She didn’t know what to say to that, but Jon shrugged casually at her silence, offered her that sleepy smile again. “Just give it some thought. You can tell me your answer at the end of class. Though I’m not taking no for an answer, so you might as well say yes now.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that either. However, his easy manner about it helped make her noncommittal nod feel not so awkward. Still, to discourage further conversation, she folded herself into a sitting position on her mat and initiated pranayama, the breath control exercises.
In through the nose, pulling energy up, then out through the mouth, trying to release tension in her shoulders. Though yoga required focus and concentration for maximum benefit, within three breath cycles she knew that was a lost cause for her today. But an intensely physical workout would be good. She’d work both their asses off, and then she’d be too exhausted to think. Saying no to that Tantric class would be automatic, no more than a reflex she’d conditioned and used countless times to maintain her privacy and solitude. That was best.
They went from breathing to standing and stretching asanas as warm-up, and then from there she worked them into the more difficult poses. Unfortunately, it was hard to let exertion numb her when Jon gave her a yoga experience like she’d never had before.
Even in advanced classes, she couldn’t move at this pace, not at this level of difficulty, because the class couldn’t read her mind. But he seemed to anticipate her every choice and moved easily with her, so it was almost as if they were bridging the gap between a hatha approach and ashtanga, which used flowing, dance-like movements to transition between postures. It was exhilarating.
And no level of exhaustion could help her overlook how well those poses displayed the male body. It made one that was already beautiful even more so. When they transitioned into Sleeping Thunderbolt, she found herself studying him in the corner of her eye. As he folded himself to the floor on his knees, he aligned his feet on the outside of his hips, planting that fine ass on the floor between his calves. His torso elongated in mouthwatering display as he arched back, his knees remaining on the floor as his upper body became a crescent and the back of his head touched the floor, his hands settling into a prayer pose on his open chest.
She’d put herself at a diagonal position to him so that she could watch his posture as his teacher, but that was an unnecessary adjustment, because his form was flawless. Watching those taut buttocks resting on the floor, she wished she could see the strain of his thigh muscles beneath the loose pants. She was all too aware of the camber of cock and testicles emphasized by the upwardly canted position of his hips. She wanted to crawl over there, slide her hands under the baby soft cotton of the tank, caress his abdomen, follow it with mouth and fingers…
Sleeping Thunderbolt was a misnomer, because it awakened a storm inside her. Giving herself a fierce internal shake, she brought them out of that for the next phase, the inverted asanas, head and handstands. When she used the wall for hers, he waited until she pushed up and balanced. It was the only time during the class he hadn’t been in sync with her, and she realized he was spotting her, ready to catch her if needed. It wasn’t one of her personally easier moves. Though most of her students wouldn’t have noted that, he obviously had. While she was qualified to teach yoga, yogis could spend decades perfecting the moves, and she’d only been doing this for a few years.
She’d turned up the room temperature to maximize the benefit of body heat for their practice. It had put a loving sheen of perspiration on his muscles, which became more pronounced as he stripped off the shirt, put it aside and then pushed up into a full handstand. He had no need of the wall, those gorgeous shoulder muscles creating a work of art as he held his weight and balance on his mat.
The ache in her limbs after that sequence and a glance at the clock, showing they’d been going at it for ninety minutes, told her it was time to take it down. She moved them back into a few sun salutation repetitions, then down for some floor stretches, easing into the closing nidra. Her limbs had turned to spaghetti, such that she wobbled when she went from a standing pose into a half-lotus.
“All right?” He was watching her so closely. That, plus the gentleness of his tone in the quiet room, made her feel like his question was directed to something far beyond her mere physical state. She had to swallow before she answered.
“Yes. Just overdid a bit. Joints aren’t as resilient as they once were.”
“You look superbly flexible to me. But sometimes we push ourselves too hard when we’re trying to outrun things.”
He had a way of saying things like that, with such unruffled calm, as if it was completely normal to venture past the intimate edges of a person’s psyche.
“Like time?” The halfhearted joke, the attempt to turn him away from the sharp boundaries, didn’t do the trick. His attention didn’t waver.
“Things you’re afraid to want.”
Candlelight, heated room, heart rates slowly evening out. At his words, hers stepped up a pace, making her feel a little lightheaded, though she was already sitting down. She made what she hoped was a noncommittal noise, gave him her practiced distant smile that warned he was stepping over a line. As she put her hands on her knees, she adjusted the fake wedding band with one finger, knowing the sparkle would catch the candlelight. When his attention went to it, she shut him out further by closing her eyes, starting their breathing sequence again.
She kept her ears attuned to it, knew when he was matching his breath to hers, following her deep inhale, the slow exhale. She focused on her posture, on grounding and centering herself. Supposedly yoga practice helped a person connect to divine energies. Today her focus cavorted outside her grasp like a not-so-playful poltergeist. The demons she’d hoped to leave behind had only swelled in size, such that instead of peace and calm, her stomach had been invaded by flesh-eating beetles from The Mummy movies.
All because of one simple, utterly truthful statement. Things you’re afraid to want. Damn him. Didn’t he understand she couldn’t afford these types of games? She’d long ago lost her ability to risk the playful nature of romance. Like a child who pretended to play dead during heroic games, but then saw actual death, she knew what such games meant now. The reality of love was dark and damaging, a morass she couldn’t face again.
When she lay down on her back, straightening out her arms and legs for the savasana, the Corpse pose, the sad irony wasn’t lost on her. She refused to let herself look toward him, until she heard the shifting of his mat. She cracked open an eyelid to see that he’d aligned his mat next to hers and was now lying down, emulating the stretch. His spread fingers were within an inch of hers.
She wasn’t sure how to react, what to do. He was doing nothing at all wrong. Maybe he was inside the personal space margin, considering there was the whole classroom floor to use, but he wasn’t touching her. Not technically. In the space between their parallel bodies, she felt the compressed heat of two auras, and was hyper aware of every long, lean portion of the body next to her.
“Having trouble hearing?” Another weak joke, delivered with a touch of desperate acid. She wished she could take it back, because she didn’t want to be mean to him. She just needed him to leave her alone. But she also needed him to never stop coming to her class, so she could still have the guilty pleasure of dreaming impossible dreams.