Life Is A Beach: Life Is A Beach / A Real-Thing Fling

Karma shut her ears to the byplay between Slade and Mandi and forced herself to breathe deeply, trying to find her center. The trouble was that by the time Slade, looking like every dream man in every one of her fantasies since she was twelve years old, began to spread his mat out beside hers, her center seemed to have moved downward considerably to that warm place between her—

“Karma,” Slade whispered under his breath while fielding admiring glances from virtually every woman present without so much as acting as if he noticed. “Karma, what am I supposed to do?”

She opened her eyes. “What Prashant says.”

“Oh,” Slade said in a puzzled tone. He glanced from her to Prashant. “He likes you, I think.”

“Prashant? That’s doubtful.”

“He certainly came running when he saw us talking. Defending his territory, maybe?”

The observation was too ridiculous to be worthy of reply, and Karma was saved by Prashant’s settling down on his own mat at the front of the group and welcoming them all to the lesson.

Prashant began the class by chanting an Om. “Allow yourself to go with the flow, and then you will find what you’ve been looking for,” he said afterward with reverence.

“I’ll be damned if I think that’s going to get me a wife, which is what I’m looking for lately,” Slade muttered under his breath. Karma threw him a reproachful look.

“Well, don’t I have you to find me what I’m looking for?” he whispered.

“Go with the flow anyway,” she whispered back.

Prashant coached them through a few simple warm-ups. With Slade beside her, Karma, for the first time ever in yoga class, found it difficult to concentrate. As they progressed through various poses, he doffed his shirt, revealing a torso that was leaner, harder, and more muscular than she could have imagined. And she had been imagining it plenty, starting from the first moment she saw him.

It was an intense class, and the members of the group, most of whom were intermediate students, flowed from pose to pose with little recovery time in between. Sun Salutation, Warrior, Downward-Facing Dog…and Slade, who seemed to be struggling valiantly to keep up, looked slightly more musclebound with each pose. Musclebound was not good with yoga. Flexible was good. Agile was good. Slade seemed to be neither.

“Are you doing all right back there, Slade?” Prashant asked once, and Slade replied with what looked like a grin superimposed on a grimace. “Fine,” he gritted through clenched teeth, but the next pose, a backbend, drew an incredulous intake of breath from him as he lay on his back and attempted to lift himself up.

“Karma, you are the best at backbends. Will you please demonstrate?” suggested Prashant.

“Well, I—” she began, but Mandi said, “Yes, Karma, do!” and was rapidly echoed by Jennifer.

All eyes were upon Karma, but the only ones that mattered in that moment were Slade’s. He lay on his mat looking up at her with a challenging grin, and all she could think at the moment is that if they were in bed, this is what he would look like—well-muscled and fit, his grin fading into passion as he reached for her and pulled her down across his body, the better to kiss you, my dear.

“Backbends are important,” intoned Prashant, breaking into her reverie. “They help our bodies release emotion in a positive way.”

“Wouldn’t backbends be good for me?” Slade urged. “Since my chakra is blocked, I mean?”

He might have something there, but the thing that finally decided Karma was that if she were in a backbend pose, she wouldn’t have to look down at him and thus wouldn’t be tempted to reach over and unbutton his jeans, a behavior that surely would be frowned upon.

Karma forced herself to lie down on her mat; she closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, then exhaled as she firmly planted her hands behind her ears and her feet flat on the floor. While inhaling the next breath, she hoisted herself up into a backbend, keeping her eyes closed and wishing she’d never invited Slade to class. Slowly she walked her feet in a bit closer and arched her back even more, thrusting her breasts up. She knew that the quickly inhaled breath next to her came from Slade, and too late she realized that she was exhibiting more of the very thing that he probably wanted to see if Jennifer were correct in her thinking. Karma was wearing a thin exercise bra along with tight shiny leggings. Neither did anything to disguise her womanly attributes. This could be good. This could be bad. But all she could think about at the moment was that she wanted to get out of this pose.

As she began lowering herself to her mat, she was horrified to hear the separation of stitches somewhere along her front. Then she felt a quick rush of air in a private place and realized with horror that her leggings had split somewhere south of her belly button.

Thump! She hit the floor abruptly and sat up, yanking her mat up to cover herself.

“Excellent,” Prashant was saying. “Only next time do not come down so quickly. You could get dizzy that way.”

“Oooh, Karma, did you rip your new leggings?” Mandi said in a loud voice.

“Oooh, Karma, that’s too bad,” echoed Jennifer.

“I—I think I’d better go change clothes,” Karma said, running the words all together and hoping she wasn’t wearing the panties with the lace panel in front. They would reveal too, too much.

She scrambled to her feet, clutching her mat in front of her as she sidled sideways toward the door. Slade was staring at her, his eyes wide, a devilish grin on his face. Without a single word to him, she turned and darted inside the building.

“Unfortunate,” she heard Prashant murmuring. “Shall we try the backbend one more time and then rest for a few moments in Child’s Pose before our final relaxation?”

Karma slammed the door behind her and looked down. Sure enough, more of her was exposed than Slade Braddock needed to see. She owned one pair of lace panties, only one pair, and guess what?

She was wearing them tonight.

Unexpectedly she burst into tears. Prashant was right—backbends promoted the release of emotion. Too bad that in her case, backbends made her blubber.

SLADE DRAGGED HIS ACHING carcass along to the Blue Moon’s lobby after the class. He was still reeling from his meeting with someone who had claimed that she was his Friday night date, a woman who had introduced herself as Jennifer Something and looked so artificial that she terrified him. He couldn’t believe that Karma would set him up with someone completely wrong for him, someone that he would never in a million years take home to introduce to his parents. He’d fled as fast as it was possible to flee without being downright rude.

Goldy hunched in her chair behind the desk, knitting. She blinked at him over the top of her half-glasses when he entered the lobby.

“How was the yoga class?” she asked brightly.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that I’m feeling freer all the time.” This was not necessarily untrue, though what he was feeling freer about was pursuing Karma. She might not be the sort of woman he had hoped to find in Miami Beach, but she had certain—attributes, all of which had been more in evidence tonight than at any previous time.

“I received a lot of energy in the class,” he offered helpfully. And a novel view of Karma, he thought to himself.

“That’s good,” Goldy said, and she beamed.

“There are a few things I’d like to discuss about it. About the expression of this energy, I mean. But Karma won’t answer my knock.”

“Maybe she’s not in her apartment.”

“She left class early. Did you see her go out?”

“No, I didn’t see Karma leave. Not that I would, necessarily. Not if she went out the back. She often slips out that way to walk on the beach, especially when she’s feeling all mellow from yoga class. The door’s down that hall.” Goldy inclined her head toward her left.

“Thanks, Goldy,” Slade said. He grinned at her, and she grinned back.

“You know, Slade, I seem to recall that you live on a boat.”

“At the moment, that’s so,” he said.

“Karma has need of a boat. She wants to scatter her aunt Sophie’s ashes at sea.”

Goldy’s intent was not lost on Slade. She was giving him another boost, a clue as to what he could do to capture Karma’s attention, possibly even her undying gratitude.

“Like I said, Goldy, thanks. I owe you.”

“Remember, you can’t escape your Karma.” She winked.

He winked back before loping off down the hall.