Flirting With Temptation (14 page)

“You just happened to be looking toward my balcony and saw her?”

That sounded good. “Yep.”

“The same way you and Rose were looking toward my balcony last night?”

Her head jerked up, and he was standing so close she was lucky her forehead didn’t connect with his chin. She took a step back, slipped a bit on the mushy sand, and caught her bearings. Then she looked directly at him, and her throat closed in. He was giving her that you-and-I-both-know-that’s-bullshit look. So she simply stated the facts.

“You saw us!”

“Yes and no. I saw Rose spying on me, like she always does, and I noticed she had someone beside her in the shadows. However, I didn’t put it together until your balcony comment just now. Do you really think I could have an eighty-five-year-old woman spying on me practically every day of my life and not notice? I let her have her fun, but I don’t let her see any more than I want her to see.”

“You knew!” Babette accused, her skin growing hot as the implications of what he was saying settled into place. “You knew we were there when that brunette cut-off queen came out there and climbed all over you?”

Way too much came out that time, too.

“Cut-off queen?”

“She cut me off when I was turning into the resort.”

That sexy mouth quirked to the side and he said, “So you’re actually staying at White Sands.”

Didn’t take him long to put that one together. “Where did you think I was staying?”

“I didn’t know. Ethan didn’t say.”

“Kitty rented a condo on the second floor for me.”

“Man, that new job of yours comes with all sorts of perks, doesn’t it? Is that included in your fee, or did she just throw that in?”

“It was an add-on,” Babette said, sticking her chin out for emphasis, “since I needed to travel to do the job.”

He gave her one condescending nod that made her a little nervous. “And if you don’t ‘do the job’ do you have to give the money back? Or pay her back for the condo rental?”

“Maybe.” She wasn’t all that certain how the condo rental played into things. It wasn’t in the agreement, and she mentally kicked herself for not adding it. But she definitely had to return the triple Love Doctor fee if she didn’t get Kitty back with Jeff. “But I won’t have to give it back. In case your brother didn’t tell you, I have a hundred percent success rate.”

“Not this time.”

“Well, we’ll see, won’t we?” she snapped, her temper getting the best of her and his smugness pushing it over the edge. He was so sure of himself, and that really ticked her off, because she was sure of her Love Doctor abilities too. In her mind, he’d issued a direct challenge, and damn it, she was ready to take it. “I’m going to start walking back. It’s late, and I’m tired. But before I leave, I need to find out if the two of us can talk sometime tomorrow, sometime when you don’t scare me out of my wits at the beginning of the conversation and when I’m not so tired that I can’t think straight.”
Or read your hidden emotions.

“Talking won’t do you any good. I’m not interested in taking Kitty back.”

She cleared her throat. This was not the time to get into the reasons that he should give Kitty another chance, and besides that, her notes on the subject were in her room, and looking at Jeff out here in the moonlight, next to the cove—their cove—wasn’t the best situation for sparking her recollection of all the reasons he should be with the poodle. Er, Kitty. “I’m going back to my condo, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She did her best to stomp away, but her feet had sunk into the sand, so she kind of slogged away.

His hand on her arm caused her feet to slip again, and she nearly fell. She would have if he hadn’t caught her, and damn if he didn’t catch her well.

“I don’t need your help,” she managed, but inside she screamed
Help me, I’m melting
, in a tone similar to the Wicked Witch of the West, but cuter. “I’m going back to the hotel. I mean, the condo.”

“You do need my help,” he said, his face close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her lips. “And if you know me at all, you know that I’d never let a woman, any woman, walk by herself at night.”

Babette had turned to mush the minute his words breathed across her face, but the “any woman” comment reminded her of Perky and brought her right slap out of that. She pulled her arm from his grasp. “Well, aren’t you the gentleman? Fine, walk with me. Do whatever you please.”

“I will.”

Again, she tried to stomp away, to at least put some distance between them as they walked, but again, her feet were lodged and made a disgusting sucking noise as she pulled them free.

He laughed at her. Again.

