Basic Attraction Read Free Page A

kiss her—among other very naked things. Why, she couldn’t begin to imagine. He wasn’t her type. Not that she really had a type. Being nearly six feet tall and gawky besides, her high school dating had been nonexistent. Then in college, she had gratefully gone out with anyone who had been willing to risk craning his neck and ask her.
    In recent years, she had focused on athletic men who wouldn’t be intimidated by her size and physical lifestyle. She had grown comfortable with herself over the years, but the facts were plain and simple. Being tall might work to your advantage if you wanted to play women’s pro basketball or be a supermodel in New York or L.A., but in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, it got you nothing but a lot of empty Friday nights.
    Having the last name Green had been an additional burden. If she heard another Jolly Green Giant joke, she would not be held responsible for her actions.
    No man had ever looked at her quite the way Luke did. Hungry—that’s how he looked at her. It had her completely off balance. She had gotten used to being the pursuer, used to men being intimidated by her. Instead, Luke was pursuing. Luke was intimidating. And she didn’t know if it was just flirtation to him or if he really wanted to rip her clothes off and get hot and sweaty the way his eyes seemed to say he did.
    “This is awful. Angel’s going to die.” She moaned a little, sagging against the wall.
    “He’ll turn up.” Luke shrugged.
    “This is your fault. You must have let him out when you came in yesterday.”
    His blue eyes flashed at her. “I don’t think so, Chicken Little.”
    The obscure nickname filtered through her worried thoughts. “Why do you keep calling me that?”
    Smiling that devilish grin, he said, “Chicken Little overreacted. So are you.”
    First Amazon, now Chicken Little. Maybe she was misreading the look in his eyes. Maybe he just wanted breakfast, not her. “Well, what would you do?”
    “Nothing. He’s a cat. He’ll come back when he’s ready to.”
    That was unacceptable. Glad she didn’t have to go to work today, she darted her gaze around the empty living room. There weren’t a whole lot of places for a cat to hide, but she needed to at least look. He could be trapped in a closet or something, slowly dehydrating.
    “Mookie?” she called softly, starting across the old brown shag carpet Rick and Angel were having torn out.
    She opened the coat closet by the front door and found nothing but an old feather duster. She started down the hall, checking in all the bedrooms, in the closets, and behind doors. All the rooms were empty of furniture and Mookie, except for the smallest room. It had a mattress covered with a sheet, which looked deliciously rumpled. A half-empty bottle of beer was on the windowsill and a duffle bag was lying on the floor, a stick of deodorant spilling out.
    This was where Luke had slept. Sparse, no nonsense—like the man himself.
    There was nowhere for a cat to hide except in the duffel bag. She called for Mookie again then stepped towards the bag, shifting on the balls of her feet. Her gym shoes squeaked. No cat came running out.
    Tentatively, she knelt down and stuck her hand inside the bag, feeling around. Clothes, a magazine, something in plastic wrap, a shampoo bottle. Definitely not a cat.
    “If you wanted to touch my stuff, you could have just asked.”
    She turned with a jerk to see Luke lounging in the doorway, his hands tucked in the front pockets of his jeans, smiling smugly. She wished he were short. It would be much easier to dismiss him from her thoughts if he were a head shorter than she was. But she suspected that, if they were to stand close enough to touch, they would be eye to eye. It was unnerving.
    “I’m looking for the cat,” she snapped. “Though I can’t help but notice you don’t seem to own a brush.”
    His fingers went up to his shaggy hair, which was falling down over his forehead in straight, thick locks. He had a