Downward Facing Dreamboat

by Bru Baker

  He stepped to the center of the mat and brought his feet together. “We’re going to start with tadasana—mountain pose. This seems like an easy pose, but to really get it right you have to be aware of all parts of your body, from your toes up to your head. First we’re going to plant our feet on the mat, making sure we’re distributing our weight evenly across our feet. You should be flat-footed, and I want you to be able to feel the edges of your feet sink into the mat. We want strong roots.”

  Kincaid mirrored Owen’s stance, feeling a bit silly as he extended his arms out from his hips, palms forward. It looked like some kind of earth mother goddess pose.

  “Focus on drawing yourself up and opening your posture,” Owen said. He pushed his shoulders back and shifted his hips. “Shoulder blades reaching toward each other, chest open. Imagine pushing your shoulders down and back, getting them away from your ears, and lengthening your neck. We want to make ourselves tall and strong.”

  He tried, but Owen stepped out of his own pose to hover near him. “We want our chest open,” he said, placing his palm between Kincaid’s shoulder blades. “Bring your shoulders back like you’re trying to capture my hand between your shoulder blades. Good. Now release your shoulders. You’re so tense they’re practically earrings.”

  Owen’s hand moved up to squeeze at the back of Kincaid’s neck. “Relax. Deep breaths. Control your breathing. Breath is a very important part of your yoga practice. We want to be in control of it at all times. Feel your feet on the mat. Lengthen your stance, unlock your knees and feel the stretch through your calves.”

  Kincaid was finding it hard to relax with Owen’s hands on him. He almost flinched when Owen moved to grip Kincaid’s hips with both hands.

  “Your hips should be aligned with your shoulders. Your pelvis is tilted back, but we want it to be neutral.”

  He shifted a hand to Kincaid’s lower back, guiding him into the right alignment. Kincaid tried to ignore the firm pressure of his hands, which was going straight to Kincaid’s dick.

  Do not perv on the teacher, he reminded himself.

  Kincaid took a deep breath in and was surprised to feel it resonate deep within his chest. This actually was relaxing… when he managed to ignore the hot guy with his hands all over him.

  “Perfect,” Owen said. “Let’s hold this for sixty seconds.”

  He stepped into the pose next to Kincaid, barely inside the line of his peripheral vision.

  “Focus your gaze straight ahead to give your body the cue to remain aligned,” Owen said, and Kincaid blinked guiltily and adjusted so he was staring at the opposite wall. “Tadasana is the starting point for a lot of yoga poses. I almost always begin my classes with it because it’s a good way to center yourself and get into the right frame of mind for your practice.”

  Kincaid liked that Owen kept up a steady line of chatter. His mind tended to wander when he was bored, and Owen’s voice kept him focused on what he was doing.

  “We’re going to flow from our tadasana straight into uttanasana, a standing forward fold. This is a great pose for runners because it elongates and stretches those hamstrings.”

  Owen stepped up to the mat in front of Kincaid again and moved into tadasana. He raised his hands straight up in the air.

  “Not all practices do it this way, but I think it adds to the stretch and it definitely helps beginners find the right alignment,” he explained. “Raise your arms up. Focus on the stretch. You’re making more room in your rib cage, lengthening your spine and raising up like there’s a string pulling on the top of your head. We don’t want to thrust our chests out or move our hips out of alignment. Good. Just like that.”

  Kincaid wanted to preen at the praise. Owen’s descriptions really did help—and he was surprised to find that he did feel like his torso was lengthening.

  “This is called a forward fold because that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We want to bend our body forward and bring our head and chest toward the floor. Don’t worry if you can’t get very low as we start this pose. Everyone’s base level of flexibility is different. We don’t want to strain—we’re letting gravity help our heads sink toward the floor.”

  Owen folded forward gracefully, ending with his hands flat on the floor. Kincaid tried to follow, but he could barely reach his fingertips to the mat.

