by Jade Lee
He pictured Miss Williams in his thoughts. She had the curvy build of many Caucasians—lush bottom, tiny waist and full breasts beneath her tapered white blouse. Her face was just long enough, her complexion clear—milky-white, in fact—and her eyes were a bright brown. In truth, fortune sat on her face, lengthening her earlobes and sweetening the distance between the tip of her nose and the curve of her pale lips. He sensed a clarity in her chi—her energy—though like her body, it was buried beneath ill-fitting clutter.
It would be a joy to peel back the clothing on her body and the layers of grime on her energy. What a beauty would lie underneath. His own energy was already strengthening at the thought. It could be amazing for both of them, if she just allowed it. But first, he had to get close enough to show her the truth.
Fortunately, he had an idea….
Chapter 2
“URNG EALTRR CALLED.”
Tracy looked up from her breakfast of champions—black coffee and plain yogurt—to frown at her younger brother. “What?”
Joey was trying to bulk for football, which meant he was eating everything in sight. Right now he was alternating between a three-egg omelet and a bowl of sugar-frosted something. He swallowed, slurped the last of the orange juice, then finally spoke clearly. “The Realtor called.”
Tracy set down her coffee, a shiver of excitement zinging through her body. “Has he got an offer already?”
Joey stared at her, his sweet brown eyes completely flat. “No offer,” he mumbled as he turned back to the omelet. “Just wanted details about when we inherited, how much debt was on the property, and how we leveraged it. Plus tax stuff and the dates of your renovations.”
Tracy groaned. Great, more paperwork. “You told him to call my cell, right?”
“Nah. I answered it all for him.”
It was a good thing Tracy had set down her coffee because it would have sloshed to the floor. “When did you pay attention to words like leverage and taxes?”
Joey set down his fork. “I haven’t been asleep all these years. I know stuff.”
“I’m sure you do,” she said softly, more than a little thrown. Her brother wasn’t stupid—but when had he noticed anything beyond football and the season’s newest cheerleaders.
“I can help with the drywall this weekend, if you want,” he said as he drained his cereal bowl with a loud slurp.
“Already done. Besides, don’t you have a history paper to write?”
“Already done,” he retorted. “Mandy helped me.”
“Good. Then you can study for the ACTs. It’s your last shot at a decent score—”
“I know!” Joey dropped his empty bowl on the table, his tone surly as only a teen could be. “God, you’re really jonesing for it, aren’t you? Four more years of school. Ugh!”
“Think of the money you can earn with an education.” She leaned forward. “Joey, do you know how much a stockbroker makes in a year? One who’s willing to work hard?” She sighed wistfully. “We’d never have to worry about money again.”
“I’m not worried now,” he returned. His long lashes dropped against his freckled face. He was still so young, and yet she saw adulthood in his broad shoulders and his quiet strength. He’d grown so much since that awful day eight years ago.
“I’m worried, Joey,” she confessed. “Slow and steady, remember? That’s what Dad used to say. Effort now is like putting pennies in a jar. Eventually it’ll pay off.”
He stacked his dishes and dropped them in the sink behind him. “I have been working hard.”
She nodded. He’d certainly been working out hard. Football was his passion, and he did all sorts of renovation work with her or for his friends’ parents on the weekends. But that wasn’t the same as working hard at school. “Joey, we’re at the big payoff. After eight years, we can finally start living the lives we were meant to before…” She shrugged. “You know, before.”
His gaze slanted away. He never liked talking about their parents. Truthfully, she didn’t, either; it hurt too much. “I never asked you to give up your life for me,” he said. “You could have gone to college. I would have found a way to get by.”
She stepped forward, wanting to hug him the way they had so long ago. But he bunched his shoulders and leaned under the table to grab his backpack. So she tucked her hands tightly to her chest. “I wouldn’t change a thing, Joey. These last years have been hard, yes, but they’ve been good, too. Come on, aren’t you ready to move on? Go to college? Get started on adulthood?”
