The Tao Of Sex (7 page)

She quieted a moment, trying to feel. It was hard. Her heart was beating triple time and her breath stuttered in and out in rapid puffs.

“Quiet your mind. Your body will follow,” he instructed.

She swallowed, trying to do what he wanted. But her mind was racing. This couldn’t be happening to her. It was a scam. She’d been drugged. She’d drunk his tea. What was going on?

She heard him huff in frustration, then a movement. Her eyes shot open a split second before it happened. She saw his face so close, and then he was kissing her. The motion was so sudden, the action so unexpected that at first all Tracy could do was gasp in surprise. But then she felt a surge of heat against her lips and the stroke of his tongue as he penetrated her mouth. She opened herself to him—to his power as he filled her, to his thrust even as she began to meet him, to toy with him. Her belly tightened, her blood surged, and between one heartbeat and the next, she had absolute clarity of thought. She wanted him. Now.

Then he pulled away. “Listen carefully and quickly,” he said, his voice thick and raw. “This passion is yours. It is clear and powerful, and it can consume you. But your sexuality is your right. Do you really want to throw it away?”

“No. God, no!” She had never felt so alive. She was aware of everything. Her breath as it filled her lungs, the heat in her face, the position of her thighs. Other details appeared with stark clarity, as well: the angular cut of his jaw, the way his button-down shirt was undone at the collar revealing smooth skin, the jut of his Adam’s apple. “I stopped thinking of boys—of men—when my parents died. There wasn’t time for that. But lately…” From the moment she’d met him, she’d started fantasizing again. She’d started thinking of being a woman again. It was time. She’d lost so much when her parents had died.

“Good,” he answered softly. “It is good to be a whole woman, isn’t it?” Then he leaned forward. “Let me teach you how to control this power.”

“Yes.” She abruptly grabbed his arms to pull him even closer. “Yes, I want to learn everything. Right now, Nathan. I want to do it all!”

“TAKE OFF YOUR TOP, “he said. “You must do the breast circles. That will help clarify and calm your yin energy.”

Tracy didn’t want to hesitate—she’d made her decision—but doubt still made her hands tremble. She looked into Mr. Gao’s eyes—a virtual stranger—and saw no softening in his expression. He merely challenged her to carry through.

She did. She stripped off her T-shirt. She hadn’t even put on a bra since the very idea had felt too confining. And now she breathed deeply. She let her lungs expand, lifted her breasts, and tried to be completely at ease with being half-naked in her kitchen across from an enigmatic stranger.

“We will begin with your breath.”

When he spoke, his voice sounded absolutely calm, even a little bored. But when she looked into his eyes, she knew he was far from serene. His gaze held hers with laser-point intensity, and she shuddered in reaction.

“Place your fingers near your nipples. Use three fingers and spiral them outward.”

An image of Zoe and her young, perky breasts flashed through her mind. Tracy straightened her back and felt her bulbous size Cs jiggle. She had always thought she had good-looking breasts—assuming they were appropriately lifted and shaped in a fifty-dollar Victoria’s Secret bra. But hanging free, they tended to…well, hang.

She sneaked a glance at Mr. Gao and wondered what he thought of her most feminine attribute. She was a lot larger than most Chinese girls. Was that a good thing? His expression gave no clue to his thoughts, but his gaze was trained on her chest.

“Size and shape are unimportant,” he said as if reading her thoughts. “I have seen old breasts and young ones, large and small, wrinkled and removed, even ones sculpted by the most gifted plastic surgeons.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Beauty, joy, and most especially feminine power is a thing of the mind and of the energy. Do you wish to hone yours?”

“Yes,” she answered immediately. Such was the power of his focused attention she would have said yes to anything.

“Then be done with this self-consciousness. It is tedious.”

She blinked, startled by his cold tone. Didn’t he understand how hard this was for her? How confusing? She closed her eyes and tried to focus, but her hands still trembled where she placed them on her breasts.

Then she heard him sigh—the sound filled with very male frustration. “Give me your hand,” he said.

She blinked, completely confused. Then before she could react, he grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled it toward him. He was sitting across from her on an old wooden kitchen chair. His legs were braced wide apart, the soft cotton fabric of his pants stretched taut.

“You are beautiful, Tracy. But you hide yourself under ugly clothing and an angry exterior.”

“I’m not angry!”

