She sounds wracked by guilt, and I’ll have none of that.
“Katie, I want this deal to go well for your company, so don’t apologize. I understand completely. Truly, I do.” Especially since it’s harder for women in these situations. Society often gives top athletes a slap on the hand when they mess around with women they work with. But the fairer sex? They usually get the jagged edge of the judgement knife. I hate the thought of that happening to Katie.
“Thank you for saying that. And please know I would ask for someone else to fill in, but my business manager made it explicitly clear that Wilder Enterprises hired me.” She still sounds like she’s in the worst funk.
Same here.
“You’re the face and brand,” I say with a sad smile. “Everyone wants you.”
She dips her head, laughing wistfully. “But I would otherwise have switched. Because I really wanted to see you tonight,” she says, so sweet, so vulnerable.
I step closer, daring to get near to her, to inhale her scent. “I really wanted to see you too.”
Instead, we make plans for the morning.
Professional plans.
Even so, when I hit the sack that night, all I want is for the sun to rise.
15
Harlan
Seeing Katie in her cute blue yoga pants, that tight pink yoga top, and that sexy, swishy ponytail? Well, let’s just say it frazzles my brain.
But I’m a good boy.
I’m in the zone.
The cat, cow, dog zone.
We are just a yoga teacher and a client, not the man and woman who cancelled a hot date last night.
In a private room at her studio, designed for one-on-one sessions, Katie takes me through several poses, then says it’s time for a lunge twist.
“This is critical for a receiver. It’ll help as you lunge for catches,” she says.
I’ve done plenty of stretches over the years, just like this one. But Katie studies me like a scientist then shifts my body like a sculptor, setting her hands on my hips, urging me to deepen the rotation.
I’d like to deepen other rotations.
“There! That’s perfect. Now just hold it,” she says, so damn encouraging as she sinks into the same pose, twisting her elbow against her thigh, looking supple and flexible and all sorts of bendy.
“Show-off.”
“I just like to move my body,” she says with a smile.
And that’s not helping, because I like all the ways she moves my body, as well.
Like when we switch to a frog pose. “On your hands and knees,” she says.
“Things I’d like to say to you,” I mutter, and dammit, that’s not the cat-cow zone. That’s the naughty zone.
Must stay out of it.
“Harlan Taylor,” she admonishes, but there’s a sexy note in her voice that tells me she, too, is savoring every flirty morsel we allow ourselves.
Which isn’t much, but I’ll take what I can get.
“Then you need to slide out your knees a little bit, like a frog.”
I settle into the awkward AF pose. “I look like a dork.”
“Yes, but who cares?” she asks, with an easy shrug, a sexy jut of her shoulder. I swear, everything this woman does is sexy to me.
But I also like talking to her.
Chatting with Katie is one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. Always has been, ever since the first night at that wedding. We just clicked. She’s a kindred spirit.
“Doesn’t matter if you look dorky. Or silly. Just . . . laugh,” she suggests.
“Aren’t you supposed to say . . . I dunno . . . omm or namaste?” I tease.
She settles onto her mat next to me, getting into the same pose, first on her hands and knees, then sliding her knees out to the side. Looking like a frog, obvs. “I take the poses seriously, but I don’t take myself too seriously,” she says, then her lips curve into a sly smirk. “Ribbit.”
I chuckle. “I’ve got some animal noises for you right here.” As I hold the weird pose, I give her my best roar. “Rawr!”
She cracks up, falling face-first to the mat as she slaps the floor.
“What? Was I not fearsome as a lion?” I arch a brow.
She turns to me. “You’re as fearsome as the king of the lion frogs, Harlan!”
“See if I ever entertain you with animal sounds again,” I say, but I’m laughing too.
Especially since we’re definitely not in the naughty zone anymore. That has to be good for our brand-new working relationship.
“Moo,” she says, quickly zipping out of the frog pose, and into a bovine one, bowing her back. Seconds later, she’s arching like a cat. “Meow.”
I whimper.
Katie is a very sexy yoga cat.
“Meow-zers,” I say.
Hopping out of the position, she moves behind me, dropping her hands to my hips and wiggling them. Her tone is teacherly again, the yoga instructor who believes in what she does. “If you can hold the frog pose for at least a few minutes every day, that’ll help release the groin and inner thigh. Those are locations for a lot of injuries. You want to keep the groin nice and soft.”