Flirting with Temptation - By Kelley St. John Page 0,44
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