I didn't answer. Mainly because I didn't trust my voice not to betray the thoughts tumbling through my head.
I almost kissed her.
I almost kissed her.
If Marty hadn't walked up the stairs when he did, I would've had Molly Ward pressed against the windows and my mouth on hers. I tried to focus on what she was saying, but I couldn't mute the mental images flashing, one after another, after another. My hands on her. Her hands on me. How soft her lips would've been. The way she tasted.
So easily, I’d slipped from a desire to understand her into just plain old desire. Except there was nothing plain or old about it.
"Noah?"
I blinked. "Yeah. Sorry."
"Tuck your chin and push your weight into your heels."
Once I followed her direction, Molly moved to the mat next to mine. Her toenails were purple, and it pissed me off that I noticed. She exhaled slowly and mirrored my pose.
"Set your hands on the mat and move your legs back into downward dog."
"This is what got me into trouble in the first place," I mumbled but did as she asked.
She laughed. "You probably tried to shift your hands around if it felt uncomfortable, but you should keep your butt in the air and move your feet. Hands stay planted."
Huh.
"Better," she said.
Following her lead and the patient instructions she gave me, we spent about five minutes doing some basic stretches. A few things were clear in those five minutes, and only got clearer as she cued up the video on her iPad that she set up in front of us.
Molly was much better at yoga than I was.
Molly was much more flexible than I was.
And Molly looked like sex on legs as she moved through each position.
Every time she moved, I found myself cataloging a new part of her body, something I'd never noticed before.
Her ears, for example. Even though her hair was almost always pulled back, I'd never noticed Molly's ears. They were dainty and stuck out just a little bit, which I found oddly endearing.
Her second toe was just a hair longer than her big toe.
When she arched her back, she let out a breathy exhale every time. I wanted to hear it in surround sound while she dug her fingernails into my back.
I had to pinch my eyes shut when that one crossed my mind because I hadn't allowed myself to enter that headspace in so long, and it felt like I was doing something wrong.
When she laughed at me because I couldn't stretch as far as she could, the skin around her eyes crinkled up. It was adorable.
Her neck, long and graceful and as I know, as soft as satin, made me want to drag my teeth along the edge when she tilted her chin up to the ceiling when we were in Upward Dog.
"Fuck," I whispered.
She sat up and gave me a concerned look. "What? Did you hurt yourself?"
Yeah. There was a part of me that was hurting all right, and it needed to friggin stop because I had a camera pointed at me.
Was I sweating? I swept my hand along my forehead, and sure enough, a few minutes of simple poses, and I was sweating.
"No, I'm fine," I said from between gritted teeth.
A smile trembled on the edge of her lips as the woman on the screen told us in a soothing voice where to position our legs. Goddess pose or something like that. All I knew was that Molly’s legs spread wide, and she lowered herself easily.
She was strong.
"Did you know that Dallas started bringing in a yoga instructor for practices?"
I glanced over at her. "Seriously?"
Molly arched her arms and pushed her legs into a different position, and when I followed a few seconds later, she grinned at my obvious delay. "Seriously. Helps avoid injuries because the players are more flexible. One of their linemen had back surgery, and when he wasn't working out during the off season, his PT suggested yoga to strengthen his back and core without risking more injury. It worked so well for him that their coach brought someone in for the whole defense to try it. Now they do yoga twice a week as a part of practice."
For the first time since we started, my mind flipped back into its natural default. Football.
"I never even considered it," I said, then grunted when I was asked to do something entirely unnatural with my legs. Molly caught a glimpse of my face and laughed, her belly shaking as she laid flat on the mat.
I hated to admit it, but it was harder than I thought. We were supposed to lay there and keep our legs in the air for eight minutes.
Eight minutes.
Molly held her legs straighter than I did. Her fingers wiggled on the mat, and not an ounce of tension existed in her body anywhere I could see. Actually, it looked like she could've fallen asleep for how relaxed she was.