Commencement by Alexis Adare
About This Book
Jane Claremont is a little bit broken. She has a painful past that she’s worked hard to forget. As a result, she spent the last few years of her life carefully hardening the armor that protects her heart. The last time she fell for someone, it almost destroyed her, and she resolved to never let that happen again.
That is…until she met the Professor.
Dr. Thomas Grayson is gorgeous, smart, charming, and dangerously sexy. Jane can’t get enough of him, his words haunt her mind, his hands own her body.
Her family is worried, they think she’s losing her head, and that just might cost her, her heart. Even though she dismisses their concerns, she knows, deep down, they may be right.
With graduation mere weeks away, she resolves to maintain a respectable distance from the Professor until then. But it’s no use, their attraction is inexorable, and Jane finds herself falling deeper in thrall to the Professor’s charms. This was supposed to be a fling, not a love affair.
Every moment she spends with the Professor, she can feel her armor softening, and the desire to share more than just her body, is overwhelming. With every word, every look, every caress of his hand, she can sense the Professor feels the same. He’s broken too, she can see it in his eyes, and on the marks he bears on his body. It scares her. It’s irresistible.
Warning: This book contains spoilers for Season Three of Downton Abbey, as well as unabashed geeking out over Doctor Who.
Becoming Jane #2 Commencement is 40,000 words. It’s the second book in the Becoming Jane series, and picks up directly after the first book. The series is intended for readers 18+, due to steamy sexual scenes and adult language.
1
My sister’s face peered at me from the screen of my laptop, her brow furrowed with concern.
“Be careful? What do you mean by that?” I demanded, meeting her frown with one of my own. “I’m always careful.”
“No, no, don’t go there,” she said. “I know you’re careful when it comes to safe sex. I’m talking about your feelings.”
I rolled my eyes at her and glanced at the End Call button on the video-chat window. I was riding high after the Professor’s double bouquet of flowers and I was not about to let my good mood be spoiled by a lecture from my baby sister. Just one click, and bye bye, Charlie, I thought.
“Don’t even think of hanging up on me,” she said, reading my mind. “You’re getting really emotional about this guy, and that’s not like you. It just worries me a little.”
“So I’m usually a cold-hearted bitch?” I felt my shoulders tensing, a gloomy cloud of irritation threatening to dampen my spirits.
“Yeah, that’s right, Jane,” said Charlie. “That’s what I think of you. You’re a vicious man-eater, with a heart made of stone.”
We glared at each other for a long moment, a familiar sibling standoff that we’d been in countless times over the years. My finger hovered over my trackpad. I was so tempted to hang up on this crap. But the prickle of conscience in the back of my mind meant I knew I was getting a little too upset at her words. She’d hit a nerve, which meant she maybe, possibly, might have a teeny tiny point. I heard our mother’s voice in my head: “You can put your shields up, arm your weapons and let this escalate into a fight — or you can take a breath, lower your defenses, and have a real conversation with someone who loves you. Which is it going to be?”
I sighed heavily and shrugged my shoulders. Fuck it. The big sister always has to be the mature one. I stuck my tongue out at Charlie and watched her frown curl into a grin.
“I love you too,” she said, lifting her thumbs to her ears and waggling her hands on either side of her head, blowing raspberries at me.
“Uh-huh, whatever, dork.” I smirked at her.
“If I’m a dork, then you are too, because we share blood,” she shot back. “But seriously, I haven’t heard you gush about a guy like this in, forever. I just don’t want you to get hurt.’
“I’m not gushing,” I argued.
“You are gushing—geysering, in fact. You’re a freaking tsunami of enthusiasm for this guy you just met, hardly know, and who sent you his medical records with a bouquet of flowers—“
“Two bouquets,” I said, holding up my fingers.
“Shut up. It’s weird. Who does that?”
Sexy British professors with piercing blue eyes and abs cut from hard steel, I thought, trying to suppress a smile. I failed and ended up half snorting, half swallowing a laugh instead. Charlie glowered at me and sighed, throwing her hands up in the air. She was riled up, offended on my behalf and it was cracking me up.