stay on yours. No hanky panky.” I actually do need a good stretching after all the time in the gym I spend lifting weights. Every muscle in my body is stiff. Lainey bends over to adjust the corners of her mat and I realize now everything is stiff. Her fucking glorious ass might as well be naked and saluting me. It’s an odd sensation, wanting her like I do. It’s familiar, but it seems so taboo at the same time.
“Your man didn’t want to join? Let me guess. He hates the beach?” I sit down to stretch, reaching for one foot, and wince, and then the other. She looks over at me and the smile fades from her face.
“No,” she starts, but then pauses. “I mean, yes, Dax hates the beach, but I didn’t invite him. I guess I’m confusing him lately.” She lies on her mat, flat on her back, with her arms stretched over her head. Turning just her head, she looks at me. “I guess I’m confusing myself, Cody.” The doubt is there and there’s no running away from it.
I realize I haven’t taken a breath, so I exhale. It’s noisy. Even audible over the sound of the waves lapping the shore nearby. Before I can reply, Lainey switches poses and I follow suit, trying to decide what the fuck is going on inside her mind while bumbling with my big muscles. It’s a challenge I accept. I let her have this silence, planning to attack her with the question the second we’re finished. I can’t focus on yoga or releasing my ego or any of the other bullshit that is expected. I can’t be in the moment because of her proximity and she’s confused and fuck, is this my in? Do I throw caution to the wind and just kiss her senseless right here and really set the record straight? She won’t be confused after that; I know it for a fact. I go through the motions, pretending to zone out for the rest of the practice. “Down Dog,” Lainey says, her voice a hoarse whisper. Long blonde waves cascade on her mat as she lowers her head.
“How do you know I’m up?” I whisper. I am, because how can I not be when her ass has been in my face for the past twenty minutes. I haven’t been this close to her in so long that there’s no controlling my reactions.
A puzzled look crosses her face. “Huh?” She didn’t hear me. I snicker. She’s usually the one with all of the jokes. With a sigh, she falls back against her mat. I stay upright, mostly to be able to see her, and also because I want a good view of our surroundings. You can never be too careful, or too watchful. Paranoia set in the second I found out V is on the prowl. Ever so delicately, she lays her hand off of her mat, palm up in the sand in between us.
I take her hand and she squeezes it. “What do you want?” she asks quietly, her fingers stroking mine. Isn’t it obvious?
“What I want is quite simple and quite complicated at the same time. I want what I’ve always wanted.” Lainey sits up, keeping her fingers intertwined with mine.
“This,” she says, as she looks down at our hands, “was always an impossibility. I want you, Cody. And there’s no way for that to happen unless someone gets hurt.” You know that saying that ‘all’s fair in love and war’? It’s just not true because nothing about our situation is fair. It’s fucked up. Lainey goes on. “Seeing you just makes me want to see you more and more, and how in the hell is that healthy for my relationship? I mean, Charlie Christmas, I’m getting married and all I can think of is the next time I get to see you and talk to you and you guessed it, be with you. This is why I didn’t want to see you. Deep down I knew this would happen. I’m so messed up in the head I couldn’t even work yesterday.”
Every bone in my body is shuddering in protest. I grab her other hand, so I have them both. “We should go, Lane. You should get back to him.” Can’t hurt him now, can we? I wonder if her parents like him as much as they loved me. Do they take family vacations together? Does she tell him about our time together like it