Seducing the Old Flame (3 page)

Only one way to know for sure.

Springing to her feet, she swayed down the hallway and pushed
open the first door she came to.
 
A
bleached white bathroom that hurt her eyes to even look in.
 
She put her hand up to block out the
offending glare.

Perfectly stacked white towels greeted her from behind the next
door.
 
White, for heaven’s sake!

The man was still a frickin neat freak.

A thing for every place and a
place for every thing.

How many times had she heard him spout that at her when she’d
lost her keys for the millionth time?
 
Or
when she’d spend thirty minutes searching for her favorite pair of shoes that
she’d absently kicked off?

Only now his neatness was color challenged.

No way did the man still bleed Volunteer orange.

She slapped her hands on the next door she came to and shoved
hard.
 
Jason’s bedroom.
 
Muted shades of mocha blended with
cream.
 
Earthy colors.
 
She stepped fully into the room and inhaled
deeply.

Jason.
 
His scent filled
the room.
 
Rich and natural like the
colors he’d chosen.
 
Manly colors.

Her gaze dropped to the king-sized bed that dominated the
room.
 
Jason’s bed.

No naked painting of her hung sensuously above the headboard.

She frowned.

Had she really expected it to?

Two years had passed.
 
It
wasn’t as if she expected him to be waiting for her.

Still, the disappointment at the serene wooded scene rather than
a flamboyant nude painting stung.
 
Deeply.

Of course, it could have been worse.
 
The painting could have been there.
 
Only with another woman displayed seductively
over the canvas.

She sank onto the foot of his bed.

Certainly she hadn’t wanted to find a replacement portrait, but
had she wanted Jason to wait for her?

And wait for what, if that’s what she’d wanted?

Just seeing him threw her into an emotional and physical
tailspin.

Coming here might not have been a good idea.

“Helping yourself?”

Her gaze shot to the open doorway.
 
Jason perched against the framework.
 
Her breath caught at the way the light
reflected from his toffee brown eyes.
 
A
mixture of fascination, frustration, and fury shined in his gaze.

“Wouldn’t be the first time, now would it?”

His lids narrowed and even across the room, his tension was a
viable thing.
 
She didn’t like it.

“Ah, Tabby,” he sighed.
 
“It’s been a long time.”

“But not long enough?”

He didn’t comment, but she read the answer on his face.

“Is Allie still here?” she asked, purposely flubbing up the
woman’s name.
 
Not that she was jealous
of the woman he wanted to be with.
 
Nor
that she hurt because he preferred her to stay long gone.

Definitely not because she was curious about the woman’s role in
his life.

She was none of those things.

“No,
Annie
went home.”

“I hate that.”

“I bet you do.”

“So.”
 
She flounced on the bed ever so slightly,
knowing he’d hone in on how the movement made her breasts jiggle.
 
He did.
 
Nice to know some things hadn’t changed.
 
“Just what did Abby want that she came calling on a Friday night?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but,” his jaw clenched, “
Annie
is a client.”

“Oh?”
 
Tabitha feigned
that she was impressed.
 
“A client,
eh?
 
I didn’t realize you’d taken up the
gigolo life.
 
Just what’s a well-equipped
stud going for these days?
 
I might want
to buy a piece of the action.”
 
She
grinned a smile she knew was saucy.
 
“But
you know me, can’t cramp my style.
 
So
I’ll just need the piece that counts the most and your sexual services for the
weekend.”

He sucked in air and she imagined he prayed for patience.

Well, she prayed for one weekend that would help her face the
rest of her life and find “true happiness”.

Jason Kelly held the answer to her prayers.

To her future.

Jason stared at Tabby, fighting to keep his chin off the floor.
 
Was she for real?
 
Maybe he’d fallen off a scaffold today and
bumped his head, was hallucinating?
 
Definitely that was more feasible than believing she was really here, on
his bed.

“Tabitha,” he began, then stopped, raked his fingers through his
hair, and sought words to convey the turmoil within him.
 
No words expressed what seeing her did to
him.
 
“Why are you in my apartment?”

“Because you forced me inside your front door.”

His jaw clicked with impatience.

She gave him a come hither look that would tempt a Eunuch.
 
“I wanted to see you.”

Eunuchs didn’t get hard-ons the size of the one throbbing in Jason’s
pants.

He remained silent, watching as her brow lifted and she eyed him
covetously.

“All of you,” she added.

Hot damn.

“It can’t be a good thing for you to be here,” he began. She was
nothing but trouble.
 
He knew that.

Hell, she knew that.

“I’m not here to be good.”
 
Her lids dropped to half-mast and she traced her lower lip with
exaggerated slowness.
 
“I’m here to be
bad.
 
Very, very bad.
 
I want you to be bad with me.”

Had George Thoroughgood burst into the room strumming out the
tunes to “Bad to the Bone” Jason didn’t think he’d so much as flinch.
 
He expected it.
 
Certainly, the lyrics and sultry beat would
make a perfect theme song for the woman perched on his bed.

