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  It’s very similar to the view from the window, except instead of being calm and blue, with sailboats in the distance, the ocean is gray and storm-tossed and empty. So empty. It’s a dark painting, no doubt about it. And while it’s not ominous-feeling per se, there’s definitely a hint of danger in it. I feel it in my spine even halfway across the room.

  “Told you it’s a work in progress,” he says when he catches me staring at the painting. “I still haven’t found anything I want to put in here. Except that.”

  “It’s…” “Beautiful” seems too tame a word for the feelings it evokes. “Captivating. The abject power of it—and the utter solitude that comes with that kind of power. I can’t take my eyes off of it.”

  I glance back at Shawn, watch as a series of emotions—astonishment, discomfort, acceptance—flit across his face. He settles on a rueful little grin as he says, “Yeah. That’s how I felt the first time I saw it, too.”

  “You didn’t have it commissioned?” Surprise is evident in my tone. “It fits so well here.”

  “It does. But no, I wasn’t smart enough to have a piece like that commissioned. I actually found it a few blocks from here. I went for a run one morning and ended up in front of one of the galleries on the other side of the island. I was…captivated.” He inclines his head as he uses the same word I did. “Couldn’t look away from it for the longest time. I went back two hours later, when the gallery was open, and bought it.”

  “You’ve got an incredible eye.” I glance around the rest of the house that I can see—which is actually quite a bit, considering how open the floor plan is, rooms flowing into each other without the formal definition of walls to set them apart. “This place is going to be amazing when you’re finished.”

  “I hope. I feel like I’ve been working on it forever, even though it’s only been a few months. Emerson keeps trying to get me to hire an interior decorator, but I did that in my last place. It was fine, but it never really felt like home. When I’m home, I want this place to feel like me.”

  I don’t tell him that it already does. But every inch of the space conveys openness, warmth, elegance, with an underlying wildness and ferocity that is both thrilling and terrifying. It’s the same feelings I get from him, the same feelings I have for him. Acknowledging it makes me wary, has me thinking about taking another giant step back from all of this. But if I take too many more of those I’ll be out the door and I can’t do that. Not when I owe him a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of yoga lessons.

  “I think you’re doing a wonderful job with it,” I finally manage to say, because it’s the truth and because it seems a lot less intimate than my thoughts. I’ve already given too much away to this man. My thoughts and feelings belong only to me.

  “Really?” he says with a surprised grin. “I thought it’d be a little…”

  “Wild for me?” I ask, brows raised.

  “I was thinking lacking in structure, but sure. We can go with that.” He gestures for me to follow him as he moves toward the back of the house. “Want a tour?”

  I do, more than I want to admit. Now that I know Shawn is decorating this place all on his own, I want to see the rest of it. Want to spend hours examining every nook and cranny so I can have a better idea of what’s going on inside that slick and sexy exterior.

  But it’s precisely because I want all that that I say, “Maybe later. We should probably get started before it gets much later.”

  Something flashes in his eyes at my answer, but it’s gone before I can figure out what it is. And then he’s smiling easily as he leads me into the kitchen. “Sure. Just let me stir this sauce, and I’ll take you down to my workout room.”

  “What are you making?” I ask, following him to the stove where he lifts the lid on the large red Le Creuset Dutch oven that’s simmering there. “It smells amazing.”

  “Spaghetti sauce. I thought I’d feed you after our session, if you’re up for sticking around.”

  “You made homemade spaghetti sauce for me?”

  “It’s not like it’s hard,” he tells me with a laugh.

  “It’s hard for me.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He picks up a wooden spoon he’s got laying on a spoon rest on the counter, stirs the sauce a few times. “Not a cook?”

  “I can follow a recipe, if the instructions are very rudimentary. But nothing I make is exactly inspired. And none of it smells like that.” It smells so good that my mouth is actually watering, and I lean closer to the pot to get more of the scent.

  “I could get out of the way and you could just climb in if you want,” he teases.

  “Make fun of me all you want. That smells better than anything I’ve eaten in a really long time.”

  “That’s because yoga instructors subsist on nonfat yogurt and stale granola.”

  He’s not wrong, so I just laugh and say, “Don’t knock granola.”

  “I’ll knock it all day long,” he answers as he reaches into a nearby drawer for a spoon. Then he scoops up some sauce and holds it out to me. “Here, taste.”

  “I’m afraid if I do I might just say to hell with yoga and decide to climb into that pot.” I’m leaning forward even as I say it, blowing on the spoonful of hot sauce a few times before obediently opening my mouth.

  He laughs as he slides the spoon into my mouth, and flavor explodes on my tongue.

  “Oh my God. That is so good. So, so good.”

  “You want more?” He reaches for another spoon.

  “No. I need to be able to do yoga with you, and I have the feeling one bite will lead to ten. But I will take the recipe.”

  “There’s not really a recipe. I just kind of throw a bunch of stuff in a pot and let it simmer for a few hours.”

