Page 112 of The Sun & Her Burn

“I recognize this song,” Adam said from behind me. “I think you used to play it in London.”

“I did,” I agreed without looking over my shoulder. “I’m surprised you remember it.”

There was an easiness between us that came, I thought, from having someone other than our history to focus on. We were joined not only by our time in London, but also by our mutual attraction and friendship with Linnea.

And the rapport I hoped we were establishing together again, too.

After our exploits at Sinclair’s club, I was uncharacteristically nervous like a shy teen confronted with his crush. My breath hitched slightly when I felt Adam come closer, his hip just barely brushing mine as he leaned against the counter to watch me work the dough.

“There is not a single thing I forget about the time we spent together,” he admitted with faux casualness. “Those memories have haunted me and I would not exorcize them even if I could.”

“Adam.” I said his name because it was the only word that would encapsulate my frustration and longing. “What is it you want from me?”

He hummed. “That is a question I have asked myself since the moment I saw you standing at Finborough Theatre, shining brighter than any actor on the stage, enchanting me with your golden eyes. I wanted you with a ferocity that stole my breath and made me go back on my vow not to allow Savannah and me to have any lovers for a time.”

“Look at how that turned out,” I muttered, not bitterly, because I would never be bitter about my time with them.

But maybe I was a little tired.

A little weary and broken like a man returned from war who forgets why he fought in the first place.

Savannah was not brave enough to be with me still even though she had to have known what she was doing bybefriending me again over the years, towing me along like a fish on the line.

Was this Adam doing the very same thing?

I closed my eyes as I pounded the pasta dough into a ball and then began to wrap it in plastic cling so it could rest in the fridge.

“I will not survive if you cast me out of your orbit again,” I told Adam baldly, sweeping aside the thin layers of dirt over the fossilized pain at the heart of my soul so he could see the truth. “Do not take me where you do not want me to follow.”

Adam considered me for a long moment, his expression implacable even though something worked in his dark gaze. I appreciated that he took me seriously even though I couldn’t breathe through his silence.

“No matter what happens,” he said finally. “I do not think I could find happiness in this life without you in it. You are as elemental to me as the sky above us, as beautiful and illuminating as the stars in the night. We will be friends, always, Sebastian, if you would have me again.”

Part of my heart soared, giving me a sense of vertigo so profound, I had to curl my fingers over the laminate countertop.

“Just friends?” I managed to rasp, my gaze falling instinctively to that pale pink mouth in the golden stubble I wanted to scrape with my teeth.

I watched that secret, sly smile curl his lips and felt my heart pound.

“I will take whatever you are willing to give me,” he said, sincerely if not earnestly, a coyness in his tone that made my toes curl. “Your mind, your spirit, and your body are all of interest to me. But I appreciate that I am not what you deserve and might very well never be.”

He paused to grip the back of my neck in that way that made me want to drop to my knees and please him until my mouth ached.

“I do not think you have quite forgiven me, no matter that you say otherwise,” he noted, seeing into me so keenly it cut like a knife. “Until then, I think it best if we are friends. Don’t you?”

“Si, d’accordo,” I agreed, even though my mouth was watering and my knees were soft like theywantedto buckle until I was prone before Adam.

“Do not mistake me,” Adam said, suddenly stepping so close that our bodies were sewn together shoulder to thigh. “I want you so badly that I can imagine the taste of you on the back of my tongue and the shape of your cock in my mouth. The way you smell drives me absolutely mad, and when you look at me with heat in your eyes, I feel I will burn up to ash.”

My breath stuttered and died in my lungs.

It was not just the incendiary words that painted a salacious, intoxicating image in my mind’s eye, but the feel of him against me. He was so utterly masculine, hard-bodied like a professional athlete or a body builder, someone whose job it was to maintain peak physicality, because itwas. The demands of Hollywood and this career were less so for men than women, but they still existed, and Adam Meyers was nothing if not a perfectionist when it came to his craft.

Heat surged through me as if I had been doused with kerosene and lit with a torch. All from the simple press of his hips into mine and the brutal honesty of his husky confession.

Friends did not affect each other in such a way.

I knew this because Linnea had the same impact on me.