He straightened slowly, then faced her with a look that was half wary, half hopeful. “What if I took a year off? We have enough money for you to go to school, right? I could take care of the apartment building—”
“Absolutely not. You’re going to college.” He wasn’t going to put his life on hold for her. “It’s what Mom and Dad wanted.”
His lips tightened. He never argued when she played the Mom-and-Dad card. “Why don’t you ever date?”
She blinked, thrown for the second time this morning. “When did you start paying attention to my dating habits?”
“Mandy noticed. She said you ought to date more. That maybe you’d be less worried about money and stuff if you got out more.” Translation: if she dated, she’d be less focused on him going to college.
“Nice try, but Mandy’s wrong,” she said. “The men I meet are all flash. None of them are in for the long haul. Besides, I’m working on me.” She smiled, finally seeing a point to this conversation. “Yes, Joey, I am jonesing for it. It’s time for us both to step into our adult lives. I’m willing to work hard for that. How about you?”
“Fine,” he snapped as he pushed away from the kitchen table. “I’ll try for a football scholarship.”
“You’ll try to ace that physics test on Monday.”
He groaned as he shrugged on his backpack. “You know I’m not good at school.”
“Don’t make me be a mom here,” she said in her most momlike voice. “Study for that test! Both of them!”
“Fine.” He shrugged on the varsity jacket that had cost her $150 last Christmas. She’d skipped lunch for months just to save up for it. “Joey, just think about what we could have—”
“I’ll study with Tommy after practice,” he interrupted.
What could she say to that except a tired old adage? “Slow and steady effort, Joey.”
He hauled open the back door. “I really liked doing the drywall and plumbing and stuff with Dad. With you, too.” He paused long enough for Tracy to realize there was an underlying message there, but then he spun away and the screen door bounced shut behind him. She shifted sideways to watch out the window as he trudged to the bus stop.
How she wished she understood her brother. Some days he seemed so mature, happy with football, focused on being a high-school senior. Then the next moment, he seemed lost, looking to her to provide an answer when she didn’t even know the question. What did he need? What was missing in his life?
She didn’t know, and so she had no choice but to move on with her day. Painting and mopping were on the schedule. Wow. The glamorous life of a landlord. She flashed briefly on tenant 4C. Would he know what was going on with her brother? Did his Tantric religion offer answers to teenage boys, as well as sexual immortality?
Of course not. But the idea had her smiling all the way to the paint store.
WITH ONE FOOT, Tracy stomped on the mop-bucket squeezer. The water drained with a loud splash, then with a practiced whip slap, she obliterated more mud from the hallway. She’d finished painting in record time, and so now she had to do her bit as janitor. Her ancient Discman belted out her favorite mopping music, but nothing lifted her black mood this blustery day.
Then she accidentally swiped across a pair of knock-off Nikes—attached to one tall Chinese tenant—and her heart abruptly started beating pitter-pat. Then she remembered his Tantric class, and her mood darkened in annoyance—at him, at herself, at the whole situation that made the only inter
esting man she knew a financial risk she couldn’t afford.
“Ah, hell,” she muttered, unsure what she was cursing.
“No worries, Miss Williams,” he said, his smile bringing his Asian charm to the fore. “My clothing has suffered far worse.” His eyes sparkled with part shyness, part devilry, and once again she was reminded why he’d become the object of her fantasies. Everything about him begged her to look deeper. What mysteries lay just beneath his very intriguing exterior?
She yanked down her headphones. “I didn’t see you there.” She bit her lip then and tried not to get lost in his eyes. This was how it always went with him, even when she was prepared. He smiled and she lost all sense of who she was and what she wanted. Most days she simply smiled back. Occasionally she remembered rehearsed speeches. He was always polite, but she never got beyond the shock of wanting to be perfect for him, of feeling completely blindsided by his beauty even when she wasn’t.
