Connected (Twists of Fate #1) by Jolyn Palliata Page B

then softened his tone. Please. For me. Trust me.
    With a great deal of reluctance, she closed her eyes. The second she did, she felt him take her hand, and then nudged his thoughts and emotions towards her.
    He felt a noble appreciation for the other night, wonder and desire, and a bunch of others too jumbled to pinpoint. But one sensation stood apart from the others: trepidation about her reaction as to what had happened…and fear of her rejection.
    I feel the same way, Rhys. And then she opened herself to him, for once fully trusting him with her feelings, but hoping he didn’t have the insight to decipher the depths of her emotions.
    She was falling for him. Hard.
    You don’t feel regret, he murmured. It wasn’t really a question, but more of a self-reassuring confirmation.
    No, I don’t.
    Me either.
    Opening her eyes, Addison nestled into her seat and looked out the window again. She was pleased when she realized Rhys was distracted from the flight, and she then knew how to keep him that way.
    Training her focus on the clouds blanketed out around them, she pictured images of her and Rhys. Together. When she heard the catch of his breath, she knew for certain he saw it with perfect clarity.
    No way was she physically going there with him when she was sitting on an airplane, surrounded by complete strangers, so she made sure to keep her eyes open. Hell, that would’ve given The Mile High Club a whole new angle, wouldn’t it? But she had no qualms whatsoever about putting Rhys through a salacious wringer.

    She flipped through her memories of the other night, one-by-one, and then began making some stuff up, throwing it in there for good measure to Rhys’ obvious and vocal delight. She let her imagination be her inspiration; standing, kneeling, straddling, laying down. She pictured it all, and then some.
    When she blinked, she could feel his hands…well, everywhere. So she made sure to keep her lids as low as possible to keep her eyes moist without having to close them too often. Her restraint proved to add a whole other layer of provocation as Rhys writhed inside her.
    Baby, he growled, let me atcha.
    Addison laughed inside, taunting him with an image of his darkly tattooed arms wrapping around her from behind.
    You just wait until you go to sleep tonight. He moaned as she shifted her thoughts and pictured them laying down, her belly arching into his ribbed abs as they came together. I’m going to make you pay soooo good for this.
    An involuntary quiver landed in her stomach as he shoved all his senses at her—the sound of his heavy breath, the feel of his hard body under his palm, the tingle of his arousal, the urgency of his needs. And yet, she keep her eyes open, even as she was being fully punished by her own recklessness.
    In the end, it was totally worth the pained pleasure. The flight went by in the blink of an eye, or lack thereof, as the case may be.

Chapter Thirteen

    Allowing Rhys to see along with her, Addison scanned the lingering crowd at the gate.
    Everyone was rubbernecking for loved ones or acquaintances rushing off the plane. All except for one.
    There he is , Rhys said in her head, sounding worn out from her in-flight entertainment.
    Addison was about to laugh at the implications of his tone, but stifled it when a sense of familiarity and remorse flooded inside her, followed by a burst of relief—Rhys’ reaction to seeing his brother.
    Xavier stood several inches above the rest of the crowd with a mean-ass scowl on his face.
    Despite the floppy hat and reflective sunglasses meant to serve as a disguise, she immediately recognized him from his picture.
    Oh, my God. Xavier “Zander” Alexander…in the flesh. And he was intimidating as hell, just like his pictures. She’d hoped it had been a trick of the lens.
    Apparently not.
    “Oh, yeah,” she mumbled under her breath. “There’s definitely some bite there.” Go on. Get your ass over there. The guy’s a kitten. Don’t worry about