by Jade Lee
She stared at him, and he saw the yearning in her eyes. He didn’t want to see it, but her longing was undeniable and she knew it. “This is ridiculous!” she snapped. “I’m not NFL material.”
He towered over her. “Fine. Deny your potential. Deny what you have experienced and known from the very beginning. But at least admit the truth—you want to return to heaven.”
“Yes!” She snapped the word, but then abruptly deflated and her gaze canted away. “Of course, I want to go back there.”
He let her words hang in silence. He let her absorb the truth of her desire. And then he delivered the final blow and the real reason he had shown up here this morning. “I leave tomorrow for Hong Kong.”
Her eyes leaped back to him. “You’re leaving? Now?”
He stepped away from her. If he stood much longer beside her, he would give in and make love to her, but that would ruin everything for her. “You may come with me, if you want. You can visit the temple, talk with my mother, learn what is possible for you.” He had no doubt that she would choose to remain in Hong Kong. The tigress in her was too strong to be denied.
“You’re going to Hong Kong. Tomorrow. And you want me to go with you.” Her voice was flat with shock.
“The situation at home has grown very bad very quickly. My mother is spending recklessly. If she is not stopped now, there will be nothing left for anybody.”
She frowned. “But I thought you didn’t have anything.”
He shook his head. “We have only one thing—the temple. For a hundred years, it is all that we have ever owned.” He lifted his gaze to meet her. “I intend to sell it.”
“Sell the temple?” She gasped. “But…how? What?”
He shrugged, feeling the weight of his decision. “I can’t let my mother continue as she is. She will beggar us in a year. Then we will lose the land anyway.”
“So you’re going to sell?”
“The temple will remain the same. That is a condition of the sale. Then all the money will be held in trust for my mother, aunt and siblings.”
Tracy nodded, her agile mind already understanding more of the financial details than his family ever would. “Is your mother okay with this?”
He tightened his jaw. “She has no choice. She gave me power of attorney long ago.” He lifted his chin, embarrassment and pride at war inside him. “Even as a child, I feared this day would come.”
“Nathan, I’m so sorry.” She reached out to touch his hand. Without thinking, he flipped his hand over so he could grip her palm to palm.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The temple will survive. My family will have enough to do what they want, and…” He forced his next words out. “I am available as your guide to introduce you to Hong Kong. I can ease your way into the temple.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t possibly afford a trip to Hong Kong. And neither can you. So where—”
“Stephen has loaned me the money. And he has paid for your ticket—round trip, first class, open-ended return.”
She laughed—a short burst of air that filled the room. “Are you nuts? You think I can go to Hong Kong tomorrow morning?”
He nodded. “I don’t think you can resist it.”
Tracy studied him, her gaze silent and hard. And the longer she remained quiet, the more his hopes rose. Maybe she did have the strength to resist the siren call of priesthood. Spirit would not influence her, and her scruples would not allow her to accept a free ticket from a man she didn’t know. Maybe…
“All right,” she said.
His hopes plummeted, but still a tiny sliver of his heart held on. “All right what? You will refuse to go?”
She pushed up from her chair so that she faced him eye to eye. “All right, Nathan, I’ll go to Hong Kong with you. My brother can cover for me here. I’ll meet this Stephen. I’ll see what my big possibilities are for divinity or priestesshood or whatever. But you know what I’ll really be doing when I’m there looking at your secret tigress rites?”
Nathan didn’t answer. He already knew she would be walking the path of the divine tigresses. He knew that within a week, he would be nothing more than a fond memory, stepping stone along her road.
“I’m going to find out what happened to you, Nathan. I’m going to find out how you can claim to love me, kiss me with such passion, even send me to heaven, and yet still want to throw me to another man. I’m going to learn about the secret life and times of Nathan Gao.”
He stared at her, shocked to see that she really did mean exactly what she said. “But I have no secrets. There is nothing for you to find except your own potential.”
“Yeah,” she drawled. “And I’m Joe Namath reborn.”
