Flirting With Temptation (20 page)

It was ten o’clock when Jeff pulled back into the White Sands parking lot after his date with Rita Kay Payne. Rita Kay had invited him to attend the Seaside Festival of the Arts with her two weeks ago, and he hadn’t wanted to break the date at the last minute, even though he hadn’t been all that into the idea of going out tonight after pulling his caveman bit with Babette this afternoon. He’d much rather have continued playing caveman, or at least spent a little time determining why he had. But instead of continuing his role as resident Neanderthal at White Sands, he’d kept his commitment and went out with Rita Kay.

Rita Kay was a former Miss Florida with an eye to make herself a Mrs., and soon. She was tall, black-haired and big-boobed, extremely obvious tonight with the way her black dress was open all the way down to her navel, with merely a few lines of rhinestones barely holding the fabric over the swells of her breasts. She definitely hadn’t purchased the dress at one of Jeff’s stores; it moved beyond elegant and straight into trashy, in his opinion.

However, every guy in the place stared at Jeff with envy. Little did they know, he didn’t want to see how easily that fabric would fall to the floor; his mind was on an oversized pale pink T-shirt with a disgruntled cat and a caption that read “Need Coffee” on the front, and the gorgeous sunburned redhead that had been wearing it a few hours ago.

He thought about this afternoon, how he’d dragged her away from Chris Langley and then gave her that ridiculous task of going two weeks without flirting.

Where had he come up with that, anyway?

Hell, he knew where he came up with it. He didn’t want to have to watch her flirting for two weeks, so he’d found a way to keep it from happening. As much. He seriously didn’t think Babette would be able to pull it off, so he ran no risk of having to talk to Kitty when this was over. But at least his challenge might keep Babette from flaunting her sexual escapades in front of his face. He didn’t like thinking about them, and he sure as hell didn’t want to see them.

And
he
should be having a sexual escapade of his own tonight, courtesy of Rita Kay, who would have probably done him in his car while driving down the highway, if he’d let her. He couldn’t count the number of times her hand had ventured near or across his crotch during the night. But if she did feel something substantial on those occasional brushes against his pants, it hadn’t been caused by her. He’d been semi-hard ever since seeing Babette in that itty bitty bikini, and then when she’d put on that ugly T-shirt and he’d momentarily thought she was naked underneath, he hadn’t thought of anything but getting her that way.

So he’d dropped Rita Kay off at her beach house and declined her offer to come in for a drink, then he’d driven back to White Sands with Babette, not Rita Kay, on his mind.

He entered the lobby and immediately spotted Rose standing impatiently by the elevator with a small, spiky plant cradled in her hands.

“Rose, it’s after ten. Aren’t you normally asleep by now?”

“Yes, I am, and I was, until about five minutes ago, when Babette called. She needs me.” She stared at the elevator doors as though watching them would make them open sooner. “I should’ve taken the stairs. Where’s the stairwell?”

“What does she need, Rose?”

“Well, this,” Rose said, as though he should have known that by the fact that she was holding it.

He took another look at the odd-shaped plant and recognized it. “Aloe?” Then realization dawned. “She’s that sunburned?”

“She can’t move. Can’t even get in the bed, poor dear. And she didn’t know who to call, so she called me.” She nodded toward the plant. “I can break off the stems and put the aloe directly on her. I’m hoping that will help. She already tried a cool bath, but that wasn’t good enough. What is taking this elevator so long?”

“Rose, take your plant back to your place. You may need it yourself someday. I have aloe in my condo, the kind that’s in lotion form and not so sticky.” He’d tried using pure aloe before, and his body had felt like it’d been coated with super glue. Not what Babette needed if she planned to get any sleep tonight. “I’ll go get the lotion and some additional treatments for sunburn that I have and take them to her. You head on back to Sunny Beaches. You look exhausted, and I promise I’m fine to take care of Babette tonight.”

“You sure?” she asked, squinting one eye at him as though trying to decide whether he was capable of handling the task.

“I’m positive,” he said, then held up a hand. “Wait here.” He quickly crossed the lobby to find the off-duty policeman White Sands employed to patrol the resort at night, then he brought him back to Rose and asked him to escort her home.

