Let's Play, page 1
*Extract*
‘Why are you so jumpy?’ Again, softly. ‘Would you like me to go?’ This time, he was propping up her chin with his index finger, so that even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t be able to avert her face. She couldn’t speak as her throat was getting dry. But she could manage a small shake of her head.
It was at this point that his head started slowly descending to hers. The anticipation was making her legs wobbly. He claimed her lips with gentle probing kisses. His kiss deepened and became hungrier.
‘Sean…’ Of its own volition, her mouth gasped out his name.
He frowned.
‘Do you want me to stop, Gaby? If you do, you need to tell me now… because the things I want to do to you… I won’t be able to stop myself later…’ His voice was ragged with need.
She couldn’t speak.
‘Gabriela…’ He was pleading with her to answer him.
Instead of speaking, she lifted her trembling hands to the bottom of his t-shirt and slowly started lifting it.
Let's Play
Era Capoeira, Book 1
Shonel Jackson
Copyright © 2022 Shonel Jackson
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author or publisher.
This series is dedicated to my friend, my former acting colleague and my former Capoeira instructor, Seun Shote, a.k.a "Instrutor Sacrificio" / "Shy". You introduced me to this world which still lives in my heart and for that, and more, I will be forever grateful.
Rest In Power...
Contents
*Extract*
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Reviews
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
Leave A Review
About The Author
Books In This Series
'Playing With Fire' Reviews
'Playing With Fire' Extract
'Outplayed' Extract
Books By This Author
'More Than Friends' Reviews
The Playliist
Reviews
Emma Ashley (27 November, 2022)
★★★★
Let's Play is a brilliant romance novel with a great storyline and brilliant characters. The chemistry between the characters was believable and I would truly recommend it and read more by the author.
Dale (14th November, 2022)
★★★★
I enjoyed reading this book, this is the first time I’ve ever read anything from this author. But it’s not going to be the last. I’m looking forward to seeing the entire series of Era Capoeira.
CHAPTER 1
- ginga -
Gabriela had never seen anything like it before. She stood transfixed, looking through the small, open crack of the doorway at the room’s lone occupant. It was the music that had drawn her to the door, but it was what she spied inside which had kept her rooted to the spot. Her brown eyes widened as she saw how his slow, sensual movements perfectly flowed with the rhythmic tones of the strangely enticing sounds coming from the music. His bare torso glistened with sweat. The muscles on his tall, shirtless frame, rippled with every twist, turn and undulation.
From the music, Gabriela could hear what she thought was a strange guitar-like strumming, some type of drum and maybe a tambourine. She wasn’t sure, but it was so enthralling. She kept watching, as suddenly, it seemed like the mood in the room started to change. From slow and melodic, the music became more of a quick tempo, almost frenetic.
His movements followed suit. Every swing of his white trousers-clad legs and thrust of his arms somehow managed to tell a tale. Was it some kind of dance? If it was, Gabriela had never seen anything like it before. But if it wasn’t, why did some of the movements look like… kicks? There was music playing too, so it must have been some kind of dance, right?
It got faster still. Now, these new movements were definitely kicks. They kind of reminded her now of some of those old martial arts movies she’d watched when she was growing up. Except, these kicks were almost… sexy!
Strange, that.
It looked like he was repeating one sequence of steps with his feet, but growing from that, were a whole array of steps, thrusts and kicks. Gabriela couldn’t quite understand how these pugilistic movements still managed to look like a sensual dance.
Still, Gabriela remained glued to the sight of this tall, beautiful dancer, with his exposed chest, in his white trousers, with a blue, woven belt around his waist. The ends of the belt were so long that it swept the floor every time he went low.
So focused was she on him that she didn’t realise that the music had gone out. The man’s movements did not waver. He didn’t lose a step, though the guitar-like strum of the music had come to an end. Somehow, his movements became even more intense. The only sounds coming from the room now were that of his feet connecting with the wooden floor and the fast pace of his breathing.
How does he move like that?
She watched as he took his movements low to the floor, alternating having his full body weight on either of his feet and, or his hands. He manipulated himself in such a way that, to Gabriela, it evoked memories of watching a gymnast’s floor routine at the Olympic Games or a B-boy or girl doing certain breakdancing tricks. Her breath caught in her chest as she watched him perform a movement which saw him launch one of his legs forward from a semi-crouched position and them magically, at least to her mind at that moment, end up back on both feet and seamlessly back into the repeated sequences of steps that she’d noted before. She was—
‘Gabriela!’
A sudden, familiar, shrill voice rang out through the empty corridor. Though she knew who the owner of the voice was, the scene that had been unfolding in the room had so gripped her attention that the shout managed to startle her, and Gabriela let out an audible yelp.
