‘Tantric. As in tantric sex?’ I could feel my orgasm building already.
‘We’re not going to be having sex,’ he replied and I’d never been so disappointed in my life. ‘Come on. Trust me.’
We changed into our yoga wear and met each other in a large studio just a few doors down from the changing rooms. I was beginning to get concerned when five minutes after the class was due to start we were still the only ones there. I watched as Ethan sat on the floor, stretching his back out by leaning forward in a cross-legged position. His black shorts clinging to his bum cheeks like a canvas on a frame. I was still staring when a man entered through the double doors. He was older than us by a number of years and his face was all beard and large glasses that made his eyes appear cartoonish. The vest top and cycling trousers that he was wearing appeared to have been washed a few too many times.
‘Hi, there. Can I help you?’
‘We’re here for the Yab-Yum yoga and meditation class,’ Ethan replied, standing up and holding out his hand. The guy shook it and waved over at me.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry but the class was cancelled yesterday. The instructor fell ill with food poisoning, would you believe. We emailed all the regular participants but I don’t think I’ve seen you two before?’
‘No. This is our first time,’ Ethan said, grabbing my hand.
‘I instruct a few classes at the centre. I could offer you a brief session, a very brief introduction to Yab-Yum,’ he laughed. ‘I’m not an expert by any means, but it seems a shame that you’ve turned up to your first class and I have to send you away.’
‘Shall we?’ Ethan asked as I nodded in reply.
The session started gently enough with stretches and…what not. I didn’t like to tell the instructor or Ethan that I was way out of my comfort zone and the last time I did a headstand I was approximately three years old. After I mumbled that I was a beginner, the instructor gave us some simple warm-up poses, which we did side by side, arms brushing, bodies reconnecting. Our eyes were supposed to be closed, but as I glanced at him and he glanced at me we smiled widely and tried to supress our laughter at how bizarre this all was.
‘Ethan, as you’re more experienced than Amy I suggest you support her with this next pose,’ the instructor said.
We were encouraged to face each other, Ethan grasped my hand, splaying his fingers around my wrist as I stretched out my leg and held onto my foot, creating a beautiful pull across my stomach and through my sides. I wobbled terribly, smiled constantly and moved my hand to Ethan’s forearm where we locked in place. He was strong and steady, capturing immediately the same pose I was having trouble mastering. His shoulders flexed, the definition of his muscles working to the extreme, dips and bumps completely taut and beautiful.
‘Reach and embrace,’ the instructor said. ‘Steady and calm. Look into each other’s eyes and connect. Latch on to each other’s stability. Create a joint strength.’
I held my gaze. Ethan held his. We didn’t drop our eyes with a shy laugh or try to stop our smiles. Everything turned serious and honest. The only noise I was conscious of was our breathing, perfectly in sync, completely in time. I started to wobble again, his strong hand tightened around my wrist and steadied me instantly. ‘I’ve got you. I won’t let go,’ he said, his strong gaze never faltering and as I bit my lip in the vain hope that it would end my wobbly knees, I believed him.
‘Before we finish, I want to show you the classic Yab-Yum pose,’ the instructor said, guiding us to the floor. ‘Ethan, sit with your legs crossed and your hands resting on your knees, palms facing up to the sky. Open. Ready. Beautiful.’
It was like the instructor had a direct link to my thoughts. Ethan was all of those things and as I watched him do as he was asked, waiting for further instruction, I was overcome with how amazing it was to have him back in my life.
‘Amy, can you see that pose?’
The instructor broke my thoughts, pointing to a framed picture on the wall of what looked like a Buddha-like man sitting in the same pose as Ethan. A woman sat across the man’s lap. Their faces were inches apart, a long, loving look exchanged between them. I immediately imagined them in a lovers embrace, his cock hidden but very definitely inside her. A shiver rumbled through me.
‘Can I ask you to recreate the pose with Ethan?’
I looked from the picture to the man I had missed so much. The friend I had lost and cried for. The lover I had longed for. My body was no longer my own and soon I found myself straddling Ethan’s lap, my arms around his waist, my hands stroking small circles against the hard planes of his back that was in such contrast to the softness in his eyes. Two people in perfect union.
