Flirting with Temptation - By Kelley St. John Page 0,63
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.