Show & Tell Read online

  “Because, according to my handy booklet, I’m supposed to unblock your root chakra while I’m unblocking your genital chakra.” She smiled. “So why don’t you—just try to relax and I’ll—”

  Realization dawned, and the semiarousal he’d enjoyed instantly vanished. His ass shrank in horrified revulsion. Knox slung an arm over his eyes. “Forget it,” he growled.

  “—make this as painless as possible.” She paused. “What?” she asked innocently.

  “Forget it.”

  “Are you sure? I’d be happy—”

  “Savannah…” Knox warned. What was with the preoccupation with a person’s ass? Knox wondered.

  She laughed, not the least bit repentant. “I tried to tell you that we weren’t blocked. Let’s just chant the couples blessing and move on.”

  “What’s that?” Knox asked, still perturbed.

  Savannah aligned her body with his and Knox felt marginally better. She pillowed her head on the crook of her arm and held the book aloft with her other hand. Amusement glittered in her eyes and her lips were twitching with barely suppressed humor. “Okay, I’m supposed to say, ‘I love you at your lingam and bless your wand of light.’” She promptly dissolved into a fit of giggles.

  Knox laughed as well. “And what am I supposed to say?”

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘I love you at your yoni and bless your sacred space.’”

  How could people say this stuff with a straight face? Knox wondered. “Consider yourself loved and blessed,” he said dryly. “Let’s move on. What’s next?”

  Savannah sat up and wiped her eyes. “The belly chakra.”

  “Does my ass have anything to do with this one?” Knox asked suspiciously.

  “Er…I don’t think so.”

  He nodded. “Then continue.”

  “Okay, now this one is actually pretty interesting,” Savannah said. “Our bellies are the feeling centers. Our emotions are energy in motion and tend to grow out of our bellies and take whatever path is appropriate for their expression.”

  Knox nodded thoughtfully. That did make a sort of strange sense. He considered his nudge. It definitely came from his belly. “That one seems almost plausible,” Knox admitted.

  Savannah’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “It does, doesn’t it? Just think of butterflies in your belly, and nausea, and that sinking sensation when something isn’t quite right. Gut reaction, gut feelings.” She hummed under her breath, read a little more. “I can actually relate to this one. We’re supposed to chant ram now.”

  “Ram,” Knox deadpanned. “I’m unblocked, what about you?”

  “Ram, it’s a miracle, so am I.”

  Knox grinned. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  She grinned adorably. “Without a doubt.”

  “What’s next?”

  Savannah flipped the page. Her eyes widened. “Ooh, the heart chakra. The center of love, courage and intimacy.” Her brow wrinkled in perplexity. “A broken heart is most often the cause of a block in this chakra. We’re supposed to share our hurts with each other to promote healing. It also says that a woman generally has to feel love in this chakra before she can experience sexual intimacy and that, likewise, a man must have sexual intimacy with a woman first in order to build trust.” She snorted. “Hell, no wonder we’re all screwed up. Men and women are completely opposite.”

  A bark of dry laughter bubbled up Knox’s throat. “Was there ever a doubt?”

  Savannah thwacked him with the book. “Pay attention. You’re supposed to be telling me about all of your old heartaches.”

  “Sorry, I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t have any.”

  Savannah raised a skeptical brow. “You’ve got to be kidding. You’ve never had your heart broken?”

  “No,” he sighed, “can’t say that I have.”

  She paused. Swallowed. “Well, I don’t know whether to congratulate you, or offer my sympathies.”

  The confident smile Knox had been wearing slipped a fraction. “What do you mean offer your sympathies?”

  The twinkling humor had died from her eyes and had been replaced with something mortifyingly like pity. “Well…that’s just sad, Knox.”

  Knox blinked, astounded. “You think it’s sad that I’ve never had my heart broken?” Was she cracked or what? he wondered, feeling a curious tension build in his chest.