‘The picture represents the blend of wisdom and compassion, depicted as the male in union with the female.’ The instructor’s voice was far away now, falling outside the realm of reality, like hearing him speak as I was immersed in water.
I had Ethan in my arms. Nothing else mattered. Time stood still. He had a small smile that disappeared on a breath as he fought to take in the moment. How long had it been since I held him like this? Intimately. Lovingly. Too long. God, it was too long. He tipped his head, bringing his face closer to mine, his warm breath tickling my mouth, making me want to part it slightly to allow him in after what felt a lifetime. Our eyes didn’t lose connection, our noses so close. He rubbed his along mine, small nudges, tiny dips, loving caresses until we were so close I thought my body was going to implode.
‘Amy?’
A far-off voice, one familiar and recognisable.
‘Amy?’
The voice again. It stirred something deep inside me, a happiness that I hadn’t felt for so long, a feeling of safety. A longing. A need.
I thought I heard footsteps, the door close, but essentially, all I could hear was him.
‘Tell me I can?’ Ethan said, his nose nudging softly, his voice straining on a whisper. He was fighting the urge, losing the battle. My eyes remained closed as I felt myself nodding, a softness crept over me. Warmth flooded my senses, my body, my core. His lips, the same lips I memorised and needed to feel again more times than I could count were finally against mine, where they belonged.
The pace was slow and tentative at first, he was asking my permission, seeking reassurance that it was OK, it was what I wanted. It so was. The pressure built. His hand on my face became firmer as he explored the skin, sweeping his fingers to my neck, enticing goosebumps and arousal. My lips matched his pace until we were hard and reckless. Two people who needed to reconnect so much, we almost crawled under each other’s skin.
‘I’ve missed this,’ he said, his forehead pressed against mine. ‘Fuck, I’ve missed this.’ His breathing was laboured, he looked in pain, his eyes squeezed shut. I wished that I could see into his thoughts, stop him from regurgitating the past mistakes and help him draw a line under them until we could start again without those mistakes haunting us.
I pushed his neck back, pressed my face against his chin as my fingers trailed down the prickly expanse of skin finally resting on his shoulders.
‘We’re reconnecting. Starting again. Don’t think about anything else. I can hear your thoughts and I’m so tired of them, Ethan. I’m tired of pain and despair. I want to think of the good because there was so much good.’
On those words his hand cupped my breast, a moan escaping his mouth at the contact. I looked down, watching his splayed hand on my breastbone, his face contorted in pleasure and peace as he gently pushed me back onto the floor as my body still straddled his waist.
‘Holy fuck,’ he whispered on a gasp, his fingers trailing up my light grey yoga pants. ‘Jesus, fuck, Amy.’ I watched his eyes permanently fixated between my legs and I followed them there, looking down to where he was transfixed. His thumb met my seam, dipping into the curve, following the slope to the dark stain of arousal between my legs. ‘Look how much you want me. This. Us,’ he whispered, still rubbing me with the pad of his thumb at just the right angle and with the
perfect amount of pressure. I should have been embarrassed that my arousal was showing clearly, that he was making me so wet I couldn’t contain it, but all I wanted to do was enjoy the moment.
He was capturing me again.
‘Ethan!’ I moaned as he pulled the band of my yoga pants from my hips. Noises and inexplicable sounds were escaping me, the thought of his bare hands on my pussy too much to process. His strong hands pulled the fabric tight in his fist, balling it up and exposing me to him. Tiny shudders passed through my body, the urge to have his fingers touch the bare skin, glistening and slick for him and only him, causing a deeper desire. My back arched off the floor, pushing myself towards him, encouraging the feel of a steady finger circling the hard nub that was now sensitive and pulsing.
‘So fucking beautiful,’ he said, spreading my folds, burying his fingers in them, opening the bud, intensifying the feeling.
And then I was spiralling.
The orgasm hit. Hit me like a concrete block, followed by another, and again until I was a shivering mess being held down by the man who caused a reaction so intense I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get up again.
