They were there for another hour. The disposal was in pieces before Mike leaned back with an enigmatic expression. “I gotta get back. We’ll talk more later.”
Tracy put down her wrench. “Wait a minute! Did you find anything?”
Mike wouldn’t answer. He just waved at her and disappeared out the door before she could press for more. She stared at her friend’s retreating back, refusing to bellow after him, and in that moment, Tracy came to her own decision. If she wanted to know more about Nathan, then she would have to find out her own way. They could talk like normal people. She could ask her own questions. She could…
She wiped off her hands on a rag then grabbed her car keys. Forget Mike. She had her own idea. But first she had to get home and grab a few things.
SHE WAS IN HIS APARTMENT when he came home. Somehow Nathan knew she would be. That was why he’d gone to the library after class, then loitered in the back of a Chinese restaurant, hoping to pick up an illegal busboy job. The answer was no, but he’d tried. Then he’d finally faced the inevitable and headed home long after she would normally have left for the day.
But she was there. Not in the downstairs hallway, but in his kitchen, putting away tools while the scent of some very American-looking casserole filled the tiny apartment. She looked up as he entered, her eyes lighting with delight even though her body posture seemed reserved.
“Welcome back!” she said. “I put in a new garbage disposal. Yours was toast.”
He nodded, but couldn’t speak. Her beauty hit him sideways like that—catching him unaware even when he expected it. It wasn’t that she was dressed to seduce. Far from it. She wore grubby jeans and a grimy T-shirt. Her face was flushed from her exertions and her hair was tied back in a ponytail that caught most but not all of her wavy tendrils. But the life flowing from her soul hit him straight in the solar plexus. She was alive and vibrant, and so damn beautiful she stole his breath.
“I made dinner. The disposal took longer than I expected. Do you mind if I use your bathroom? I just need to change clothes.”
He stared at her a moment, his sense of humor finally surfacing. “No problem. But I don’t remember any plans for tonight.”
“High-school gym. Girls’ volleyball, to be exact. Joey’s there to watch his girlfriend. I thought we’d eat, watch the match, then go out for ice cream afterward.”
He arched his eyebrows. “You did, did you?” How different she was now from last night when the pain from his rejection had rolled off her in waves. Today she was casual. Controlled. Suspiciously so. “Why?”
Tracy straightened to face him square-on, her shoulders stiff with tension. She wasn’t as calm as she pretended. “I had a revelation while I was fixing your sink.”
He blinked, his mind whirling. Was she already getting divine messages? Had she progressed that far as a tigress?
“We went too fast. I mean, I don’t regret it or anything, but we don’t know each other well enough yet to decide about anything. So I thought we’d just go out. We’d learn about each other’s families. We’d, you know, talk as friends. We can do that at a volleyball game.”
Yearning burned through his belly. “It won’t work,” he said to himself more than her. “You are a tigress. I cannot—”
“Yadda yadda,” she interrupted. “Give me this Stephen’s e-mail address. I’ll contact him on your laptop if you like.” She swallowed. “And there’s this other thing, too. I have some questions. I…I don’t want to keep noticing men. I mean, Hugh Jackman is one thing, but every healthy guy that walks by? No. So how do I stop it?”
“You train at the temple in Hong Kong,” he answered wearily. Then he turned away rather than show her how much he really did ache for her. “It has been a very long day.” A long day of regret. Of dreaming about what might have happened if her inner tigress had never woken. If they could have met and dated and talked as friends first. “I don’t really feel—”
“Just friends, Nathan. Are you telling me you don’t want a friend?” Her voice trembled slightly. “That you don’t want me as a friend?”
“Tigresses don’t have friends,” he answered automatically. And once again, the message was for himself, not her. She would learn the truth about that soon enough.
“Well, then, I guess I’m not a tigress.”
He looked at her. She held her head high, but the color had leeched from her face. He was hurting her, but he didn’t see how he could do this—be friends and then lose her. And yet, he couldn’t stand strong against her pain. The truth was he’d happily take whatever tiny piece of her he could have, but that way lay disaster. How could he be friends without wanting more? Without spending his nights wrapped in torment?
“Tracy…” he began, reaching for the only excuse he had. “Even volleyball games cost money. I don’t have—”
“Oh, God, you’re not going to go all annoying for five bucks? I’ll pay—”
“No!” He spun around, allowing pride and frustration to cover other more vulnerable feelings. “Allow me some self-respect. I have nothing to offer you. I can’t take you out on dates the way you deserve. I have no money. I can’t teach you—it’s forbidden. I can’t even pay you my rent next month! And that…” He gestured angrily at her casserole. “That will be the first real meal I’ve had since coming to this country.”
She paled. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out.
He rubbed his hand over his face, humiliated by his outburst. Then to make matters worse, his stomach rumbled, cutting loudly into the silent room.
Tracy laughed—a soft snort of humor that had him smiling in return. She stepped to the counter and lifted off the tinfoil covering. It was meat loaf and sauce covered by macaroni and cheese. A bizarre combination, but his mouth watered just looking at it.
“Eat while I change,” she said. “We’ll talk when I get out.” She grabbed a sports bag near her toolbox and headed for his bathroom. He watched her go, slowly losing his mind to the beauty of her walk, of the way her hair bounced as she spun. Then she turned and looked at him, her eyes huge and her voice almost too quiet to hear.
“All I want is a little time with you as friends. That doesn’t cost a dime.” Then she disappeared into the bathroom.
He sighed, knowing he’d already lost the battle. He had no business spending more time with her. She would distract him from the business of study and of finding a way—any way—to survive in the U.S.
He ought to spend the evening visiting sorority houses to offer Tantric classes. It was the very best time to pick up students. College girls without a date leaped at the chance to “expand their sexual understanding.” At ten dollars a class, he could make a hundred or more with the right pitch. But not if he was watching volleyball and eating ice cream with Tracy.
Giving in to his hunger pangs, Nathan scooped up a generous portion of her meat loaf concoction. It looked very strange to his Chinese eyes, but one bite had him raising his brows in surprise. It was good. Very good. Very American, but also…
The water in his bathroom turned on. He had almost managed to forget that Tracy was a few meters away stripping naked, but the sound of the water kicked his mind into overtime. She had a water-element body, but earth ran strong through it, as well. It complimented her, making her body lush and fertile. Worse, it called to his air-element soul, begging him to breathe life where there was potential, to give space to that which was clogged. And what she gave to him! Her yin rain cooled his tendency to overheat, and her earthy strength grounded him where his own efforts left him spinning aimlessly.
In short, they matched, and if she were not the most promising novice tigress in an age, nothing could prevent him from pursuing her. But she was a tigress with a bigger destiny, though she didn’t understand it. And he had his own responsibilities to his family that he had no wish to set aside.