Free Whisper Falls by Toni Blake

song said: learning to live again.
    L ucky pulled his bike back into the garage, away from his work area, next to his weight bench. He focused on kicking the sidestand down and then putting the helmets away. They weren’t tasks that particularly required focus, but he needed to concentrate on something besides Tessa in those sexy jeans that showed off all her petite curves.
    Because what the hell was he doing? What had he been thinking—asking her to take a ride? She wasn’t a fender bunny, and this wasn’t Milwaukee. He was home now and everything here was different.
    And it wasn’t just about him, either. His past in California was ten years and two thousand miles away—but sometimes he was forced to remember that a few threats still technically hung over his head. So it had been one thing to pick up a girl in a biker bar in Milwaukee and spend the night with her, or even a couple of weeks if that’s what he felt like. But it was another to be flirting with his dainty, delicate, good-girl neighbor, someone who would probably be a presence in his life for a while, quite possibly a long while. Enough time had passed that he felt it was mostly safe to be near his family—but it still felt risky somehow to contemplate getting even remotely close to a woman. Or to even give the appearance that he was.
    “Thanks for the ride,” Tessa said, standing behind him. When he turned to face her, her cheeks were flushed prettily and her eyes bright—she looked more relaxed with him than he’d ever seen her. Shit. Now his focus was squarely back on her , like it or not.
    “So you had a good time,” he said quietly—more of a statement than a question.
    She nodded. “It was kind of scary . . . but cool, too.”
    Double shit. That made him like her. That she could get what was great about riding a Harley. And that she wasn’t afraid to face her fears. “Um, you wanna go inside, look at the rooms I want fixed up?” It seemed best to move things along here.
    Still, as he let her in the side door of the adjoining house, then led her down the hall, he couldn’t avoid acknowledging that his jeans had gotten tighter. Around his groin. Hell. He’d been trying to ignore that fact, hoping it would go away, especially now that she was no longer wrapped around him. But nope, he remained hard. Just from feeling her body up against his, her firm breasts against his back. Just from having her slender arms around his waist.
    Damn. She was cute as hell, and all kinds of sexy, but he still hadn’t seen that coming—that he’d get that worked up, that easily. Maybe if he had, he’d have been smart enough not to suggest that ride. As the hallway opened into the living room, he tried to shake it off and get back to business. “I want this room and the kitchen redone,” he said. Because he had a lot more important stuff going on in his life right now than getting a hard-on from a ride with his pretty little neighbor. Think about the future here. Think about what matters.
    She stood next to him, studying the space—the two rooms connected by a bar counter—and nodding. And he could tell already that she saw the rooms in a different way than he did, with some sort of decorator’s eye. She appeared deep in concentration, like she was analyzing every piece of furniture, every wall and window. “What sort of look are you going for?”
    Damn, how did he answer this? “Something . . . normal,” he finally said.
    She drew her gaze from the built-in cabinetry in one corner of the living room to peer up at him. “Normal?”
    He squinted lightly. “Like . . . normal, average people live here. Not like a biker lives here.”
    She blinked and asked, “Why?”
    Aw, hell. He hadn’t expected her to question it. He’d actually figured it would make her job easier and that she’d just go with it.
    “Because, I mean, you are a biker,” she went on. “And your home should reflect your personal taste.”
    And normally he might have