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