  Savannah sighed, seemingly at a loss to explain herself. Finally she said, “Not that you haven’t had your heart broken, but that you’ve never been close enough to another person for it to have happened. Everybody needs their heart broken at least once.”

  He scowled. “I think I’ll pass.”

  That soft sympathetic gaze moved over him. “You don’t get it. It’s what you’re missing up until you get your heart broken that makes it all worthwhile.”

  “Is that the voice of experience talking?” Knox asked, mildly annoyed.

  He didn’t know why her words bothered him so much, but they did. His skin suddenly felt too tight and his palms had begun to sweat. What? Did she think him incapable of love? Did she think him too shallow for such a deep emotion? If he ever found the right person, he could love her, dammit. He was capable of loving someone. He’d simply not found anyone he wanted to invest that much emotion in, that’s all. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t do it.

  Savannah’s gaze grew shuttered and she tucked her hair behind her ear, an endearingly nervous gesture. “Yes, it’s the voice of experience. I’ve…almost had my heart broken.”

  “Almost?” Knox questioned skeptically.

  “I’m still in denial.”

  “Oh. Well, I still wouldn’t think it would be a pleasant ordeal,” Knox replied drolly.

  She smirked. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “You should probably share this with me,” Knox told her magnanimously, “seeing as we’re supposed to heal old hurts to unblock this chakra.”

  She pinned him with a shrewd glare. “You have absolutely no interest in unblocking my heart chakra, you great fraud—you’re simply curious.”

  Smiling, he shrugged. “There is that.”

  Savannah picked at a loose thread on her kurta, but finally relented with a sigh. “There was someone once,” she admitted. “His, uh, parents didn’t approve of me, though, so he broke up with me and went to Europe.”

  Knox abruptly sat up. “What?”

  She laughed without humor. “It’s true, I swear.”

  “What kind of a pansy-ass were you dating?” Knox asked incredulously.

  She lifted her shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “A spineless one with no class, as it turned out.”

  That summed it up nicely, Knox thought. What sort of ignorant prick let his parents pick his girlfriend? he wondered angrily, much less ditched Savannah for Europe? Hell, no wonder she didn’t trust anybody. No wonder she couldn’t pass that blind-trust test. When had anyone ever given her a reason to trust them? When had anyone been worthy of it?

  “I’ve had enough heart chakra healing,” Savannah told him. “Let’s move on. We’re almost finished.”

  It took a considerable amount of effort, but Knox finally forced his violent thoughts away and managed to concentrate on the task at hand. “Sure. What’s next?”

  “The throat chakra, the source of authentic expression.” She chewed the corner of her lip and read some more. “Okay, we’re supposed to hear and heed our inner voices, express our most dangerous emotions, even rage. But we have to learn to do this in gentle tones with our lovers and save our loud voices for when we’re alone.”

  Knox nodded. “That’s simple enough. We’re not supposed to scream at one another.”

  “Right. We’re supposed to tell our truths and sing our true songs, sanctify sex and choose words that glorify our sexual organs, such as sacred space, wand of light, etc….”

  “Got it. What else?”

  Her brow furrowed. “This is another one that sort of makes sense. Co
mmunication flows through this chakra. Think of some of the things that happen physically to you when you get upset.”

  “Like what?” Knox asked, not following.

  “A lump in your throat, for instance. Or being too overcome to speak.”

  He nodded. “Makes sense. Anything else?”

  Savannah glanced at the book. “Uh…we’re supposed to place our hand over each other’s throats and tell each other to sing our true songs, then chant ham.”

  Knox leaned forward and placed his hand over Savannah’s slim throat. He grinned. “Sing your true song, baby. Ham.”

  Savannah reciprocated the gesture. “Ditto.”

  “How many more of these chakras do we have?” Knox asked as he rolled back onto his side.

  “Just two.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why? Do you want to quit for tonight?”

  “No. We’re going to need lots of time tomorrow night to work on Love His Lingam and Sacred Goddess Stimulation.” And he couldn’t wait.

