Page 32 of A Beach House Beginning

All evening? He had been thinking about kissing herall evening? She didn’t know what to think, what to say.

“Yes. You’re right. It was a mistake.”

As soon as she said the word, she thought she saw a flicker of something in his gaze reflecting from the landscaping lights, something that looked almost like...hurt.

He had been the one to say the words first and she could not disagree. They were completely wrong for each other. She was finding herself increasingly drawn to the man. But she knew nothing could ever come of it.

“Let’s just blame the moonlight. It’s lovely out here, especially after the rain. It’s hard not to be...carried away by the moment.”

She couldn’t look at him as she spoke, hoping he didn’t see remnants of her desire on her features.

“We should go in. The...the girls.”

Without another word, she scooped up Theo, grabbed the towel off the porch swing and let herself into a house that suddenly, oddly, felt colder than the garden had, almost disapproving.

Jenna hurried up the flight of stairs to her apartment, drying the confused dog as she went.

With each step, she wondered what she had been thinking to kiss him with so much...passion.

That wasn’t her.

Or maybe it was.

It was a disconcerting thought.

Maybe there were parts of herself she had never had occasion to explore before, needs and desires that had always seemed warm and comfortable and...mutedduring her marriage to Ryan.

Maybe she was like that ocean out there. On a calm afternoon at low tide, only tiny waves licked at the sand. When conditions aligned, though, and storms blew in, the ocean could be mighty and powerful. Terrifying.

She sensed this thing between her and Wes would be like that—wild, passionate, fierce.

And that she would quickly find herself in over her head.

The rain began in earnest again as Wes watched Jenna hurry into the rambling old Victorian house. Drops slid down his collar, soaking him quickly. But he ignored it, too busy cursing himself for letting his base instincts take over.

After he had kissed her, she had almost lookedafraid. Did she think he would hurt her?

He had completely screwed up everything.

Why had he kissed her?

He should have simply tamped down his attraction to her, as he had been doing for a long time now.

Maybe he had wondered on some level if kissing her could prove to her he was absolutely no threat to her.

How ridiculous. If he had given her a mild, restrained sort of kiss, that might have been the case, but he had kissed her as if she were his last meal.

Why was she so afraid? She had said something earlier that evening that might have been a clue. He closed his eyes as more rain slithered down his collar.

Who had hurt her? And where was the bastard now, so Wes could make him sorry?

He let out a breath. Her reasons for being jittery around him didn’t matter. Nor did it matter if she was actually afraid ofhimor simply of any man.

He had done nothing to ease that fear. By kissing her, giving in to the heat and the hunger, he had only provided her with more reason to be nervous in his company.

How could he help himself? He was finding Jenna increasingly difficult to resist.

It wasn’t simply a physical attraction to her, a hunger that kept him up at night and left him aching and empty.

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