The Tao of Sex

Chapter 18

HE SHOULD LET HER SLEEP. Nathan knew that Tracy had begun classes today. Few people understood the rigorous physical demands put on a tigress. Eternal youth and beauty had to be nurtured every day, and she would be sore and exhausted from her physical studies. He should let her sleep…but he couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.

He slipped into her room, inhaling deeply. Her scent filled his mind as it had filled his thoughts from the moment he’d first met her. It was clearer here than in Illinois. Here, she had no access to her perfumes; the air was not purified and circulated as in the United States, and most of all, his mother would have demanded that she throw out any lotions or deodorant.

So now when he saw her lying so sweet in her bed, he could inhale deeply and know that a tigress rested here. That a woman of extraordinary beauty and skill tempted men from this boudoir, and that he was privileged to enter. He smiled as he stepped to her bedside. He had already known that. He had seen her incredible potential long before his mother had begun feeding her purifying teas and food laced with aphrodisiacs.

He set his candle on her bedside table, right next to the one she kept there in case he visited. She lay twisted in the sheets, her body completely naked. He could see the lush mound of one breast, the rounded curve of her hip and the silky bronze coil of her hair about the pillow.

His belly tightened and his organ stretched for her, but he held back. She was not his. Now that she was learning what was possible, he would not remain long at her side. Her destiny was as a tigress. His was…not here. He would be better served to cut ties now. He extended his hand, needing to feel the dewy softness of her cheek, to touch the wet fullness of her lips. How he longed…

She gasped and her eyes fluttered. He drew back instantly, but she had already seen him, and he smiled to see her lips curve in delight. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he lied.

“It’s all right. I was waiting for you.”

He settled gingerly down on the bed beside her. She made room for him, then gasped in pain as she tried to sit up. He reached out to help her, but she had already collapsed back into her pillow with a groan.

“Sore?” he asked.

She cracked an eye at him. “Who knew tigresses did killer yoga?” She wrinkled her nose and began to imitate his mother in her teaching mode. “Tigresses, twist your tail upright! Tigresses, clean your paws! Tigresses, contort your anatomy in ways that aren’t humanly possible!”

He chuckled. She had Mama’s intonation perfectly. “It is possible, you know,” he said. “The willow waist of a tigress is prized by all men.” The thought of Tracy with her sparkling eyes and curly hair moving with the supple seduction of a tigress made him break out in a cold sweat. “You will be a magnificent tigress.”

“That, or a crippled one. Your mother actually thinks I’ll be able to get my ankles behind my neck. That I’ll back-bend like…well, like she does it with that pulsing thing she does with her pelvis. I swear, your mother is incredible!”

His heart plummeted at her words. Tracy was already well on her way to worshipping his mother. “She is a great tigress,” he said in a neutral tone. “Would you like me to massage your legs? I know just how. I have done it for my mother and her students for years.”

She tensed, her eyes widening at the thought. Then she licked her lips. It was an unconscious movement, and yet it was also the gesture of a tigress. He looked away rather than see the familiar steps of a cub just learning how to seduce.

He pushed off the bed, unaccountably annoyed. He did not want to speak to a tigress right then. “I must go, Tracy. I only came here to—”

She practically leaped out of bed, and her hand latched on his arm. “No, wait! Of course I’d love a massage, but that’s not what I was thinking.” She paused, biting her lip in nervousness. Oddly enough, the sight reassured him. She was not a fully confident tigress yet. “I…um…I heard the argument. I know you told your family about selling the building. How are you doing?”

Of course she’d heard. He had hoped that her classes would have kept her preoccupied, but the temple was a small place. And his mother had a loud voice when she chose to exercise it.

“I am fine. But I will be leaving in the morning.”

Tracy sighed. “Maybe she’ll change her mind. She doesn’t really intend to disown you, does she?”

He smiled. “She will not recant something spoken so loudly.” He swallowed. “I am disowned. Any status I once had at this temple is gone. Even Stephen cannot change that. Mama has absolute control over the religious matters.”

“But that’s not fair! She—”

Nathan stopped her words with a touch on her leg. She lay under the cover, but he knew she would feel it. And once touching, he could not resist stroking, even through the blanket. “My mother has decided, and I will leave in the morning.” Then he took a breath. “This should not affect your training. In truth it will be to your benefit since you are partnered with the new owner. Stephen will see that you don’t suffer from my disgrace.”

