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“And this,” he retorted with a quick boot to her bike’s kickstand, “is what friends are for.”
“Bossy friends,” she muttered as he wheeled the thing into his workshop. But by this point, she didn’t have much protest left in her. All she wanted was to go home and zone out to some wonderfully bloody video games with her friends. Her other friends, that is. “I don’t even have the right type of helmet for your stupid man-cycle.”
Luke bent towards a shelf under his workbench. “Don’t worry,” he said, rising with a helmet and another half-cocked smirk. “I keep a spare for all my one-night stands.”
Andy didn’t miss the sarcasm either. Rolling her eyes, she switched helmets while Luke killed the lights in the workshop and set the security alarm. Then she followed him out to his bike. “I’ve never been on one of these before,” she admitted nervously.
Straddling a classic black motorcycle with sand-dusted tires, Luke smiled. “All you gotta do is hold on tight.”
Yeah. That was not going to be a problem. A furtive glance at the bike’s speedometer told her it was capable of moving a helluva lot faster than her own.
Her mother would so not approve of this machine.
Her father would so not approve of the man sitting on it.
But neither of her worrywart parents were here right now, so…
Sensing her capitulation, Luke stretched out an arm.
Andy grasped it, fingers closing on a riot of tattoos as she threw caution to the wind and a leg over the bike.
“Where to, Little Bird?”
Chapter eighteen
Secondslater,Lukewasshooting out of the parking lot, and the woman on the back of his bike didn’t need to be told twice to hold on tight. Her arms banded about his abs just as fiercely as her splayed knees gripped his hips.
Luke was also acutely aware of the heat of her torso pressed snugly against his back.
And the slight tension in it.
At first, Luke thought this was because he was driving too fast, but as he navigated the late-night traffic, he soon realized Andy’s anxiety had more to do with the other drivers on the road. The sudden blare of a horn would have her flinching behind him. The rowdy college crowd with their suped-up rides and obnoxiously loud playlists did the same.
But when they got past all the noise and color of a typical summer weekend in the city, Luke felt Andy relax behind him. So much so that as he opened up the throttle, the weight of her head fell to his back, and her arms tightened about him in more of a hug than her usual ‘I’m clinging to you for dear life’ maneuver.
Luke liked it.
He liked it a lot.
Tapping the Bluetooth button on his helmet, he cranked the throttle again. Then they were flying. The beach in the distance stretched to a blur of dark sand and moonlit waves as an oldie by Ellie Goulding drifted through the speakers in his helmet.
Still falling for you.
That was what the sexy blonde pop star was crooning in his ears as an entirely different blonde was curled up against his back. One who favored shapeless shirts, pants with multiple pockets, and hairy footwear.
Still falling for you.
Luke should turn the soundtrack off right now. It was pure romantic crazy talk. He wasn’t falling for anyone.
The fact that his heart was pounding away in his chest didn’t have anything to do with the hands knotted tightly below it. Nor the clasp of warm thighs, the press of soft breasts, or the sweet intoxicating scent of her enveloping him.
Nope. That wasn’t it at all.
But as the song played on and the subtle vibrations of Andy’s laughter tickled up his spine, Luke knew he was lying to himself. Knew he was fighting a feeling that was as inevitable as the tide rolling in.
And most of all, he knew this deal with Andy was going to end badly for him. Because while he was falling for her — falling in a scary soul-deep kind of way he’d never experienced before — she was still falling for his best friend. A man who did seem to be showing considerable interest in her of late.
It hadn’t escaped Luke’s attention that every morning for the past week when he’d taken Andy out surfing, Kyle had shown up to watch the proceedings.
