Seducing the Old Flame (21 page)

“I thought it was the ugliest cat I’d ever seen, but didn’t have
the heart to tell you.”

A smile tugged at her lips.
 
“You were just afraid I’d get mad and not put out that night.”

“That too,” he agreed, taking the cat from her.
 
“Kinda looks like She-cat.”

“I thought the same thing.”
 
She turned to the cat who eyed them both.
 
“What do you think, She-cat?
 
See any family resemblance?”

The cat blinked, yawned, and proceeded bathing herself as if she
couldn’t be bothered with loony humans.

“I don’t think she sees the connection.”
 
Jason handed the toy back to Tabitha.

“That’s yours.
 
I gave it
to you.”
 
She put it on the same side of
the box as the photos.
 
She wouldn’t take
his things.
 
“However, these go with me,”
she warned as she pulled a pair of thongs from the box.

“Damn, I’ll trade you.”

Tabitha laughed.
 
“No way
am I knowingly leaving my underwear here.”

“Fine,” he agreed, then winked.
 
“I’ll just filch a new pair later this afternoon.”

Tabitha shook her head and dropped the underwear on her stack.

“What about these?”
 
She
pulled a brand new box of edible panties from the box.
 
“You were supposed to have used them.
 
I doubt they’re any good now.”
 
She turned the box over.
 
“Do these things have an expiration date or
what?”

Jason looked at the box.
 
“You gave me those the night before…”

She knew what he was thinking, remembering.

Pain burned across her chest.

“The night before I slept with another man?”
 
Or so she’d let him think.

His eyes closed.
 
“Yeah,
that would be the night.
 
Maybe you
should have given them to him.”

She didn’t know what to say.
 
She’d let him think…no, she wouldn’t go there.
 
Just going through this box was enough.

She dropped the panties on the floor.
 
“We’ll just throw those away.
 
I think they’d leave a sour taste in your
mouth now.”
 
She took a deep breath and
hurried on.
 
“You should have used them.”

He snorted.
 
“Put your
underwear on another woman?
 
Get
real.
 
I should have thrown them out a
long time ago.”

She rushed through the remaining items in the box, divvying out
without really paying attention to what they were.

Jason leaned back against the sofa, eyes closed.
 
She-cat took advantage of his lap space and
curled on him, purring like she was in heaven.

“You have, haven’t you?” she asked after several silent moments.

“Have what?”

“Had sex.”

He sighed.
 
“Yes.”

“I thought so.”

His eyes opened.
 
“Surely
you didn’t think you’d warped me for all time?”

“No.”
 
She hadn’t thought
that.
 
Why she even asked about a subject
she really didn’t want to know about, she wasn’t sure.
 
A deep ceded need burned within her.
 
She had to know.
 
“Do you love me, Jason?”

“No.”
 
His answer was
immediate, without the slightest hesitation.

She wiped her sweaty palms over her jeans, and dug back into the
box.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I have no right to pry into your personal
life or ask you such things.”

“So why did you?” he surprised her by asking.

What could she say?

She was a masochist longing for emotional punishment for her
many sins?
 
Because she’d used sex to
find a ready solution to their problems and hurt them both in the process.
 
Could they have broken the cycle they’d
fallen into without her having done something so drastic as to make him think
she’d slept with another man?

“Because the thought of you with anyone else hurts,” she
admitted, pulling another item from the box.

“Oh, Tabby.
 
That is lame
coming from you.”
 
His hand covered
She-cat, stroking the cat gently, although visible tension coursed through
him.
 
“I walked in on you with another
man.”

The words practically spat from his mouth.

“I was scared,” she admitted the truth out loud for the first
time ever, planning to elaborate, to try to tell Jason everything.

“And he was scaring the boogie man out from under your sofa?” he
interrupted before she could go on.
 
He sat
the cat on the sofa and stood, pacing across the floor.
 
The muscles in his neck knotted.
 
“Don’t feed me that garbage.”

“I—”

He held up his hand.
 
“Why
are we even discussing this?
 
It isn’t
like we’re trying to work through the problems of the past.
 
We’re not.
 
All we’re doing is screwing each other.
 
It’s all we’ve ever done to each other.
 
All we’ll ever do to each other.”

Chapter
Eleven

Deny it
, Jason mentally begged.
 
Tell me how wrong I am.
 
That we have a future together.

“I should gather my
things.”
 
Tabby stood, brushed her pants
off, and turned, but not before he saw the glisten to her eyes.

Jason swore under his breath and grabbed her arm.
 
“Don’t.”

“I’m not leaving.
 
Not yet,” she assured, not pulling free from
his grasp.

“I’m sorry.”
 
And he
was.
 
Sorry they’d fought.
 
Although compared to the roes they’d had two
years ago, on a scale of one to ten this one barely rated a percentage.
 
Most of their disagreements had soared off
the charts.

“Me, too.
 