He kept talking as if she hadn’t spoken. “But I see you clearly, Tracy. I see your beauty and your sexuality.” He leaned forward, his grip on her wrist too strong for her to pull away. “I see you, Tracy.”

He pushed her hand against his groin. His knees had narrowed enough for his pants to grow slack, but what she touched was anything but soft. He was hard. Iron-rod hard. Nothing so sleek or cool as steel. He was rough, powerful and thick against her palm, radiating a heat that drew her ever closer.

She had never touched a man like this before. The closest she’d gotten was the dildo her friend had given her on her twenty-first birthday. This felt so solid, so alive. She wanted to grip him, to take that life into herself, to do all those things she’d heard about but never done.

Then Nathan pulled her hand away. “That is the last time you will touch me, Tracy.”

Her gaze leaped to his face. “What?”

“Now you know I desire you. Your tigress energy calls to my dragon power. But you are not strong enough to meet me on an equal plane.” His voice dropped to a softer tone. “You are not ready, Tracy, and you never will be if you continue to doubt yourself and me.”

Unexpected tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“There is no need to try,” he answered. “For the moment, simply breathe.” He returned her hand to her breast, adjusting her fingers to press the inside edge of each nipple. “Now begin to spiral. Inhale on the upstroke, exhale on the down.”

He guided her hands, drawing them up and around her breasts. Each circle expanded, moving ever wider until she ended all the way underneath, stroking ribs as much as breast. Then he took her hands back to the beginning.

“Start again. Feel your breath flow in and out. Let it follow the stroke of your hands.”

“What does this do?” she whispered.

“It disperses your clogging energies. You are circulating your chi, throwing off negative energy. With every exhale, it leaves. With every inhale you draw in pure, sweet truth.”

She cracked her eyes, part of her wondering if he had actually said that with a straight face. He caught her glance, of course, and arched his eyebrow at her. It was a challenge—clear as day—and yet all she could think was that he was a beautiful, beautiful man.

“This will make me ready for you? For us to meet on an equal plane?” She didn’t have to elaborate as to what plane she referred to. She meant the horizontal, in bed, having fabulous sex plane, and he knew it. God, when did she start having thoughts like that?

His expression sobered. “It is one step on the path. Tracy, you and I will never be together. I am your teacher. We will never partner. That will be for another dragon, selected by you and the temple from an eligible pool of candidates.”

She frowned. “A temple? There’s a temple that studies sex?”

“Yes, in Hong Kong. I grew up there.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant that he grew up in Hong Kong or in a temple that studied sex. But there wasn’t time to ask as he leaned forward onto his knees, pressing his words into her as firmly as she pressed her fingers against her skin.

“And this is not about having sex. This is about maximizing your possibilities. You have taken a huge step—your tigress is awake. Your possibilities are endless.”

“Except you’re not one of those possibilities,” she said, her heart sinking to her toes.

“No, I’m not.” Was there regret in his gaze? She couldn’t tell. And before she could ask, he touched the back of her wrist. “Think only of now. Breathe.”

She obeyed because she always did when he spoke in that tone. It was his dragon power, she supposed, and she couldn’t fight it. So she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate as she moved her hands in a rough spiral. Inhale. Exhale. The refrigerator kicked on with an audible hum. It didn’t sound right. Just how old was that thing anyway? Would she have to replace it soon? How was she going to afford that?

She was supposed to be thinking about her breasts. They were just breasts. She moved her hands again. Kinda felt like a nice breast exam. Her friend Mary had recently had a mammogram. Her experience had been awful.

She heard another sound. Or was that a puff of air across her face? She was surprised that she didn’t feel cold—

“Bring your thoughts back to here.”

Tracy jumped and spun around. He’d spoken right behind her ear. How had she not heard him move? He knelt behind her, his arms wrapped around the chair back and her body, all without touching her.

“How do you move so quietly?” she demanded.

“I walk with my chi”

“Of course, Grasshopper,” she drawled, completely unnerved by his presence. Now that she knew he was there, she felt his heat enveloping her, his breath as it whispered through her hair and tickled her cheek. “Can you—”

“Shh. Close your eyes and begin again.” He placed his hands over hers.

“I thought we weren’t ever going to touch.” Her voice trembled. And those fireflies were buzzing back to life.

“Youaren’t going to touch me again. I will have to touch you. Especially since you have no experience in quieting your thoughts. Be here. Completely. Now.”

