is gourmet. I do a six course dinner at the restaurant with different beers paired with each dish. $100 a head, and it sells out every time.”
“No kidding?”
“Nope. Craft beer is king. I’ve done the whole Bend Ale Trail three times since I moved here. The IPA is amazing in this town. Are you a fan?”
Cami shrugged. “Not really. Too many empty calories.”
“Calories?” He snorted. “You don’t look like a woman who has to worry about that even a little.”
Cami flushed. “I have to work at it a lot. I have to watch what I eat, exercise, avoid overindulging, that sort of thing.”
“Hmm,” Paul said. “I’m not sure I could do that. I love good food.”
And I love crappy food, Cami thought, picturing the Tater Tots on her counter upstairs.
“Stop by the restaurant sometime, my treat,” Paul said. “I’m cooking every Tuesday through Sunday evening. Let me know when you’re coming and I’ll make you something special.”
“I’ll do that,” Cami said, truly meaning it. She stuck her hand out for him to shake. “It’s been fun, Paul. I hope you enjoyed the lesson.”
“I enjoyed it very much.” He gripped her hand in his large, sturdy palm, not quite shaking it, but not quite holding it, either. “I really did.”
He smiled into her eyes, and Cami felt herself go warm all over. He continued holding her hand, and the tingling sensation moved beyond Cami’s hand and up her arm, across her shoulders, down her chest, toward her nipples—
“Take care.” She drew her hand back reluctantly and smiled at him.
“See you in Thursday’s class.”
He turned and headed out the glass door, and Cami closed it softly, flipping the lock. She watched him walk away, admiring the broad span of his shoulders and the solid, hefty silhouette of his body against the backdrop of the river.
God, he’s hot.
For once, she had to agree with her subconscious. If she’d thought Paul Hammond was attractive as a nameless face in the back of her yoga class, he was doubly hot now that she knew him better. Funny and smart and gorgeous with a self-deprecating humor that really put a girl at ease. The beard was sexy, too, and those eyes. And those hands—
