How to Write Clean Yet Scintillating Romance

We have a storage room, we have a wheat barrel. We smell Axe deodorant.

sweeter than sap from a tree. Tangier than the juice from a nectarine.

the heat she’s experiencing.

So is she really black matter? No, but that’s how she’s feeling at the present. Are her palms really hot coals? No, but, again, those are things she’s experienced, so that’s how she’s describing

My palms are two hot coals, scalding.

These are some examples of similes. How about metaphor now?
I’m black matter smeared in the hardwood. Stubble left on the maroon carpeting

softer than I imagined. Like river water depositing pebbles on the quais.

—like dandelions in a breeze.

She doesn’t know what to make of him, so she relates these emotions that she’s unaccustomed to feeling to things she does understand. This method works well for many protagonists who are experiencing love for the first time.
Watch for the similes in the following section (the use of “like” or “as”) where Tempeste likens what she’s feeling to something concrete from her past.

it’s unsurprising that our main character experiences conflicting emotions.