Rose smiled thankfully. “You really are a good boy, aren’t you?” she asked Jeff.

He grinned. “I try.”

“Take care of her, and tell her that I can bring that plant back over if she needs it. I’ll come check on her in the morning too. Tell her,” she instructed.

“I will,” Jeff said, then watched the guard and Rose leave, as the elevator doors finally opened.

He went to his condo, grabbed a bag and filled it with everything he thought she needed. Then, silently cursing himself for not even considering the fact that her sunburn might be worse than he’d realized, he took the stairs to the second floor. He wasn’t in the mood to wait on temperamental elevators. Plus, there was no telling how long she waited before calling Rose for help. Babette, queen of stubborn, probably held out until she was absolutely miserable before accepting defeat and calling in the troops.

He knocked on her door and wondered just how bad a sunburn it was. After a few seconds, the lock clicked, the door eased open and he didn’t have to wonder.

“Hell.” He didn’t know what else to say, and the tears that slipped from her eyes at his exclamation didn’t make him feel any better about saying the only word that came to mind.

“Why are
you
here?” Her face was nearly as red as her hair, her eyes bloodshot from crying—or was that from the sun?—and her lips were swollen so much that she looked like Angelina Jolie with a collagen job. “I thought you were Rose,” she said, turning and walking, very carefully, back toward the couch, where she sat down, slowly, cringing as her skin touched the fabric. And it was her skin touching, because all she was wearing was a silky button-up shirt, like a man’s dress shirt, but cranberry in color and very shiny and very short. She looked sexy. Sunburned, but still sexy.

She whimpered as she tried to situate herself more comfortably on the couch, and Jeff felt like an ass for having sexual thoughts while she was obviously in pain.

“I saw Rose on her way up and told her I’d take care of you. She was bringing an aloe plant and planned to put the stuff all over you.”

She frowned. “Sticky.”

“My thoughts, too. I brought you something that I think you can handle a little better without gluing yourself to your sheets.”

She blinked a couple of times, nodded, then tilted her head. “Where’ve you been?”

He hadn’t changed, and still had on the black dress shirt and pants that he’d worn to the art festival. “The Seaside Art Festival,” he said, opting for the occasion, rather than the company.

She wasn’t fooled. “With the brunette?”

“No.”

“This one blond?”

“She has black hair,” he said, knowing Babette wouldn’t stop asking until she got an answer.

“Figures.”

“Listen, I brought you some stuff for your sunburn. Where do you want me to leave it?”

“You’re just leaving it?” she asked, then another tear fell, and she sniffed noisily. “Why do you insist on making my life so miserable? First you take me away from the lifeguard, who I didn’t really like all that much anyway, but that shouldn’t matter to you in the first place, and then you tell me that I can’t date, or flirt, or whatever, for two weeks so you can see if women can commit, then you come in here looking all hot and all that in black, and now you’re going to leave the sunburn stuff and not even help me use it?” Another loud sniff. “Rose would’ve helped me use it.”

More tears fell, and Jeff suddenly realized that this wasn’t the Babette he knew talking. Something wasn’t right.

“Babette, have you been drinking?”

“No, my head hurts too much already. Why would I want to drink and make it worse?” As if to emphasize the hurting head part, she leaned her head back and let it drop on the back of the couch. “Ouch.”

Jeff crossed the room in less than a second and placed his hand against her forehead. “Babette, you’re burning up.”

“No, I’m not. I’m cold. Freezing. But I can’t stand the sheets on me, because my legs hurt.”

He looked at her legs, completely bare and totally red. All of her was red, in fact, and all of her was cooking with fever. “Come on,” he said, reaching for her.

“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t touch me. I’m hurting too much, and you look too good, but I don’t think I could take it tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

He smiled at that. “Babette,” he said, easing his hand to hers, “Come on. We need to get you in a cool bath, and I’m going to find something to help bring your fever down.”

“I already did the bath thing. It didn’t work.”

“We’re going to try again.”

She let him help her up and, barely touching her, he guided her through her bedroom to her bath, where water was still in the tub.