A soft knock on the door encouraged Ethan to pull me towards him, pulling me in tight to his waist, the feel of his hard cock against my stomach not helping the sensation of needing to repeat that all over again and soon. My arms found his neck, I wrapped around him tightly to steady myself. I was so turned on that it felt like a weight was pulling me down yet forcing me to float back up again. I’d lost that sensation after Ethan, never finding it again. I put it down to youthful horniness that had mellowed as I’d left my late teenage years behind. But that was a smokescreen, a lie I told myself because I knew that in reality, sex would never be as intense and exceptional with anyone else.
The room was still, despite a second knock, a creak of a heavy door and a fake cough. I focused on our heavy breaths, Ethan’s hard and desperate, despite me being on the receiving end of an orgasm that appeared to have broken me.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ the instructor said, tentatively poking his head through the door. I had no recollection of his presence and certainly no knowledge that he had ever left the room. ‘Is it OK to come back in? Refocus? Or maybe just round off the session.’
‘Round off,’ Ethan replied firmly, still holding me tightly, his hand pressed to the back of my head telling me that I didn’t need to move or answer, just recover and be.
‘You were having such a lovely moment I decided to leave you. It was such a full and honest connection. I felt like an intruder. Very inspiring. You obviously know each other well. Or at least you connect very well.’
‘Thank you. We do,’ Ethan replied.
I listened to the instructor’s footsteps cross back over the floor, the creak of the door as it closed and a room entombed in silence once again, I pressed my face against Ethan’s neck and held him tight, thankful for the moment, grateful that he was back in my life and hopeful that we could make things work.
‘As much as I would love to stay like this, I think we’re going to be asked to leave. We also need to eat and start thinking about the show tonight,’ Ethan said, still holding me in place, not attempting to let me go.
‘A firefighter, right?’ He nodded against my face. ‘Fortieth birthday party?’ He pulled back and sat my hair behind my ear, an expression on his face I couldn’t fathom. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Don’t,’ he replied, connecting our hands together.
‘Firefighter Long Hose, isn’t it?’
He dropped his gaze. ‘Yes.’
‘You really want me to watch?’ I asked, hopeful he would say no.
‘I want you to see what I do,’ he replied. ‘Pop some of the myth.’
And just like that, I was forced back into uncertainty and doubt.
Could I handle watching him?
Could I accept what he did for a living, reignite our relationship and live happily ever after?
I wasn’t sure I could.
Chapter 10
We drove to the club in silence. There was an atmosphere and I wasn’t sure if it started with me and ended with him or if it was the opposite way around. He became quieter the more he looked at his watch. The constantly ringing phone made his shoulders jump and he handled it like the bloody thing was going to detonate in his hands every time he put it back in his pocket. He was handling me the same. Small, light touches, an occasional finger grab. Nothing like the passionate caress I had become accustomed to in the yoga studio.
He repeatedly asked if I was OK and seemed happy to accept a nod or an anxious smile. I sipped my coffee just to have something to focus on other than what I would be watching in the next hour or so. My heart collided against my rib cage like a reaction to an emergency stop as he parked the car and announced we were at the venue.
He blew out a long breath and stared out of the windscreen, eyes straight ahead. No awkward glances or nervous smiles. I couldn’t fail to pick up on his nerves. I also noticed we weren’t in the stripper mobile, instead he had packed his things in the boot of his Mercedes, the firefighter’s helmet encrusted with crystals already sitting there as he closed the boot.
‘You can change your mind, Amy,’ he said quietly. ‘You don’t have to go through with this.’
‘Ha! Never,’ I replied brightly, trying to lighten the mood. ‘I’m ready to experience the full show, Firefighter Long Hose.’ He smiled briefly but it wasn’t genuine. The dimples were there but not as deep and beautiful as normal.
‘There’s a room where I get changed. If you feel you need to get away, have a break, you can go in there. I’ll give you the key.’ I nodded as he sighed again. ‘Shit, this is going to go wrong, I can feel it. You should go home.’
‘What’s wrong? Are you getting performance anxiety? That’s not like you at all.’
