After the Kiss by Lauren Layne Read Free Book Online Page B

by some very unladylike cursing. Raising an eyebrow, he tried the knob and pushed it open when he found it unlocked.
    “Julie?”
    “In the kitchen,” she called.
    Considering the fact that her apartment was less than six hundred square feet, there really wasn’t a kitchen so much as a corner dedicated to cooking.
    It looked like a war zone.
    Julie popped up from whatever she’d been doing in the oven, and Mitchell didn’t know whether to laugh or politely avert his eyes. He’d been expecting some sort of Martha Stewart–style domestic scene, perhaps Julie in a fetching little apron and retro red lipstick.
    He’d been wrong. Mitchell had seen homeless waifs who looked more put together. She was wearing what appeared to be threadbare boxers that were one wash away from being a pile of string. And her USC shirt probably hadn’t even been new when she’d been in college. Definitely no bra under that sucker, either.
    “Mitchell,” she said with a too-wide smile. “You must be early.”
    “I’m late, actually,” he said, forcing his eyes up from her chest.
    “Ah, right. Well, I’m just putting the last touches on dinner, and then I’ll go freshen up. Dinner should be ready in just a few minutes.”
    He hoped by “freshen up” she meant “completely make herself over.” Although, truthfully, this rumpled version of Julie wasn’t without appeal. He’d never seen a woman in such complete disarray, and damned if he didn’t kind of like the unpretentiousness of it. Past girlfriends had never been caught dead without lipstick, much less looking like Little Orphan Annie.
    He approached the mess carefully. If “dinner” would be ready anytime before the next Ice Age, he’d sell his right testicle.
    “What, uh … what are you making?”
    Mitchell wasn’t exactly a kitchen whiz, but he was pretty sure those tiny flecks of metal sticking out of some sort of mutilated meat weren’t edible.
    She followed his gaze and slumped slightly. “Chicken Marsala. I was supposed to pound the chicken, but I didn’t have plastic wrap, so I used foil instead. It, um … it kind of broke apart.”
    “I can see that.” It looked like a UFO had collided with road kill. “And that?” he asked, gesturing toward a mountain of something green and stringy.
    “Leeks!” she said proudly. “Just finished slicing them.”
    Mitchell’s eyes fell on the nearby knife and saw that the tip was crooked.
Stabbing
mighthave been a more appropriate word choice.
    “Julie,” he said softly. “You don’t know how to cook, do you?”
    She huffed a strand of hair out of her eyes, and he realized for the first time that her hair was a mess of soft, fuzzy curls instead of the shiny, straight version he’d seen last night.
    “What makes you say that?” she asked as she wrestled a cork out of a bottle of Pinot grigio.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, trying not to stare at the way her breasts swayed beneath her T-shirt as she tugged at the cork. “Maybe the box of ‘beginner’s set’ cookware in the corner.”
    She followed his gaze to where a recently opened box of pots and pans had been shoved next to the fridge.
    “Well, yeah … it’s been a little while since I’ve dabbled in the kitchen.”
    More like a lifetime
, he thought.
    “Need help?” he asked as he accepted the glass of wine.
    She brightened slightly. “You cook?”
    “Not a bit. I’d have done the same thing as you when pounding the chicken, except I wouldn’t even have had foil on hand to improvise. But I do have this.” He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and wiggled it enticingly in front of her.
    She rubbed at her nose and scowled. “What are we going to do with that, use it to cook the chicken?”
    God help them, she actually sounded serious.
    “Uh, no. But I can dial it. Maybe call … takeout?”
    Julie’s eyebrows snapped into a scowl, and she chewed her bottom lip moodily. “I wanted to make you dinner.”
    Yes, but why?
It