  Savannah pulled in a slow breath. “Right,” she all but croaked. “Okay, the next one is the brow chakra, logic and intuition, the tird eye and all that. Think of people with psychic ability, or with a keen mind. Dreams and such. All of those things are a product of the brow chakra.”

  Another one that was almost plausible, Knox thought, as possible angles for their story spun through his mind. His grandmother had been physic, so he knew such powers existed. “Are you blocked in that chakra?”

  “No,” Savannah said. “Are you?”

  “No.”

  Another smile quivered on her lips. “Then we’re supposed to join brows, stare at each other until our eyes seem to merge and say, “‘I r-rejoice in how you comprehend and intuit.’ Then we chant ooo.”

  Smiling, Knox rubbed the back of his neck. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Nope,” she said, tongue in cheek.

  “Okay.” Knox rolled himself into the center of the bed, then sat up on his knees. Savannah set the book aside and, mischief lighting her eyes, assumed the position as well. Gazes locked in mutual amusement, they leaned forward and their brows met.

  “I feel utterly ridiculous,” Savannah said, her sweet breath fanning against his lips. “What about you?”

  “Most definitely.”

  The words were no sooner out of his mouth than an altogether different sensation took hold. Several sensations, in fact. The simultaneous registration of her sweet scent, the press of her body and the proximity of her lips hit him all at once. His heart thundered in his chest, pumping his blood that much faster to his groin. Fire licked through his veins, and he burned with the need to possess her, to lay her down, spread her thighs and bury himself so deeply into her that there would be no beginning and no end, just them.

  Savannah’s eyes darkened with desire, the heat burning away any vestiges of lingering humor. He could feel the quickened puff of her breath against his lips, heard her swallow.

  Knox’s blood roared in his ears, drowning out any would-be protests. He’d kissed her repeatedly since the beginning of this damned workshop, but it had always been at Edgar or Rupali’s prompting. He hadn’t taken the plunge and made the conscious decision to kiss her, taste her of his own accord. But he was making that decision now—he couldn’t help himself—and he wanted her to know the difference and, more important, to feel it.

  Knox gently cupped her face, held her gaze until his lips brushed lightly over hers. He hovered on a precipice, he knew, yet he didn’t possess the power to keep from plunging headlong over it. Then his eyelids fluttered closed under the exquisite weight of some unnamed emotion…and he sighed…and eagerly embraced the fall.

  11

  SAVANNAH HAD KNOWN the moment that her brow touched his that she’d made a tactical error—she’d touched him. She knew, didn’t she, that she couldn’t touch Knox without melting like a Popsicle on the Fourth of July? She knew, and yet it hadn’t made one iota of difference because she simply could not resist him. She had been inexplicably drawn to him from the moment she’d first seen him, had been lusting after him in secret torment every day since.

  Just seconds ago, she’d watched the humor fade from his gaze, chased away by the power of a darker, more primal emotion. His entire body had grown taut, and then, as though he’d made some momentous decision, she’d discerned a shift in his posture. Then those amazing hands she’d imagined roaming all over her body in all sorts of wicked acts of depravity had cupped her face in a gesture so truly sweet she’d almost wept with the tenderness of it.

  In the half second before his lips touched hers, Savannah realized the import of that soft touch, and her heart, along with the rest of her wayward body, had all but melted.

  Knox Webber wanted her. At long last.

  With a sigh of utter satisfaction, Savannah eagerly met his mouth, threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed him the way she’d always dreamed of kissing him. She poured every single ounce of belated desire into the melding of their mouths and was rewarded when Knox responded with a hungry growl of pleasure. The masculine sound reverberated in her own mouth, making her smile against his lips. His tongue slid over hers, plundered and plumbed, a game of seek and retreat that soon had Savannah’s insides hot, muddled and quivering with want.

  Knox molded her to him, slid those talented hands down her back and over her rump, and back up again. His hands burned a heated trail of sensation everywhere they touched and she longed to have them plumping her swollen breasts, sliding over her belly and lower, then lower still until his fingers worked their magic on the part of her that needed release most of all.

