Page 33 of Played By Design

“You need more screen breaks,” he says, his steady hands moving lower, working the muscles along my mid-back. “And yoga.”

“Never.” I tried it once and got bored out of my mind. Hard pass.

His knuckles press into the small dimples at the base of my spine, and a shiver runs up my back. “What if I do the stretches for you, and you just lie there?”

I consider it. “Can you do it while I’m sleeping?”

“How about while you watch a movie on VR?”

Without also playing a game?

“Sounds boring.”

“What if I give you a reward when it’s over?” His palms flatten against my ribs, thumbs tracing the grooves between each one.

I melt further into the cushions. “What kind of reward?”

“Orgasms?”

“You already give me those without having to contort my body,” I mumble into the cushion.

“They say you can train yourself to hold out for a long time. It makes the release even more intense.”

“Why would I want to hold out? I like release.”

His sigh isn’t him letting the topic go so much as switching gears, already planning to circle back to it later. At his current track record, I figure I have a good two months before he brings up the hated yoga topic again.

“You should take a real break this time,” Kain says. “Before the next circuit. Give your hands time to recover.”

I make a noncommittal sound into the cushion.

“Fall Classic is six weeks out,” he continues. “There’s the Winter Series in January, but that’s online-only. Spring Championship would give you the most runway.”

He rises above me to reach my arms, fingers working the tension from my biceps, then my forearms, paying special attention to the tendons running from wrist to elbow.

“We’re not hurting for bills,” he adds. “There are options.”

My arms feel as if they’re filled with warm sand, and it takes effort to keep my eyelids from drifting shut. Despite having just woken up, I’m already sleepy again.