Seducing the Old Flame (22 page)

She had pushed.

Damn.

“What?” she asked, staring up at him, her eyes bright with
emotion, her mouth tempting, her body beneath him, warm and willing.

“Just you.”
 
Because he
didn’t know what else to say.
 
The past
was in the past and no matter how much he wanted to change what had happened,
he couldn’t.
 
All they had was this
moment.
 
He wouldn’t waste another minute
with recriminations.
 
Time enough for
that after she was gone.

Her lips curved.
 
“Just
me, Jason.
 
Now, kiss me.”

He did, but he refused to give in to the pace Tabby attempted to
set.
 
She wanted fast and furious.
 
Like in the kitchen.
 
He wouldn’t give it to her.
 
Not this last time.

This time he was going to make love to her.

If more of his heart got involved than was supposed to, he’d deal
with that later.
 
For now he planned to
give Tabby everything, to make her head spin and her body clench with pleasure,
with him.

But not just her body.

He wanted to make love to her mind as well.

To her heart and soul.

For the rest of her life, he wanted Tabby to remember him and
this afternoon.
 
The laughs, the looks, the
feel of his hands on her body, everything.

That’s what he wanted to give her.

Everything.

To brand her with him so that her mind would forever be filled
with him.

With each feathery touch of Jason’s hands, his lips, over her
body, Tabitha grew more aware.
 
Aware
that something was different.

What was he doing?

Making love to her, that’s what he’d said.

That’s exactly what it felt like.

But it wasn’t.

He didn’t love her.

He’d said so.

Good thing he’d told her, because otherwise she might believe he
did.

This was sex.
 
Sweet,
tender, worshipful sex, but just sex all the same.

He kissed her kneecap.
 
His lips caressing her skin with a tender gentleness that sent shivers
to her core.
 
Then he nuzzled the
other.
 
Tabby moaned.

His palms massaged and caressed ever inch of her body, starting
at her feet and working his way up her calves, her thighs, skipping over where
she ached for him, and laving at her belly, between her breasts.
 
He nuzzled higher, placing soft wet kisses at
a particularly sensitive spot in the crook of her neck that made her hips grind
against his thigh.

What sweet torture.

“Jason, I need you.”

He shifted above her, raised up on his elbows.
 
His brown eyes searched hers, for what she
wasn’t sure.

“Tell me, Tabby,” he encouraged, his thigh tensing against her
wet heat.
 
“What do you need?”

He didn’t so much as blink as he waited for her answer.
 
But Tabby could feel his heaviness pressing
against her, knew exactly what she needed.
 
What went beyond the physical and to the man himself.
 
Jason.
 
She needed Jason.

“Make love to me.”

He reached onto his nightstand and picked up the condom box and
shook out a condom.
 
“Last one.
 
Guess that’s appropriate.”

She didn’t comment.

To do so might make her cry.

Now wasn’t the time for tears.
 
Just rejoicing in Jason.

He donned the condom, laced his fingers with hers, remained
elevated off her.

Tabitha felt herself giving to him.
 
No man had ever felt this good to a
woman.
 
Never.
 
Couldn’t possibly have.

Slow and steady, over and over.
 
When she whimpered with the first signs of an orgasm, his gaze bore into
her, urging her higher and higher.

Tabitha had never experienced anything quite like this.
 
Not even between them.
 
Eyes wide-open sex to where the man was more
interested in her face, her expression, her pleasure than anything else.
 
Emotional, mental pleasure as much as
physical.
 
Although the emotional, mental
brought the physical to a whole new plane.

The emotional, mental part of what he was doing to her seemed
surreal.
 
As if he really did love her
and was trying to show her what he couldn’t say with words.

Fine.

She’d pour her heart into showing him just how much she loved
him.

“Jason,” she whimpered, closing her eyes.

“Open your eyes, Tabby.”

She opened her eyes.

“Look at me.
 
Come with
me,” he seduced with his whispered words as heat built inside her.

“Yes.”
 
She nodded, afraid
to say more in case words of need spilled from her lips.

“Do you feel the magic, Tabby?”

Oh yeah, she felt it.
 
Her
body tightened, every muscle contracting into a spasm that had her back
arching.
 
Her fingers dug into his and
she bit into her lower lip.
 
But she kept
her gaze locked with Jason’s as her body went into meltdown, locked with his as
he slowed his pace even more, but didn’t stop while he let her drift back to
earth.

“Mmm,” she said, fighting to keep her eyes on him and not rolled
back in her head.

“Ready for the next round?”

Not waiting for her answer, he kissed her, deep, slow, rich.
 
His hips matched the tortuous rhythm of his
mouth.

Tabby wanted to beg for more, but his mouth covered hers and she
could barely breathe, much less talk.

He ground deeper and deeper, surer and surer.
 
Tabby whimpered into his mouth, kissing him
back, loving him.

Her eyes closed and he bit her tongue.

She snapped her gaze back to his.

Slower.
 
Deeper.
 
Magic.

Stars exploded in front of her eyes.
 