Chapter 16
THEY LEFT BEFORE DAWN the next morning. It was a miracle that she already had a passport, but with the stricter ID requirements, she’d gotten one last year. Then there was packing and a surprisingly quick discussion with Joey. Far from being upset by her trip, her little brother was thrilled to get the chance to manage the apartment building himself. Tracy could only pray that he remembered he was supposed to go to school, too.
Their flights went from Champaign to Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong. Then there was the endless wait through customs before meeting a limo that wanted to take them directly to Stephen’s home. Even though Tracy could barely see straight, she had the strength to flat-out refuse. She and Nathan would go to the tigress temple now. Stephen could visit tomorrow after she’d had a bath, breakfast—or was it dinner?—and felt a little more oriented.
The driver had no choice but to agree, and she had Nathan there to make sure they were driving to the right place. Then she collapsed backward against his outstretched arm and thought she might take a little nap. Except, of course, she had never been out of Illinois, much less the United States. And no matter how tired she felt, she couldn’t suppress the excitement zipping down her spine.
She was in Hong Kong! And it was huge! Flying in, she had seen mountains and buildings and more buildings. Nathan had told her of huge shopping districts, flea markets and designer boutiques. Of food that ran the gamut from curbside stir fry to $500-a-plate dining.
Tracy had listened closely to everything he’d said. He was her only source of information since there hadn’t been time to pick up a guidebook before leaving Illinois. But what struck her most was his description of his native island, Lamma. It turned out that what she called Hong Kong was actually a network of over two hundred islands. Whereas Hong Kong was a steep rocky place of high rise after high rise, Lamma was mostly unspoiled by urban sprawl. In fact, his temple home didn’t even have electricity.
The concrete road out of the airport felt busy to her, but Nathan assured her that the traffic was light. As they drove, she caught a glimpse of a massive bronze Buddha and gasped, “Is that your temple?” The statue was huge!
“No,” he answered, his voice warm against her cheek. “The tigresses are not so wealthy or as obvious as Po Lin.”
She turned and pressed a kiss to his beard-roughened cheek. “Because you study sex? It’s important to keep a low profile?” She hadn’t forgotten that the Hong Kong police still believed the temple was a glorified prostitution ring.
“Because we use all that our bodies are capable of to launch our way to heaven.” He looked down at her, and when she quirked an eyebrow at him, he released a carefree laugh. “And yes, sex is often a hidden discussion among the Chinese.”
“Not just among the Chinese,” she murmured, her attention drawn back to the landscape. Very soon, Buddha was far away and they were zooming toward the huge skyscape of Hong Kong Island. “How do we get to your home?”
“By ferry then bicycle. Or Stephen’s car.”
She blinked. “Seriously?” She couldn’t imagine a place that she couldn’t get to by car. Certainly not in this huge, zooming metropolis. “I think I’m getting whiplash. It’s like how I imagine Gotham City on steroids. And yet your home doesn’t have electrici
ty.”
He began pointing out highlights, talking about things he had done and seen as a child. He’d had footraces against boys on bikes and sometimes won because the road was so rocky. He had carried packages for tourists at Stanley Market for a Hong Kong dollar—less than a U.S. quarter. He had even snuck onto the ferry and ridden for hours….
Then they were at that very same ferry, unloading their luggage to sit on a large open ferry boat. Though there was enough seating for two hundred, barely twenty people shared the ride with them, and no one joined them at the very windy bow. Tracy watched the water and the skyline as long as she could, but in the end, she simply closed her eyes, lifted her face to the wind and felt the warm, strong presence of Nathan as he stood by her side, his arm around her waist, his broad shoulders blocking the worst of the wind.
“Perfect,” she said. He couldn’t hear her. The wind snatched the word away, but when she opened her eyes she caught him looking down at her, a yearning in his eyes that took her breath away. She would have stretched up on her toes to kiss him then, but he turned away. Still being noble, she supposed, letting her see if she had some great pro-football career. So she pinched him as hard as she could, and when his face snapped back to her, she surged up on her toes and kissed him. “I choose my path,” she said a moment later. She spoke right in his ear so he would hear her. “I choose.”