  “Don’t push yourself,” Owen said. He stood and came to Kincaid’s side, his hand spanning across Kincaid’s spine. “This should be relaxed. We’re not holding ourselves in this pose—gravity is holding us in this pose. We’re just letting go and allowing it to pull us farther into the stretch. When you’re further into your practice, you’ll want straight legs for this, but for now it’s okay to bend your knees a bit. Go ahead and put your hands on your opposite elbows. Like that, yes, form a rectangle. And then let your arms hang.”

  Kincaid’s back popped in three places, and he sank a tiny bit further into the stretch. The blood was rushing to his head, but he felt amazing.

  “Good. Now, keeping your back flat, raise your head so you can look at the wall. Perfect. Ground your heels into the mat, really digging in. We want to keep our legs straight so we can get the best stretch possible in those hamstrings. If your body is ready, you can try straightening out those knees a bit more.”

  Kincaid followed his directions, and the burn in his hamstrings intensified instantly. He wobbled a bit, and Owen’s hands came to rest on his lower back, pulling him backward a fraction.

  “Remember that we want our pelvis open and our hips rotated fully forward,” Owen said, holding Kincaid in place.

  Kincaid sank a bit more into the fold. “See? When we’re in proper alignment gravity does a lot of the work for us in this pose. Later, when you’re doing more difficult poses, having this base alignment right will protect your joints and make it easier for you to do the poses correctly so you get the maximum benefit out of them.”

  Kincaid tried to focus on the stretch in his back and legs and ignore the fact that Owen was standing behind him, gripping his hips. God, he wished they were in front of the mirrored wall. He’d give just about anything to see the picture they were making right now.

  “Okay. We’re going to come out of uttanasana. I want you to be careful not to roll your back as you stand, which is going to be your natural inclination. Instead, focus on keeping your back flat with your muscles engaged and lift yourself out of the bend to come back to standing.”

  Owen’s hands slipped around until they were on top of Kincaid’s hip bones. “This is where you should be lifting,” he said. “Try not to dislodge my hands as you come back to a standing position.”

  Kincaid’s hitched breath had nothing to do with the yoga pose and everything to do with how close Owen’s fingers were to his groin. He did his best to keep his back flat as he stood.

  “Good, good. As you straighten that last bit, make sure you straighten your legs as well to bring yourself back to that original tadasana pose.”

  Owen let go of him and Kincaid didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed to lose the contact.

  He was still a bit out of breath when Owen stepped back in front of him.

  “That’s common for beginners,” Owen said with a grin. “You’re so focused on getting the pose right that you forget to breathe. If you take my classes, you’ll get tired of me reminding you to stay with your breath. It’s the most important tenet of yoga.”

  Kincaid huffed out a laugh. Most of his heavy breathing was down to Owen’s proximity.

  “So how do you feel? You’ve just completed your first yoga flow—moving from one posture into another. That wasn’t too difficult, right?”

  “It was great,” Kincaid said. He was surprised to find he meant it. He felt looser already.

  Owen glanced at his watch. “All right, we’ve got about ten more minutes in your session. Are you feeling good about your PT homework? I’ll be sending you home with a set of bands so you can do the exercises at home. Do you have any questions?”r />
  “Can I ditch the boot?”

  Owen laughed. “Most definitely.”

  “I’m good. And what about regular exercise. Cardio?”

  “Nothing weight-bearing yet.” Owen shook his head when Kincaid groaned. “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but you’re not ready. So no running. Swimming or a stationary bike are fine, and you can try the elliptical if that’s more your speed as long as you stop if there’s any pain in your ankle.”

  That was better than nothing. “Got it.”

  “Good. Do you want to wrap up early or spend the last bit of time learning another yoga pose?”

  Kincaid was starving, but he didn’t want to waste a minute of his time with Owen. He’d have to go get dinner before he hit the gym tonight, but it could wait ten minutes.

  “Let’s do some more yoga,” he said.

  Owen’s megawatt smile was worth the hunger pangs. “Excellent! We’ll make a yogi out of you yet, huh?”

  He went back to his mat and sank to all fours. Kincaid’s pulse jumped at the sight, and he covered his embarrassment by mirroring the pose. It had the added benefit of getting his crotch out of Owen’s line of sight, since he wasn’t sure how long he could look at Owen presenting himself like that without popping a boner. It reminded him too much of the way his practice yoga session at home had gone.

