Always On My Mind (The Sullivans #8)(11)

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 mouth had been glossy with lipstick.

“Grayson.” His name was little more than a husky breath from her dampened mouth. “You’re not wearing your shirt.”

He’d completely forgotten that he only had his jeans on, without the top button even done up, for God’s sake. Defensively, he told her, “You weren’t supposed to be in the kitchen.”

“And you weren’t supposed to be walking around without your clothes on!” she shot right back.

He shouldn’t like the way she looked at him, as though she was barely able to keep herself from reaching out to touch him. But since he wouldn’t be able to hide just how much he did like it for more than the next couple of seconds, he finally got his feet to obey the order to move again and headed for his bedroom.

Damn it, he thought as he barely stopped himself from slamming his bedroom door shut, he needed another cold shower even though he’d just gotten out of one. Fat lot of good it did, though, when all it took was one look at Lori, one breath of her hair, her fresh clean skin, one lick of her tongue across her lips, for him to forget every rule he’d lived his life by for the past three years.

Normally, Grayson made it a point to keep his memories deeply buried. Tonight, he deliberately pulled them out and made himself face them. He’d known his wife, Leslie, since college, had fallen for her on the first day of English Lit in freshman year. They were supposed to be the perfect romance, the ideal fit—the finance major and the elegant girl who had grown up in a world where she’d learned how be the perfect hostess and fundraiser. She was a woman who never said the wrong thing, who was always there for him for whatever he needed.

Their college years were good, but once they’d graduated and entered the real world, both of them had been miserable. Because even though the world of finance wasn’t nearly as interesting as he’d hoped it would be—and he missed being outside for more than the hour it took him to do his daily run through Central Park—he’d worked longer and longer hours at his firm to avoid coming home to her false smiles, to perfectly made dinners he had no appetite for, to one event after another full of people he didn’t know...and didn’t want to get to know.

Somewhere in there, his perfect wife had begun to drink. Of course, she’d hidden it from him. From everyone. Yes, she’d have the requisite bubbly in her hand at her parties, but to the naked eye, it would look like she’d barely sipped it all night.

A thousand times over, Grayson wished he’d had the balls to make Leslie sit down and talk with him before things got that bad. But she’d been just as good at hiding from the mess of their marriage—and their lives—as he was.

The day the call had come in from the police was forever imprinted in his mind. There had been a crash, just her car on a lonely road. Leslie had been drinking. She’d died on impact. He’d seen a picture of the scene in the paper the next day...and the same bile that had risen in his throat then rose now.