Read Far From Heaven for Free Online

with something. Anything. Not so now. This silence didn’t feel awkward—it felt like the calm before a storm, the tense moments spent knowing that something was out there, something huge. Dangerous and intense and raging. But she wasn’t afraid, not in the sense that she feared for her safety. She was ready to get tossed on those waves.
    “Here we are,” she said, hitting the blinker as her heart lodged at the base of her throat. She’d meant for the statement to come out bright, cheerful. It came out like she’d just reached the location of her impending execution.
    Maybe it was that, in a sense. She’d left her apartment knowing herself, but it was like she was coming home not only with a stranger, but a stranger herself. The old Maddie, dead and gone. As she turned off the rain-slick street into the parking lot, the dark bulk of her building looked somehow sinister, foreign. Her heart kicked its way out of her throat and began rattling like mad in her chest.
    What is wrong with me?
    She was no stranger to sinister thoughts, strange forebodings or outright panic attacks. But all three didn’t usually assault her at once. And some asshole had taken her usual parking space. She gnashed her teeth as she found another and nudged her Jeep in, then she sat, concentrating on filling her lungs one breath at a time. A fine tremor shook her hands that she hoped he didn’t notice. She didn’t think she could tolerate one more person tonight who thought she was about to spaz out.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Second thoughts?”
    Was that it? Did she know deep down this was the absolute wrong choice, even though there hadn’t seemed to be any choice at all?
    Then, something incredible happened. He reached over and put his hand on her back. And all the swirling negativity in her thoughts came apart and dissipated, like the storm in her earlier analogy running out of steam. It didn’t leave clear skies in its wake, but it did cease its destructive, pummeling onslaught.
    His fingers slipped down her spine, carefully tracing each tiny outward curve and subsequent indentation. Scores of chill bumps skittered down her arms, but there was nothing unpleasant about it. “It’s all right,” he said soothingly.
    “My boyfriend broke up with me tonight,” she blurted.
    “I surmised.”
    “ Tonight. Right before I met you, literally not ten minutes earlier. Now here I am with you, and I’m not saying I don’t want to be, but…”
    “This isn’t you,” he finished, throwing her earlier words in the parking garage back at her.
    “It’s so not. And I swear to God I’m not just saying that.”
    “Why do you think I need convincing?”
    “Well…” She closed her eyes as his fingers began the sensuous journey back up the ladder of her spine. Her mouth went dry and her nipples pebbled. She could feel his heat through her clothes, burning hot. He could’ve been running a fever. But then, it had become almost uncomfortably hot in the confines of her vehicle, and she didn’t think it was from his effect on her. He’s going to burn me alive.
    “Well?” he prompted. “Do you think you have to go through life playing the good girl, the saintly one, the one who has it all together?”
    “God, no,” she said, dismayed. “I sure don’t want to give that impression. That’s not me, either.”
    “Then what’s the problem?”
    All right, maybe it was time to lay it all out there. Even she might not know what was at the root of all her anguish, but at least she could go into this with a clear conscience, knowing she’d disclosed everything. She met his gaze squarely. “Do you want to know why my boyfriend broke up with me tonight?”
    Ash shrugged, and his answer surprised her. “Why do I need to? Why does it even matter?” His voice dropped to an intimate timbre that exacerbated the shivers racing under her skin, and he leaned so close she could feel his breath on her ear. “See, you are quite saintly, aren’t