The dancer’s movement didn’t falter at her noise, but for the first time, his gaze had swung over to the direction of the doorway. Without realising it, when Gabriela’s name had been called out so suddenly, in her panic, she had automatically pushed the door open a lot wider. She was now fully visible. Two sets of eyes met, but on top of that, Gabriela’s mouth was also wide open. She was incredibly embarrassed that she’d been caught snooping. The eyes that met hers, though, were not angry ones. Instead, they were playful. He smiled and inclined his head in acknowledgement of her presence as he continued with his mesmerising footwork.
‘Gabriela, we’re in this room.’
The shrill voice was that of her best friend Tanya, whom she turned to and waved at quickly before taking her attention back to the dancer. But he had already forgotten her and was once again fully engrossed in his movements. The only difference this time was that she was not hiding, trying to observe him covertly.
Reluctantly, Gabriela slowly pulled the door closed and took a deep, much-needed breath. Whatever that dance-thing was, Gabriela knew she wanted to try it. It looked a lot more interesting than the Pilates class she’d let Tanya talk her into doing tonight. Tanya had been coming here to this Sports Centre to take Pilates for a few months, but this was Gabriela’s first time. She turned and walked towards Tanya, who stood by the neighbouring door. The only things going through Gabriela’s mind as she walked were of the sensual music, his rippling muscles and those mesmerising eyes that had smiled at her.
◆◆◆
As expected, the Pilates class was awful. It was quite possibly the most boring thing Gabriela had done in her life. She considered herself to be fairly athletic, so the movements were fairly easy to do. However, it felt monotonous and uninspiring. She watched the clock on the wall of the studio tick by, mind-numbingly slowly. Why she let Tanya talk her into this, she didn’t know? To keep fit, she had leaned more towards salsa dancing, jogging and aerobics and even a bit of Zumba thrown in for good measure. Fun, Pilates was not.
After what seemed like forever, the class was over and the group started to file out of the door. Tanya had made her way over to the Pilates instructor and looked like she was engrossed in conversation. Gabriela grabbed her water bottle from the floor in the corner and walked over to Tanya, telling her that she’d meet her in the dressing room.
As she walked down the corridor, she could see that this time, it was not as empty as it was when she’d arrived earlier. It was filled with people in all manner of sportswear. This was a fairly new sports centre which looked pretty modern and came with the latest technical gadgets and equipment. It had a fully fitted gym on the other side of the building, and on this side, there was a long corridor of studios. Tanya said that there were classes for just about any sport here.
Among the different outfits that the people in the corridor were wearing, she could see three girls in identical ones, which looked familiar to her. They had on white t-shirts with a yellow, circular logo, bordered in black, on the front, upper left corner and long, white, straight-cut trousers with the same yellow logo on their upper left thigh area. Around their waists were abnormally long, colourful belts, with ends that hung down to around their knees. The belts were all different colours. One girl’s belt was dark green, the other bright yellow and the third was a mix of both yellow and green.
How curious!
One thing she did know was that the dancer she’d been spying on earlier was wearing the same uniform, though his belt was blue and he was sans t-shirt. She was even more curious than she was earlier now that she saw the girls dressed like him.
In the dressing room, she had a quick shower, and within fifteen minutes, she was heading out the door again. Tanya was still not there. She must still be deep in conversation with the Pilates instructor. Gabriela had always thought that Tanya could talk for England! Also, Tanya had confessed that she thought the instructor was cute, so Gabriela knew that she was in for a wait.
As she was walking back down the corridor, she pulled out her phone to check her messages. Her father had sent her a text, asking her to call him, and the others were from some other friends. She was so distracted by the phone that she didn’t notice when a door opened just ahead of her. She also didn’t know that the dancer from earlier was about to walk out of said door. He didn’t have enough time to see her either, and as he turned, they slammed into each other. Gabriela’s phone was sent flying up in the air and came crashing down to the floor. She barely noticed it. The only thing that registered was the hard, this time t-shirt covered, chest that she’d hit.
Was he made of stone?
Though she was tall, he was taller. She was a few inches shorter than he was. When they’d impacted, she was knocked off her balance and the man put his arms out and around her instinctively to stop her from falling. He also pulled her inwards towards him to steady her.
To steady herself, she put her hand out on his abdominals. Through his top, she could feel every wave of tightly toned muscle beneath.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said as she lifted her face to his. They were inches apart.
When their eyes met, she was immediately struck by how much more beautiful he was now that she was seeing him up close. Her breath caught in her throat. He was much too close. She was much too close. Her chest was rising and falling at a very rapid pace.
He didn’t say a word. He just kept standing there holding her, now unnecessarily. A little smile played around on his lips, and there was a glint in his eyes.
‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’
Still, he said nothing. He only kept holding her as his smile deepened to reveal a beautiful set of white teeth.
To, what she realised was her annoyance, he slowly started releasing her, so she took a couple of steps back.
‘No harm done.’ His voice was enticing. ‘Are you okay?’
She blinked and nodded awkwardly.
‘Ah… I’m fine.’
Snap out of it! He will think you’re an idiot.
She cleared her throat and spoke again in a voice that she hoped made her sound more in control of herself, even if she didn’t quite feel it on the inside.
‘Still in one piece.’
He then glanced down at something on the floor.
‘But your phone is not, unfortunately,’ he said as he bent down to retrieve it.
‘Oh, no,’ she said as she saw it. After he handed it to her, she looked at it and started swiping the now cracked screen, hoping that it would still, at least for now, work. Thankfully it did.
Still trying to see what the new limitations of the now broken devices was, Gabriela muttered to herself, ‘I can’t believe I did that.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself,’ he said as he once again bent down to retrieve his gym bag, which had also ended up on the floor. Then he asked curiously, ‘Wasn’t it you who was hanging around at the door earlier?’
At the mention of that, her head snapped back up to look at him. Once again, embarrassment came over her. ‘I didn’t mean to spy on you. It’s just that I was walking past, I heard that cool music and I was curious about what was going on.’
As excuses went, at least that one was an honest one.
He smiled again, ‘I didn’t mind at all. I thought that maybe you were a new student.’
How did his voice manage to sound so enticing?
‘S…student?’ The more she looked at him, the more it was becoming difficult to make simple sentences.
‘For the Capoeira class in there,’ he said, indicating the room he had just left.
‘Capoeira?’ She had no idea what the word meant. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s the thing that you saw me doing before. It’s a martial art, but it’s also a lot more than that. Are you sure you’ve never heard of it?’
She shook her head. ‘No, never. But it looked very interesting. At first I thought that you were dancing, but after I saw all of the kicks, I wasn’t sure anymore.’
At that, he chuckled. ‘Well it’s kind of a few things mixed into one, a dance, certainly, a martial art, a game, a sport… some people might even call it a little spiritual. Then, there’s the music, instruments and singing.’
Gabriela listened to him explain and was enthralled. Not just by how good looking he was, but by this thing called Capoeira that she’d never heard about, but was becoming more and more interested in finding out more about.
‘Would you like to come in and see a class sometime? You can also join in too if you want to,’ he said.
Did he just invite me in?
She could hardly believe it. This tall, handsome man had just extended an invitation, and she was sorely tempted to accept.
‘I… I’m not sure that I can.’ She knew that these words were coming out of her mouth, but why she didn’t just say, ‘Yes!’, she didn’t know.
He smiled again as he put his hands into the side pocket of his gym bag and retrieved something. It was a business card.
‘Here, take this,’ he said as he handed it over to her. ‘We have a class website. Have a look at it and if you’re interested, drop by at any of the class times. You can just watch if you like.’
She took the card shyly and looked it over. On one side, there was the same logo that he and those girls had on their clothes. A large yellow circle, with the silhouette of two people in the centre in poses similar to the movements Gabriela had seen him doing when she was looking at him through the open doorway. On the other side, it read, Jogo Arrepiado Capoeira, plus a web address and phone number.
Gabriela couldn’t believe it. The hot guy had just given her his phone number. Well, not actually his phone number, just a number to where there was access to him. This was turning into a far better evening than she thought it would be during the Pilates class. As much as the butterflies had started flapping around in her stomach, she knew there was little to no chance she was going to use the card.
‘Thank you,’ she said anyway. ‘I—’
‘Gabriela!’ There it was again. Tanya’s shrill voice rang out as she rushed over to where Gabriela was standing. ‘So sorry it took me so long. I’m going to get changed a.s.a.p.’ When Tanya reached Gabriela, she looked up at the man with a look of curiosity. ‘Who’s your friend?’
Far too quickly, she answered, ‘He’s not my friend. I mean… we just met. Tanya, this is…a…’ She quickly realised that she did not know her new friend’s name.
Offering his hand to Tanya, he said, ‘I’m Sean.’
A simple name, but it felt like a lot more right now.
Tanya giggled, ‘Tanya.’
Then he turned his attention back to her, offering the same hand.
‘And you must be Gabriela.’
How the man managed to make her name sound so sensual, she did not know, but she could feel goosebumps rising all over her arms.
‘Yes, that’s me.’
Their eyes met and held with Gabriela transfixed by the glint in his. Though she tried to, she couldn’t quite rip her eyes away from him. There was definitely something about the man that had her hooked already. It took an overly enthusiastic throat clear from Tanya to break the spell. Gabriela blinked twice and was finally able to look away. She looked down at the business card still in her hand.
