Page 127 of The Sun & Her Burn

Sebastian’s hand found my thigh, skirting up the thin nylon stocking until he reached my bare skin bisected by the garter. When I looked up at him, his face was cast in the red of the stoplight, his expression raw with hunger.

“I have never wanted anything so much in my life,” he said honestly, accent thick. “I have always been willing to work for what I want, Linnea. But if this is to work with Adam, he needs to be willing to fight for us, too,capisci?”

“I know,” I agreed. “But I think he needs us to take the first steps. To prove we’re here even when he tries to push us away.”

Seb made a broken noise in his throat, hand spasming on my thigh. “I went when he told me to the first time. I won’t make this mistake again. I am older and wiser, and I have you.”

“I make a difference?” I asked, trying to be playful as if the question didn’t mean anything to me.

“Without you, I think, Adam and I would still be strangers who used to love one another,” he answered.

I chewed my bottom lip and picked at a hangnail. “You know, if this love story is about you two and there isn’t room for me—”

“Do not continue,” Sebastian ordered, lifting his hand to press it over my mouth. “Dopo la pioggia, arriva il sole. After rain, the sun arrives,” he translated. “You are our sun, Linnea. Do not doubt that you are vital. I’m beginning to think you were made for us.”

“And Savannah?” I asked because I had to.

Sebastian had loved her for a very long time, in a way that Adam didn’t seem to share.

If we were going to convince Adam to take a chance on us, we couldn’t afford a ghost muddying things up.

Seb’s hand returned to the wheel with his other one and squeezed hard enough to squeak. “That,” he said somberly, voice deep, “is done.”

We pulled in front of an ornate gate blocking the entrance to a long driveway in Brentwood, of all places.

“This is it?” I asked as Seb lowered the window and pushed the intercom.

When a voice asked for the password, Sebastian spoke the Latin phrase Chaucer had given us.

A bene placito.

At one’s pleasure.

Fitting for a sex club, especially one whose clientele included the rich and famous of Hollywood’s elite.

Chaucer had contacted the manager for us, but it still took over an hour for her email to respond with the requisite forms that Sebastian and I had to fill out to be allowed into the club, even for the night. Without Adam’s consent, he couldn’t sponsor our evening, so Sebastian had reached out to someone else.

His brother-in-law, Daniel Sinclair.

He’d blushed when he made the call, but Sinclair only treated the favor with cool professionalism without requesting any messy questions.

Without me asking, Seb had explained, “My family isn’t exactly vanilla. Sinclair is fairly infamous in BDSM circles. I try not to think about it too much.”

The gates swung open, and Seb pulled the Lamborghini up the manicured drive until we reached a circular driveway in front of an enormous Tudor-style mansion. A woman wearingleather hot pants and a corset with a matching leather chauffeur’s hat waited for us, opening my door and then walking around to take the keys from Sebastian.

Another woman waited at the entrance with a silver tray of champagne, wearing a sheer black mini dress with white frills like a very naughty maid’s costume.

I swallowed thickly at the sight of her round curves spilling out of the deep collar.

Sebastian’s chuckle was smoky in my ear as he took my arm and tugged me into his side. “You look very flushed already, Linnea. Are you ready for what we might see tonight?”

“I’m ready for what we might do,” I corrected, because even though I was wildly excited to enter this sordid domain, I still felt like a coltish, overeager teen who didn’t quite belong.

“Outdoor clothing is banned beyond this point,” the woman told us after handing over the champagne. “There are lockers in the antechamber just through here. When you’ve disrobed, I will take you inside. Please pick a mask from the selection on the wall as we value our clients’ anonymity here.”

Sebastian led me into the beautifully appointed change room, empty of people but filled with the rumbling bass of music I recognized as Glass Animals.

“Have you ever done this before?” I asked, suddenly needing to know.