Another fake smile. More small dimples.
‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he replied simply. ‘I’ve waited years to find the right opportunity to find my way back to you. It took me forever, Amy. This might fuck it up.’
I listened to him, holding his hand as it trembled. He was speaking the truth and I understood him completely, but there was a bigger part of me that needed to do this. ‘I want to do this. I can’t explain why. It’s like the final piece I need to put to the side before I can move – whatever this is – forward. Am I making sense?’ He averted his eyes until I held my fingers under his chin and pulled his face towards me. ‘Do I make sense? You need to tell me.’
‘Yes. Complete sense.’
We got out and Ethan unloaded the car, shaking his head and laughing as I put on the firefighter helmet, banging it on top with my hand. We were greeted at the back door by a bouncer who pulled Ethan in for a hug and a back slap.
‘This is Amy, my Amy,’ he said. I held out my hand and winced as the bouncer shook it with a grip from a fist that could smash through a watermelon on one attempt.
‘Hi, my Amy,’ he smirked, smashing Ethan on the shoulder. ‘You know the drill. Two jobs tonight. One at nine and one at ten.’ He directed his head to a corridor, handed Ethan a key and he took me through to a door at the end.
Inside, the room was small but less seedy than I imagined it to be. Across one side was a dressing table, a mirror surrounded by lights sitting above it. I would have laughed at the absurdity of it all if it wasn’t for Ethan staring at me with such intensity he was practically pinning me to the wall.
He dropped his bag to the floor with a thump and watched as I slowly took off the helmet and placed it on the couch at the side of me.
‘What’s the first thing you do in your getting-prepared-to-strip routine?’ I asked, sitting on a chair, legs spread, inviting him in. He folded his arms across his chest, resting the perfection that was his ass on the dressing table behind him.
‘I get undressed,’ he replied, his voice catching in his throat.
‘Go on then.’
‘You want to watch me?’
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I swallowed harshly, appearing to lose all ability to lubricate my mouth. ‘I think so. Yes.’
His heavy breath mixed between a gasp and a laugh in response.
I wanted to hear that same rough sound just before his tongue hit my clit.
He uncrossed his arms as he stood up, gently shuffling off his jacket to reveal a white t-shirt rolled up at the sleeves. As his skin came into view and I memorised the dips of his shoulders, the veins in in his forearms, the god that was Ethan, I suddenly became brave.
‘Strip for me.’ His head pinged up, his gaze unsure. ‘Show me. Strip.’
Ethan stepped forward before bending down, pulling me, along with the chair, to the centre of the room.
I giggled as he did, trying to hide my face as he trailed his between my cleavage, slowly, so close, almost touching but maddeningly not quite, until he was standing in front of me, chest expanding and contracting as he fought to regulate his breathing.
‘I don’t have any music.’
‘We don’t need any,’ I replied. ‘Show me your moves, big man.’ That encouraged a dimple-worthy smile. ‘This is right isn’t it? Sitting on a chair in front of you, waiting for the grind?’
‘I’m going to make your stripper performance chairy-pop,’ he replied, lifting his eyebrow and waiting until I finished laughing before slowly walking towards me. I was mesmerised. Fascinated. Completely enthralled. The man in front of me was a walking sex hormone and I wanted him between my thighs.
His hand reached down his body, between the bumps of his abs and down to his stomach, pulling at his t-shirt and slowly revealing the muscles perfected by hard work and sheer determination. And then the grinding started. Yum.
He was so close I could smell him. The smell of sex but the clean kind of smell that made your most sensitive places tingle and vibrate. I could see the outline of his cock through his jeans, the denim straining against the magnificence of what could only be described as a monster. A pleasure monster. The swell and bump set my teeth on edge. I desperately wanted to pull the zip, freeing it and closing my mouth around it, my tongue circling the tip. As I was thinking about how he would taste, his mouth crashed to mine and I welcomed it. Christ, I welcomed it. My hands twisted through his hair, pulling him closer, arching my neck to expose myself to him, melting as he kissed me there. My weak spot. The spot of skin he used to devour.
Stripped Bare: A Novella Page 7