Ethan wasn’t sure what he’d gotten himself into, but if it meant seeing Willow bend over in those skin-tight leggings, he’d pay the price.
She had a way of looking at him, sort of starry-eyed, that did flattering things to his ego. Plus, she looked adorable in her leggings and top. Like cotton candy that melted on the tongue.
“Okay,” she said, putting down her glass. “I’ll show you one. It’s called Dragonfly, or Maksikanagasana.”
“Maksi … what?”
She laughed. “It’s Sanskrit. Just call it Dragonfly. First I need to warm up. I can’t do it cold.”
He watched as she went through deep breaths and motions, bending forward at the hips, placing her hands flat on the floor. His mouth went dry. Then she stepped back into something that made her into an inverted V, holding it for several breaths, and he imagined moving behind her and grasping her hips. Which, he knew, would be totally inappropriate. She took this stuff seriously. It wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t watch her without getting turned on.
A few more moves, one where she balanced her weight on her arms, her knees on her elbows, and he had to keep his mouth from dropping open. She did it all with such precision and grace, but he knew it took incredible focus and strength.
“Okay.” She unfolded herself and stood tall, then placed her right foot along the side of her leg. “Dragonfly opens the hips, but also takes a lot of core and upper body strength. Ready?”
He watched, awed, as she bended and twisted like a pretzel, and balanced only on her hands as one foot rested on the side of her arm and the other was off the floor, perpendicular to her torso. Was it sensible that her strength and physicality turned him on? They did nothing to detract from her femininity; they enhanced it. What sort of muscles did she have to have to do something like that?
“Holy shit.”
She tilted her head up slightly and smiled at him. “It took me a long time to be able to get to this pose.”
She took another deep breath, then unfolded herself back onto the mat. “You want to try something? We’ll start small.”
“I guess.”
“Come here.” She got to her feet and held out her hand. He put down his glass and stood, feeling a bit apprehensive. He’d never been very flexible.
“Okay. So the first thing you need to do is breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
She chuckled. “No, full breaths. Nice and slow, in and out through your nose. Actually, let’s sit down first. I’ll get you a mat.”
She unrolled a pink mat and he raised an eyebrow at her. She only smiled. “Okay, so sit in a comfortable position.” He dropped onto the mat and crossed his legs. “Keep your spine long and tall. Close your eyes.”
“Really?”
“It’s fine, I promise. I’ll close mine, too. But I’ll know if you’re cheating.”
He chuckled, but closed his eyes.
“Inhale through your nose. Go slowly. Fill your abdomen, then your diaphragm, and finally, fill your lungs.” He did as she said, and heard her do the same. “Then exhale through your nose, slowly, with control, letting out all the air from your lungs, your diaphragm, right down to your stomach.”
“Do that four more times. Clear your mind. Relax your body. Shut out all the noise from your day, and just be in the moment, listening to the sound of your breath. In, out, through your nose.”
Once, he opened his eyes. Hers were closed as she sat across from him. “Close your eyes,” she said in the same calm tone. “Focus on your breath.”
How had she known he’d opened his eyes? He let the question settle, then worked on the breathing. Huh. His shoulders did feel more relaxed. He kept breathing, losing count of how many breaths, but kept going, his body melting a bit each time.
“Good,” she said quietly. “Now open your eyes. How do you feel?”
“Relaxed,” he admitted.
“We’re usually so busy going from place to place that we forget to just stop and breathe and be in the moment. I’m going to show you a few basic postures first, but I’m also going to show you a few exercises to help with the range of motion in your wrist. Ready? Stand up for me.”
Lord, but she was graceful. He stood and listened while she dictated his breaths and he stretched tall into Standing Mountain. She demonstrated something called Half Moon, where she stood flat on her feet, jutted out one hip, and arced to the side. When he arched into the pose, which was harder than it looked, she stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on his hip, shifting his alignment slightly. He felt the shift in the stretch immediately.
“Good,” she said, leading him through to the same stretch on the other side. “Now bring your hands down to your heart, like this.”
He felt like a fool, but not as much as he thought he would. Not with her doing the same motion.
“We’ll do one more before I get you to stretch out your wrists. Spread your legs on the mat, wide but not too wide. Your weight should be balanced across your whole foot.”
He did as she commanded.
“Now take a big inhale, and open your arms out to your side. This is called the Five-Pointed Star. Let out your breath and relax into the pose.”
Her voice kept on, soft and sure. “This is one of my favorite poses. I feel rooted and strong through my feet, but my chest and arms are open. My heart is open, too.” She met his gaze, her eyes soft and a slight smile on her lips. “I knew I was on my way to recovery when I did this in class one day, and I shifted my palms so that they faced neither up nor down, but out. I felt like I wanted to hug the whole world. And I started to heal.”
