She ignored the desire to trace every carved muscle on this man’s chiseled body. “There are two issues to address,” she continued. “Balancing my chi is the first condition. But balance is a pretty broad concept, and it would be most advantageous to treat the second more acute ailment.”
“Which is?” Raz pressed.
Her heart was about to beat itself clean out of her chest.
Just say it.
“My inability to have an orgasm.”
Holy Buddha’s belly! She blurted it out like she was ordering a vegan burrito.
“You want me to get you off? You’re proposing we shag?” he asked, his eyes widening.
She winced, then looked away. “I’m sorry. It must sound outrageous. Not to mention, I don’t even know if you have a girlfriend.”
“I don’t,” he interrupted, urgency lacing his hasty reply. He gently cupped her face in his hands. “I don’t do relationships. Like it is for you, sex is just sex for me. No feelings. No love. No commitment. Only release.”
He was lying. She didn’t know how she knew, she just did.
“There’s no Miss Right out there for you?” she asked, attempting humor, but the intensity in Raz’s expression didn’t let up.
“No,” he bit back through gritted teeth.
He was lying again. She felt it in her very being—or was that her discombobulated chi throwing mixed signals again?
It didn’t matter.
She knew where she stood when it came to men, love, and sex. And as crazy as it sounded, the like curing like method might be her last hope to work this beefcake out of her system, welcome back her long-lost O, and balance her chi.
“Since we’re on the same page when it comes to how we approach sex,” she went on, treading carefully. “We could treat my condition with an academic approach and employ a curriculum with benchmarks. That’s how I teach my yoga classes. My background in physical education and kinesiology pull from science and clinical observation, while my yoga training harnesses the unseen piece, the current of energy that flows through us.”
“So, a little science and a little yoga mumbo jumbo?” Raz replied.
“Something like that. When I teach, I pick a skill, then work toward attaining it with my students. The skill in our case would be my O. We could measure progress by testing methods to attain an O together and then test if I can complete the goal by myself. After that, I’d move on to achieving completion with an outside partner. This experiment combines the best of qualitative and quantitative analysis, which I believe will support a productive outcome.”
There! That was a mouthful, but surely, her kinesiology professors back in college would have given her high marks for such a well-thought-out physiological goal. And the yogis who taught her along the way would have to agree that using like forces to overcome an energy blockage was a sound technique.
Raz frowned. “Can you say that in English, please?”
She focused on his gray, piercing eyes. “If I can get off with you, the curriculum would be considered a success if I were able to masturbate to completion. That’s the first benchmark. And then, the final test would be to see if I could climax with another partner. That’s the second benchmark.”
Well, that was weird. Had she ever actually said the word climax aloud?
“Climax with another partner?” the man growled.
Had she struck a nerve?
“Yes, then we’d know that the skill had been mastered and that it was able to be reproduced in different domains,” she answered, sticking with the science.
“Reproduced in different domains?” the man repeated, no, growled, again.
Now she got why people called him the Lion.
This shouldn’t upset him. It was just sex, right? Or maybe she simply sounded like a maniac. She honestly couldn’t tell. With Erasmus Cress cradling her face in his strong, warm hands, it was hard to focus on anything. Using the pad of his thumb, he caressed her jawline, and the contact sent a delicious buzz through her body that settled between her thighs.
“I didn’t understand half of what you said, plum. But here’s what I know. Something is going on between us. I felt it when you came into the gym all those days ago and asked me to keep it down.”
“That was the shift. That’s when my chi went crazy,” she whispered.
“And all of a sudden, the air thrummed with electricity—all blue and violet, like what happened tonight,” Raz answered.
He might be a big, beefy jock. Still, when Erasmus Cress dropped the arrogant act and referenced auras, he was utterly irresistible.
“Okay, we’ll follow the curriculum. And don’t worry,” she continued, “I can promise that this experiment won’t interfere with my ability to be your son’s nanny or your spiritual advisor. I take my responsibilities seriously. And when I commit to something, when I make a promise, I see it through.” Her voice quivered as flashes of her past tried to invade her mind, but she regained control. “We’re talking about purely physical acts. No emotions involved.”
She remained stock-still as she waited for the man to reply. With the washing machine humming in the background and the air around them on the brink of igniting, neither said a word as he devoured her with his gaze. The intensity of this man could power the city for days. And as much as she disliked boxing, Raz’s ability to fiercely focus must serve him well in the ring. It certainly had her spellbound.
He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip, then turned her head to the side. Leaning in, his lips skimmed the shell of her ear. “I’m going to take a step back, plum, and then, right here, right now, you’re going to strip for me.”
Strip…for Erasmus Cress…in a fancy laundry room?
And he wanted to get down to business now?
This man didn’t mess around.
Raz made good on his word and moved away from her. And then, as if she were caught in a dream, she kicked off her sneakers, peeled her white yoga capris from her body, then slipped the shimmering sports bra over her head and let it fall to the floor. She had no issues with nudity. The human body held the spirit. It was a vessel to be revered. But when she glanced down at her nude-colored underwear, which, oh no, bordered on granny panties, she felt her cheeks heat. Of all the days to go beige, this wasn’t one of them. In her defense, when she woke up this morning, doing a striptease for Raz in his apartment-sized laundry room was the last place she’d expected to end her day.
She shifted her stance. “Pretty boring in the underwear department, but there aren’t many options with white yoga pants,” she added with an insanely awkward flick of her wrist.
That’s the first thing she says after the man commands her to disrobe?
What was she doing—schooling him on the art of wearing white?
But the glimmer in Raz’s eyes didn’t channel disappointment or the desire to discuss panty lines. Not breaking eye contact, he ran his tongue across his top lip. “I’d imagined what was under that red jumper. But this…you…you’re bloody perfect. Nothing on that body could be considered boring.”
He’d thought about her naked.
She shouldn’t like that—not at all. But her body couldn’t lie. Her nipples tightened into pink pearls as she allowed her hungry gaze to rove over him.