I shouldn’t
have asked to go through the box.”

“Why not?
 
You have a
right to take your belongings.”

“The thing is I’m not really sure I want to take any of that
stuff, Jason.”
 
She stared at the items
she’d set out.
 
“I mean all it’ll do is
remind me of you.”

“Is that a bad thing?
 
I
mean, maybe it’s time we can think of each other without hating the other.”

Not that he ever really hated her.
 
He’d wanted too.
 
Especially that first night.
 
First week.
 
But even then he hadn’t been able to get past the much stronger emotions
running through him for Tabby.

“What about me?”
 
She
challenged, her gaze lifting from the table to stare at him.
 
“When you think of me, is it in a good way or
a bad way?”

He sighed.
 
“Like I said,
it’s time things changed.”

“So when we think of each other, we can think of this weekend
instead of the way things ended two years ago?”

“Sounds like a reasonable goal to me.”

Jason liked goals.
 
Goals
achieved validated one’s efforts, kept one on the right track.
 
None of his long term goals included a sassy
redhead, though.

“But once this weekend passes you’ll move on to another woman
and try not to think of me at all?”

A loaded question if he ever heard one.

“You’ll always be a part of me, Tabby.”
 
Good or bad, it was the truth.
 
“Nothing, no other woman, can change that.”

“Unfortunately?”

“Now you’re just pressing your luck,” he warned, pulling her
around to face him.
 
“What happened is in
the past.
 
It hurt like hell, but it’s
done with.”

And a part of him almost believed his words.
 
Another part wrapped around the anger to keep
it from exploding from him.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Jason.”
 
Her gaze met his.
 
Tears
glimmered, giving her green eyes a jeweled appearance.
 
“Really, really sorry.”

Damn.
 
He’d been the
injured party, yet he wanted to comfort her, wanted to wipe the pain from her
face.

“God you twist me into a million pieces, Tabby.”

“I don’t mean to.”
 
She
stepped closer, inches from him, but not touching.

“Yes, you do,” he accused.

“Well, maybe a little,” she admitted, swatting her eyes with her
free hand.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.
 
“It doesn’t matter now.”

Did it?
 
Did any of this
weekend matter beyond the here and now?
 
He
wasn’t sure.

He let out a long exhale, grimaced at the heavy truth weighing
upon his shoulders.
 
“You’re leaving
soon, aren’t you?”

She watched him a moment, seemed to come to some monumental
conclusion, then nodded.
 
“It’s time.”

“I don’t want you to go yet.”
 
The words wretched out of him like sweat droplets of blood.
 
He didn’t want her to know how conflicted he
was, how much he hated the thought of her leaving him.

“No, not yet,” she agreed.
 
“But soon.”

He laced his fingers with hers and squeezed, needing to feel connected
to her, needing to hold on to the one woman who made him feel steady and
out-of-control all at the same time.
 
Who
tore up his insides and left him in emotional tatters.
 
He wanted to shake her for past hurts.
 
He wanted to wrap his arms around her and
never let go.

“Let me make love to you one last time,” he finally said.

She hesitated, and for a moment he thought she was going to deny
him, but instead she nodded.
 
“I’d like
that.”

Hands clasped, they walked to his bedroom.

“So this is it.
 
The last
time I’ll ever hold you,” he said as she faced him, standing in front of his
bed.
 
His dull brown bed.
 
How had he never noticed how dull this room
was?

Because nothing had ever reflected the disparity the way Tabby
did?

“Looks that way.”
 
She
shivered beneath his touch, arching into his caress.
 
“Guess we should make it one for the record
books.”

“This whole weekend is one for the record books, Tabby.”

She nodded, reaching out to touch his face.
 
“I’ll never forget you, Jason.
 
I tried before, but I never could.
 
I don’t even want to try anymore.”

“No, I imagine not.”
 
Just
as he’d never forget her.
 
He hugged her
to him and held her, breathing in her sweet musky scent, feeling her heart beat
against his.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood that way, a lifetime or a
second.
 
Time stopped and the world
narrowed down to just the two of them.

She looked up, met his gaze, and he kissed her.

A tender loving of his lips to hers.

Callused roughness over silky smoothness, he raked his hands
over her body easing her clothes off, letting them fall to the floor one piece
at a time.

His heart thundered, feeling like the first time, knowing it was
the last.

Her hands snaked under his t-shirt and lifted it over his
head.
 
She undid his jeans and shucked
them and his underwear down his legs, over his bare feet.

When they both stood naked, touching, kissing, he lowered her
onto his comforter and stared down at the contrast of her beauty against the
blandness.
 
Tabby was full of life,
energy, color.
 
His life had been sadly lacking
from the moment he’d walked out of her apartment, never to look back.

He’d been a fool.
 
He
should have fought for her two years ago despite what he’d seen, despite how
angry he’d been.
 
If he had it to do
over, he wouldn’t have let her push him away with such ease.