Page 21 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

And I had promised myself a long time ago, if I ever had the opportunity to have him in my life once more, I would do everything in my power never to injure him again.

“Which is your favourite film you ever shot?” Linnea interrupted my thoughts. “Will you tease me if I say I loved you as Lord Byron? I’ll never forget the way you delivered that line ‘And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.’”

A thin smile claimed my mouth as I thought of its relevance to my own life. “He was certainly one of my favourite characters, perhaps because of our shared love of hedonism.”

Linnea’s laugh was an abrupt cough of disbelief as she side eyed me. “You? A hedonist? No offense, Adam, but you look like you haven’t had a good orgasm in half a decade, and with a body like that, I highly doubt you’re indulging in anything sinfully delicious.”

She was right, in a way.

I didn’t indulge in rich foods very often. I’d mostly given up drinking because of the pit of despair I’d fallen into after Sebastian and Savannah were gone, and for the last number of years, even though I’d joined an exclusive BDSM club in LA, even my sexual hedonism had felt rote.

But that didn’t mean I had stopped yearning for the pursuit of pleasure.

My attraction to her was a case in point.

“Maybe I’m such a curmudgeon, as you say, because I haven’t had enough pleasure in my life lately,” I admitted, grateful for the sunglasses obscuring my eyes when Linnea studied me as we waited in traffic.

“Well,” she said after a moment. “We’ll have to fix that along with your reputation, won’t we, Mr. Meyers?”

Fuck, the sound of that— Mr. Meyers— was electric.

I swallowed thickly. “Unfortunately, the two cannot comfortably co-exist.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that.” Her grin was as bright as the sun reflecting off the ocean to my right. “I think today is a good start.”

“What the bloody hell have you signed us up for?”

Her laugh caught in the wind as she accelerated forward, swerving into the fast lane around a slow-moving van. “Tell me your favourite film to shoot.”

“ The Devil Cares ,” I said.

The movie I’d prepped and shot while living with Sebastian and Savannah.

It would always be special to me for those moments I’d spent running my lines with Sebastian, Savvy’s little feet in my lap while we relaxed in the living room after a long day of work.

How Seb would grill me when I was just in the door about every aspect of production while pouring me a glass of wine, running a hand through my hair, or squeezing my shoulders as if he wanted to comfort me after hours of playing an emotionally taxing role.

How—for a few sparkling, perfect months—both my wife and my lover had seemed incandescently in love with me.

The shoot itself had been good, with a great DoP and director, top-caliber co-stars, and, of course, the Oscar I’d received for my performance had been a career highlight.

But it was that collection of little, intimate moments with my loved ones that lived perfectly preserved between the pages of my life like dried flowers.

My attention was caught as we pulled off the highway and almost immediately into a parking lot before a long, low industrial building. To the left and behind the structure, I could see a handful of relatively small planes.

“Linnea,” I said, slow and low, a dangerous rumble. “What did you sign us up for?”

When I looked over, she had already taken off her seatbelt and was leaning forward to plant one hand on my thigh while the other popped the mechanism on my belt open.

Her large eyes were a deep purple-blue, like crushed acai berries.

Her lashes were long and curly. For a moment, I forgot entirely about my apprehension and wondered if it would be the worst mistake in the world to kiss her.

“Day one of Linnea’s trusty guide to the pursuit of pleasure,” she announced, tongue in cheek. “Today’s theme? Thrill seeking.”

“Hiya, Lins,” an Australian man called as the door to the business slammed behind him, raising a hand to us. “It’s lookin’ like a crackin’ day to take a sky dive.”

“Fuck no ,” I snapped.

But Linnea was already jumping out of the car and running to the attractive, curly-hair blond man, throwing her arms around him in a way that made jealousy bite the back of my tongue, the metallic taste of it like blood in my mouth.

“She’s not actually you’re bloody girlfriend,” I muttered to myself as I got out of the car and followed.

But when she stepped back just as I reached them, I let instinct take over and curled a finger into the top of her leggings, tugging until she stumbled back into my side.

Ignoring the look she aimed up at me, I slid my arm around her waist, palming the curve of her hip.

The skin of her belly was so soft, the scent of her like blooming hibiscus and ocean air.

“Hello,” I said, offering my hand. “Adam Meyers.”

The man’s eyebrows raised almost comically, his gaze darting between my possessive hand on Linnea’s hip, her face, and mine.