“Stop it,” she warned, moving away from the cove and trying to get to the main portion of the beach, where they wouldn’t be so alone.

“Or what?” he challenged.

Damn. She didn’t know. She shrugged, and kept walking ahead of him. Thankfully she was at the edge of the main beach strip, and she moved toward the water so she could let it rinse the thick sand from her feet. Within a few steps, she was walking fine, and feeling better too. And he’d stopped talking, which was good. She guessed. She knew he was right behind her even though he wasn’t saying anything, and she could hear the water splashing with his steps. Occasionally, she felt a tiny spray on her butt.

Then a bigger spray moved a little higher up, and hit her lower back. He was
not
kicking water at her.

The next one met her shoulders.

She kept walking. He was the same childish prankster he’d always been. He knew she was mad at him, and he was picking on her to see if she’d rise to the bait.

Wasn’t going to happen.

She took several more steps and thankfully the irritating splashes ceased. Well good, he’d finally decided to act his age. She took a deep breath of salty air, smiled at the way she was running the show . . . and was completely drenched by a flume of water that smacked her entire backside, all the way to her head.

She whirled around, saw the smartass smiling, and attacked.

“You’re such an immature, irritating, bothersome kid!” she screamed, running full blast and then launching into him.

They hit the water with a splashing thud, and she silently cheered when a wave washed over his face. He shook off the excess water and then that damn smile was right back, claiming his gorgeous face and reminding her how good-looking he was.

It infuriated her.

“You’re a little boy trapped in a thirty-eight-year-old body, and you really need to grow up!” She opened her mouth to continue her tirade, and at that precise moment, a big, salty wave slammed into the shore and covered them both completely.

She fell off her prey and swallowed enough saltwater to take care of an entire winter of sore throats. Granny Gert would be proud; Babette hated gargling with salt-water. Pushing heavy wet curls out of her eyes, she blinked a few times, and realized that her eyes were filled with saltwater too. They burned like hell.

As if things couldn’t get worse, Jeff, completely wet, was looking at her, all drop-dead and dripping six-foot-two inches of him.

Then he laughed, and all desire went out the window, or out to sea. He really did drive her nuts.

She stood, wrung out the ends of her hair, and then attempted to wring some of the water out of her T-shirt, which was futile. The fabric was heavy and pressed against her like a mud wrap. So she turned away from the hunk in the water and started toward the condo, not caring whether he followed her or not. They were in the lighted area now anyway. Safe enough. She didn’t need a man, and she sure as hell didn’t need a Jeff Eubanks.

Unfortunately, her waterlogged state made her progression down the beach a little slower than she’d have liked. Besides that, her eyes were having a tough time focusing after that saltwater rinse, and he caught up.

He walked directly beside her this time, but she paid him no mind. Instead, she concentrated on acting as though she were on her own, looking at the condos she passed, taking in the way the water danced along the shore, checking out the seashells.

A small batch of seashells caught her eye, and she slowed to look at them. She’d lost quite a few of hers back in the cove, when he’d scared the shit out of her. One of these glistened in the moonlight, and she started toward it, but before she had a chance to pick it up, Jeff stepped ahead of her, bent toward the cluster of shells and picked up the very one that she wanted.

“Here,” he said, not a hint of laughter in his voice this time. “This will replace one of the ones you broke when I scared you.”

She licked her lips, tasted salt. Then she reached for the shell, and fought the impulse to shiver when her fingertips grazed his palm.

“That’s the one you wanted, right?”

She nodded, not knowing what else to do. Had she reached toward the shell? She didn’t think so; she was merely thinking about picking it up.

“You only keep the white ones.” He made the statement with certainty.

Her eyes burned again, but it wasn’t entirely due to the saltwater. She squinted. She wasn’t going to cry, not in front of him, anyway. She tried to remember if they’d ever discussed which seashells she preferred, the pearly white ones that appeared iridescent in the moonlight, and she knew that she’d never said anything to him about those being the ones she liked, the ones that made her feel good inside, because they embodied everything she wanted to be. Shiny and bold and beautiful, standing out in the crowd and reflecting light from within. Something that people would remember.

