He shook his head. “I have borne the responsibility since my earliest days.”
“I can see that,” she said softly, admiration in her tone. “But isn’t it hard? I mean, desperately, horribly hard? Don’t you long for something more, something beyond the everyday drudgery?”
He should step away from her. The feel of her hand was drugging him. It brought out fantasies that leeched all the blood from his brain. But he could not force himself to break the connection. Instead, he wrapped his hand around hers and brought it to his lips. “It is my dream to support my family,” he said. He wanted to kiss her, but that was one of the most cardinal rules between teacher and student: no kisses, no touching except to demonstrate. And no sexual relations whatsoever.
“Nathan…” she murmured. Her face was flushed, her breath coming in short, quick pants. Her inner tigress was riding her hard. He had to stop this.
He dropped his forehead against hers, allowing himself the connection while keeping his distance from her lips. “What is your dream?” he asked. “What do you yearn for?”
She shuddered. He guessed that the tigress inside her fought the restraint of simple conversation. But she was not a woman to give in to simple lust. “See, that’s the thing, Nathan. Everybody else has dreams, but I…I just want money. We’ve got the basics, but a cushion would make me breathe so much easier.”
Her scent pervaded his mind. It rose from her skin and fogged his senses. “But there are many ways to make money,” he said. “How will you—”
“Stockbroker,” she answered, the word rushed out and breathless. “It’s all about hard work with them. The harder they work, the more they get. And I plan to work very, very hard.”
He had no doubt about that. How sad that her dream and her fortune would never come about. Whether she understood it or not, the tigress in her would override her mundane desires. In time, the quest for immortality would become paramount. She would leave everything she knew to train at the temple. It wasn’t what she wanted. It certainly wasn’t what Nathan wanted for her. But he had seen it happen too many times. Spirit would choose. Her mind and body would have no choice but to follow.
“What about you?” she asked, her voice a low rasp that further fogged his mind. He knew that a relationship between them was doomed to disaster, and yet she called to him on so many levels. Her body was the least of her lures. She was focused on the same things he was: supporting a family and trying to create a better life for them. And she was kind, trying to talk to him as a person and not as a tool. Those two things alone were so rare in his life. He could not think of another soul—save maybe his sister—who acted in such a way.
“Nathan?” she pressed, clearly wondering about his silence. “I’m sorry. Have I come at a bad time? You’re probably really busy—”
“And if I am?” he pressed, wondering exactly how generous she was. “Would you leave me alone now? What about the football game tonight?”
Tracy bit her lip, her anxiety obvious. “I won’t go. I’ll lock myself in my room and study the book you gave me.”
“It won’t be enough,” he said. “You need a teacher.”
She licked her lips, and his dragon reared. “I won’t be ruled by this.” She lifted up enough to look him in the eye. “I want to be a woman, I want to explore my sexuality, but I won’t let it control me.”
She meant it. But she had no idea how strong the desire could grow. “Most tigresses aren’t so interested in controlling themselves as much as controlling other people. Other men.”
She pulled back, obviously repulsed by the concept. “I don’t think I like your tigresses very much.”
He shrugged. “A tigress is pursued by all men. It is important that she learn how to protect herself.”
“That’s not a very good excuse. Control comes from within. And only over ourselves.”
He smiled, his heart and his body fully caught now. “You might very well be the salvation of our temple.”
She released a self-conscious laugh. “I just want to be able to go to a football game without losing my mind.”
“Then we should begin,” he said. He didn’t really mean it. He just wanted to touch her. Unable to stop himself, he stroked the soft skin of her cheek. She closed her eyes, lifting her face to his touch.
“Is this what you did at the temple?” she asked. “Did you teach a lot of girls?”
“No,” he said, his face already dropping closer. His mouth was almost on hers. “I used to teach, but then my talents were needed elsewhere.”
She shifted her head so that his fingers brushed across her lips. “Doing what?”
“The accounts. I cashed the checks for classes and paid the bills. I decided on the repairs and on the luxuries.”
“You made things run smoothly,” she said. “How old were you when you started doing that?”
“From the moment I could read,” he answered.
She stopped rubbing her lips across his finger. “Wow. I started at eighteen, and it sucked then. You must have been a baby. I can’t even imagine how hard it was for you.”
She understood. Nathan could see it in her eyes, and it made his breath catch in his throat. She understood more than his own mother what he had done as a boy, and how hard he’d worked to bring order to a very chaotic world.
“Do you miss it?” she continued. “Do you long to go back to Hong Kong?”
“No. I miss my brother and sister. I will make sure that they have everything they want. But no, I will never go back to that life.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Never? Was it so very bad?”
He shook his head, refusing to elaborate. How could he explain a house of two dozen beautiful, sexual women intent on seducing him while completely ignoring the mundane realities of life? Not a one understood bills or plumbing or even the basics of preparing a meal because their minds were completely absorbed with their sexuality. And his mother was the worst of the lot. As a child, he’d had to learn quickly about fixing his own food or starve.
There were a few who had helped. Tigress cubs too early in their training to have tasted the glories of heaven, too new to have lost all earthly focus yet. They helped him when they could, guided him as a mother or a lover.
But then came that first touch of divinity, that first moment of true ecstasy and all was forgotten—their promises to him, their whispered love, even simple kindnesses were lost in the search for heaven.
That was what it meant to be a tigress, and he would not subject himself to it anymore. In fact, his whole focus was to earn enough money so that his brother and sister could escape, as well. Falling in love with yet another tigress cub was not in the realm of possibility for him. He could not do it. He would not.
And yet, Tracy did not act like any tigress he knew. Tracy had not lost herself in the quest for immortality yet. And Tracy understood him as no one else had ever bothered to try. He knew eventually the spirit would take her. She would taste ecstasy and he would be abandoned once again. Nathan knew, but he couldn’t stop himself.
He kissed her. He claimed her mouth the way a dragon would claim a woman. He took her; he ate her alive, and he relished every second of her surrender.
Chapter 9
SHE HAD BEEN WAITING AGES for his kiss. She had dreamed of this moment, hungered desperately for it. And it had been worth the wait.
A week ago, they had been strangers in an incredible night of passion. Now they were friends. When he leaned in to kiss her, her entire body stretched for his lips. She met his mouth with a yearning that had nothing to do with his strange tigress rites. It wasn’t hunger that drove her, but a warmth of shared secrets.