Page 26 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

I turned on my heel, carrying Linnea easily despite her height.

Some part of me was surprised by her silence, and even more surprised by the way she pressed her cheek to my chest and let herself be swept into the house and deposited on one of my hand-tooled Italian leather couches.

She was still damp from the ocean, which was bad for the leather, but I didn’t give a fuck.

Stepping back to see her sprawled across the cushions, long limbs browned from the sun, round breasts spilling preciously from her swimsuit, I was seconds away from taking her where she lay, everything else be damned.

It was a dangerous mix, this Molotov cocktail of jealousy and arousal.

I wanted to put both of them on their knees and fuck their mouths to show them who they should belong to.

I wanted to spin them away from me, arms draped over the couch, so I could drop to my own knees and eat them out for hours, until they were both dripping wet, Linnea’s pussy swollen, Sebastian’s cock weeping precum.

Only then would I fuck them, first her, then him, and back again.

For hours and hours, coming in them both until they were stuffed full of me and leaking.

And then I would fuck that cum back into them with my fingers while I watched them kiss.

“Adam?” Linnea’s breathy voice interrupted my lurid fantasies.

I could feel the heat of a flush in my cheeks as I stared down into her dark eyes. “I’ll get you some water,” I practically grunted before turning on my heel to head for the kitchen.

I heard the front door close behind Sebastian, but ignored him to focus on breathing through my nose to bring down the rabid pounding of my pulse.

It didn’t work.

My grip on the glass I had grabbed from the shelf was white-knuckled, and I punched it into the water dispenser so hard that it shattered the side of the glass. Shards dug into my fingers, blood welling in fat drops before sliding down my palm.

Cursing, I moved into the pantry to throw it in the bin and grab some paper towels.

The door closed behind me with a muted thump.

I spun like a cornered animal, injured hand held to my chest, lips parted in a kind of grimacing snarl.

Sebastian stood before me, only a handful of feet between us, breathing hard like he’d run a marathon.

He was bare-chested post-surf, his chest chiselled out of fine gold marble, waxed smooth to show off every tight line and ridge of muscle he worked hard to hone.

So much bronzed skin, my mouth watered, and I found it nearly impossible to tear my eyes off his chest to look up into his face.

What I found was somehow worse than his beautiful body.

Desire.

Blazing from his eyes like twin suns, threatening to burn me to ash.

“Adam,” he said again, the only word he’d spoken yet.

I wanted him to say it over and over for the rest of my life.

Before I could think or blink or force myself to stop this descent into madness, I was lashing out to grip the side of his neck in a tight hold, thumb over his bobbing Adam’s apple, and hauling him sharply into me.

He stumbled slightly but otherwise came willingly, crashing into my chest, then we both went crashing into the wall behind me.

Glass jars clinked together, and some must have rolled onto their side, then off the wall, shattering to the ground beside us.

I didn’t pay mind to any of it.

Because for the first time in ten years, Sebastian Lombardi was in my arms.

In my fucking arms.

Warm and passionate and living. Not the pale imitation I met so often in my dreams that ended in nightmares where I woke up alone.

And God.

God .

He tasted even better than I remembered.

Hot like too much spice, but rich and masculine.

His mouth was so plush against my own, a stark contrast to the rough bite of his stubble rubbing against my chin.

Big hands tugged in my hair, forcing me closer.

A strong, hairy calf curled around my leg so he could press his hard cock against the crease of my hip.

Oh, fuck .

At that moment, I would willingly sell my soul to the devil if it meant living in this damn pantry in this man’s arms forever.

It had been years since I kissed a man and even longer since I’d kissed this man.

My man.

I had no choice but to drop one hand down the back of his thin grey sweatpants and palm his naked arse, the hard muscle flexing as he ground into me. His groan vibrated over my tongue, and I swallowed it down like ambrosia.

My blood, my bones, my very soul felt on fire.

I couldn’t breathe or think.

I thought I might actually be dying.

And then there was a little knock on the door that exploded in my ears like a bomb.

I tore myself away from Sebastian with the gasp of a man exploding through the crust of the ocean after minutes of drowning.

He let me pull away, hands dropping into spasming fists, expression so utterly wrecked with longing and passion and malcontent I felt I might be ill.

A moment later, Linnea pushed the door open and appeared in the doorway. The light from the wide windows in the kitchen behind her limned her in gold light and cast her features in absolute shadow.

What could she be thinking ? I wondered wildly as desire curdled into panic.

There was no disguising the sexual tension mottling the air like heat waves between Seb and me, no wiping the beard burn from our cheeks or the swollen cast of our mouth.

There could be no mistake about the fact that we had just been kissing like our lives depended on it.

And for a moment there, it felt as if that was exactly what was at stake.

My whole life for one of Sebastian’s kisses.

I wondered wildly if that was a bargain I would be crazy not to take.

“You’re bleeding,” Linnea said finally, softly, stepping forward as if into a bomb zone.

I stared down at my bleeding hand dumbly, having totally forgotten about it.

Linnea was suddenly in front of me, her sandals crunching on a piece of glass from a shattered jar. Her touch was light as she took my hand in hers and clucked her tongue.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she murmured, trying to meet my eyes.

I nodded, unable to look into that knowing violet gaze.

She nodded slowly before dropping my hand and moving to Sebastian. I watched from the corner of my eye as she raised to her tiptoes to touch a spot of blood on Sebastian’s neck.

It was my blood, deposited in a gruesome handprint on his throat.

The sight of it made my softening cock kick hard in my jeans.

“You, too,” she suggested mildly to Seb.

He swallowed thickly and shook his head, looking like a spooked horse seconds from galloping away.

“Hey,” she whispered, smoothing a hand over his pectoral—over his heart. “It’s okay. Just go into the kitchen and I’ll help you, okay?”

He looked down at her, expression softening as if noticing it was Linnea for the first time. One big hand raised to brush a lock of layered hair out of her face.

“I’ll clean up at home,” he said in a voice that seemed crushed somehow, chopped chewed up. Like it hurt to speak. “I need to leave.”

His yellow gaze found mine over the top of her head, but I looked away before we could make eye contact like the fucking bastard that I was.

“Right,” Linnea said. “Call me later, okay?”

He kissed her head without another word and carefully walked past me so that we didn’t touch in the close space.

I watched him go with my heart in my throat.

“Adam,” Linnea said, jerking my attention away from the empty doorway.

She was smiling, just a soft flex at the edge of her wide mouth.

I watched as she extended her hand to me and wiggled her ringed fingers.

“C’mon,” she said. “Let me sort you out, okay?”

I swallowed the razor blades on the back of my tongue and tasted blood.

So I nodded instead of speaking and let Linnea thread her fingers through my uninjured hand and tug me forward into the light.