Page 57 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

ADAM

B acchanalia was not my favorite club, but it was serviceable.

I much preferred Club Dionysus in London now that it was under new management, with its large exhibition space and a beehive of small, private rooms filled with kink-specific equipment.

Or maybe it was just that, even with masks at Bacchanalia, the club was too filled with people I knew to be thoroughly enjoyable.

I sat alone in a small black velvet booth sipping scotch while I watched a Domme punish her male sub over a spanking bench on the main stage when yet another person stopped in my periphery to chat.

“Sod off,” I growled, done with niceties for the night after a dozen others had come by to talk shop while I was clearly trying to brood and let off steam.

“Excuse me, sir,” one of the barmen apologized. “I only came to deliver a note.”

I winced at my rudeness and slipped a fifty-dollar bill onto his tray before I took the heavy card stock from it. “I apologize for my shortness.”

The slim man just ducked his chin and retreated from the table, leaving me to my scotch and the envelope.

I kept my eye mostly on the stage as I opened the note, expecting to see a summons from John-Julian, the proprietor, perhaps, or an invitation from a couple playing in one of the rooms even though I wasn’t known for my participation.

Sometimes couples just liked to show off, and I was often a willing voyeur.

But this was not from some random couple.

Lord Meyers,

A gift awaits you in Private Room C. Please wear the mask hanging on the door before you enter and do not come unless you are ready to play. Be prepared to pay a toll for the honor.

Xoxo,

S&L

As if I was in any doubt of who had written the message, along with an old-fashioned bronze key, there was an enclosed Polaroid photo of a man and woman on their knees with their heads bowed.

One dark and masculine, one blond and feminine, both collared with red string that ended in paper tags that I could barely make out read For Adam Meyers’s Use Only .

I hissed as my cock hardened too fast in my trousers, the length of it crushed against my zipper, my head light from the rush of blood down south.

Fuck me .

They had found a way into my club.

Into my dirty sanctuary.

And trussed themselves up like fat Christmas geese for me to devour.

I closed my eyes so tight stars burst beneath my lids, and I fought to breathe through the tightness of desire in my chest.

Was there any way I could resist this summons?

Any way to say no yet again when all I wanted was the two people waiting for me on their knees in Private Room C?

No.

Absolutely not.

My resolve died a quick, bloodless death on the seat of the black velvet booth as I held a photo of Sebastian and Linnea marked with my name in my hands.

They wanted me enough to risk coming here, to put themselves wholly into my hands, to pursue me even when I did not deserve them and told them as much again and again.

Enough was enough.

I might not ever deserve their goodness, but maybe, if I worked hard enough, I could earn it over time.

Friendship, it seemed, was not enough for any of us.

And even though I had no bloody idea where any of this could go for the three of us together, I was willing to admit Linnea was right.

We were on a path together now, and only an idiot would turn his back on walking through life with two people like them.

I stood before I had even opened my eyes, the photo and card secured in my hand, but my scotch forgotten on the table.

“Ah, Meyers,” someone said, stepping into my path as I started across the main room to the hall leading to the private room on the right.

I neatly moved around him without stopping and increased my pace until I was almost speed walking.

The only thought in my head was them.

Sebastian and Linnea.

Waiting for me.

Beckoning me.

Daring me to be my basest, rawest self.

By the time I reached the door to Private Room C, my heart was hammering inside my chest, my blood hot enough to sear me from the inside out. A mask hung beneath the gold plaque naming the room, and I laughed soundlessly at the sight of its moon-like texture.

I slipped out of my plain black mask and into the moon’s embrace before I fitted the key into the lock and turned the door open under my palm.

Without looking deeply into the shadows of the low-lit room, I closed the door behind me, breathed in deeply to collect myself, and then turned to face my lovers.

The room was themed like a harem, everything jewel-toned and draped in swathes of silk fabric, layered in deep, lush pillows.

The bed was enormous and built into the floor to the left, while the right showcased a beautiful spanking bench, a wall of impact implements and toys displayed like glassware in a dining room, and a St. Andrew’s Cross with red velvet padding.