  “We’re going to do an easy flow of poses that will open up your spine and stretch your back,” Owen said. “Marjaryasana, or cat pose, is usually used with bitilasana, cow pose, as a warm-up because it’s a gentle stretch that gets your blood moving.”

  Owen rounded his back up with his head tucked down and then sensuously slid into a pose that had his ass up in the air, back bowed and head up. Want slammed through Kincaid. Owen looked so fuckable like that—a hundred times hotter than he’d been in Kincaid’s cat-cow pose fantasy last week. A blush blazed up Kincaid’s neck when Owen looked over and caught him staring.

  “So that was the sequence,” Owen said, apparently mistaking Kincaid’s lust-filled gaze for interest in the pose. “Now I want you to try it as we go through it again. Let’s start in neutral spine.”

  His back flattened, and Kincaid forced himself to look at Owen’s face instead of his ass.

  “You want your hands and knees to be under your shoulders and hips. Your body should make a nice, even table like this,” Owen said, demonstrating. “It’s important to keep that alignment or you could hurt yourself. We’re going to let our bellies sink toward the floor in our cow pose, with our sitz bones raising up toward the ceiling as we take in a nice, deep inhale. Our heads also raise up and our eyes find the ceiling. Now we’re going to press our back up into cat, arching up into the stretch as our heads relax down, making the most of that position so we can really feel it through our shoulder blades. Draw your stomach up, blowing out your breath as we empty our chests. When we’ve emptied our lungs, we’re going to release down into cow pose again, taking another inhale. Let’s roll through a few of these, making sure our breath is steady and we’re focusing on keeping it deep and even and breathing through that stretch.”

  Owen kept calling out instructions on breathing and switching between cat and cow, and he made his way over to kneel next to Kincaid. He was ready for the touch of Owen’s hands this time, even with his blush still burning as he raised his ass up into the air.

  “Less tension,” Owen said, resting his hand between Kincaid’s shoulder blades on his next cow pose. “Let your head fall back, don’t struggle to raise it. Tip it back and let gravity help you. There you go. Now press your shoulders back, really squeezing those shoulder blades so you can open up your chest. Good.”

  Owen brought his hand under Kincaid’s stomach, touching it lightly as he urged Kincaid up into cat. “Bring that head down, let it drop and hang. Tuck your chin toward your chest. Doesn’t that feel good? Can you feel the tension melting from your neck?”

  It felt amazing, but not as good as Owen’s light touch along his sternum. He nearly swallowed his tongue when Owen’s other hand skimmed the waistband of his shorts.

  “Tilt your pelvis into the stretch. There you go. And now drop into cow. I really want you to feel the difference between the two poses here in your pelvis. When we’re in cat, it needs to be engaged, and when we’re in cow, it relaxes and lets your spine stretch. Good.”

  Kincaid shifted to get a better grip against the mat, and the movement made Owen’s hand brush against the curve of his ass. He gasped and couldn’t help but push more firmly into the touch. Owen’s palm cupped him through the slippery shorts, and Kincaid bit back a moan. Owen cursed quietly and pulled his hand away like he’d been burned.

  “Okay, you’ve got it,” Owen said. He sounded as breathless as Kincaid felt.

  Kincaid turned his head slightly, watching Owen stand up. His khakis were tented, just like Kincaid’s basketball shorts. Owen turned around and adjusted himself.

  Kincaid sat up, mortified.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “You did great, Kincaid,” he said, but the smile he offered didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were trained on the floor. A mottled flush worked its way up from the collar of his shirt. “I’ll have Cliff come in with those bands for you to take home, and he’ll give you written instructions for the range-of-motion exercises too.”

  Owen was gone before Kincaid could protest. Shit. He’d fucked up royally. But Owen had seemed into it—hadn’t he? He’d been the one to actually grab Kincaid’s ass after the initial accidental brush.

  God, he was such an asshole. Owen had literally just told him he hated being hit on by patients, and what did Kincaid do? He took it a step further and totally bad-touched him.