“Yeah, that’s the one I wanted.”

They walked in silence until they reached White Sands. Babette’s mind was reeling. Getting him back with Kitty was going to be extremely difficult if she couldn’t get a grip on her own attraction to him. She stepped ahead of him and started toward the rear entrance to the resort, then stopped when he called her name.

She took a deep breath, fought for composure and turned. “Yeah?”

“I realize that we’re going to distribute sand along our paths to our rooms anyway, from what’s captured on our clothes, but we should probably at least wash the excess from our feet.” He grinned. “Wouldn’t want to offend the management when you just got here.”

She looked down at her feet and ankles, completely covered in sand, and shook her head. “I should have thought of that.” She walked back toward where he was standing, beside the outdoor showers on the deck. A large black showerhead hung from a seven foot pole. Beneath it, a water faucet for washing feet protruded.

Babette moved beneath the showerhead and leaned over to turn on the faucet, but then recalled a time a couple of years ago when she’d done the very same thing, and Jeff had turned on the overhead shower, dousing her completely. She jerked her attention from the faucet to him, and made sure his hands were by his sides and nowhere near the shower controls.

He grinned. “I wouldn’t.”

“But you thought about it.”

“I’m breathing, aren’t I?” he said, lowering to his knees beside her, then looking up at her. “Here, will this make you trust me? If the shower comes on, I’ll get wet too.”

“Yeah, but if I wash my feet, you’re going to get splattered.”

He reached toward the faucet and slowly turned it on, letting the water come out at slightly more than trickle. Then he eased his hand to her calf and gently moved her foot toward the water. “Not if I’m controlling the water, I won’t,” he said, and his voice was husky and raw and oh, so sexy.

Babette quaked as he held her foot under the water’s stream, then rubbed his hands all over her heel, her sole, her toes, slowly washing the sand away. Then he eased both hands up her ankle, then higher, massaging her calf as his thumbs and fingers worked magic, and slowly, very slowly, washed the sand away.

Her knees went weak, completely, totally, and she started to fall forward. Reflexively, she grabbed him, her hands finding his shoulders, strong and muscled and firm. Then he looked up, and she felt her panties dampen, and it had nothing to do with falling in the water earlier. And everything to do with the way those turquoise eyes made her
need
.

“You okay?” he asked, in the same thick, rich, husky voice.

No
.
No
.
No
. “Yes.” She forced the word, then worked even harder to force the next ones out. “But I can do it.”

He nodded, then backed away, and she tried to catch her breath as she finished rinsing that foot, and then the other.

Then she backed away from the shower while he put one tan foot beneath the water’s stream. She watched the way that liquid pooled across his feet, dripped off his heel. And to think, she’d never known how sexy feet could be. She turned abruptly, and hoped he didn’t realize why.

In a few seconds, or minutes—she didn’t know because her brain was frozen on the image of Jeff washing her feet, and his—the water shut off, and she praised herself for not attacking him on the spot. Quite a feat for a girl who’d been way too long without sex. Real sex, that is. She’d brought herself to orgasm on many an occasion and would do so tonight, as soon as the condo door snapped closed and she knew Jeff was out of earshot. From the way her body was already burning, tonight’s would be a screamer. And probably a panter.

Finally, they entered White Sands and walked to the lobby. Again, neither of them spoke. She wasn’t sure what to say, and she wasn’t sure she could control her surge of emotions if she did. So she got on the elevator with him by her side, and didn’t even balk when he stepped off with her at the second floor.

He’d already stated that he wouldn’t let a woman walk on the beach alone at night; he was simply seeing her to her condo for the same reason. Safety. He didn’t expect to go inside, didn’t expect her to invite him in. And she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She was down here to get him back with Kitty, and she needed to remember that, and not remember that he was the kind of guy who walked a girl home at night, remembered which kind of seashells she collected, and tenderly, oh so tenderly, washed the sand from her feet.

Then again, the fact that he walked Babette to her door didn’t really mean anything more than walking with any other female. He’d probably walked Perky to her car too.