  As though he’d read her mind, Knox smoothed his hand up her rib cage and cupped one pouting breast. She sagged under the torment of the sensation and, with a groan of satisfaction, Knox followed her down upon the bed. His warmth wrapped around her and the long, hot length of him nudged her hip.

  She sucked in a harsh breath between their joined mouths and then sent her hands on their own little exploration of his body. The smooth, hard muscles of his shoulders, down the slim indention of his spine and back over the tautened sinews of his magnificently formed back.

  Having mapped that terrain, she moved onto the sleek slope of his chest, the bumpy ridges of his abdomen, and over one impossibly lean hip. He was magnificent, the most perfectly put-together man she’d ever laid her greedy little hands upon. She claimed each perfection as her own. Mine, Savannah thought as she grasped his shoulders once more. Mine, she thought again as she slid her hand down his side. Mine, mine, mine, with each new part.

  All mine.

  Savannah winced as the kurta bunched annoyingly beneath her hungry hands. Knox had thrown one heavily muscled thigh across her leg and Savannah had the hem in her hand and had begun to swiftly tug it up his body before the significance of what she was doing surfaced in her lust-ridden brain.

  Swallowing a cry of regret, she tore her mouth from his and pried his hand off her breast. “We can’t…do this,” she breathed brokenly.

  Knox’s lips curled in invitation and he nuzzled the side of her neck. “Oh, but we can,” he told her. He tugged at the neckline of her kurta, attempted to bare her breast. “Come on, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  Savannah dragged his head away from her neck and ignored the fizzle of warmth his wicked lips had created. Ignored his invitation to play a sexy game of show-and-tell. “Knox,” she said desperately. “Think. We can’t—”

  “Thinking is overrated. In fact, you’ve told me repeatedly that I should try not to think. Remember? Something about it upsetting the delicate balance of my constitution.” He bent his head and sucked her aching nipple into his mouth through the soft cotton fabric. The shock of pure sensation arched her off the bed and rent a silent gasp from her throat.

  Sweet heaven.

  Though it nearly killed her, Savannah wrenched his head from her breast. “Stop. We have to talk. We can’t—”

  “Talk?
” Knox tsked and thumbed her nipple distractingly. “You know we can’t talk for more than two minutes without arguing. This is a much more agreeable way to pass the time and you know it.” He slid his fingers up her thigh and brushed her feminine curls.

  Savannah bit her bottom lip and whimpered, resisted the urge to press herself against those teasing fingers. Knox took her hesitation as permission, and gently stroked her through the fabric.

  She squirmed with need and her clit throbbed and her womb grew even heavier with want, but Savannah managed to stay his hand with a will born of stubborn desperation. “Listen, please,” she insisted breathlessly. “We can’t do this now.”

  She watched Knox’s sinfully sculpted lips ready a protest, but the now registered a second before he could push the sound from his lips. He arched a sulky brow. “What do you mean now?”

  “The rule,” Savannah reminded impatiently. “No sex until tomorrow night.”

  For better or for worse, she’d just told Knox Webber that she’d sleep with him tomorrow night, Savannah realized. She refused to consider anything beyond Sunday, anything that might remotely resemble second thoughts or regrets. She’d wanted Knox…forever. There was simply no other way for this weekend to end. She’d known the outcome, had known this would happen, the moment Chapman had commanded that she come to this workshop.

  And, though it sounded like a lame excuse, at least they would know for sure if there was any real merit to the tantric way. They would be able to lend true credibility to their story.

  That should please Knox, anyway, Savannah thought with a prick of regret. After all, that’s what had brought them here.

  “Are you saying what I think that you’re saying?” Knox asked carefully. Desire tempered with caution glinted in that sexy green gaze.

  Savannah swallowed tightly. “Yes, I am.” She managed a shaky grin. “It’s inevitable, right? And then there’s the story to consider.”