She relaxed. She’d been afraid that it was Cal, but she might have known that he’d never tap lightly at anyone’s door. In the mood he’d been in earlier, he was more likely to kick it down.
“Yes, Genner?” she called back, her voice weak.
“May I bring you anything, madam?” he replied. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner, but as I explained to Mr. Steel, I was delayed at the post office.”
“No, thank you, Genner,” she replied. “I...I just thought I’d lie down for a while. I’ve been on the beach and I’m...tired,” she added.
“If I can be of assistance, please call,” he told her, and his footsteps went away.
Nothing short of new skin on her back would be of any immediate assistance, but she couldn’t tell him that. What was she going to do?
She got up and fished a couple of aspirin out of her suitcase. With her susceptibility to medicine they’d knock her out for at least a couple of hours and spare her that much pain. She swallowed them with a glass of water and lay back down on the bed. Minutes later she fell asleep.
A deep voice cut through her restless dream and woke her up, along with a far from gentle touch on her arm.
She gasped, half rising from the bed before she realized that there was nothing protecting her bare torso from Callaway Steel’s dark, angry eyes.
With a gasp she dropped back down onto the bed, her face matching color with her back.
“Where did you come from?” she asked drowsily.
“That’s a long story,” he replied. “What the hell have you done to yourself? Do you realize that you’ve got a second-degree burn on your back? You little fool, I could beat you!”
“Anywhere but on my back, please,” she whispered, with a weak attempt at humor. “I didn’t mean to go to sleep in the sun...”
He was unscrewing the cap on some cream while she spoke. He noticed her pointed glance at it. “It’s an analgesic cream, to take some of the sting out. If you’re not better by the morning, you’ll see a doctor. Now grit your teeth. This is going to hurt like hell.”
She chewed on her lip instead, wincing at even the gentle touch of his big hand as it smoothed the cool cream against the angry burn on her back.
“You crazy idiot,” he growled as he smeared it on, taut anger in every hard line of his face. “Why the hell didn’t you stay in your room and throw things? There are kinder ways of getting back at a man.”
“I wasn’t getting back at you,” she ground out. “I’m not that petty that I’d do myself in just to get at you,” she informed him stiffly. “I just went to sleep, that’s all.”
“Well, you won’t sleep much now,” he said with venom in his deep voice.
Tears welled up in her eyes. “And it will serve me right, won’t it? Why don’t you smooth some vinegar on it...?”
“That’s enough.” His tone was uncompromising and full of authority. He finished rubbing in the cream. “Genner, bring me a cold, wet cloth.”
“Yes, sir,” Genner replied from somewhere near the doorway, his pleasant voice concerned.
“What are you going to do, choke me with it?” she asked tearfully.
“Wipe your face,” he said quietly. His fingers moved up to smooth the disheveled hair away from her temple. “Want some aspirin?”
The tenderness was her undoing. She couldn’t hold back the tears. She told him, tearfully, what time she’d taken the last two, and he calculated when she could have two more. Genner came back with the cloth and went out again, closing the door gently behind him. Cal bathed her hot face with the cloth, his hands tender, his eyes out of sight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered with her eyes closed. “I feel like such a fool. I do want to go home, Cal.”
“Like this?” he murmured, and there was amusement in his deep, slow voice. “You’d scandalize the airline.”
She tried to smile. “There isn’t much to scandalize them with,” she managed weakly.
His fingers ran over her soft hair. “There’s more than enough,” he murmured gently. “You have a lovely body. Exquisite.”
She felt the heat in her cheeks, remembering that first surge of consciousness when she’d risen up without thinking and given him a brazenly clear look at her bareness.
“Another first, Nikki?” he whispered gently. “I wasn’t disappointed.” His fingers moved down to the curve of her shoulder, tracing the inside of it with a touch that made