Page 52 of The Sun & Her Burn

“Understandable,” I said solemnly.

Luiza sniffed and lifted the remote to turn up the volume on the television.

I coughed to cover my laughter.

It wasn’t every day someone tried to get rid of me.

“Sebastian?” Linnea’s voice called out.

“Ladies,” I said by way of goodbye and went to find the woman I could not stop thinking about.

She was in her studio, kneeling at the base of a mannequin that wore a muted leopard print dress with thin straps and an almost corseted top. It was beautiful, especially when I considered Linnea modelling it herself. She was finishing the hem, a needle in the side of her mouth, another darting quicksilver fast in her nimble fingers.

I left her to it for a moment and took the chance to look at the sketches on the walls, the brightly coloured outfits she envisioned. There were ball gowns and party dresses, a few more casual dresses, and lots of lingerie. The delicate designs were so complicated, I couldn’t believe she would construct them herself until I came across a few samples on one cluttered table in thecorner. I lifted a white corset with yellow fabric gathered like petals around the breasts and felt my throat click as I swallowed dryly.

“I’m constantly drawn to the feminine,” she said by way of explanation.

I turned to see her standing up so she could remove the dress from the mannequin.

“It’s why I mostly make lingerie and dresses,” she continued. “I think there is something so inherently sexy and powerful about being a woman, and I love to emphasize that.”

“There is,” I agreed, a little hoarser than usual.

“Maybe it’s because I grew up in a house of men,” she said on a little laugh, pausing to smile at the memories. “They were so dirty and plain, I started carving out little female places for myself in the house. My room growing up was fuchsia pink, and the first dress I made when I was six was rainbow print. Hopefully, my designs are a little more elevated now.”

“Your designs are beautiful,trottolina,” I told her soberly so she would understand the truth of it.

She beamed at me, tugging on the end of one little braid. “Yeah?”

“Si, certo,” I repeated in Italian for emphasis.

“Thank you,” she said with a shy smile I had never seen before. “It’s more of a hobby than anything, but it keeps me sane at night when I can’t sleep and everything seems so impossible.”

“If you wear your designs out with Adam, it won’t be a hobby much longer if you don’t want it to be,” I told her.

She blinked as if she hadn’t realized that.

“Oh, well…huh. I don’t think I have time to act and start a fashion line.” She laughed, shaking her head as if the idea of being successful at either was absurd. “But it is wild, the pull celebrities have over people. To want to buy something just because the woman fucking Adam Meyers is wearing it.”

Fucking Adam Meyers.

Twins flames of anger and arousal burned in my gut. I didn’t know what to do with either of them. The feeling haunted me as Linnea collected her things, said her goodbyes to Miranda and Luiza, and we drove off to the beach. It lingered even when I felt the cold slap of water against my hands and face as I paddled out beyond the break with her and ruined each wave I took to the shore, no matter how well I rode it.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to purge the poison of jealousy and confusion until I returned to my hotel room and pulled out a pen or cracked open my laptop. This was the kind of emotional congestion that could only be untangled by writing the words on a page.

Linnea sensed my mood and gave me space for it, only smiling at me as we sat in the pocket briefly before cutting out on our own waves.

The intimacy of her knowing me well enough to leave me be, the quality of that understood silence between us, only made me sink deeper into my melancholy.

By mutual decision, we only stayed out for an hour until the sun was a full golden coin above the horizon and the beach started to populate with more than just morning joggers.

We didn’t speak as we waded through the frothy surf with our boards, or when we shucked our wetsuits and rinsed off in the outdoor showers.

But I could feel her eyes on me, though mine were closed under the spray of water. The touch of her gaze at the long muscles arrowing from my hips to groin, where my snug navy swim shorts left little to the imagination. For a second, I turned my body, reaching my arms up to run through my hair so that my muscles flexed and twisted, my abdominals stepping out like ladder rungs on either side of my belly, my biceps swollen.

I was rewarded with a little gasp, near inaudible over the splash.

I had to turn my back to her to hide my mean, triumphant grin.