Free Whisper Falls by Toni Blake Page A

agreed with that statement, but not right now. “I just want it to be a place where . . . anybody would be comfortable. I want it to be . . . homey,” he finally concluded—even if he had no idea where he’d plucked that word from, since it wasn’t in his usual vocabulary.
    “Homey,” she repeated.
    He just pressed his lips together and nodded, not quite meeting her eyes. She’d probably find out why soon enough, but he just wasn’t ready to share something so big and personal yet.
    “You know, there’s such a thing as blending styles. I’m completely confident I can make this a comfortable room for the average person and still reflect you .”
    He wasn’t sure he bought that, so he said, “How?”
    “You just leave that to me.” She opened her leather binder and looked up at him. “What colors do you like having in your home?”
    “Um—black?” he suggested.
    She gave a short nod, clearly not surprised, and seemed to be writing it down. “What else?”
    Hmm. Even as a custom painter who appreciated color, he wasn’t a guy who sat around thinking about which ones he liked for “home decor.” “Uh, I guess I like red.”
    Another short nod. “Any others?”
    “Gray is okay.”
    She pursed her lips slightly, but then scribbled some more and said, “I think I can work with those.”
    “And make it look normal?”
    She laughed at him then—which prompted him to say, “ What ?”
    Giving her head a pretty tilt, she replied, “You just look like the last guy in the world who would be concerned with normal . You seem like a guy who would . . . you know, go your own way, do your own thing. So what’s with all the normal?”
    Shit—she was going to pry about this? He kept it as simple as possible. “It’s just what I want, that’s all.” And he hoped it hadn’t come out too brusque.
    Next, they moved to the kitchen and had a similar conversation. They discussed how much money he wanted to spend on the whole project and she said it sounded feasible if they used some of his current furniture, which she assured him would work fine.
    Once she’d finished making notes, she said, “Anything else? Any other spaces you’d like changes to?”
    He hadn’t thought too deeply into this—he had a lot of other stuff on his mind these days—but said, “Maybe my bedroom. Not right now, but maybe down the road.”
    “Can I see it?” she asked. And her tone was perfectly professional, ordinary—but he didn’t miss the slight blush staining her cheeks after she spoke. At just the mere mention of his bedroom. And hell—he started getting hard again. That had almost faded away as they’d talked business—but that quick, it returned.
    As he led her back down the hall, past a couple of open doorways—the bathroom and laundry room—she peeked into both, then followed him into his room. And then it felt awkward even to him—a guy who didn’t usually do awkward. Because she was blushing again and he was straining behind his zipper, and it would have been too damn easy to just lay her down on the bed they were both staring at and give her a reason to blush. But instead he cleared his throat and said, “This is it.”
    “Okay . . . um . . .” God, she sounded all breathy, sexy. “What would you like to do in here?”
    And he couldn’t help it—he grinned. Probably wolfishly. Because there were a lot of things he’d like to do in here—with her.
    Her skin flushed brighter in response, her complexion beginning to look dewy now, like maybe she’d begun to sweat a little. “I mean, what look are you interested in for the room?”
    Get back to business , Romo. “Uh, normal,” he said again, trying to lose the wolf look. “More normal.”
    But as their gazes met and she bit her lush lower lip, Lucky thought she was having as hard a time concentrating as he was. His body tensed with awareness as his dick went a little stiffer in his jeans.
    “Um, once we square away designs for the other