“There wasn’t any disgrace,” she snapped. “Or at least not yours. What she’s doing is—”

“Enough,” he responded firmly, though her passionate defense of him warmed his heart. “My siblings and I now have enough money to pursue whatever future we want. My aunt will have an independence she never imagined. And you…” He swallowed. “You are impressing all your teachers with your abilities.”

She frowned. “I haven’t done anything but talk about sex and try to do yoga that wasn’t designed for an American body.”

“You are doing very well,” he repeated firmly. Then he looked at her, unable to simply leave. One last caress. One last memory. Soon, she would become like all the others. “Let me massage you, Tracy. It can help with the pain—”

She let out a short burst of laughter. “Your family was just ripped apart, and you’re here offering to give me a massage. I don’t know whether you’re the sweetest guy ever or in total denial.”

He smiled. He had already worked his hand under the cover enough to finally—blessedly—touch her smooth, porcelain skin. “You are so American sometimes, it makes me smile.”

She blinked. “Sorry?”

“A tigress would consider it her privilege to be worshipped by my hands. To be massaged and stroked and—”

“I got it!” she said, and to his shock, a blush stained her cheeks. “I…um…I don’t think it’s as much a tigress’s privilege as the kind of thing she spends her day doing.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a low murmur that slipped into his blood like a drug. “I had a two-hour class in how to prolong orgasm. Two hours, Nathan. And then we were supposed to experiment on our own.”

He nodded. He had grown up around such things. “I was a happy adolescent,” he confided.

She blinked, then her eyes grew wide. “You…You…”

“I learned how to massage sore tigress muscles when I was twelve. By thirteen…”

“You must have had sex with…with…like everyone here! Oh, my—”

“Not sex,” he explained quickly. “A tigress does not allow a dragon to sport in their cave.”

She frowned. “Then what exactly did you do with them?”

He shrugged. “I massaged them. I stimulated them. And I learned the ways of control.”

“But you said you were a happy adolescent.”

He grinned. “I did not always act in control. And a tigress must practice tongue technique on someone. I was all too willing—”

She held up her hand. “I got it! I got it! Wow, you must have had some childhood.”

It took him a moment to realize she didn’t understand. “I was surrounded by tigresses, Tracy. I could experience carnal delights known to few men, much less teenagers. But…” He shook his head. “But today when I was signing contracts, when I ate my lunch, even when I was deep in negotiations with Stephen, all I could think of was this moment tonight when I would come see you.”

“Me?” She raised her eyes doubtfully. “Because you want…” Her eyes canted downward to the bed.

He almost laughed. If the idea weren’t so very tempting, he would have. “Endless sex grew wearisome to me as an adolescent. Now…” He shrugged. “I want…I want to hear how your studies progress,” he lied.

She snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, right.”

He grimaced, frustrated with his inability to express himself. “At the end of my day, my spirit quiets, and I think of you. I want to be with you. I want…” He sighed. “I gain strength from you, and I don’t even know why.”

She stared at him. His words seemed to have thrown her into as much confusion as he felt. He knew better than to bare his soul to a tigress, and yet here he was, making the same mistake again. He shifted to leave. Her silence was too unbearable. He did not want to hear that she had chosen Stephen over him, that—

“I understand the joy of family responsibility,” she said. “But one thing doesn’t fit. One piece of the Nathan Gao puzzle isn’t complete yet. Why the United States? I’ll bet you could have gone to school here in Hong Kong. Why go all the way to Illinois?”

He blinked, thrown by her words. And yet, hadn’t she said back in the United States that the only reason she was coming here was to find out about his past? Could that be true? Could she really have come all the way here just to learn about him?

Apparently so, because she was probing in places he didn’t truly want her to go. So he turned back to her with a benign smile. “The United States has excellent schools, and Illinois is the best for business.”

She waved the thought away. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that before. But you sacrificed a lot to get to the United States. Schooling is great, but there’s another reason.”

He looked down at her, knowing that she would not stop pushing unless he did something drastic. So he crossed to her side, using this as an excuse to touch her, to caress her, to give in to what he had wanted to do for so long.

“There is no hidden motive, Tracy. I chose a school and put everything I had into getting there.” He touched her face. Just a soft caress on her cheek, but she closed her eyes and moved into his hand to better appreciate his touch. This was not a tigress movement. It was something Tracy did whenever he touched her, whenever he was near her. She appreciated the moment and loved his caress. And for that he adored her even more.

But her mind did not stop probing. “Were you running from something, Nathan? What could be so awful that you would leave your siblings, abandon the temple, and go halfway around the world to escape?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned in to kiss her shoulder.

“I’m not letting go of this, Nathan. You can’t distract me,” she said. But even as she spoke, he felt the tremor that went through her body as he feathered his lips across her neck.

