The Tao of Sex

Chapter 7

THE KNOCK ON HIS DOOR was insistent. A rapid three beats—bap, bap, bap—then a pause only to begin again. Bap, bap, bap. Loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to disturb the neighbors at…Nathan glanced at his cell phone—2:17 a.m.

He knew who it was. Tracy. No one else would disturb him at this hour. But it was eight days since their last encounter. He’d given up hope that his landlady would return.

He shoved out of bed, pulling on his teaching pants merely because they were the closest thing at hand. His toes curled in reaction as they touched the chilled wood floor, but that was all to the good. His dragon had leaped fully awake at the Tracy’s first knock. Now that she was on her fourth series of taps, freezing feet could only help him walk upright.

“I’m coming,” he grumbled, annoyed to realize how strong his voice was and how quickly he made it to the door. Given the power of her yin energy, he had expected her to show up a week ago. After two days of waiting, he had begun to worry. Had she hurt herself? She hadn’t been around the apartment building at all. One of his neighbor’s walls remained half-painted and the front hallway had grown cluttered with fall leaves and muddy footprints.

After five days absence, he realized what must have happened. A tigress’s awakening was unusual among students who’d trained for years and Tracy was a neophyte. So when he’d pulled all that yin from her in her kitchen, her feminine aspect must have gone back to sleep. With her yin and yang balanced, she had returned to her normal life, probably working hard to forget it had ever happened. And since she was likely embarrassed by the events, she would avoid him like the plague, and he would never see her again.

The pain of that thought had left him unable to study for two more days. Tonight had been the first night he had managed to fall into an exhausted sleep despite the woman who still haunted his thoughts. And now here she was, hovering uncertainly on the other side of his door in the middle of the night. Could he have been wrong? Was her tigress still awake? If so, a week’s loss of training would have built up the yin in her system to a frightening level. And wouldn’t that just serve her right for ignoring him—and her own condition—for over a week?

He was grinning as he unlocked the door, but he pretended sleepiness. He cracked the entrance wide enough to see her clearly, but not enough to invite her in. Then he leaned against the door frame and prepared to look his fill at his gorgeous landlady.

The smile faded the moment he saw her. She looked wonderful and terrible at the same time. Her eyes were bright and clear, but with a feverish intensity that seemed to eat him alive. She wore baggy sweats and a loose T-shirt, but her body clearly reacted to every shift of the ugly fabric. Her nipples were pointed; her hips swayed in enticement, even as she folded her arms across her chest and swallowed in anxiety.

Her tigress was still awake. And clearly, she had tried to deny it, suppressing the demands of her awakened body until she was literally sick with her own yin abundance.

“Sorry to wake you, Mr. Gao,” she said. Her voice held a husky rasp that went straight to his organ, tightening his dragon pearls to painful intensity.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself. Everything inside him urged that he drag her inside his apartment and relieve her suffering. But he’d already done that a week ago. He’d balanced her chi in a night that still haunted his thoughts. She needed training, not a quick fix.

“May I come in?” she asked.

He took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. She was surrounded by the musky smell of a tigress on the prowl. It burrowed deep into a man, bypassing his mind and going straight for the most primal needs.

“I…I need to come in, Mr. Gao. Nathan. Please.”

“You need to balance your energy again, Miss Williams. You have let things go way too long.”

She swallowed, her skin becoming even more pale. “That’s…um…what I wanted to talk to you about.” She glanced nervously about the empty hallway. “Can I come in please?”

“Why?”

She ran a hand through her full, shimmering hair. His dragon reacted predictably to the sight of the wavy brown silk. His mind saw that her hand trembled. “I thought…I mean, I hoped…I would like to see if you would.” She closed her eyes, then said something that must have cost her greatly in pride. “I brought condoms. A whole box.”

His dragon leaped forward. She noticed, of course. His loose pants could not hide everything. She stepped forward, sure of her welcome, but he didn’t move. Though lust rode him hard, he resolutely barred the door to her.

“You don’t need another balancing, Miss Williams. You need training.”

“Okay. Okay.” She put her hand on the door. “But I can’t think right now.”

He didn’t budge. “What have you been doing? Ignoring it? Hoping it would go away?”

She flushed. The rosy tint to her cheeks looked better than any model’s and then she wet her lips, leaving behind a glossy shimmer that nearly made him miss her next words.

“I thought maybe it was just one of those things, you know?”

