10. Sebastian
10
SEBASTIAN
“ A re you ready to go, darling?” Savannah asked me the moment I walked into their beautiful, light-filled kitchen the following morning.
She stood at the counter drinking coffee from a dainty cup and saucer with a gold rim while she looked over her tablet. The drinking and lateness of the night before had absolutely no bearing on her beauty. Her skin was unblemished and glowing as though she’d pulled down the moonbeams and swallowed them whole. In a pink tweed skirt suit that was no doubt designer and high heels, she looked ready to meet with Vogue .
I blinked at her a little owlishly.
She sighed, but a little smile played at the edges of her pink-painted mouth. “Late night?”
I grunted because, yes, it had been, and the guest house contained no coffee.
Her laughter roused me from my stupor. “I saw you in the pool with Miranda’s unfortunate-looking daughter before I went to sleep.”
“She’s a kid,” I corrected with a frown because that was ungenerous of her. “I’m sure she’ll grow into herself. There are many ways for a woman to be beautiful, and very few of them have anything to do with her looks.”
Something softened slightly in her face as she looked at me that made something soften within me too. “I’m surprised I didn’t tire you out.”
I was too tired to flirt well, but I managed a crooked grin as I stepped close to take the coffee from her slim fingers and swallow it all down in one gulp. Finished, I kissed her fragrant cheek. “You riled me up and left me wanting, and you know it.”
The sound she made was practically a purr of satisfaction. “I know nothing of the sort, I’m sure.”
“Mmm,” I hummed as I noticed the fancy Italian espresso machine on the counter and set about making a fresh cup without asking for permission. “Do you want another?”
“Well, seeing as you stole mine, yes, I would.”
“It was for your own good really,” I teased. “If I’m driving precious cargo, I need to be alert.”
Her coyness fell away like a veil, and a genuine little “O” of sweet shock formed between her lips. Unable to give up my mission for coffee, I sacrificed one hand to tug her closer and tuck her into my side. As I tamped the coffee, I pressed another kiss to her hair.
“Don’t act so surprised, duchessa mia ,” I murmured. “You must know how precious you are already. It can’t take a poor Italian driver to make you see sense.”
But to my surprise, she shivered a little at my words and pushed just a little bit closer into the curve of my arm. “Not everyone can be as kind to themselves as I’m coming to find you are to yourself.”
I shrugged a shoulder and pressed the button to start the percolation. The rich scent of expensive Italian coffee wafted between us like an aphrodisiac.
“If I am stuck living in my own head for the entirety of my life, it only makes sense to be kind to myself,” I explained.
Savvy looked up at me, and even in heels, it was a long way to look. She seemed so small then, so much younger than I knew she was. It was a vulnerability that beckoned me closer, that tempted me to cut the line on my parachute and tumble into the depths of love with her.
What a complicated, wonderful creature she was.
“I want you,” she said softly, intimately, her hand curling into my white dress shirt. “But I doubt we have time before my brunch meeting.”
“I can be efficient,” I said. A fast flash of wolfish teeth.
“Afraid there’s no time for fun this morning, my beauties,” Adam declared in that posh accent, sweeping into the room like a king in his court. The morning light glinted in his golden hair like a crown. “Sebastian and I must hurry if we’re to make it to the lot in time.”
Irritation crumpled Savannah’s smooth brow. “Excuse me, but I believe I have priority over using Sebastian’s services. I was the one to find him after all.”
“Yes, and what a good eye you have,” Adam agreed, sinking a proprietary hand into her carefully done hair and sealing her open mouth with a heated kiss. When he pulled away, her earlier annoyance was mingled with a little bit of awe.
I knew now what it was like to be kissed by Adam Meyers, so I understood completely. Unbidden, my fingers moved to my own mouth, pressing into the slight divot in my full lower lip as though I could feel the imprint of Adam’s mouth still there.
He caught me then, eyes brightening as they swept over my face, and noticed the raw expression there.
“Sebastian,” he murmured low, resting his hip against the island counter in mock casualness. “Come here and bid me good morning like my wife.”
Savannah made a dainty little hmph noise that I would have called a scoff on someone less elegant. “It was you who kissed me, Adam.”
“Yes,” he agreed before raising a brow at me. “Sebastian?”
I hesitated, shame and eagerness warring inside me. It felt wrong to want this. To want to go to him when he called like I was some kind of trained dog. To go to him and worse, to kiss him. His mouth a hot claim on mine.
My hands curled into fists and sweat broke out lightly on my forehead.
“Go to him,” Savannah cooed, and when I turned my gaze to her, she looked predatory and almost vaguely malicious. As though my discomfiture was a delight to her. As though it turned her on to know that I’d go against my grain just to pleasure her.
Fuck, these two would do my head in if I let them.
So why did I want to let them?
Before I could let caution eat into me too deeply, I took the five steps forward to Adam, watching the glint of deep satisfaction in his eyes as I obeyed him.