But I noticed all of that only in my periphery because my total focus was centered on the two bodies kneeling in front of a low bench facing the door. Their heads were dipped toward the floor just as in the photo, their hands palms down on their spread and bent knees.

The handwritten tags lingered in the hollow of both their throats.

For Adam Meyers’s Use Only .

On the left side of either throat, a love bite blossomed like a dark rose, a signature they’d signed onto each other for my benefit.

Fuck, they were glorious.

Perfect and depraved.

And mine if I was brave enough to let myself have them.

“What pretty presents someone left for me,” I drawled as I came deep into the room and walked a circle around them.

The room was utterly silent, with not even a hint of music to distract from the quiet sound of our breathing.

I stopped in front of Sebastian and took the tag between my fingers.

“For my exclusive use,” I pondered aloud, pressing my foot gently against the front of Seb’s trousers along the ridge of his hardening cock. “What might I do to you, Sebastian?”

To my surprise, he tipped his head back to stare up at me with glittering eyes, a small, wolfish grin widening under the edge of his black velvet mask. “Whatever you want, Adamo. You just have to earn it first.”

My brows raised into my hairline. “Oh, and how might I do that?”

“We’re here,” he said, signalling Linnea and himself. “We want you. I want you. And friendship has never been good enough to quench the hunger I have for you. Ten years later and I am still starving for everything you have to give me.”

“Sebastian.” I said his name because in moments when words didn’t suffice to describe the enormity of my emotions, only his name could come close.

“I need you to prove you want me the very same way,” he declared, bold and brave even on his knees at my feet. “I need you to show Linnea and me that we aren’t the only ones willing to fight for what is between us.”

“And what is between us?” I dared to ask.

“An impossible universe,” he said solemnly.

I swallowed thickly as I reached out to run a thumb along the strong, stubbled line of his jaw until it rested on the crest of his full lower lip.

“I don’t want to hurt you again,” I confessed and then dug deeper so the words tasted bloody on my tongue, excavated from my very bone marrow. “I don’t want to hurt myself again.”

“Then don’t,” he said simply. “I understand the score. I’m not eighteen and naive anymore.

I know I will never walk down the beach holding your hand, telling everyone the moon is my lover.

But I can still feel pride knowing you are mine, even if I cannot touch you as I wish in public.

Having you in any way is better than not at all. ”

His eyes were luminous, lit from within by the eternal flame of his faith and optimism. He made my heart ache with a powerful beat, strong enough to crack open my ribs and fall out of my chest to get close to him.

“Do you agree?” he asked.

I swallowed once, twice, fighting past the fear instinct, the memories of losing my mother, Juliet, in a car crash as a boy, finding Gregory in bloody bathwater, seeing Bryce killed in action after starting to fall in love with him, watching Sebastian walk out of my life during my panic attack, waiting for Savannah to leave me, realizing Oscar Hampton had my neck in a guillotine…

Those “zombie” years after Sebastian and Savannah left, when I’d been weak enough to let Oscar back into my life, had been one long slog of drudgery, shame, and regret with nothing but acting to punctuate my life with glimmers of contentment.

Since Sebastian and Linnea had re-entered my life, none of those things had ceased to exist, but my sense of gravity had adjusted. It was easier to stand tall and have the courage to want and wish again because I had their light to guide me out of those dark memories and moments.

Love made the pain of living worthwhile.

That was what they had been trying to show me and tell me for the past two months.

I just had to reach out and accept the hearts they held out on their proverbial sleeves, and I would be a much richer and happier man than I ever had been before.

Of course, it didn’t mean Oscar would stop trying to sabotage my career or that it would be easy to come out to the public as a bisexual man, let alone one in a throuple.

It didn’t mean my father, who barely talked to me as it was, wouldn’t throw a fit if he found out his son liked to suck cock.

It didn’t mean I would get to play Anton Daventry, the legendary British spy, a role I had lusted after since I was just a lad watching films for the first time at my father’s knee.

But it meant I had people at my back who would soothe me through the hurts and cheer me through the successes.

It meant I wouldn’t be alone, not ever again, so long as I trusted them and gave them reason to trust me in turn.

I used my hand on Seb’s face to encourage him to stand.