He did know. But he couldn’t let her give in to the need to just forget. “And now?”

She looked up and tears shimmered in her eyes. “I’ve been having these thoughts. Lustful thoughts. Fantasies.” Her voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Urges.”

“A tigress must be satisfied. That’s why—”

“About my brother’s friends!” she continued, her voice tight with panic. “Boys! Young, teenage boys in their football gear with their tight bottoms lifting up.” She swallowed. “I was watching a game and you don’t want to know what I was thinking!”

He could well imagine. But she didn’t stop long enough for him to comment.

“I touched one of them. Not on purpose. Well, yes on purpose, but not because I meant to. I mean…” She closed her eyes.

“Did you hurt him?”

“What? No! I was working concessions and he came for a drink. A bottled purple…whatever. I took his money. I got his bottle. But when I was handing it over…” Her voice broke. “He wasn’t even cute, but it didn’t matter. He was young and healthy and when I touched his hand, I looked into his eyes.” She raised her gaze, humiliation staining her cheeks. “I licked my lips and smiled. It wasn’t anything, except it was. He knew what I meant. I knew what I meant. Thank God there were other people there. Part of me was ready to take him behind the bleachers right then and there!”

He frowned, not understanding her panic. “But you did nothing wrong.”

“But I wanted to! Don’t you see? He was my brother’s friend!” Her voice was rising on a wail of panic that would soon alert his neighbors. And then she startled him. She shoved hard against the doorway, her hunger overcoming her natural restraint. “Please let me in, Nathan.”

He stared at her, his thoughts whirling in confusion. He had grown up in a tigress temple, seen women learning the ways of sexuality from the moment he could focus his vision. His own dragon education had begun when he was just learning to read; in fact, his first Chinese characters had been learned from the sacred texts. Never, ever had he met a woman so stubbornly confused by her own sexuality. And that, heaven help him, was in part why she was so attractive to him.

Every woman at the temple had tried to seduce him or his brother at one time or another. They were the only men around. But Nathan had never felt such an incredible pull toward any of them. Tracy was the exact opposite of every woman he’d ever known. She was competent at business, strong physically, and not in the least bit averse to hard work. And yet on the sexual side, she was nervous and uncertain. Before all this had begun, she’d been a shy flirt. And now, she resisted her sexuality until she was literally sick with it. Who could understand such a woman? And who could resist teaching her to embrace her feminine power?

“Nathan,” she whispered, her voice making his belly tighten with hunger. “Please. I don’t want them. I want you.”

“Why did you wait?” he pressed.

“I…I…” She swallowed, then she looked into his eyes and he saw stark terror in them. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be like this.”

“But why?” He truly didn’t understand. What woman wouldn’t want to be a sexual goddess? A woman lusted after by every man alive?

“Just make it go away. Make it all stop.”

“You have to come to a class, Tracy. You have to learn to control the tigress.” The need to comfort her burned inside. He wanted to hold her, to take the fear from her eyes. But if he touched her, if he once gave in to temptation, there would be no stopping. He was already rock hard, his every cell straining for her. “I cannot take advantage of you like this,” he said, as much to himself as to her.

“I’ll pay you.”

He blinked, her words dousing his fire more effectively than a cold shower. “I’m sorry?”

She blanched, then abruptly rubbed her hand over her face. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Nathan, I don’t know what to do!”

God help him, he was tempted. She obviously needed help. She didn’t yet realize that she would need balancing on a regular basis. Weekly, at least. It was not as if it were a hardship for him, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t use her like that even though every cell in his body screamed for him to ease her suffering.

Nathan moved fast. Spinning around, he grabbed a book off his shelf, then returned to the door to block it before she could push her way in. He nearly didn’t make it. She had her shoulder against the door, but he caught it before she could nudge it open. He shoved the book at her, careful not to touch her or his resistance would crumple entirely.

“Study this,” he said. “It will give you basic exercises. Don’t come back until you have mastered the initial forms.”

She stared at him, her mouth slipping open in shock. “You want me to read a book?” she gasped. “When you could…When we could be…You want me to read?”

No! “Yes.”

Her eyes widened as the truth finally hit her. He wasn’t going to touch her tonight. “But there’s another football game tomorrow evening!”

He tried not to imagine it. He tried not to think of her under the bleachers with any one of the willing American boys who would happily join her there. “Read fast,” he said. And then he did the hardest thing he’d ever done in his entire life.

He shut the door.