Page 66 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

LINNEA

M y leg wouldn’t stop jittering as the limousine inched closer to the front of the receiving line at the Dolby Theatre, where the Academy Awards, more colloquially known as the Oscars, were held each year.

Adam’s big hand found my jumping limb and squeezed tightly enough to quell the movement.

When I looked over from the window, he was studying me.

“Nervous?” he asked. “You didn’t seem so at the Critics Choice Awards.”

“No,” I agreed, “but they didn’t seem so…iconic.”

Adam’s mouth flexed into a little smile.

“This is much of the same, just on a grander scale. I’ll be honest, all the award shows are dull as hell.

Not enough bathroom breaks, too many egos in one room, and an absurd amount of droning on in the speeches.

Adrian Brody once spoke for over five minutes. ”

“Wow, you really paint a picture,” I drawled. “And to think I was excited.”

“I think you’ll enjoy it,” Adam said with that coy smugness I had once found so annoying and now couldn’t help but find charming. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Oh, and how will you do that?” I asked, curling into him as he tugged me closer so I was basically in his lap.

It would probably wrinkle my dress, but I wanted to be against him more than I cared about a few wrinkles.

Besides, Chaucer was in the front with the driver and I thought she might have a portable steamer in her Mary Poppins-esque tote.

“You do know I’m a world-famous movie star with connections everywhere?” he asked haughtily.

I laughed and watched as his mouth edged into that little grin.

“Okay, well, I trust you,” I said, already feeling much more relaxed as I snuggled into his side and took one of his hands between my own to fiddle with his long, blunt-tipped fingers. God, even they were gorgeous.

“Linnea,” he called after a moment, slipping his hand out of mine to use to tip my chin up so I was staring into his intense gaze.

“Mr. Meyers,” I teased.

His lids lowered just a little, further proof if I needed it that he loved being called that.

“How do you feel about being Mrs. Meyers one day?” he asked, and suddenly, the car felt like a confessional, a sacred space for secrets and whispered prayers.

Mrs. Meyers.

It was strange to think of the title as belonging to me instead of Savannah, whom I had known as Mrs. Meyers for most of the time I’d been acquainted with her through Miranda.

And there was no mistaking that I hated Savannah.

She had squandered the incredible love of two men who deserved someone who would move heaven and earth for them.

Yet the idea of being Linnea Meyers?

Adam’s wife.

His partner .

Of standing beside him as his witness through life, as his sword or his shield or his pillow to rest his weary head?

I loved the idea of that.

And it had very little to do with my obligations through our contract.

Adam deserved to have someone in his life who would fight for him. Even Sebastian hadn’t fought, though he had only been freshly nineteen and forced out by Adam’s chilling dictatorial ways.

I resolved as I sat pressed into his warm side, that I would fight for Adam until he no longer deserved my love.

And I honestly couldn’t see that happening.

Ever.

So I turned deeper into his embrace and looked full on into his perfectly handsome face, straight into those haunted green eyes.

“I’m not sure if, in this day and age, a woman has to take her husband’s last name,” I said lightly, just to mess with him because he was a man who needed to be teased and often. “But I love the sound of being Linnea Meyers almost as much as I love the sound of being your wife.”

“Even if I were to rip up the contract between us right now?” he dared with a raised brow and narrowed eyes.

He wouldn’t, of course, but it meant something that he wanted to test my feelings.

It implied that he had feelings of his own.

“Well, you made me swear I wouldn’t fall in love with you,” I reminded him. “But as you promised no such thing, I could probably be convinced to stick around, even if you didn’t need me to salvage your reputation anymore.”

“Oh, I need you,” he murmured, his gaze like a caress along my face. “I need you in ways I did not know I could feel need.”

“Take what you want,” I offered. “I’m here and I’m yours.”

His mouth was on mine before I had even finished speaking, his hand fixing my face in place so that he could eat desperately at my mouth. I groaned, pressing into him, opening my mouth for the savagery of his kiss.

It would absolutely ruin my makeup, but that’s why I had a touch up kit in my clutch.

“We’re here, snoggers,” Chaucer called through the now open partition. “Save some of it for the red carpet, please. Adam, you’ve completely ruined her lipstick and her hair. Can you keep your hands to yourself for even a moment?”

