Page 37 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

He plundered without hesitation, sweeping into the cavern of my mouth with his hot, dexterous tongue.

A breathy moan wrenched from me as heat scored down my throat and unfurled in my belly like a growing inferno.

He kissed me so thoroughly, nipping, sucking, thrusting, that, in the end, I would have been happy to have him bend me over the table right there in the middle of the restaurant.

It was our first real kiss.

A public claiming so comprehensive that when he finally ripped himself away from me, his name escaped my lips like a revelation from God.

“Adam.”

At the sound of his own name, something animal shone back at me in his gaze. A primal satisfaction that I was left so ravaged by his kiss. Instead of stepping away immediately, he gazed down at me with that intense focus and brushed the rough pad of his thumb over my kiss-stung lips.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured, and that confession seemed just for me.

A whisper in the dark.

“I missed you,” I admitted, reaching up to link our fingers around his grip on my neck.

It was only then that I realized the entire restaurant was silent, only the faint din from the kitchen peppering the dense quiet.

I blinked to clear my vision of Adam and felt a blush rush like a bush fire across my skin.

“Well,” Sebastian drawled, his accent thick as cool molasses poured from the tin. “That was quite the greeting. I don’t suppose you intend to meet the rest of my family with a similar response, Adam?”

Across the table, Giselle tried unsuccessfully to swallow her giggle.

“I hadn’t thought to, no,” Adam said easily, straightening so that he stood pressed against my side, his hand still curled into mine around my neck. “Though, not because there is a lack of beauty at this table.”

Giselle laughed fully this time, a bell-like chime that made me smile too.

“You are dangerous,” Caprice said, pointing at Adam the way a parishioner might point accusatorily at a sinner.

Adam let a slow, sinful smile spread across his full mouth. “I have been accused of much worse things.”

“I’m sure,” Giselle murmured, her expression absolutely delighted.

She laughed when she caught my look, which must have been a mix of shock and wariness. Her hand lifted from beneath the table to showcase how it was linked with her husband’s.

“I caught a charmer myself, Linnea, so I have a special appreciation for how wicked they can be.”

Beside her, Daniel Sinclair’s expression turned arrogantly lazy.

It was wildly attractive.

Adam seemed to notice because his hand squeezed my neck.

“I hope you’ll excuse the interruption, but Linnea and I have plans to celebrate her last night of work here,” he explained politely, but I could feel the tension in him vibrating at my back.

He wanted to get out from under the Lombardi spotlight. I could admit to feeling the same way. They were keen-eyed predators who saw more, I thought, than they should.

“You should both stay.”

My head snapped to look at Sebastian, who was affecting such a pose of faux casualness that I almost bought it. Only the tightening of the skin beside his eyes spoke of the gauntlet he’d thrown at Adam’s feet.

It was a dare.

Don’t run , it said. Be a man, take a seat, and play me for the ultimate prize.

Only, I wasn’t sure if Adam was the prize or myself, or perhaps—my heart kicked like a horse at my ribcage—both of us together.

Seb was looking at me, his eyes glittering in the low yellow light spilling through the romantic restaurant, but I knew it was Adam he spoke to. I could have gotten involved, but I figured this was between them.

Adam needed to be goaded more anyway.

After a tense moment, Adam spoke, and I could tell it was through a clenched jaw. “I intended to take Linnea dancing.”

I perked up at the thought and the surprise of it.

Adam did not seem like the type to take a girl dancing. He was so proper and suave that the image of him cutting loose on the dance floor was faintly humorous.

Sebastian was surprised too, if his raised brows were any indication. “Dancing?”

I tipped my head to watch Adam frown, haughty as ever. “I was forced into many dance lessons as a boy. I can assure you, I’m quite adequate on the dance floor. Regardless, Linnea’s friend, Rozhin, told me that she loves to dance.”

“You spoke to Ro?” I asked on a breath, tipping my head back even more so it rested against his hard belly.

The left corner of his mouth curled just a fraction, and his thumb swept over my pulse point. “A man uses every weapon in his arsenal, Linnea.”

“Are we at war?” I teased, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that I was still breathless.

Adam arched one brow, and though he didn’t look at Sebastian, he might as well have. “Seduction can be a kind of battle.”

“Hopefully one with considerably less blood and pain,” Seb quipped dryly.

“Blood, certainly,” Adam agreed on a throaty rumble.

Both Sebastian and I paused to suck in a steadying breath.

Beneath the cover of my heavy hair, Adam’s hand slipped from my neck to Sebastian’s forearm and shackled it briefly before returning his hold to me.

A faint ruddy flush stained Seb’s tanned cheekbones.

“I own a club downtown.” The cool French-accented words hit me like a bucket of cold water, and I shivered slightly as I dropped my head back down to look at Daniel. “We will go dancing after we eat. I already informed Chef Dev that we have extra guests and he’s adjusted our meal accordingly.”

“When did you manage that?” Giselle asked him, leaning in close to kiss the square hinge of his jaw as if she couldn’t help herself.

In answer, Daniel raised his free hand to show his phone.

“It is settled,” Caprice announced, every ounce the matriarch. “Sebastian, get Adam a chair, dio mio , he has nowhere to sit. Linnea, you must eat everything on your plate, ragazza , you are too thin.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes playfully at me as he stood to do his mother’s bidding and whispered, “You are perfect whichever way you come.”

“Even gangly and awkward as I was at sixteen?” I countered with a grin.

He stopped behind his chair to reach forward and touch two fingertips to my cheek. It was such a little gesture, but it lit me up like a lightning rod.

“Whichever way you come,” he repeated, smiling softly at me before glancing up at Adam and then going off to retrieve a chair.

When he was gone, Adam shifted to press his hips against the table beside me so we could cup my face and tilt it for his study. In the dim glow of the lamps, his eyes were dark as the night forest, hiding so many secrets I wondered if I would ever understand them.

“We can leave,” he said quietly, shutting out the others for a moment so I could be honest with him. “We had a date.”

A date.

For some reason, those words hit me like a slap.

Because I wanted it to be real .

A date with a man like Adam. Not because he was rich and famous and in need of a beard, but because he was queer and handsome and lonely and kind, and I wanted to be his girlfriend.

It was a good reminder that what we were doing was staged .

This, having dinner with Sebastian and his family, would be a good reminder to both of us that we were just playacting.

Only the stakes seemed so much higher than simply playing pretend.

Because somewhere along the line, I had forgotten this was an acting gig.

I’d thrown myself into Adam, and Sebastian, and the strange dark currents between them without holding anything back.

It was only me who would get hurt at the end of three years, and I wasn’t sure I could afford to lose Adam, Sebastian, and most likely Miranda all within that time.

So, I smiled widely, hoped the expression touched my eyes and said, “Dinner would be nice.”

A little thrill of secret pleasure zinged down my spine at Adam’s put-upon expression. He’d wanted to take me out.

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 of Swamplands ,” 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.

Because I was fairly sure my traitorous, greedy heart was beginning to fall in love with two men who were not mine to want.