Don't Tempt Me

“Yeah, me, too.” Pushing aside his never-ending worry for his nephew, Jason opened his bedroom door and stepped in. “This is my room.”

She balked at the doorway.

“Come on in.”

She did, but instead of looking at the room, she looked at him.

“That’s not playing fair,” Jason murmured, doing his own share of looking. When he took a step toward her, she quickly got it together and jumped her gaze around the room.

“You have amazing taste.”

“Thanks, but I can’t take much credit. The furniture is antique. Mom was a collector. She bought this set ages ago, and Dad left it behind when he moved.”

She stroked her fingers along the edge of an ornate mirror over the dresser. “I love it.”

“Me, too.” He’d repaired the pieces his father had broken in a depressive rant after his wife died.

Jason still missed her.

So how must Colt feel?

“The quilt is beautiful. Is it handmade?”

“Locally, yeah.” Watching her walk around the room, touching some things, studying others, made it difficult for him to talk.

She looked out the windows to the backyard, then to the adjacent wall—where the window faced her house.

She glanced at him but said nothing.

The thought of leading her to the bed pulsed in his brain. Instead he said, “There’s a bathroom through there.”

Hesitantly she turned, opened the door he’d indicated, then sighed. “I’m so jealous.” She disappeared inside.

Jason kept his distance. He was already at the ragged edge, and getting closer wouldn’t help.

From inside the room she said, “Love your shower! It’s huge. And the tiles are beautiful.”

“It’s one of the rooms that gained space when I added on.”

When she emerged, she said, “You are so neat and clean. That shower looks like it’s never been used.”

“Use it every day,” he promised.

She laughed at him. “Then you must dry it off each time.”

“Guilty.”

Walking around him, she headed to the door. “Show me the kitchen. They say it’s the heart of the home.”

For sure it’d be safer.

Taking her back down the hall and through the family room, they turned into the kitchen. The dining room had arched doorways that opened into the kitchen and into the family room, so that the three rooms flowed together.

Walking the perimeter of the room, Honor admired the cabinetry, the appliances and the natural stone counters. “It’s beautiful.”

She was beautiful, maybe more so while a little damp from yard work. He kept looking at the nape of her neck, where small curls had escaped the band of her ponytail.

He’d touched her there. Now he wanted to kiss her there.

He wanted to kiss her everywhere.

“You did all the work yourself?”

“Yeah.” Realizing she’d caught him staring, Jason popped his neck and tried to focus. At this rate she’d think he was desperate. Or worse, that he’d never been laid. “I kept the basic design from my childhood, just bigger. This sink? It’s the original. I updated the faucets but used the same style. My mom used to stand here doing dishes, and she’d watch Hogan and me in the backyard through the window.” He gestured to the new island. “But back then, when the room was so much smaller, the sink was there.”