  “Seriously?” This time it’s my eyebrows that hit my hairline. “You’re the best wide receiver in the league and a gourmet chef?”

  “One of the best wide receivers. And I’m not a gourmet anything. I like to eat so I learned how to cook.”

  “Yeah, well, I like to eat, too, but the cooking thing doesn’t necessarily follow.”

  “Guess you’ll just have to let me feed you,” he says and suddenly everything seems a lot more intimate. And that’s before he reaches up and rubs his thumb along the corner of my mouth.

  I jump despite myself. “What—”

  “You had some sauce,” he tells me, holding up his thumb so I can see the smear of tomato sauce.

  “I—” I break off on a loud exhale as words desert me.

  Shawn’s not about to let me off that easily though. “You what?” he asks.

  I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t say that, though, because something tells me if I do I’m going to end up naked on Shawn Wilson’s kitchen counter. Instead, I take a couple careful steps back and say, “I think you should show me your exercise room.”

  “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” he asks as he, too, steps back.

  He leans over to drop the used spoon in the sink, and for the first time, it registers that his knuckles are pretty scraped up. I think about asking him what happened, but his words are hanging between us, along with enough sexual tension to light up all of Southern California.

  “If by ‘it,’ you mean doing yoga, then yes. That is what the kids are calling it.” I keep my voice firm and my knees locked as I shoot him my best schoolmarm look.

  He just grins as he rubs his hands together. “I can’t wait.”

  Chapter 14

  Shawn

  I like having Sage in my house. It’s strange considering I’m usually really particular about which women I let far enough inside to get a glimpse of the real me—even in my old place. But there’s something about her, no matter how suspicious she is of the heat between us, that makes me comfortable. That makes me want to share.

  “I boug
ht some yoga mats,” I tell her as we make our way to the back of the house, where my workout room is. “Along with some other equipment that I saw in your studio.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. I would have brought whatever we needed.”

  I shrug. “If this works, I figure I’ll be keeping it up. And then I’ll need the equipment.”

  “Oh, it’ll work. I may not like being a yoga instructor, but I’m damn good at it.” She peels off her jacket as she looks me over. “Are you going to change?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I was out most of the day.” It’s my turn to look her over. She’s dressed in black and green yoga pants that mold to her very nice ass and a matching sports tank. She looks good, really good, and for a minute I think about saying to hell with yoga and trying to convince her to spend the next couple of hours with me on my very comfortable bed.

  But the look in her eyes tells me she knows what I’m thinking—and that she’s not going to go along with it. I could push a little, see what happens, but that’s not what I want. I don’t want to push her into anything. I want her to come to me because she wants me enough to overcome whatever trepidation she has about being with me. Until that happens, I’ll wait.

  “Why don’t you go on in, get familiar with the room and the equipment I bought, and I’ll go change. Let me know if anything’s missing and I’ll order it tonight.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine. I have the essentials in my backpack, anyway.”

  “Okay, then.” I give her a mock salute. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

  I take the back stairs three at a time, then change into a pair of athletic shorts in record time. Remembering that she was barefoot when we worked out yesterday, I don’t bother with socks or running shoes.

  Five minutes after I left, I’m back at the door of my workout room, watching Sage as she gazes out at the pool and patio area. I spend a lot of time outdoors, so the back patio is actually the first area I set up when I bought the place. The pool and hot tub were already built in, as was the huge covered patio. But I added the built-in grilling area, the fire pit complete with round benches surrounding it, the half basketball court and the various sitting/lounging areas throughout the backyard for people to relax in.

  I spent a lot of time designing it with the landscape architect, and even more time picking out the furniture. I’m curious to see if Sage likes what I’ve done.

  “You ready?” I ask, stepping into the room.

  She turns at the sound of my voice. “Your backyard is gorgeous.”

  Relief sweeps through me at the words, which is strange because it’s no skin off my nose if she likes what I’ve done. Except, for some reason, it does matter to me. It matters what she thinks of me and it matters what she thinks of the house I’m working so hard to make a home.

  “Thanks. It’s a work in progress, but I like it.”

  “Work in progress? What else could you possible do to it?”

  “I’ve got some ideas. Maybe you’ll give me your opinion on them over dinner.”

  She looks at me with eyes gone true hazel. Half-green, half-brown and all mysterious, they make me want to dig until I know everything that’s inside her.

  “Maybe I will,” she finally says. Then she nods to the yoga equipment I set up in the back corner of the room. “Ready to get started?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “I promise, it won’t be bad at all,” she says with a laugh. “Now come here.”

  She gestures to where she’s laid out two mats, and I move to stand on one of them. She joins me on the other, then says, “We’re going to start with two sun salutations. They’re a good way to warm up all your muscles, and then we’ll move into the position sequence I came up with to help get your shoulder back to one hundred percent.”

  “Sun salutations?” I ask. “Isn’t that a little hippie-dippie for therapy?”

