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He insisted on cleaning the dishes. There wasn’t much to do—just rinse them off and stack them in the dishwasher—but Cali appreciated his help. Once she’d spooned the leftovers into storage containers, he scrubbed the pots.
There was something undeniably manly about a big, strong guy with his sleeves rolled up and his hands glistening with sudsy water as he scoured a wok. That his shoulder holster and gun were on display should have disturbed her, and it did...but she had to admit the gun and holster made him look even manlier. The leather straps crossing his torso emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and his lanky physique. He wasn’t he-man muscular, but he was solid. Sturdy. Strong.
She didn’t want some strong, armed man hovering over her like an umbrella, protecting her from a drizzle. But the disgusting emails she’d received might be a downpour, not a drizzle. And if they were, she wanted Sam to keep her dry.
Besides, he had a storm churning inside him, too. The more time she spent with him, and the more relaxed he seemed, the more certain she was that he was caught in a cloudburst deep inside his soul, and he was drowning. He could brighten a room with his smile, but even when he was laughing, shadows darkened his eyes.
Cali wanted to be his umbrella.
“Okay,” he said, setting the wok in her bamboo drying rack and wiping his hands on a towel. “Anything else I can do? Mop the floor? Install a security chain?”
Cali grinned. “You could stand on your head.”
He looked momentarily befuddled. Then he laughed. “No,” he said. “Maybe you can. I can’t.”
“Sure you can. It’s easy. Come.” She led him away from the sink and into the main room. “It’s all about balance. Take off your gun.”
He frowned but obediently unstrapped his holster and laid it on the nearest chair.
“Now, get down on the floor.” She dropped to her knees on the rug and nodded for him to follow her lead. Apprehension flashed across his face, but he obeyed.
“Now, you’re going to shape a triangle with your forearms against the floor.” She clasped her hands, then lowered her elbows so they formed the other two points of the triangle. “Your head is going to go by your hands—not the top of your skull, but the crown, right above your forehead.” She tapped the spot on her head before lowering it to her hands. “And then, you’re going to lift your body—” she demonstrated, raising her knees off the floor “—as if you’ve got a string running through your spine, your pelvis, your legs and feet, and someone is pulling that string higher and higher...” and she slowly unfurled until she was upright, her body a straight line, her toes pointed at the ceiling.
She was perfectly comfortable in the position. It felt natural to her. Every cell in her body was aligned, blood flowing to her head, energy flowing to her feet.
After a long minute, she contracted her abdominal muscles and drew her legs down slowly. When her knees touched the rug, she lifted her head and smiled at Sam. He was gaping at her.
“I’m supposed to do that?”
“I’ll help you,” she promised. “If you want, you can do it leaning against a wall.”
He shook his head and laughed. “No way. I’ll come crashing down. I’ll break something.”
“No you won’t. Take off your shoes,” she advised, noticing the thick-soled shoes he had on.
He eyed her warily, but untied his shoes and wrenched them off.
“Good.” She rose and crooked her finger. Hesitantly, he followed her, padding in his thick wool socks to a space near the wall. “Okay. Face the wall. Triangle with your arms. Crown of your head by your hands. There you go,” she encouraged him as he arranged himself according to her instructions. “Now, bend your knees...”
He did, and she gripped his ankles. She felt hard knobs of bone through his socks, and the taut cords of his Achilles tendons. His legs were heavy—of course they would be, not only because he was a good six feet tall but also because he was resisting her, afraid of riding the flow of energy upward into the Salamba Shirshasana position.
But she was able to lift his legs. His head wobbled beneath his body, his hands shifting. “Plant those forearms,” she said. “Feel the string pulling upward.”
“That’s not a string,” he argued. “That’s your hands.”
“Right. I’m pulling you upward. Pretend I’m a string.”
He laughed, but he sounded a little breathless. His laughter died as she lifted his legs higher, pulling them straight. She leaned into him, her feet on either side of his head, and guided him against the wall. “How do you feel?” she asked.
“Stupid.”
She deliberately misunderstood him. “Stable. That’s great. I’m going to let go now.”
“No!” he shouted, but she did anyway, her hands less than an inch from his ankles so she could grab him the if he started to wobble.
Which he did, but not before balancing for a precious second, all on his own, not even leaning against the wall. He’d done it. He’d stood on his head.
For only that one second, of course. But she was proud of him. He’d just accomplished something he was sure he couldn’t do. That, to Cali, was one of yoga’s great gifts: it enabled people to do things with their bodies and their minds that they’d never believed they could do.
The instant his legs started to teeter, he moved his head, which threw his balance off completely. She grabbed his legs as they came swinging down, knees bent, ankles bent, arms shifting as he tried to break his fall. He needn’t have worried; Cali was breaking his fall for him, even as his legs and then the rest of his body collapsed heavily against her. They wound up entangled on the floor, laughing and panting. Sam looked utterly disoriented.
“I guess I failed that test,” he said, sounding not the least bit upset about it.
He shouldn’t have been upset, because he hadn’t failed. “You held the position for a while,” she praised him. “Your first try. You did great.”
She realized that they were much too close together, flopped on the floor, one of his knees jammed against her hip, his face an inch from hers. His hair was mussed, his eyes bright. For once, the shadows were gone from them. That alone indicated that he’d succeeded. He’d been in balance for that one lovely second.
Then he leaned toward her and touched his lips to hers. And suddenly, she was the one thrown off balance.
***
Bad move. He was off-duty, but as he’d told her, cops were never really off-duty. Besides, she was an active case. He had to protect her. Kissing her was not the way to do that.
She’d turned him upside-down, though—literally. She’d turned herself upside-down, and while he’d admired her posture as she’d stood on her head, and the combination of athleticism and grace she’d demonstrated, he’d also noticed the smooth skin of her belly, exposed when her top slid down toward her armpits. Just a couple of inches of midriff, but Christ. He’d never before realized how sexy a woman could be in that position.
Who was he kidding? California Bowen was sexy standing on her feet. She was sexy stirring tofu in a wok. She was sexy seated on a stool beside him, talking, chewing, casually tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
Her ears were sexy. Her voice. Her teeth, which he skimmed with the tip of his tongue before she opened her mouth to him. Her mouth...definitely sexy. Unbelievably sexy.
So they sat on her floor and kissed. And kissed. And kissed. A voice inside his skull yammered that he couldn’t do anything more than kiss her, and he conceded the point. She was vulnerable. She was a citizen under threat. His mission was to keep her safe, not to make her even more vulnerable.
Yet he’d stood on his head for her. Surely he was entitled to this small reward.
He had no idea how long they spent on the floor together, lips caressing lips, tongue dueling with tongue, fingertips stroking cheeks and tangling in hair, breath emerging in small, happy sighs and quiet groans. He had no idea why he was so drawn to Cali, a commune flower child who spouted Sanskrit and was appalled by his gun. She was nothing like the women he’d been with in New York. They’d been great ladies, but worldly-wise, like him. Cynical. Tough. New Yorkers, through and through.
He wasn’t in New York, though. He’d left New York—not forever, but for now. And for now, maybe, a New York woman wasn’t what he needed.
He didn’t need Cali, either. He wanted her, absolutely. He wanted her like a starving dog wants a sirloin steak. But he didn’t need her.
He’d track down her harasser. He’d deal with his own issues. He’d find balance—not by standing on his head but by rebuilding his emotional reserves until he was ready to return to the city.
And if he had a shred of decency inside him, he’d stop kissing Cali.
It pained him, but he stopped.