He didn’t answer. She could tell he didn’t believe her. He simply turned away, but the hand that held her waist pulled a little tighter, and she happily snuggled into his side. They stayed like that all the way to the quaint wood pier that led to a well-trod footpath obviously designed for tourists.
Their driver had parked the limo back on Hong Kong Island, then followed them onto the ferry. He now spoke to Nathan in rapid Chinese before grabbing Tracy’s suitcase and taking off at a run. She had enough time to gasp before Nathan smiled. “He is going to get the car. We will meet him up at the road.”
She looked around at the pristine walking paths, the railings that led to a raised pagoda, and the signs that pointed to a seafood restaurant. Nowhere did she see any cars. A few bicycles, yes. Even rickshaws with smiling runners hoping for fares. But a car? The road wasn’t large enough. But she dutifully followed Nathan up a path to a long track of what looked like honeycomb pavement with Bermuda grass poking up everywhere. Then before she could comment on that, the cutest three-wheeled vehicle decorated in zebra stripes appeared. She burst out laughing at the solar panel on top, only to subside into surprise as she climbed inside. It was comfortable, air-conditioned and really quite roomy.
“This is Stephen’s ZAP car,” Nathan said in a bland tone. “He paved the road, as well. Both are very environmentally friendly.”
Tracy twisted to look at Nathan. “He paved the road?” She tried to conceive of that much wealth. Of a man who could build a road—miles and miles of it—simply for his convenience. “Just how rich is this Stephen guy?”
Nathan didn’t answer as he twisted, straining to see out the left side of the little car. “We will climb a bit now. Five minutes by car, but…” He shook his head, a smile lighting his features. “Forever if you are carrying buckets of water.”
“You love this place,” she murmured.
“It was my home.”
They traveled the rest of the way in silence while a mangrove field sped past. The switchbacks in the road were frighteningly tight, but the beauty was unmistakable—and utterly foreign.
She tucked a little tighter to Nathan’s side though one glance at his animated profile reminded her that she was the stranger here, not him. “I don’t suppose there’s any place to grab a burger here, is there?”
He smiled, his eyes trained ahead. “There will be food at the temple. My sister makes the best tea eggs in all of China.”
Tracy remained silent. She hadn’t felt hungry so much as out of place. A fast-food burger joint would have given her a welcome sense of familiarity. The promise of tea eggs didn’t ease the anxiety knotting her stomach.
Then they arrived. The ZAP car rounded a corner and stopped dead in a brick courtyard before a large, exotic building with clay roof tiles shaped into dragons and tigresses. The walls were painted white except for the two large red columns that flanked a large, red double door. Red banners hung down either side, their gold Chinese characters flowing gently in the breeze.
“I know it is very shabby looking,” Nathan said just before the driver opened the car door. “But our fame comes from the beauties within, not the walls without.”
She didn’t have the words to explain that she found it stunningly beautiful. Only now that she looked did she see peeling paint and the frayed fabric. Then Nathan offered her his hand. She grabbed it like a lifeline as she stepped out into the humid, subtropical air.
She was just meeting his gaze, holding on to the familiarity of his dark eyes and sexy eyebrows when a high squeal cut through the air followed by a rushed flurry of Chinese. Nathan turned immediately, releasing Tracy’s hand to wrap a stunningly beautiful woman in his arms. She squealed and cried and spoke all in one breath while Tracy stood to one side and tried to guess who this was. Sister? Lover?
Her age was hard to estimate, but her skin was dewy soft, her hair sleek and jet-black. Was this one of the women Nathan had fallen in love with? Was she a former lover? Tracy tried to suppress a surge of jealousy as Nathan finally unwound the woman’s arms and set her back down. Then they both turned to look at her. Tracy forced herself to smile despite the envy biting deep. The woman defined willowy beauty. Looking at her now, Tracy judged her to be forty years old. She wore no makeup, but her eyes were dark, her lips a soft pink and her small body was perfectly accented in a silk skirt and tight bodice.