Today was no different except that this time her business side kicked in. Instead of little girl Tracy getting lost in his smile, businesswoman Tracy remembered that she had to sell this building. In eleven months, she needed two sets of tuition. So until Mike told her 4C did not have a criminal record, she couldn’t risk being friendly with him. Or making any promises about letting him stay.
“I can’t let you stay here. Not if you’re teaching those classes.”
His face dropped and she abruptly noticed that he looked tired. His skin was less golden, more wan. Backlit as he was by the afternoon sun, she could see that his shoulders were stooped and his head tilted slightly forward.
“I have to teach those classes,” he said. “I cannot survive any other way.”
She shook her head. “You can’t. I’ll have to evict you.” She bit her lip. “Please don’t make me do that.”
Instead of answering, he started rooting through his scarred satchel. “I have something for you.” He pulled out a couple of pristine white pages. “It’s a list of tasks and their market value,” he explained. “The Asian Student Group lists you as a landlord who exchanges work for a lowered rent, but I couldn’t find a table of jobs. I thought if you had one, then you would get more tenants willing to upgrade their units. It also helps prevent arguments about the value of someone’s work.”
She began flipping through the pages and saw an impressive chart listing a whole slew of apartment upgrades starting with painting all the way through to furniture repair. “What,” she quipped, “no plumbing or electrical work?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t have enough time. But I could get you something by tomorrow if you like.”
She stared at him, unaccountable fury building inside her. It was wrong of her—completely and utterly unfair to him. He was being nice. She wasn’t really mad at him, it was more the whole situation: that she had to threaten a man she’d been fantasizing about for months. And yet, she couldn’t manage to say that. “You don’t get it, do you? I can’t have you doing anything illegal here. Nothing that even appears illegal! Nothing that suggests anything illegal!”
She tried to shove the beautifully done pages back at him, but he didn’t move. He simply stared at her with an open, startled expression. “You are angry,” he finally said. “You are never angry.”
She swallowed, not knowing what to say. “You aren’t listening,” she began, but he interrupted her.
“What is happening?” He took a step forward. “What is the real problem?” As he spoke, she felt as if his whole body opened to her, as if he really wanted to know. The sight was so unusual and so needed that she actually lost her breath. God, how she had dreamed of him asking such a question of her. And in her fantasies, she blurted it all out—her financial fears, her brother’s weird moods, her dreams for the future that had been put on hold since that awful day eight years ago. But that was a dream, and this was reality.
There was no way his sympathy was real. They hadn’t progressed beyond simple, awkward flirting before she’d tried to evict him. So she shut her mouth and closed her eyes, reminding herself over and over that everything he offered was fake.
“Thank you for the charts,” she ground out as she shoved them into her back pants pocket. It was too small, so they teetered ridiculously back there, but she refused to fix it. Instead, she dared look him in the eyes again. “Quit teaching those classes.” Then she grabbed the mop handle and prepared to wield it with a criminal vengeance.
“I can help you,” he returned in a soft tone.
Shock made her rear her head back up. What was he talking about, helping her? It couldn’t be with her worries. He didn’t know anything about them. Did he mean the mopping? Or with something else? She didn’t know how to respond except to gape at him. And damn if he didn’t arch a really sexy brow at her that made her think of hot, sweet sex on a cold October day.
“Your chi is chaotic,” he said, as if that explained anything. “Your energy is messed up. I can quiet it. It will make you think more clearly.” He sighed. “Just take my hands. You don’t have to believe.”
He extended his hands—palms up—and waited. She felt no demand in his posture, just a simple offer of help with her chi. Whatever that was. If this was a come-on, it was the strangest one she’d ever experienced, and that alone won him points. Her curiosity was piqued. And she really did feel bad about treating him so rudely. So in the end, she took hold of his hands.