“Ugh, right ,” he muttered, then seemed to remember himself and shook my hand. “Sorry, mate, just a bit stunned Lins didn’t tell me she was bringing a proper celeb today.”

“I brought two, actually,” she corrected as a door slammed somewhere behind us and the sound of feet approached.

I swallowed thickly, knowing without having to turn who stopped at my side and pressed slightly into my shoulder as they leaned forward to offer the man their own hand in greeting.

“Sebastian Lombardi,” he introduced in that rich Italian accent I would know anywhere across any amount of time. “Pleasure to meet you, Gary.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” Gary assured him, face lit up. “Couldn’t’a picked a better day for a dive, I’m tellin’ ya. Have you both been up before?”

Fuck no .

“Plenty of times,” Sebastian answered. “I actually got my C license a few years ago.”

“Seriously?” I asked, incredulous.

The idea that Sebastian and Linnea could find dropping to the earth from a great high fun was extremely concerning.

Seb flashed me that movie-star grin, all teeth and parted pink lips. “I had to skydive for my stunts in Enemies Behind Closed Doors, and I fell in love with it. You haven’t skydived before, right? Not to worry, I can tandem with you, and Gary can take Linnea.”

My eyes burned with the intensity of the glare I leveled at him.

“Or I could always take Linnea myself?” he suggested, as he pushed his aviators into his black waves, revealing those precious-metal eyes that seemed to pierce through the centre of my soul.

“Absolutely not,” I said.

“So we go together,” Sebastian declared with a happy smile, turning to share it with Gary, who offered him two thumbs-up.

Fuck no , I thought again.

I didn’t have a fear of heights per se, but I didn’t fuck with them either.

“Linnea didn’t inform me that this was on our agenda for the day,” I said, but she cut me off, curling into me, pressing a hand to my chest and sliding it slowly, deliberately down my stomach to curl over my waistband, fingers dipping beneath to scratch lightly at the top of my groin.

A growl lodged in my throat that was painful to swallow down.

“I wanted to surprise you,” she said, full mouth pouting, eyes wide with mock sincerity. “You’re always surprising me, and I wanted to return the favor.”

Oh, the bloody cheek on her.

I dipped low enough to turn my mouth into her ear as if I was giving her a brief kiss. Instead, I whispered, “Careful, brat. You’re not too old to turn over my knee.”

A shiver rolled through her, pupils dilated as she pulled back to look up into my face. “Are you sure you’re not too old to make an impact?”

Without thinking, I leaned forward to nip the end of her nose in a little reprimand.

She scrunched it in response and stuck her tongue out at me. “Come on, sweetums, don’t tell me you’re scared?”

Yes, I was definitely going to get her back for this later.

“The great Adam Meyers?” Sebastian asked with a chuckle. “Scared of jumping out of a plane? Now, that’s a thought.”

Gary, eager to be involved with the celebrities, jumped in, “That’d be hilarious, given you held your breath for like six minutes in the Jonathon Cross series.”

Of course, he remembered that.

But holding my breath in the ocean, a place I’d grown up beside during my childhood in Cornwall, was not at all the same as diving into thin fucking air toward a very stationary, decidedly hard ground.

Sebastian’s arm draped across my shoulders as he twisted slightly to face me. “On the other hand, if you are afraid, don’t worry. I can take your lovely girlfriend up for a spin and return her to you later safe and sound.”

These manipulative assholes.

I smiled at Gary in a way that was all teeth and, apparently, fairly alarming, because he reared back slightly.

“I’ve been in free fall all my life,” I said, and wasn’t that the truth. “A tumble from a plane should be a piece of cake.”

Forty minutes later, after we had been through the consent forms and education seminar, I found myself up in the small aircraft with Linnea across from me strapped to Gary’s front.

Sebastian was behind me, his breath hot against the side of my head as an assistant fiddled with the many straps securing me to him and my own emergency parachute.

Dread was a lead weight in my gut, the back of my tongue coated in acid.

“Adam,” Sebastian said low and intimate, nose brushing my ear as he moved closer so no one else could hear us. “I have only seen you so afraid once before, and this is not worth your terror, not like that was.”

“It’s typically inadvisable to bring up someone’s prior panic attack when they may be on the precipice of another,” I snapped.

“Always so dramatic.” He chuckled, and I had to pin my shoulders back to stop from shivering. “This is meant to be fun, Adam.”

“I can’t imagine anything less fun than this.”

“No? Not even seeing me again?” Seb asked softly.