His throat tightened. She said it so calmly, so easily, but it was a very personal admission.
“I want to hug you right now,” he admitted.
“Then do it.”
He broke the pose and took two steps, off his own mat and onto hers. He folded her into his arms and she placed her palms on his shoulder blades. But best of all was the way she inhaled and then melted into his embrace. Like two trees twisting together.
Man, he was starting to get as philosophical as she was.
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
“Thank you,” she said against the soft cotton of his shirt. “For being you. For being you with me.”
It shouldn’t have made sense but it did. When he was with Willow, he didn’t have to be someone’s son or father or coworker or brother. He could just be Ethan. It was such a relief.
“I should be thanking you. Being with you the last month has let me start to heal. I was so worried about keeping up appearances for everyone else that I couldn’t just be myself. You gave that back to me, Willow. For the first time in over two years, I feel happiness. Not just happy moments, but happiness.”
As he said it, an unexpected warmth filled his chest.
She leaned back and looked into his face. “Me, too, Ethan. I thought I was happy, and I was, but I was still holding myself back from caring about someone. And now here you are. I know we’re going to take it slow, but I want you to know that I appreciate you. I love being with you.”
“I love kissing you,” he whispered, and he dropped his gaze to her lips. But he didn’t kiss her. The words were doing the wooing right now, and he wasn’t in any rush.
“I love it when you kiss me,” she acknowledged. “Both strong and gentle. Tender and tough. When you touched me last night, I felt like I was treasured, but I also felt desired.” Her gaze burned into him. “You’re a great lover, Ethan.”
Christ. Her hands were sliding over his shoulders now, feather-light touches down his triceps, back up to his shoulders and along the hairline on his neck. The blinds were open tonight, and the muted glow of the fading sunset filtered into the room.
She didn’t belong here, inside, with hard floors and walls and the confines of furniture. It was too manufactured an environment for a warrior woman. That’s what she was, he realized. A warrior. A beautiful, big-hearted warrior that made his heart swell with pride that she was a part of his life.
He was falling for her, fast and hard. And he was unable to stop it. It wasn’t just about sex … though he would be honest enough with himself to admit that he wanted her so much right now that he ached.
“If I could, I’d make love to you on a soft bed of grass, with the wind blanketing your skin and the moon above us. That’s where you belong. Or by a river, where the water’s cool and …
“Let’s do it,” she replied. Her cheeks were flushed and her breath came quicker than before. “I know where. Let’s do it, Ethan. Let’s go make love by the river. Let’s be free.”
He had to be out of his mind.
“I’ll drive. You navigate.”
* * *
Once upon a time, Willow’s mother had said, “Sex changes everything.” She’d meant it as a caution, when Willow had come home past curfew on the night she’d gotten pregnant. Not that her mom knew what had happened, but when a teenage girl starts breaking curfew and going out with high school jocks, cautions come with the territory.
Willow’s fingers trembled as she folded them in her lap, not from anxiety or fear but pure, unadulterated anticipation. Her mom had been right. Sex did change everything. Sleeping with Ethan last night had changed their relationship. And it had made them both insatiable. Not just for the physical intimacy, either. The words they’d said tonight—and the ones they hadn’t—were important.
Now they were on their way through a backroad, where Fisher’s Creek met the river, the property of one of the farmers she knew. The drive through the small field would be blocked off by a gate, but it was a short walk to the river’s edge and the natural beach. Fred had shown it to her when she’d taken the tour of his farm, looking for produce suppliers. At the time she’d commented that it was a stunning spot, and he’d revealed that it rarely got used, except during lunch hours when his workers would sometimes eat their lunch and then wade in the cool water before going back to work.
No one would bother them there.
She directed Ethan to a small pull-off spot in the shade of some birches, and he killed the engine and lights. “You’re sure about this, Willow?” She could see his troubled eyes as he looked over at her. “I don’t mean to be a killjoy, but Aiden and Laurel got caught in a compromising position on the golf course earlier this summer. I don’t want your friend coming after trespassers, you know?”
She smiled. “Fred’s probably already asleep. His morning starts at five. Besides, he’s told me to stop by for a swim anytime I want.”
“And have you?”
“Not until tonight.” She grinned at him, feeling a little bit wicked. “Come on, Ethan. You, me, the moon, some soft grass, the cool water on our skin…”
He opened the door and the dome light came on. “Why the hell not,” he replied.
