Page 86 of The Sun & Her Burn

He’d missed me.

His huge hands cupped nearly the entirety of my face, a rough thumb dragging over my cheekbone. The scent of him made me feel fuzzy headed.

“Your lips were swollen from our kiss,” he muttered, his gaze fixed on my mouth.

My tongue darted out nervously. “They’re sensitive,” I explained.

His eyes flashed, fingertips tightening just slightly as the image that must have conjured for him. For a moment, he let his hands sink into the sides of my hair and clench just a little, the way he might have done if he was urging me to suck him off.

“Be careful with the imagery you feed me, Nea,” he growled, almost subvocal. “I am a man on a very short leash.”

“I’ve already offered to help with that,” I declared lightly as his hands dropped, and Sebastian returned with a chair he slotted in front of Adam.

Sebastian, attuned to the chemistry snapping through the air, smiled rakishly. “I am always ready to offer my services if either of you needs my help.”

“With what,caro mio?” Caprice called.

“Running lines,” he said smoothly, as he clasped Adam on the shoulder and me on mine so we were connected through him, a closed circuit of humming power.

“Ah Linnea, you are an actress as well as a fashion designer?” Giselle asked, sweeping us back into conversation as Adam and Seb settled into their chairs.

“An amateur at both, I’m afraid,” I said with a little shrug.

Sebastian and Adam both went to put their arms around my chair. With a single cold look from Adam, Seb dropped his but it found its way, neatly, onto my thigh beneath the table. He gave it a squeeze and winked surreptitiously at me.

“She’s brilliant,” Adam corrected. “It’s just a matter of time before you see her face on a movie billboard over Sunset Boulevard.”

“Gigi, she was in the last season ofSwamplands,” Sebastian said. “Tara Trevena, who tried to murder Eddie.”

Giselle’s mouth dropped open, and Daniel laughed as he explained her expression, “She had a few nightmares because of your performance.”

“Seriously?” I asked, so pleased it made my toes curl.

Giselle nodded. “Seriously. I have a history with a psychopathic stalker, and the way you played her was chilling.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I murmured.

She waved her hand through the air, silver bangles chiming. “I meant it as a compliment.”

“Of course, she did,” Sebastian said with a toothy smile. “The Lombardis recognize talent wherever we see it.”

“And Linnea is brilliant,” Adam repeated firmly, as if to close the file on the subject irrefutably.

To my horror, tears pricked small needles at the backs of my eyes.

My father and uncles were supportive of whatever I wanted to do in life, but they were men’s men, in love with fishing and surfing and outbelching each other using the alphabet. They didn’t know enough to compliment me on my skills beyond blithely wanting to support me.

Miranda, on the other hand, lived to berate me and remind me I was a failure as an actress. At my age, she liked to say, she had already spent five seasons starring on the long-standing soap opera,The Beautiful & Damned.

So this?

Praise for something I had worked hard at and loved to do but never felt validated for?

It was a very poignant tool in Adam’s arsenal.

And Sebastian’s.

I hastily took a sip of water after a server, Shirley, poured it for me with a wink, but for the first time in a long time, I wished for something stronger.