Nothing happened. Well, nothing except an abrupt realization that his hands weren’t cold. Given that the hallway was pretty nippy that was startling enough. But his warmth was a delicious kind of warmth, like rich hot chocolate or a snuggling puppy wrapped in a heated towel. She tried to snort in disdain. Hot cocoa and a puppy? What was she? Twelve years old? And yet…
His heat was seductive. It enveloped her hands and tingled up her wrists. No, it wasn’t a tingle, she realized, but a pervasive invasion of yumminess. Her gaze leaped to his, and her breath caught. His eyes were fixed on her face, but not such that he seemed to see her. Instead, he was looking through her or inside her or she didn’t know where, but it was intense. Powerfully direct—like an arrow aimed straight at her heart—and yet silent and steady. If he was an arrow, he was flying clean and true straight at her.
She had the sudden urge to duck and cover, but it was too late. She couldn’t move without breaking his wondrous heat. She couldn’t even blink, so fascinating was his expression. A deer in headlights, that was what she was. A dumb animal too stupid to pull away. And yet, it felt so…
Angry. Infuriating. Boiling fear and frustration and hatred steamed off her skin. She felt her hands clench around his larger ones. Rage flashed through her body, exploding in the air between them…and was gone. Poof. As if it had been lifted right off her skin. The anger was gone, and she was left feeling…what?
Lost and inadequate. She didn’t know how to help her brother, wasn’t sure she could get into college much less make it once there, and most of all, didn’t know if she could keep things together long enough to start a life that had been on hold for eight years. Everything was about to change, and she wasn’t sure she could handle any of it.
“I’m not angry anymore,” she said, awe infusing her voice. In truth, she’d never really been angry, just overwhelmed. “My brother, Joey,” she blurted. “I don’t understand him. He seems to be reaching out, but I don’t know what to do. I hate feeling so useless.”
She refocused on his face, reality intruding with a sudden shock. What was she doing confessing that kind of personal detail to this man? Whipping her hands out of his, she took an unsteady step backward. “What did you do?”
His hands fell to his sides, but his expression remained calm, and his eyes begged her to touch him again, to feel that yumminess once again. “It is what I teach,” he said softly. “Chi—personal energy—and how to purify it.”
“What?”
He straightened, and his eyes grew softer and warmer. They were mesmerizing as he spoke, tempting her to believe anything
he said.
“Every living thing has an energy field,” he said. “We call it chi. The clearer your energy is, the clearer your thoughts are. I quieted your chi so you could think more clearly.” He smiled. “That is what I teach. I show people how to clear their energy field.”
She blinked, her mind whirling in confusion. “But the girls…I saw them. And you, too. You were all stripping!” She was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Your chi is growing chaotic again.” He extended his hands, but she backed away.
“Don’t touch me!” Tracy didn’t know why she was so vehement, especially since she did want to take his hands. She wanted to feel that incredible warmth sliding through her system again. She wanted him, and that thought terrified her more than all that other stuff about energy and chi and naked college girls. She felt confused and inadequate, which made him an even stronger temptation. She wanted to curl into his strength and lay all her fears at his feet. But she could not, not, not do that with this man! Not until she knew who he was and what he did. And yet, the desire was so strong.
She watched him bend down for his attaché case again. His expression was open, his body language charming, and his tush was really, really nicely formed. “I know it’s a lot to handle, right now,” he said. “But I have another class this evening at seven. Please come. Bring the police if you must, but come and see that what I teach is not illegal. It’s not even immoral.”
She wanted to shake her head. She wanted to say there was no way in hell that she would be sucked under his spell, but her mouth remained resolutely shut. Meanwhile, his hair was slipping across his forehead again. It was cute. He was cute and sexy and really smart, too. That was why she’d noticed him from the very beginning. “I don’t know what to think.”
He nodded and his eyes continued to draw her in, promising an answer if only she gave him a chance. “You have felt the energy. You know it is real. Come learn more tonight.”
He sounded so reasonable. And the last ten minutes had shown her that her anger stemmed from another source entirely—from Joey and her uncertain future. She didn’t know what to do.