  Sage rolls her eyes. “Just do the moves, dude, and let me worry about what’s hippie-dippie and what’s not.”

  She takes me slowly through the motions of first one sun salutation and then a second one. And even I’ve got to admit my whole body feels looser by the time I move into the backward stretch that is the last part of the salutation.

  I don’t mention it to Sage, but then I don’t have to. The smirk on her face says she already knows.

  “From here I want to do a couple of the poses we did yesterday. Thunderbolt and then cobra, which will really get that shoulder warmed up before we start to do some more intense stretches. Do you remember what thunderbolt looks like?”

  I get into position on my knees, then lean over, sweeping my arm around to the back of my waist like she showed me two days ago.

  “That’s good, Shawn. But let’s see if you can extend a little more with your right arm.” She’s right behind me now, smelling like cinnamon as she takes hold of my arm and shows me what she wants me to do. It’s not hard, but it’s damn hard to concentrate when her breasts are pressed up against my back and her knees are straddling my lower legs. There’s a part of me that wants to turn around and give her something else to straddle.

  “Almost,” she says after she takes me through the routine twice more. “But I still think you can extend more right here.” She puts one hand under my arm, pretty much in my right pit, and wraps the other around my wrist. And then she pulls up, up—

  Pain lances through me and I yelp, my whole body stiffening under her ministrations.

  Sage freezes. “What hurts?” she demands, dropping my arm and moving around to look me in the eye.

  “My shoulder’s just a little tender, no big deal.” I lift my arm again to show her I’m ready to try a second time.

  But Sage’s eyes are narrowed as she looks at me. “Your shoulder wasn’t that sore when I saw you on Tuesday. What happened between then and now?”

  I think about yesterday’s adventures in dangling off a mountain, but I’m not about to tell Sage what happened. She already thinks I’m an adrenaline junkie. No reason to make her think I’m crazy as well.

  “I worked it out pretty hard yesterday. I must have strained it a little.”

  If possible, her eyes narrow even more. “And how exactly did you work it out?”

  I have to fight to keep my gaze even with hers—the woman definitely has the evil eye and knows how to use it. “Oh, you know, the regular way.”

  “And does this regular way have anything to do with how skinned up your left hand is today?”

  Short of flat-out lying to her, there’s no good way to get around this, so I keep my mouth shut even as I answer her with a very mature shrug.

  “You might as well tell me what you did,” she says as she takes hold of my arm again. This time, instead of stretching it straight above my head, she rolls my shoulder backward and then forward. “Does that hurt?”

  “No.”

  She crosses my arm in front of my chest and presses until there’s a strong pull in my shoulder. “How about that?”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Maybe a little twinge, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “You didn’t come to me to prove how well you can handle pain, Shawn. You came to get rid of the pain, and I can’t do that if you won’t tell me when it hurts. I also can’t do it if you keep reinjuring yourself doing stupid shit.”

  “How do you know I did something stupid?”

  “You’re breathing, aren’t you?” She grabs hold of both my wrists, brings them together. “Lace your fingers.”

  I raise my brows even as I do as she asks. “Is that an anti-man crack?”

  “That’s an anti-Shawn crack.” She tugs on my arms until they’re extended straight out in front of me and pressed together from wrist to elbow. “From what I hear, when it comes to your personal safety you aren’t exactly t
he sharpest tool in the shed.”

  “Hey.” I shoot her a mock-hurt look.

  “I’m just calling them like I see them.” She lets go of my wrists. “Okay, unlace your fingers and stretch your arms as far forward as you can, but keep your shoulders rolled back and don’t lean forward.”

  My shoulder gives a bigger twinge, but I don’t even flinch as I do exactly as Sage asked. She’s watching closely, though, and she must see something, because the next thing I know she’s digging her fingers into the spot that’s causing most of the pain.

  I yelp before I can stop myself, start to jerk away. But she holds my hands in place with one hand as she continues to poke and rub at the aching spot with the other. It hurts way more than I think it should, but I put up with it because I don’t want to look like a wimp in front of her. And because I like her hands on me any way I can get them.

  “Hey!” I jolt after a couple minutes of her working on the same spot. “How’d you do that? The pain’s gone!”

  “I told you, I’m as good at my job as you are at yours. Definitely good enough to know that that pain comes from hanging. Were you doing pull-ups yesterday?”

  “I was mountain climbing.”

  “Mountain—” She pushes to her feet, then towers over me, hands on her hips. “Are you freaking kidding me? We’re trying to get you in shape for training camp and you’re out mountain climbing with that arm?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time. My PT told me to do as many different kinds of exercises with it as I can—so that I’m testing the muscle in all kinds of different positions.”

  “I’m pretty sure I just demonstrated that there are ways to isolate your muscle and test it without hanging off a damn cliff.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know that yesterday.” I shoot to my feet so we’re on equal footing again. I’m learning that if I want to have any chance of holding my own with this woman, I really need to up my game. Otherwise she’ll be five steps ahead of me before I even roll out of bed in the morning.