Always on My Mind Page 0,13

wondered as he yanked off his pants and boots and hung them over the wooden wall he'd erected to give the outdoor shower a little privacy, could a person cause so much havoc in just one short afternoon? Was it because she had so many siblings? Was she that afraid of being invisible that she went out of her way to be louder, more stubborn, just plain more there than a normal person?

As he scrubbed himself hard with the bar of soap, keeping the water just this side of cold so that his growing arousal couldn't come fully to life, his stomach started growling. He cranked off the shower and shook his hair out like a dog before grabbing one of the towels he always kept in a nearby container for just such an occasion. He'd been planning on a steak tonight, and grilling up some vegetables with it. If she didn't like red meat, too bad.

When he was fully dry, he pulled his jeans back on and stuck his feet into his boots. He still couldn't believe she'd been running around with bare feet. City girls like her should be afraid to get their feet dirty, to mess up their pedicures, or, God forbid, get a cut from something sharp like the edge of a rock. Pampered girls also shouldn't know how to clean.

The only way he could deal with having Lori around, even just for the short time it would take for her to give up her crazy plan and leave him alone again, was to view her as a spoiled woman out for a lark in the country for a few days.

He wished like hell that it wasn't so hard to ignore the evidence to the contrary.

Dinner. That was what he'd focus on now, rather than the fact that she was probably also drying off from her bath and slathering her toned and smooth legs with lotion.

Grayson took off his muddy boots on the porch, stepped into the kitchen via the side door, and stopped so quickly that it slammed into his back. "What are you doing?"

Lori was supposed to be in her room, damn it, not already out of the bath and in his kitchen looking and smelling better than anything ever had. Her dark hair was still wet, falling past her shoulders almost to her hips as she stood at his kitchen island chopping a bell pepper. She'd put on a pair of jeans that did shocking things to her ass, and even though her T-shirt shouldn't have been the least bit sexy, he now realized that anything she wore would be sexy. Hell, he could have given her a burlap sack to wear and he'd still be salivating over the curve of her neck, the bright paint on her toes, the spark that never quit in her big blue eyes.

"Making dinner."

She said it without turning to look at him, clearly still pissed off at their conversation about where she was going to stay. And possibly the fact that he'd been a jerk about not helping her with her bags.

He hadn't expected her to clean his house and make him dinner tonight, but now that she was, he certainly wasn't going to complain. Unless, of course, she didn't actually know how to make a decent meal, and was just doing this to get back at him.

"Do you know how to cook?"

She sighed, deep and long, at his question, seeming to be at least as irritated with him now as he'd been with her earlier. "I wouldn't be making dinner if I didn't." She'd found the steak he'd had marinating and sliced it up, along with the vegetables. "I thought I'd make a stir fry."

When he didn't respond, when he couldn't seem to get his throat to work right, when he couldn't seem to do anything but stand there like a fool in the doorway and stare at her, she finally turned to him.

"Look, I'm starved and I didn't think it would be a problem if I made us din - "

Her words fell away and her eyes widened as she finally looked at him. As her gaze moved over him, she licked her lips and he nearly groaned aloud at the sight of her tongue coming out to wet her gorgeous lips. She wasn't wearing makeup anymore, having washed it all off during her bath, and if anything, she was even prettier than she'd been when her lashes had been darkened with mascara and her