They shut the doors quietly, and darted under the gate and down the tractor path like guilty teenagers. She hadn’t felt this alive in ages. When was the last time she’d taken a risk? Had fun? Since she was seventeen, those young moments of daring had passed her by. She’d been too busy dealing with stuff to be silly or impulsive. Oh, it felt good, particularly when he took her hand and tugged her along with him, toward the bottom of the hill and the secluded spot that was to be their haven for a few hours.
The water lapped softly against the pebbled bank, and the light breeze whispered with a hush through the poplars, birches, and maples. They halted, and Willow took a deep breath. Now that they were here, she wondered who would make the first move. Ethan, too, paused, though he kept her hand in his.
Willow looked up, caught sight of the orangey harvest moon, and let the pull of her own sexuality guide her actions. Slowly, she released her hand from his, and took a step back. She was still in her yoga clothes, and it took little effort to slide the loose tank over her head. She slipped off her sandals and squeezed her toes in the coarse sand, then shimmied out of her leggings. Her bra was the next to go, and she felt the slight weight of her breasts as the soft mesh fell away. She put it on top of her other clothes and then slipped out of her panties, so that she was naked before him. Naked and feeling gloriously free, like Eve in the Garden of Eden.
“You’re beautiful,” Ethan murmured, his eyes wide with what she thought was wonder. When had anyone ever looked at her in that way before? “Like a moon goddess. And I’m the crazy fool who thinks he might have a chance with you.”
She smiled, so surprised and touched that she had to make a joke or else blurt out how she felt about him. “For a guy who seems so reticent, you’ve definitely been waxing poetic tonight.”
“Maybe I’m inspired,” he replied, too quickly for it to be a practiced comment. Her heart surged again.
And then once more as he pulled off his T-shirt, revealing his broad chest and the dusting of reddish-gold hair there. If she was a goddess, he was the Irish Faerie, seductive and sneaking past all her defenses. Tonight, in the moonlight, anything was possible.
His shorts followed his shirt, and his underwear, too. They were outdoors and utterly naked. No … not naked. Natural. There was a difference. And this felt so incredibly right. Last night had changed things. Tonight they would change again, and for once, Willow wasn’t terrified.
He held out his hand and she took it. Stepped closer to him, and they spent precious seconds touching each other; arms, backs, stomachs, breasts. He ran rough fingers over the soft skin of her bottom, and she reached down between them and ran her knuckles over his silkiness. They weren’t just touching, she realized. They were exploring each other, and it felt sublime.
When that wasn’t enough, he lay her down in the soft grass and kissed her, worshiping her with his mouth, and she closed her eyes, letting the rest of her senses take over during the sweet torture—the touch of his hands, warm and rough; the soft, wet heat of his tongue. The sound of the wind in the leaves and the gentle lap, lap of the water on the gravelly bank. A lonely loon somewhere on the river, its call echoing through the clear night. She reached out again and wrapped her hand around him, and his hips surged forward, welcoming her touch. Cool night air kissed their heated skin as their hands and mouths grew more impatient.
“Come into the river with me,” she said, just before licking his sternum. “I want to feel your hot body and the cool water on my skin.”
They got up and ran to the river, gasping only a little as they entered the water in long, purposeful strides. When Willow was up to her waist she stopped and pulled him closer. He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around him, pushing against his hips, seeking relief. He took them deeper into the water, until the soft waves crested her nipples, the difference in hot and cold only heightening her sensations. They kissed and groped, with more urgency and less finesse than before. And then Ethan let go of her with one hand, reached down between them, let her slide a bit, and slipped inside her.
She nearly came at the first contact, but the water and the position together made for an awkward rhythm. Ethan walked them back to the shore until he got to where the water came to his knees, then he lay her down in the water and positioned himself above her. The water slid over her body and made her hair pool out around her, but it was shallow enough she could brace her feet and meet him stroke for stroke. His hot mouth met her water-cooled breasts; she cried out as he rolled a pebbled nipple between his teeth. The rhythm got faster and waves were breaking now from the movement of their bodies, ebbing and flowing.
“Willow,” he said roughly, and she looked up to find him gazing at her with such intensity she felt it right in the heart of her soul.
“Ethan,” she acknowledged. Just Ethan. Just his name. That was all they needed. I see you. I know you. I love you.
Their gazes clung, thrust after thrust, and when they came apart together, something shifted inside her. An inevitability, an acknowledgment, a benediction.
And when they caught their breath again, they smiled at each other and Willow pushed herself farther out in the water, away from shore. She swam a few strokes, then dove beneath the surface, the refreshing cold washing away the weight of the past, making way for a hope for the future.
She surfaced and found Ethan a few feet away, equally wet, smiling like a fool.
She smiled back.