A shiver bit into my spine and left a permanent imprint.
“Good morning,” Adam said, his tone and expression exceedingly helpful like he was assisting me rehearse my lines for a play.
“Good morning,” I said, a little distracted by the way stubble dusted his square jawline like shards of pure gold. He had one of those divots in his chin, not a dimple exactly, but a depression that I thought my thumb might fit into perfectly.
A small hand found its way to the back of my neck, nails scratching at the short hairs there.
“Kiss him for me,” Savannah encouraged, her thumb stroking over my rapidly beating pulse point.
I swallowed, but the moisture had fled my mouth. This was so alien to me, the idea of kissing a man and more, the very real truth that I wanted to kiss a man.
But who could resist someone like Adam? So handsome and talented and shockingly kind.
Someone who I’d admired so much that esteem had led to my own desire to be an actor, to wholly embody a character so seamlessly the way I watched Adam do on the screen time and time again.
Not me.
He watched me through lazily lowered lids, and I knew he wouldn’t make it easy for me. I had to go to him with only the fuel of Savannah’s desire at my back.
I stepped just a little bit closer, one foot between both of his so our thighs brushed together. His lips parted, tongue sweeping out to wet that lush mouth.
I placed my palm on his chest over his navy knit sweater, testing his firmness before sliding it up to his neck, warm and strong, and finally to his jaw. It was a square ridge of bone beneath my hand, so different from Savannah’s delicately curved face.
“Today, please,” Savannah ordered, but there was excitement there, an eagerness she couldn’t hide.
But I was still a proud Italian man, so I didn’t press into Adam’s body as he leaned against the counter. Instead, I tightened my grip on the side of his face, fingers in his crisp hair, and hauled him toward me. His eyes flared wide in the split second before I covered his mouth with mine.
He tasted like spearmint toothpaste, and he smelled like bergamot and pepper. A small moan of surprised arousal moved up his throat and over his tongue onto mine. I ate it off and delved deeper, slanting his head and pressing my body more firmly along the line of his. He was hard everywhere, with no soft edges to press into, only the friction of two muscled bodies meeting.
It was strange to realize that I could stand in that kitchen kissing this man for hours and that much of that desire was separate from the excitement of Savannah wanting me to kiss her husband for her. So much of it existed just for Adam, the person–– man ––that he was.
“Enough,” came her ragged voice.
I remembered myself, pulling away slightly, our warm breaths shivering over my damp mouth, but Adam hauled me back. Disobeying his wife or because he couldn’t resist, I wasn’t sure.
Either way, he sucked on my tongue in a way that had me imagining him sucking on other things before abruptly disengaging from me. My hand was still caught in his hair even as he resumed his casual lean, and for a moment, I was both embarrassed to be caught clinging and reluctant to let go.
“Well,” Savannah said, a little primly even though her voice held a mild tremor. “That was certainly a lovely way to start my morning. And, I hope, a precursor to how I will end my night?”
I was still staring a little bewildered at Adam, but he smiled easily at his wife, almost blandly like he was completely unaffected. “Yes, darling, if you’d like. For now, we must be off.”
He pressed a kiss to the side of his wife’s head as he moved out of the room on brisk strides. I could hear him in the foyer, gathering his coat and belongings.
“Sebastian?” Savannah called lightly.
When I turned to her, one side of her smile was caught between her teeth. She pressed close to me, and something about her body against mine grounded me again. Her hands were cool when they reached up to tidy my hair and smooth down my button-up.
“You look very smart today,” she praised. “Tonight, I’d like to continue what we just started. Would you like that?”
I settled into my old skin with a little shiver and grinned wolfishly at her as I cupped the back of her neck in my big palm. “Would you? I think we both know I’m willing to do filthy things to please my duchessa .”
The noise she made was practically a purr. “Excellent. I’ll see you for dinner then, and I fully intend for you to be the dessert.”
I laughed at her, feeding the remnants of sound to her on a brief, deep kiss before I followed Adam’s path into the foyer. He was waiting for me in a luxurious dark grey overcoat and loose Burberry scarf, his leather-gloved hands tapping away at his phone. A lock of wavy golden hair fell onto his forehead, and the gold of his Audemars Piguet was nearly the same shade as those silken waves. He looked every inch like the movie star and international sensation that he was, and it occurred to me how many people fantasized about being in exactly the position I found myself, perched on the precipice of being his lover.
He caught me looking and seemed almost surprised, eyes flaring wide slightly as he looked up from his phone. It surprised me in turn, because how could such a man, a movie star at that, be shocked at catching an admirer enjoying him?
His expression smoothed quickly into a small, self-satisfied smile, but not before I saw that glimmer of vulnerability. It made me like him even more, which was dangerous and strange.
Having a kind of… crush on a man.
A crush on Adam Meyers.
I snorted softly, me and most other women and men on the planet.