No choice, given how he had wrapped himself around her. His breath tickled, but it was his hands that held her attention. They were so large compared to hers, cupping around hers to join her fingertips at her breasts.

“Inhale,” he whispered.

She did. Her chest lifted into where he held her fingers. She touched—they touched—the skin right beside her nipples. Then he began to move her hands, spiraling them up and around. It felt so different from when she did it herself. His fingers seemed to extend not only around hers, but deep into her skin, as well. It was his heat, but it felt like so much more. Strength. Flow. Chi. Names filtered through her consciousness only to be scattered as they began the downstroke along the sides of her breasts.

His power preceded where their fingers moved. It slipped into her skin, lifting her breasts and opening them in ways she couldn’t imagine. She had expected the trailing fire of pressure behind their hands, but his strength pushed ahead and penetrated deep.

They circled again under her breasts, lifting so that his wrist accidentally flowed across her left nipple. Lightning shot through her chest straight to her womb, and her entire body shuddered. Beside her, she felt him gasp, as well, his arms jolting where they rested across her upper arms.

Then she heard him swallow. “Your tigress nips at me with her claws,” he whispered.

“I want to jump the nearest ready cock,” she murmured back, stunned that she wasn’t joking. Of course, the nearest cock was his.

He smiled. She felt his cheek lift against the edge of her ear and she heard laughter in his tone. “Many are ready, all will be willing,” he said, “but they will not satisfy you.”

“Why not?”

“Because the answer is here.” He pushed her hands into movement again. “In your own hands.”

“And in my bedside table.” An obvious joke, but she couldn’t resist. He made her nervous.

“In clarity,” he corrected. “Focus on what we are doing.”

As if she could do anything but feel him surround her, know that it was his hands guiding hers, and live each breath wishing they could continue what they were doing forever.

“Breathe,” he murmured, the low vibration of his word penetrating almost as deeply as his heat.

She inhaled with his upstroke. Exhaled with his down. Then another circle and her breasts felt like changed things. They were still breasts, but they were also energy—calm, quiet and very, very there. Like bright, golden little mounds on her chest, alive and new. She wanted to speak, she wanted to express how wonderful this was, but she feared breaking the spell. Each stroke made her chest—no, her whole body—a little brighter.

He lightened, as well. The weight of his arms on hers disappeared. Instead, he became part of her, an extension of her body. She knew his temple pressed against hers, and his chest brushed up tight to her back, but there was no added weight. There wasn’t even the fire that she had expected. He was simply part of her, and together they breathed as one, moved as one.

“Forty-nine,” he said. The sound blended into the air, folding around her without surprise or disharmony. “Those strokes dispersed the negative. Now we will awake the positive.”

“I thought my tigress was already awake.”

“Wait and feel.”

He held her hands by her sides. But this time, instead of curving under her breasts, he stroked over the top. She still inhaled as he moved, lifting her breasts into their joined hands. And as they spiraled in toward her nipples, she felt herself relax into total trust.

She would wait and see. And in waiting, she felt life pouring into her body and her breasts. She had no other word for it. She was alive before, but now she was alive! Or at least her breasts were. Before, her body had been a beautiful glowing landscape of serenity. Now that landscape was being stroked into Technicolor brilliance. She no longer felt hot. Though there was a blaze of hunger under her flesh, she expanded past her skin. She was wondrously, gloriously more. More awake, more alive, more here than ever before. And it was all from his touch. The circles continued, but her hands slipped away. She wanted him to touch her; she wanted his hands on her body.

His fingertips were larger than her own; they widened the gentle pressure on her skin and deepened the stroke of his energy. She felt him all the way to her spine. He was heat that had little to do with temperature—caressing her, stroking her.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”

But after a few more spirals, she felt a growing discontentment. His spirals always ended near her nipples without touching them. He stroked her higher and hotter with each spiral, but would not quite reach the peak.

“More,” she whispered.

“Isn’t this enough?” he countered, humor lacing his voice. “Do you feel how your breath boils with fire?”

It did. She did. Every exhale released steam. Every inhale brought more oxygen to the blaze, but it wasn’t enough. Her hands had fallen away, down by her sides. With only the tiniest movement, she extended them backward so that she gripped his thighs.

He was crouched behind her, his legs braced on either side of her chair. She could reach—and massage—the corded muscles behind her, tightening her hands with his every stroke.

“You are not supposed to touch your teacher,” he said.