No, no, no! Not here! Clenching her jaw, she mentally obliterated all thoughts of Mr. 4C. Whatever weird energy thing he’d done to her, she was in control of her body. She would not succumb to this…this echo of whatever. It was not real. And even if it felt real, it was just temporary. Lightning-bolt intense, but very, very temporary.
Gripping the steering wheel, Tracy pressed down on the accelerator. Her truck leaped forward with an ominous grind. Fortunately, she wasn’t far from home. Minutes later, she pulled into her garage without any more throbbing. No less throbbing, but no new lightning strike of the hornies. She counted that as a win.
Her legs were weirdly steady—energized even—as she bounded out of the truck and into the house. She reached to flip on the lights, but then remembered that Joey wasn’t sleeping here tonight. No need to give the place that welcome feel.
She made it up the stairs quickly, slipped past her brother’s room, ignored as always the shut door of her parents’ old room, and careened into her own. Her nerves were zinging so much her hair felt as if it was standing on end. She banged on the overhead light only to curse and cut it off again.
She didn’t want the harsh glare. She wanted muted half light and sexy saxophone music as she slid her clothing off. She bounced across the room and flipped on her bedside lamp. It was a silly pink thing surrounded by clowns. She’d had it from when she was a baby and rarely looked at it. But right then it gave her room the perfect soft glow.
Then she focused on her pink eyelet curtains—another childhood leftover—and imagined herself in a lush boudoir stripping for a lover. 4C was just behind her, watching from her bed, his dark Chinese eyes drinking in her every move. He was naked except for those black cotton pants that rested ever so tantalizingly low over his hips, and he was waiting for her.
The first thing she did was strip off her ball cap and shake out her ponytail. Whatever possessed her to wear that stupid thing anyway? It was too restrictive and held everything too tight. How luxurious it felt to dig her fingers deep into her scalp and then shake out her hair.
The brown waves would have felt good on her back, but the tight band of sports bra beneath her T-shirt prevented any sensation. Normally she would have ripped the shirt right off, tossing it into the laundry bin with a perfect two-point shot. Not tonight. Not with her fantasy lover watching from the bed and her hips gyrating from some music she felt but couldn’t hear.
She wrapped her arms around her stomach and slowly lifted her shirt. It wasn’t the smoothest motion in the world, but she didn’t care as the fabric tugged against her back. Yup. Tingles. Still there. Still waiting to be awakened by a brush of fingertips, a stroke of lips, or the much less glorious pull of cotton.
It didn’t matter. Tracy tugged it off, already impatient to be free. The sports bra was harder. It clung so stubbornly to her body that she had to peel it away. The feel on her breasts was like thick plastic being lifted off to reveal a younger, perkier her. But that was nothing compared to the sensation of her nipples pebbling in the cool night air. When they tightened, her belly did, too, which set off those tingles, which swirled though her entire system enough to make her brain sweat.
Oh, my! She fell forward, landing hard on the mattress. She had to get naked now! Flopping over, she yanked off her jeans while those tingles began zipping everywhere at random. Her toes curled; her thigh spasmed; and her nose itched.
“9-1-1,” she gasped to no one at all. “I’ve been struck by horny lightning and I can’t get off!” She started to giggle but that only created more explosions of hunger. It wasn’t just her skin firing random patches of heat, but inside, as well. She swore even her spleen was quivering with desire.
The ring of her cell phone rumbled through the room. It would have been jarring if the deep notes didn’t resonate with her on a very intimate level. But the rhythm was too fast or not fast enough, so she scrambled—gasping—across her bed to her discarded jeans and the cell phone inside. It was thick and hard in her fingers as she gripped it, but way too narrow. She cursed as she flipped it open, wanting something very different in her hands.
“What?” she gasped, startled to realize that the word had come out breathy and seductive. What if it was her brother calling?
“Miss Williams? Is that you?”
Not Joey. Sexy Mr. Gao. Didn’t his name just roll through her system in absolute perfection? “Gaaaaooow,” she purred. “Mr. Gaaaaooooww, did you need something?”
He said a word in Chinese. It was low, guttural and completely at odds with her mood.
“What?” she said as she flipped onto her back and lifted her breasts to the ceiling. She had no understanding of why she did that. It just felt right.
“I’m so sorry, Miss Williams.”
“Tracy,” she whispered. “Call me Tracy.” She closed her eyes, lifting her hand to trail the very edges of her nails across her collarbone, curving across her left breast, to flick—ah!—hard against her nipple. “Hmmmm.”
“How are you feeling, Tracy? How does your body feel, right now?”
Naked. I feel naked. “I’m fine, Mr. Gaaaaoooow.” She flicked her nipple again, enjoying the spark of tingles that burst across her flesh.
“Listen to me, Tracy, I think I woke your tigress. Your inner tigress—it’s awake.”
“Me-yowrrrr, Mr. Gaaaooowww.” Had she just said that aloud?
Dead silence. It lasted long enough for her to lift the phone away to see if she’d lost the connection. She hadn’t, so she brought the receiver back to her ear.
“Hellooooooo?” she cooed.
“Listen very closely, Tracy. You need to…You’ve got energy firing all through your body.”
Too right, she purred silently to herself.
“You’re going to have to learn how to control it, to dampen it until you can get some training. I’m serious Tracy. You’re risking your life.”
She frowned. Her thoughts had finally filtered past his sexy voice to actually hear his words. What he said wasn’t pleasant at all. She pulled her hand away from fondling her nipple and made a valiant effort to focus. “What?”
“You need training, Tracy. Or you’re not going to be able to control your actions.” He sighed, the low rumble of air somehow making her toes curl in delight. “Nymphomania is the usual result. You don’t want to become a nymphomaniac, do you?”
Tracy rolled over onto her stomach in an attempt to focus, but automatically extended the motion, lifting her tush high in the air, feeling the cool air hit her wet thighs. Oh, to have him behind her right now.
“I am not a nymphomaniac,” she said, irritated not by the suggestion but because he wasn’t behind her, thrusting hot and hard inside her. She’d dreamed of such a thing for so long.
“Think, Tracy. Is this your usual behavior? Is this how you usually feel?”
Her mind reeled a moment. What was she doing? She plopped down flat on the cover and glared at her bedside table. “No,” she said slowly. “Not really.” But it wasn’t completely unusual, either. After all, she had been doing this with him in her dreams for weeks now.
The war between logic and lust collided in her brain, short-circuiting any rational thought. She understood nothing of what was going on, couldn’t focus to save her life, and was talking to a studly man who was not, not, not seducing her!
“You listen here,” she said, her tone sharpening. “I’m alone in my own home, and I can do whatever I want!” She sat up and glared at her tousled, flushed face in the mirror. She knew she had completely lost it here, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. With a grunt of frustration, she slammed the phone shut and threw it across the room.