  Cliff appeared at the open door a second later, an unreadable expression on his face.

  “Dr. Behrens asked me to get you set up for your next appointment. Let’s get you back to the locker room to change, and then we can go over your home instructions and get you scheduled at the desk.”

  Kincaid thought he’d scheduled all four of his physical therapy appointments when he’d called, but maybe not. He followed Cliff back to the locker room, but instead of changing he grabbed his bag. It didn’t make sense to change back into his street clothes if he was stopping at the gym on the way home.

  Cliff and Owen were talking in low tones at the front desk when he came out. The moment the door opened, Owen walked back through another door behind the desk.

  “I’ve got everything you need to take home with you here, Mr. Sorens,” Cliff said, holding up a bag. “There are written instructions for the exercises inside, as well as warning signs that you’re pushing yourself too hard and need to back off a bit.”

  Kincaid took it and shoved it in the side pocket of his gym bag.

  “Now I see in your file that you have a preference for evening appointments. Dr. Behrens doesn’t have another opening this month, but Dr. Seely can see you. Her first opening is next Wednesday at six thirty. Will that work?”

  Owen didn’t want to see him again? Was that what this was about? He hadn’t even given Kincaid a chance to apologize. Shit.

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Kincaid said when Cliff looked at him expectantly. “Will I be seeing her every time?”

  Cliff’s smile was too broad. “Yes, Dr. Seely will be taking over your care. She’s a great physical therapist. She works with a lot of athletes, and Dr. Behrens referred you to her because he said she could get you back in running shape.”

  Kincaid wondered if that was true or if Cliff was just blowing smoke up his ass. Owen had clearly told him something had happened—Cliff had been friendly and easygoing when he’d checked Kincaid in, and now he was stiff and his smiles looked fake.

  “Dr. Seely has that six thirty slot open for the rest of the month. Do you want to go ahead and take it for your remaining sessions?”

  “Sure,” Kincaid said. He took the card Cliff held out to him with his appointments on it. “Hey, tell Dr. Behrens I’m sorry it didn�
�t work out to have him as my doctor, okay?”

  Cliff’s smile shifted to one that was more genuine.

  “Of course. Our doctors refer patients back and forth all the time, so don’t take it personally. Dr. Behrens just couldn’t fit you into his schedule.”

  Kincaid held back a snort at that. He wished Cliff a good evening and headed out. The hunger that had been gnawing at his stomach had turned to a sick sort of feeling, and Kincaid decided to head home instead of hitting the gym.

  He’d crossed a major line and royally fucked things up with Owen. Kincaid wasn’t sure what the nonstalkery next step was, but he wanted to at least sincerely apologize in person. He wouldn’t go by the yoga studio—Owen deserved a lot better than being perved on by a client in either professional capacity, but the yoga studio was his space. Kincaid wasn’t about to make things worse by inserting himself there too.

  Chapter Three: Abhaya Hridaya Mudra – Fearless Heart Seal

  “I’M JUST saying he sent you a pretty clear signal,” Natalie said, picking at her salad.

  She was the maid of honor in a wedding next month, and she was determined to lose five pounds. She’d even joined Kincaid’s gym and started working out with him two nights a week. He was only partially convinced it wasn’t out of pity, but it was nice to have someone there. Even someone who complained bitterly through every workout.

  He’d been desperate to talk to someone about what had happened, and she’d been surprisingly supportive. Angry at him for being such as asshole, but supportive. It was more than he deserved.

  It had been almost three weeks since the ass-grabbing incident, and Kincaid had his last appointment with Dr. Seely in an hour. She’d been wonderful—it wasn’t that he didn’t think she was competent. She just wasn’t Owen.

  His ankle was feeling great. She’d let him start easing back into running, and now he was managing three miles a day with no soreness. Ramping back up to his normal mileage so slowly was killing him, but cross-training at the gym with Natalie helped. He might not be able to exhaust himself with a run yet, but he could still swim until his muscles gave out or spend a furious hour on the elliptical sweating all his cares away.