“Did I forget to get in?” she asked, and her words were slurred.

“Looks that way,” he said, glancing around the bathroom to see if he could figure out where things were kept. “Do you know if there’s a thermometer in here?” He wasn’t certain whether a cool bath would work, or whether he needed to do something different, like take her to a doctor.

“No thermometer,” she said, bumbling the last two syllables. “I looked.”

He decided to try the tub first. “Listen, Babette, I’m going to unbutton your shirt and help you to the tub. Then I’m going to see if you’ve got any Advil or something to bring that fever down.” He began unbuttoning the silky shirt, and she put her hands on his.

“You just want to see me naked, don’t you?”

“As much as I have to say yes to that, because I’d be lying if I said no, I also don’t see any way around it, unless you’re going to undress yourself and get in the tub. And from the look of your first attempt, you didn’t do that so well.”

“Point taken,” she said, and moved her hands from his.

“I’m not wearing underwear,” she said as he pushed the buttons through the holes in the shirt, then let the fabric fall to the floor.

“I see that.” In fact, he saw everything, and she was as incredible as he remembered, even if she was completely red, save the oh-so-important portions that had been covered by her bikini, and thank God they were, or she’d really be in a world of hurt now.

She looked down at her chest. “Pathetic, don’t you think?”

“Here,” he said, helping her step into the cool water. She shivered instantly and looked pleadingly at him.

“It’s too cold.”

“You need it, honey.”

She bit her inner mouth—he could tell by the way her cheeks suddenly dipped in—and sat in the water. Then she let her breath out in a hiss and sank further in, until it came up to her shoulders and her long curls sank beneath the surface. “I never could resist you when you called me honey.”

When he was certain she was cooling down, he sat beside the tub for a moment, just to make sure she didn’t close her eyes and fall asleep, then slip completely in. Her shape was subtle, but superb, with lithe muscles beneath the surface and tiny curves that were extremely sensitive. He remembered.

“I see you looking,” she said. Unfortunately, at that moment, his attention had been focused on the strawberry curls between her legs, and that part of her that had always been so hot, so wet, so ready, every time he touched her there.

He looked at her face. “Sorry.” And then he smiled guiltily, “And for the record, there’s nothing ‘pathetic’ about any part of you, Babette. These,”—he eased his hand into the water and held it near but not touching her pink-tipped breasts, “are just right.”

“Yeah, I guess they’ll do,” she said, and surprisingly, she moved her hands to her breasts, cupped them lightly, and said, “For the record, they like you too.”

Okay. She was still out of it from the fever, or the sunburn, or something, because that was not at all a very Babette thing to do. And then, as if emphasizing that she was still not herself, a couple of tears slipped from her eyes again. “How did she do it?”

“How did who do what?”

“Kitty,” she whispered, then softly added, “How did she stick to her rule with you?” She frowned. “I couldn’t.”

“What rule?”

“Eight weeks. Two months. However she figured it,” Babette mumbled, her swollen mouth muffling her words.

“Eight weeks?” He’d help her out, but he was clueless.

“She doesn’t sleep with guys until they’ve hit eight weeks,” Babette said, and every “s” lasted a little too long.

Jeff blinked. So
that
was why Kitty kept putting him off in the beginning, and then suddenly couldn’t get him naked fast enough? She’d been . . . counting days.

The second part of Babette’s statement snapped into place, and he asked, “What do you mean, you couldn’t?”

“My rule. I broke my rule with you.” This time, each “r” took a while to roll out, but Jeff wasn’t about to let it go now.

“What was your rule, Babette?”

“Third date.”

“Third date?”

“I’ve never slept with anyone until the third date.”

He opened his mouth, ready to remind her about their first date, but then she continued.

“Except for you. I was so lost, the minute you touched me. One minute we were talking, and I was thinking about how much I wanted you, and the next I was naked and begging for it.” She paused a beat. “Wasn’t I?”

That was pretty much the way he remembered it. She’d shocked the hell out of him, and turned him on more than any other woman ever had. “Yeah, you were, but I didn’t complain.”

“No more third dates. I can’t even get past date two anymore,” she mumbled, then moaned. “I feel terrible.”