Stars that started in Jason’s gaze and shot
out like colorful meteorites bursting into millions of pieces.

Jason’s jaw clenched, his hold tightened, and he cried out as he
battled to keep control, losing his fight in a glorious cataclysmic explosion.

He collapsed and Tabitha cradled his head against her, kissed
his sweaty face.

She loved him.
 
She
supposed she always had, that she’d always known she was his.

But he would never be hers.
 
Not really.
 
Not beyond the
physical because she could never be what he really wanted, what he needed from
the woman in his life.

She knew that, had always known that.
 
Wasn’t that why she’d bit her tongue and not
told him the truth about the night he’d walked in on her and Jeremy?

She’d done the right thing then, would do the right thing now.

A tear ran down her cheek, spilling onto the pillow.

It was time to go.

Jason watched Tabby pack and struggled not to beg her to stay.

What would it hurt if she stayed until morning?

Not
that letting go of her would be any easier with the passing of another night.

Facing facts, letting go of Tabby would never be easy.

He leaned against his headboard;
pillows propped beneath him, and watched her throw her belongings back into the
purple bag he’d carried up for her just two nights ago.

Two nights and she impacted his life more than any other woman
could with two decades.

She glanced around the room, checking to make sure she wasn’t
leaving anything behind, then met his gaze.

She didn’t smile, didn’t frown, just looked.

“Guess it’s that time,” he said.

She nodded.

He dragged himself from the bed and pulled a pair of gym shorts
and a Kelly Construction T-shirt from a drawer.
 
“I’ll carry your bag down for you.”

“I’ve got to get She-cat and her stuff, too.”

He wasn’t sure if she was telling him or just talking to herself
out loud.

Damn, he’d even miss the cat.

He slid his clothes on and picked up the bag.
 
Might as well get this one carried out.
 
“Where’s your keys?”

She dug in her little black purse and handed them to him.
 
“Here.”

A smart man would have hidden her keys and trapped her here
forever.

But he didn’t want to trap her.

At this point he wasn’t sure what he wanted.

Peace?

Maybe that was it.

He’d never have any peace with Tabby around.
 
She wasn’t a peaceful woman.
 
So many thoughts and emotions swirled through
his mind he couldn’t make sense of them all.
 
All he knew was he didn’t want to let her go, but that he would.

He took the bag and stowed it in her trunk.

When he walked back into his apartment, she stood with the bag
of cat supplies she’d purchased at the vet’s.

“I’m not sure how to bring his litter box,” she said, shifting a
bag in her arms.

“If it spills, it’ll make a mess in your car.”

“Let’s just dump it and I’ll bring the box and fill it back up,”
she logically suggested.

Apparently he hadn’t been thinking as the simple solution hadn’t
occurred to him.
 
Maybe there was just as
simple a solution for them that also hadn’t occurred to him.
 
Perhaps if he could convince her to stay just
a little longer he’d come up with some brilliant reason why she shouldn’t ever
go.

But nothing brilliant was coming to mind.
 
Damn.

“I’ll take care of it.”
 
He went to his bathroom, bagged up the litter, tossed it, and carried
the plastic bin down to her car.

Tabitha, holding She-cat, stood next to the open driver’s
door.
 
He glanced inside the car.
 
The bag of the cat’s things lay in the back
seat.

She was ready to leave.

“Don’t go,” he heard himself say despite his earlier decision
not to.
 
Not a brilliant declaration, but
an honest plea.

Tabitha smiled weakly, stood on her tiptoes and kissed his
cheek.
 
“Thanks for a wonderful weekend, Jason.”

She turned and put the cat into the car.
 
She-cat meowed from the driver’s seat, then
climbed into the passenger seat and curled up on the soft leather to watch
them.

When Tabby faced him, he took a deep breath.

It was over.
 
Really
hadn’t even started again.
 
This weekend
had been a no-commitment necessary sex-fest.
 
Every man’s dream.

“I guess it’s goodbye, then.”
 
Gravity increased its pull on his heart, making it sink into the pit of
his stomach.
 
Making his stomach roil,
his pulse bound.

“Goodbye, Jason Kelly.
 
Have a nice life.”
 
She brushed a kiss to his lips, then got into
the car before he could deepen the embrace.

As if she’d known he would try to convince her to stay longer,
if only for a few more hours.

He watched her back out of the parking space.
 
The fall wind nipped through the thin cotton
of his shorts and shirt, biting into his flesh, chilling him to the bone.

“Goodbye, Tabby-cat.”

Chapter Twelve

“So, you’re saying she swept in, spent the weekend in bed with
you, then vanished back out of your life?” Lori said, her mouth gaping with
disbelief.

“That about sums it up.”
 
Jason
didn’t feel like having this particular conversation.
 
Finding his sister waiting in her car when he
arrived home from another exhausting day on the job hadn’t improved his mood.

It had been a helluva long week and he didn’t need to be assaulted
with twenty questions.

He needed sleep.
 
Not that
he’d gotten any last night.