“It wouldn’t be a carpet without Chaucer reprimanding me for something,” Adam muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

I giggled as I whipped out the compact mirror and lipstick to repair the damage, and Adam used the edge of his pocket square to wipe off the transfer to his own mouth.

“Not exactly my colour,” he said dryly, then watched me laugh again before pressing his lips quickly to mine again.

“Enough of that,” Chaucer snapped, but she was smiling. “Get out of this car and go be fabulously pretty for the evening and woefully bored.”

“Will do,” Adam said cheerily as someone opened my door and offered a hand to help me out. “Wait, I’ll do that.”

He left the car from the other side before I could insist I was fine to get out of the car myself, and then he was suddenly pulling the door open farther and reaching in to help me smoothly to my feet. His arm braced me as flashing lights exploded across my vision.

He had learned to avoid the flares a long time ago, but I was still momentarily blinded by the chaos of cameras.

We had to make our way slowly through the crowds of cars and arriving celebrities, escorted by an event planner and a security guard, until we reached the security screening area.

It was a part of the carpet they didn’t show on TV that was decidedly unglamorous as they checked ID tags, X-rayed bags, and passed us through metal detectors.

Once we were done with that, Adam took my arm again and we stopped at the edge of the red carpet entry.

“I know I already briefed you and you’ve done a short version at the CCAs, but first we have the step and repeat wall for photos.

We’ll have most taken together, but a few apart.

Then there are the more traditional media outlet interviews, the fan section where we can sign autographs and take some photos for the masses or just blow through with a few waves, and the social media zone where we might be asked to participate in content creation.

” He paused to make a face, which made me laugh because it was well known that Adam abhorred social media.

Given the extremity of his fame and the blackmail Oscar had been holding over his head for almost a decade, I couldn’t really blame him.

“Finally, the photo bridge where they’ll shoot your marvellous dress in a three-sixty camera, and then we can actually move into the theatre. ”

“I got it,” I assured him.

“It will probably take us close to an hour to run the gauntlet,” he warned. “And we’ll be stopped by some of my mates and acquaintances along the way. If it gets to be too much, just say your safe word and I’ll extract us from the situation.”

I grinned. “Adam, I’ve got this. I know these events aren’t your favorite, but honestly, I’m new on the scene and I’m actually fairly excited to be walking the red carpet at the Academy Awards with the Adam Meyers.”

He scoffed lightly at my teasing, but a little pleased smile remained tucked into the folds of his mouth. “Well then, prepare for battle.”

It wasn’t exactly battle, but it was a kind of oddly organized, overwhelming chaos.

People screamed Adam’s name desperately from the fan bleachers, and photographers shouted their directions as we posed in front of the step-and-repeat wall.

Adam allowed them to take a handful of photos of both of us separately before he collected me with a possessive arm around my waist, shocking me by curling me deeply into his side and slightly over his arm in a backward bend.

“Adam.” I laughed breathlessly even as I steadied myself with my arms around his neck.

He grinned, a wide, boyish expression of real joy, and then he kissed me.

The explosion of flashes from cameras blinded me even with my eyes closed.

His tongue parted my lips and dived deep, plundering me with a deliberate thoroughness as if we were in the privacy of his home and not in front of thousands.

When he finally parted from me, my knees were weak and my lips were swollen. He didn’t move far, righting us but staying close enough to rub his thumb under my mouth to capture the smudged lipstick.

“I think you might need to reapply,” he murmured, eyes dancing.

“What has gotten into you tonight?” I asked, but there was no reprimand in my tone.

To be so publicly claimed resonated somewhere deep in my soul.

The idea that a man who was so accomplished, so wonderfully talented, and beneath it, almost terribly tender and sweet could want to claim me?

My heart turned over in my chest, that sensation of a dream coming true that was almost painful.

“You, Linnea,” he said somberly. “The sunbeam lighting my lonely dark.”

I slid my hand up to cup his face and said, “I have waited a long time for someone to say my name like that.”

“And how do I say it?”

“Like a poem and a prayer,” I admitted. “I only knew it was possible because of the way Sebastian has always spoken your name.”

Adam gripped my chin in his big hand so delicately it made me shiver. “You are his poem, I think, and my prayer. I did not even know I wished for you before you showed up.”