Free Storms and Dreams (Becoming Jane Book 3) by Alexis Adare

lightning.” His hand slipped over my jaw and cupped the back of my neck. “It’s been there from the very beginning. We both knew it. And we both denied it. Didn’t we?”
    “Yes,” I whispered. Every nerve in my body had been called to attention at his touch. The sensation was overwhelming. I trembled under his hands, and took a step back, an involuntary reaction to alleviate the overload of feelings that were flooding my system.
    “We both lied to ourselves, and fought it,” he said, stepping into me, crowding me, “even as we hungered for each other, even as we kept falling together, time and time again, we fought it. We told ourselves it was just physical, that it was just sex.”
    “Yes,” I said, and took another step back. I wanted to run into him, to climb into his arms and cling to him, but his words were shaking me, rattling the precariously repaired pieces of my heart. I wanted to gather the pieces and give them over to him, a gift. But I couldn’t. The last time I’d given my heart away, it was returned to me, broken. It had taken me years to put myself back together. How could I risk that again?
    “It’s always been this.” His hand raked into my hair and massaged my scalp, fingers gently tangling in the tendrils. “From the beginning, our bodies recognized it, and our hearts did too, even as our minds fought it.”
    My eyes fluttered closed at his words. He was looking at me too intently, his gaze too brilliant for me to hold.
    “And still we’re fighting it.” His hand tilted my head back. I opened my eyes and he pinned me with his gaze.
    My lips parted. I wanted to answer him. But, no sound would come from me. I was paralyzed.
    “We are,” he said, and his expression shifted as if a connection was being made. “You are. That’s what all that was about. Back there. Wasn’t it? We were getting too close. You said it yourself. Things were getting heavy.”
    “No, I—”
    “Don’t lie to me, Jane. Don’t. You’re scared,” he said, and his other hand rose to cup my cheek, his thumb caressing my skin. “Oh, darling. I won’t hurt you. You don’t need to be scared.”
    “I-I can’t help it,” I stuttered. Closing my eyes, I shook my head in his hands. “I can’t—”
    “It’s my fault,” he muttered as if chastising himself. “I pushed, sharing things I should have known would upset you.”
    “No.” I shook my head again. “You don’t know anything. And that’s just it. You’re wonderful and you’ve been so open with me, and I want to…I want to do the same—”
    “But you can’t,” he said.
    “Not yet,” I whispered, and opened my eyes to find his, filled with understanding and sympathy. I wanted so much to tell him, to tell him everything. “I can’t,” I said, and felt my eyes fill with tears.
    “So you steered us towards something familiar, something safe. Sex.”
    “Yes,” I admitted. “But I didn’t know I was doing that until just now.”
    It was true. All of it. He was absolutely right. I’d been freaked out and overstimulated emotionally and I’d completely sabotaged our afternoon by picking some kind of weird confrontation. And I’d managed to defile the moment we were having, to boot. I’d made it all about the physical, all about the sex, because that was easier than having to deal with hearts.
    “It’s alright,” he said, gathering me into his arms, his hands running over my back, trying to soothe me. “Let me help you. What can I do? Tell me. Anything.”
    “Kiss me,” I said, my lips trembling. I hated myself in that moment, hated myself for doing it again, taking the coward’s way out. I should’ve taken him inside, sat by the fire and had a lengthy heart to heart. I should have told him right then, all about Brian, all about….everything. But I didn’t.
    He stilled, and then slowly, his hands ghosted up my arms to cup my face. He kissed me softly, his lips warm and pacifying, full of sympathy and patience. I didn’t