Free The White Vixen by David Tindell Page A

Oakland.”
    “ The Bruce Lee?”
    “Yes,” she said, remembering the incredibly-fit, incredibly-intense yet kind and patient man who had instructed her at his jeet kune do academy for nearly a year. Like anyone who visited Hong Kong, Masters must have seen Lee’s picture on magazine covers at every newsstand; even now, eight years after his death, Lee was an icon in his native city. “It was quite an experience.”
    “I’m sure it was.”
    They watched the sunset for a few minutes. It was brilliant this evening, and even though Jo had seen many memorable ones in the States, somehow seeing one in the Orient made it all the more exotic. She sighed.
    “Penny for your thoughts?” Masters asked.
    “Oh, I was just thinking about my mother. She always likes the sunsets, but only if they’re here, in the East. She never really enjoyed them in America.”
    “Your family, they emigrated to the States?”
    “No,” she said. “My father is an American, my mother is Korean.”
    “Well, that explains your looks,” he said. He turned to her, and she looked up at him. “I’ve never really met anyone like you, Jo Ann Geary. I’d like to get to know you better.”
    “I think that’s entirely possible,” she answered, and their lips met.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Hong Kong
    November 1981
     
     
    Sunlight was just starting to seep underneath the drawn curtains of the bedroom. The bedside clock radio glowed 5:53, and Jo Ann, fully awake now, slipped silently out of bed. After using the bathroom, she found her panties on the bedroom floor and stepped into them.
    Ian stirred and turned over, facing the still-warm spot where she’d lain, but he didn’t awaken. Smiling, Jo went into the living room of the hotel suite, carefully closing the bedroom door behind her.
    She went to a window and drew the curtains back just enough to see the cityscape beyond the glass. The great city was waking up, many of its millions already hard at work in the streets below. A few blocks away, the Union Jack fluttered over the Government Building. Jo thought sixteen years ahead, when the red banner of the People’s Republic would replace it. How would the city change then? Well, she would have to come back and find out.
    For now, this was the last morning of her first visit to Hong Kong; her flight to Tokyo departed at noon, and she had packing and last-minute shopping to do. To business, then.
    Wearing only the white panties, she sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor and assumed the lotus position. It was time to begin her daily dan ki gong meditation. She half-closed her eyes and started clearing her mind of unimportant details: the faint noises of the city from outside, the dim shadows of the furniture, the whisper of the air conditioning. Soon, even important things would be set aside as she focused ever more deeply on bringing in energy, the force she had come to know as ki, , from around her and merging it with her inner ki.
    She visualized the ki, imagining it to be an amorphous cloud of white light above her head. Inhaling through her nose, she drew the energy into her lungs, pushing it downward with the muscles of her chest and abdomen, into her dan jeon , the central point of her body just below the navel. As the ki traveled further downward into her groin, an image from last night intruded: Ian’s tongue, gently teasing her there, and then his hardness inside her. Allowing herself a slight smile, she banished the memory, pleasant as it was.
    Still inhaling slowly, she felt the ki continue its journey, upward now along her spine, along the back of her neck—she felt the tingling—and over the top of her head. She held her breath for twenty seconds, then exhaled through her slightly parted lips and felt the ki move down the front of her face, into her nose, and then out. Taking another deep breath through the nose, she continued.
    After about ten minutes, she held her breath for a full sixty seconds and exhaled for