35. Aurélie
We barely made it through the door for the second time in one day. I didn’t care, as long as I had him. Tomorrow, it was back to HQ. But tonight was ours.
He kicked the door shut behind us, mouth already on mine like he was trying to drink the words right out of my throat. I gasped into the kiss, hands dragging through his hair, bodies colliding as though we hadn’t touched in years rather than mere hours.
He lifted me onto the counter, his palms firm against my thighs. “You’re still in the dress,” he growled against my mouth.
“Thought you liked the dress.”
“I hate it,” he whispered. “Because I couldn’t touch you in it. Couldn’t make love to you in it. Couldn’t drop to my knees and show you what it did to me.”
Heat spiraled up my spine. I could barely breathe. Didn’t want to. Not if it meant being away from him.
He pulled back, panting, pupils blown wide. “I love you.”
I blinked. “Again.”
He kissed me once, slowly. Pressed our foreheads together.
“I love you. I love you. I fucking love you.”
He was my everything.
After everything today, this last week… I should’ve felt shattered.
My body ached, my heart was frayed, and every part of me had been through the wringer.
But in his arms, I didn’t feel like something broken needing to be fixed.
I felt... cherished. As if I was something sacred, and he was trying to help me believe it again.
God. I would’ve let him take me on the counter. The floor. The hallway. Instead, he lifted me. Carried me like I was precious and his.
His flat was dim and quiet, but his bedroom glowed from the city lights filtering through the windows. The bed was messy. The mirror on the far wall—tall and gold-rimmed—caught the reflection of my flushed cheeks and the blush-pink hue of my dress.
He set me down gently in front of the mirror, then stepped back.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “Look at you,Aurélie.”
I started to reach for the zipper.
“No.” His voice was a command. “Keep it on.”
He stepped closer, eyes locked on mine in our reflection. His fingers slid down the curve of my thighs, coaxing me lower until I was kneeling on the soft rug, legs spread, heels still on. My dress bunched just barely over my hips.
He knelt behind me, cradling my body against his chest. His legs bracketed mine, hands trailing up my arms. Goosebumps scattered down my body.
Maybe I should’ve felt exposed on display like this.
But all I could see in his eyes—reflected in the mirror—was awe.
He saw me, bruised and flushed and messy, and still looked at me like I was the most extraordinary thing he’d ever laid eyes on.
No one had ever looked at me like that before.
Not without expectation or wanting to mold me into something else. Callum… he just wanted me.
His voice was a rasp against my ear. “Touch yourself for me, love.”
My breath caught.
“Let me watch. Let me see what I’ve done to you.”
My fingers moved between my legs, wet and aching and desperate. I pressed on my clit and shivered, lashes fluttering. He groaned, low and raw, holding me there, one hand on my stomach, the other tracing lazy circles around my nipple through the dress.
“That’s it,” he whispered. “You’re so fucking perfect. I’m so proud of you.”
I sighed.
“Proud of everything you’ve done. The race. The press. The way you looked at me on that podium. You made history today.”
My thighs trembled.
“I’m proud you stood up for yourself. You proved them all wrong.” He pinched my nipple at the same time I circled my clit, and pressure rose deep in my core. “Proud of how well you wear my marks. And now,” he added, voice molten, “you’re mine.”
My orgasm hit hard and fast, spiraling through me as I moaned into the air, legs shaking.
The ache that had lived in me all night softened under his hands.
With every whisper, every touch, he stitched something back together.
Not because he needed to fix me, but because he couldn’t bear to let me forget my own worth.
It was never about proving I was strong.
It was about remembering I was loved, too—without expectations or stipulations.
But he wasn’t done.
He turned me, kissed me deep, and laid me out on the floor in front of the mirror.
The dress stayed on.
The panties were gone with one pull.
He slid into me with a curse, slow and deep and endless, still clothed and too impatient to wait.
And when I wrapped my legs around his hips and pulled him closer, he whispered it again.
“Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I promised.
He drove into me, breath ragged. “Say it again.”
I came again, the waves strong and never-ending. “I’m yours. I’ve always been yours. Je t’aime, Callum. Je t’aime. Je t’aime putain.”
He kissed me through it. Fucked me through it. Loved me through it.
And when I came for a third time, he held me as if I might disappear.
We stayed there, tangled and wrecked, the mirror catching all the pieces of us that didn’t know how to be apart anymore.
One week had changed everything.
He smoothed the hair from my face. “I’ll remember this forever,” he whispered.
He said that, but what I’d remember was the way it felt to be completely undone without fear. To be loved loudly and held softly in the same breath. That, after everything, I could still feel whole.
“So will I.”