“Alone?” squeaked Zoe from the side.
“Gives a whole new meaning to prayer vigil,” Tracy quipped.
He couldn’t help it. His lips quirked. “Humor is very good,” he responded evenly. “Tantrism is a very human practice. And humanity requires laughter.”
“And double-A batteries?”
He shrugged. “If you like.” He leaned forward, allowing his own yang hunger to narrow the distance between them. “It takes practice for the male partner to sustain the female orgasm for long periods. Many of my fellow dragons resorted to mechanical means when their mouths and tongues grew tired.” He let his own pride show through. “As a teen, I used to boast that I could sustain a woman for hours.”
He was handling this badly. He was not a man who bragged about his accomplishments. And that was the exact worst way to speak to Tracy. He needed to be charming, to smile and ease her slowly into understanding. But he couldn’t do it. His blood was running hot and hard, pushing him to show her exactly how masculine he was. He was a mature dragon, a man who would not be denied his tigress. He was worthy of her at the most primal level, and she would succumb to him.
What was wrong with him? Why was he reacting this way? Nathan took a deep breath and forced himself to think. The answer wasn’t hard to come by. He had been dreaming of this woman for months. Then this morning he had touched her energy, felt her sexuality, and knew what she could be. Of course his male energy was yearning for her. Of course he wanted to stake a dragon claim on her.
But he was not a beast to be controlled by his sexual drives. He was a man who reasoned. And most of all, he was a man who knew that this woman was not for him. Unfortunately, his dragon energy didn’t seem to care. Spirit went where it willed, and right now his spirit went straight for Tracy.
He leaned forward even farther, feeling his body heat with his energy. Tracy felt it, too. He could see it in the way her cheeks flushed brighter and her eyes grew wide. She started to draw away, but then froze. He waited, suspended before her, wondering what she would do next.
It came as a slow, sensuous slide of her tongue—first the pink tip, then a little more as she wet the bottom half of her full lower lip. Then she lifted her chin and smiled, baring small white teeth against her moist rosy flesh. “Bring it on, big boy,” she challenged. “Prove to me this isn’t some frat-boy scam.”
He grinned, more than ready to accept her challenge. “Excellent.” He straightened and pulled off his shirt. “It’s time to learn how to purify your yin energy.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw that Zoe was already stripping out of her crop top, her young pert breasts tightening in the chill air. He turned away to grab his second pathetic poster—a series of circles with stick-figure hands on them titled Purifying the Female Yin. But even as he moved, he kept his attention on Tracy, watching her blink, then gape.
Zoe had been through this once before, so she quickly shifted her legs to the proper position. She extended her left leg and pulled the heel of her right foot tight to her pleasure grotto. Then she straightened her back and set her fingertips next to the tiny buds of her nipples. She stopped there, waiting for his direction, but he was waiting for Tracy.
Would she do it? Would she take off her shirt and allow him to see what she hid under that loose T-shirt?
Not yet. She lifted her chin and smirked. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Oh, get over yourself!” declared Zoe from the side. “They’re just breasts. The lesser yin gates, and we massage them to open the energy flow.” She turned and looked to Nathan. “We’ve done this before, and it feels fantastic. I could really feel my energy clear.”
He nodded in approval because it was the truth. Zoe was doing well. “You don’t need to do it here,” he said to Tracy. “Just memorize the pattern.” He pointed at the first picture. “Circular strokes starting at the nipple then flowing outward to disperse the clogging energies.”
He glanced to the side where Zoe had already closed her eyes and begun stroking herself. Her fingers weren’t in the exact right position, but it seemed to be working. Her breath steadied, her shoulders straightened. And when he forced himself to attune to her surface energies, he felt that she was growing clearer as she worked.
“Very good,” he said. “Now slow your strokes to time with your breath. Exhale on the downstroke, inhale on the up.”
Zoe did as she was instructed while Tracy continued to stare. “Forty-nine circles,” he instructed. “Use the time to calm yourself. Afterward, reverse the direction. That will stimulate your yin.” Then he walked to his bookcase and pulled a primary text off the shelf. “If you need more explanation, you can borrow this book and try it in private.”
He extended the heavy paperback toward Tracy, but she didn’t take it. Instead, she continued to stare at him. “You really are serious,” she finally whispered. “You really think this can be real.”
“I have seen it. I know many who have reached the antechamber to heaven. We call it the Chamber of a Thousand Swinging Lanterns, and it is a place where orgasm becomes real, where ecstasy takes physical form.” He waited a moment for her response, but she just kept staring. “Imagine a moment when orgasm suffuses not only your belly, but your heart, your soul. Every sense ripples with ecstasy, even your breath trembles with awe.”
“Cool!” breathed Zoe from the side.
Tracy was shaking her head, denying everything including the book he now set in front of her. Except her left hand was trembling at the bottom of her shirt. Her body was betraying her, longing for something she couldn’t allow herself to believe in.
“Miss Williams…” he began. Then he dropped on his knees in front of her. “Tracy, listen to me.” If she allowed her mind to accept the possibility, then everything would go easier on her. It wouldn’t change the outcome—her spirit would force her to train no matter what her mind believed—but the transition would go much smoother if she opened herself to the possibility. “You know better than anyone that this is real. You felt it this afternoon in the hallway.” Her gaze snapped to his, showing fear and a trembling kind of panic.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered.
He extended his hand, but didn’t dare touch her. “I helped you clear your energy field. That is my talent. I helped you release that which confines you so you can see the truth beneath.”
It was more than he had ever told anyone outside the temple, and she roundly punished him for that trust. “That’s a load of crap and you know it!” she snapped.
He waited in silence, letting his field surround hers. His yang energy made his heart pound and his organ throb. How he wanted her! But he forced himself to remain still. In time, he was rewarded. Her shoulders dropped the tiniest bit.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “That was unfair. I did feel something this morning. I just don’t know what.”
“I understand. Fear pushes people to do many ugly things. Believe me, other students have said and done far worse than be rude.”
She blinked. “Should I even try to understand what you’re saying?”
He shook his head. “Just feel. Close your eyes.” To his delight, she obeyed, her long lashes slipping down to tremble against her cheeks. “I am going to touch your face,” he said. He could have taken her hands, but he wanted something more intimate. His fingers hovered just over her mouth, but then he changed his mind. She wouldn’t accept a touch there. Not yet.
Extending his fingers, he brushed lifting strokes along her left cheek. She gasped as he worked, and the sound was like a hot wind blowing through his mind. It heated his yang and made his dragon surge forward. But he kept his attention on her, on the sweet feel of her chi energy as it trembled against his hand.
Another brushing stroke along her cheekbone, then he feathered his fingers against her hair. She didn’t realize it, but her breath had begun to keep time with his touch: inhale with his caress, exhale as he reset. He started again, this time closer to her lips, stroking higher beside her eye and well into her hair.