“Tracy,” Nathan said as he smiled warmly at the woman. “This is my aunt Li Li. You may call her Tigress Lily. She speaks no English, but she has a good heart.”
Tracy nodded politely, her mind grappling with details. “Your aunt? But she is so young—” Her words were cut off as the tigress abruptly grabbed Tracy’s hand and shook it vigorously. She was all smiles as she gestured inside, her words flowing like a babbling brook.
“She says Stephen told them we were coming, but not when. She is very happy it is so soon, but they did not have enough time to prepare a proper welcome for a new tigress.”
“Tell her that I don’t need—” Tracy began, but Nathan interrupted.
“Don’t bother,” he said with a laugh. “She won’t stop speaking long enough to hear you. Just smile and follow along.”
Tracy had no choice but to agree as she was half dragged inside. The front hallway was dark, but pleasantly cool compared to the outside heat. Tigress Lily kept up a running banter as she led them into a cushioned sitting room. Sparse wood furniture decorated the space, but mostly there were silk cushions everywhere—the floor, the chairs, even on the low coffee table. Lily swatted them aside, then guided Tracy to one of the lower chairs.
Another voice sounded, again in excited Chinese. Nathan turned to the door only to wrap his arms around a girl of maybe sixteen. She was dressed in light cotton, her hair in two long pigtail braids. Her happy smile was more than returned, especially when Nathan pointed out the flour that coated her braids.
“My sister Cai Ting, the chef,” he said as the girl jerked her hair out of his hand.
“Hello—” Tracy started only to have the girl bow deeply before her.
“My greetings, Tigress Tracy. We are honored to have you here.”
Other voices—all female—came around the corner. She’d thought temples were quiet, holy places, but she was obviously wrong. This was a place of noisy, chattering women all pushing forward to greet Nathan before bowing formally before her. Tracy nodded back, becoming more bewildered as bodies crowded into the small sitting room. And then, almost as if someone had hit a mute button, the room fell abruptly silent.
Tracy had been about to say some greeting, but managed to choke her words off before hers wa
s the only voice in the suddenly hushed room. She looked to Nathan for a clue, but he was surrounded by gorgeous women and was blocked from her view. Then the women began to part, some dropping their heads in respect, some looking with rapt adoration to…
A young Chinese woman of stunning beauty and elegance. In her thirties, she was near the peak of her sexuality. Her body stalked through the air: sleek, supple and entirely predatory. Her face had the dewy softness of youth, but with a lush beauty to her full, moist lips. Her hair fell behind her in a curtain of perfect black silk, and her eyes seemed dark and mysterious, as if she looked upon great secrets of the universe. But it was her body that caught one’s attention as it seemed to offer every exotic, erotic delight.
While Tracy stared, Nathan stepped away from his gaggle of women to stand at the beauty’s side. “Tracy,” he said, “may I present to you the leader of our order, Tigress Mother Pin Ya.”
Tracy had the strongest urge to curtsy, but she didn’t quite know how. So instead, she dipped her head in greeting, not even bothering to offer her hand. “I am honored to meet you,” she said.
The Tigress Mother didn’t speak, but her gaze studied Tracy from head to toe, no doubt seeing the wrinkled clothing and the extra pounds on her hips. It was ridiculous that a beautiful woman could make Tracy feel so inferior, but then the woman was extraordinarily beautiful.
Silence reigned for several heartbeats while Tracy struggled not to look to Nathan for help, or worse, bite her lip the way she had as a child. It took another dozen beats before Tracy found her spine. So she wasn’t beautiful; she was still a person. Though it took an act of will, Tracy did it. She steeled her shoulders and met the woman’s gaze eye to eye, earning an arched eyebrow as her reward.
Meanwhile, Nathan began speaking. His words were in Chinese, so Tracy understood none of it except for one word: Mama.
The woman flicked his comments away with a negligent wave, somehow managing to make even that gesture a sensuous delight. And then a brain cell managed to fire. Understanding slipped through until Tracy’s gaze shot to Nathan. “Mama,” she echoed. “You said Mama. This can’t be your mother.”