Tabitha Sterling in his bed
.

Who’d have believed he’d live to see that sight again?

“Come on, Jason.”
 
She batted her lashes at her clever word
play, but Jason didn’t budge from where he leaned against the door frame.
 
“Don’t you want to play with me?”

Had he ever not wanted to play with Tabitha?

Playing had never been the problem.
 
It had been the more grown up stuff that sent
sparks flying in their volatile relationship.

“Playing with you doesn’t hold any appeal.”

“Liar.
 
Liar.
 
Pants on fire.”

He was.
 
Right down to the
pants on fire part.

The sight of her hot bottom pressed into his bed—-no, he
wouldn’t go there.
 
Not with
Tabitha.
 
He had to get his thoughts
headed in a different direction.
 
Remember all the fights.
 
Remember
that last night he’d seen her, how she—-He blinked the memory away, not willing
to recall the night his relationship with Tabitha came to an abrupt halt.

“Playing with you gets a man burned.”

“That’s what happens when you touch something that’s hot,” she
warned.

Unfortunately, she told the bloody truth.

She was hot.
 
Hot
bodied.
 
Hot tempered.
 
Hot period.

“Which is why I’m not touching.”

“But you want to.”
 
She
dropped back onto the mud brown comforter, a wild splash of color in his tame
bed.
 
Her legs still dangled from the
foot of his bed, her breasts thrust up, and her hair spread out about her head
as if she’d spent hours arranging the seductive pose.
 
“Before the night’s over, you will touch, Jason.
 
I see it in your eyes.”

Automatically he closed his eyes, then cursed himself for the
telltale motion.
 
She was playing him
like a six-string and he’d had enough of dancing to her tune.

Their song ended a long time ago.

“I’m not sure why you’re here, but it’s time to go.
 
I won’t say it’s been fun, because it
hasn’t.”
 
Shoulders straight and high, he
walked to the bed and grasped hold of her arm to march her out of his
apartment.
 
Out of his life.
 
He’d toss her and lock the door before he
lost his will power and told her how his body surged to life when he’d seen her
in the hallway, when she’d kissed him.

He wanted her lips on his.

Had never stopped wanting her.

Damn.

No, he didn’t want her.

He’d moved on.

Tabitha’s leg sideswiped his knee and she tugged hard on his
arm.
 
His breath whooshed out and he
collapsed onto her soft, soft body.
 
Sweet feminine breath gushed out, caressing his lips before dispersing
into the air.

“Nice of ya to drop in like this.”
 
Her eyes sparkled up at him like big jewels
enticing a man to lose his soul to possess such desirable riches.

He let his forehead rest on hers as he tried to recall all the
reasons why he shouldn’t hold her down and give her exactly what she claimed to
want.
 
A hard, fast ride that would leave
them both exhausted, but satisfyingly sated.
 
At least physically.

Mere inches separated their faces.
 
Their mouths.

“Still dragging men into your bed, I see,” he accused, but his
voice was gentle.
 
How could it be
otherwise when her lips parted and her heart raced beneath his?

“Just the lucky ones.”

He laughed in spite of himself, knowing she had to feel him
pressing into her pelvis.
 
He was
probably showing up on radar across the country.
 
Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.
 
Jason Kelly is near the one woman who rocked
his world in oh so many ways.

“Not that I haven’t already asked, but why are you here?”

“First tell me if you’re involved with Annie.”
 
She batted her impossibly long lashes.
 
“You never did explain what services you were
providing to her.”

None yet, but he’d hoped to nurture a relationship with
Annie.
 
She was a good, responsible woman
who loved children and seemed to be looking for the same things out of life as
what he wanted.
 
A home and family.
 
Stability and calmness.

All things Tabitha wasn’t.

“She’s a client, and we’ve gone out a few times.”

He hoped their relationship would grow into something more,
though.

“Mixing business with pleasure, how unlike you.
 
Have you slept with her?”

That was Tabby, direct and to the point.
 
“No.”

“But you’ve thought about it.”

It wasn’t a question.
 
Just as if two years hadn’t passed, she read him like a book.

“Maybe.”
 
More and more
lately.
 
Annie met all his criteria of
the ideal wife.
 
Almost.
 
If only he felt a spark.
 
One like he felt for the woman beneath him
would do just fine.
 
Only problem was no
woman affected him like Tabby.
 
Never
had, probably never would.
 
Although
perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing, because wanting a woman so much just set
a man up for all kinds of trouble.

“So,” Tabby’s lips pursed, “why haven’t you put the moves on
her?”

Blunt as always.

“I’d planned to wine, dine, and sixty-nine her tonight, only you
interrupted.”

Her green gaze darkened, narrowed.
 
“You’re lying.”

It pleased him that her pitch was higher than before.

“Alright, I’m lying.”
 
Was
he?
 
He
had
thought about it. Asking Annie to stay, taking their relationship
to that next level.
 
“She’s a nice girl,”
he added, as much for himself as Tabby.