“There is no secret, Tracy. I fell in love. I have already told you this.” He pushed at the blanket, nudging with his lips and teeth so that the sheet fell away to expose her breasts.

“Nathan…” she whispered, the word half plea, half protest.

He smiled as he crossed the tiny distance to her breast. He liked that he could make her tremble, could make her voice soft and breathy. And he loved when she grabbed his shoulders, clenching tighter as he clasped her nipple in his teeth.

Then she caught his face. Her fingers were strong against his cheeks as she lifted him to her mouth. He went willingly, claiming her mouth with his, thrusting inside her, drawing those gasping sounds of delight from between her lips.

But then she broke away, her hands still holding his head. He could have stepped away. He could have fought her hold, but she looked him in the eyes. She did not glance coyly away; she did not try to seduce with a flutter of lashes or a sly wink. She opened her round eyes even rounder, and she asked one last time, “Why did you go so far away from your home?”

“I told you,” he answered honestly. “I fell in love.”

She nodded as if expecting that answer. “With the redhead?”

“With all of them. But yes, she was the latest.” He sat back on a sigh, his hands trailing across her body, stroking idly down her neck, across her shoulder, fondling her breast. Her skin was so white, her body so familiar in some ways, and yet so different in others. “Tigresses use sex. They learn from it, they experience it, they take and create energy from it.”

“But they don’t fall in love, do they?” she asked.

“No. They don’t.”

Tracy exhaled on a huff. “Sounds like a rather selfish religion to me. I mean, what’s the point of sex without love? At least affection. Something.”

“Immortality,” he answered. He lifted his gaze from where he stroked across her belly before teasing into the lower curls. “You have been to the Chamber of a Thousand Swinging Lanterns. You know better than I do what a tigress seeks.”

“So you loved her and she used you to gain heaven.” Her voice was tight with anger. “They all used you. Every single one of them beginning with your mother, using you without regard to what you felt or wanted.”

He nodded, unable to lie to her. “I can lose myself in love,” he said. “And I could not stop from loving them. The smallest piece of affection, the slightest kindness, and I was lost.”

“Oh, Nathan…” she murmured.

“So I left—as far away as possible—and I swore I would never come back. I would never, ever see them again.” His simple words could not possibly communicate his anger, his frustration and his pain. And yet, she understood.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “And now you’re back here because of me. Because you think I belong here. With them.”

He shrugged. “I came to sell the temple. And I brought a great new tigress with me.” Then he took her hands and spoke as honestly as he could. “I cannot blame them for choosing heaven over me.”

“I can,” she said. “I blame them with every breath I take.”

He saw the honesty in her eyes. He saw her fierce anger because other women had discarded him. Because his mother often forgot him, no matter what he did for her. Because of all the tiny slights delivered by tigresses to their men of the moment. She saw them, and she burned with hot anger for him. And in that second, he knew why she brought him strength.

He loved her.

She was the well of goodness that he had searched for all his life. She gave openly and honestly, and for that he would adore her forever.

“Let me help you,” he whispered. “One last time, let me help you with your studies. Let me give you all my energy, all my strength, all that I have. Let—”

Tracy cut off his words with a kiss. She surged upward, invading his mouth with her own power and fierce beauty. “We’re doing this together, Nathan.” She threw off the blanket and immediately reached for his shirt, unbuttoning it with quick movements. He grabbed her hands in instinctive reaction, but all too quickly his grip softened into a caress.

“I do not need to be undressed for—”

“Pish posh. I say you do.” She smiled. “And I’m the tigress, aren’t I?”

He almost laughed. “You are like no tigress I know.”

“Good.”

“You are the best of them. Even untrained, you are better than all of them.” Then he kissed her. He stroked her lips. He tasted her sweetness. And when he pulled back, she blinked in dazed delight. He loved that even now his kisses could make her eyes go hazy. Then he looked down as she tugged at the fastening of his pants. “I am only a man, Tracy. Do not tempt me too far.”

“Yadda yadda. I want you naked.” She pushed down his boxers and gripped him. Her handling was inexpert, but her touch was like fire.

“Tracy!” he gasped. “You have to remain a virgin.” He managed a firm grip on her wrists, but he could not keep her fingers quiet. “Tracy—don’t!”

She stilled, and he exhaled a stuttering breath. She leaned in, and this time she was the one stroking across his lips, nipping at his mouth and thrusting herself inside him. “I’ve come to a decision of my own, Nathan. And guess what? You’re part of it.”