Finish Line (Her Editions)

Chapter 1

Champagne bubbles fizzed across my tongue as I swallowed the last of my glass and set it down.

Then I leaned in and kissed the sweetness from Callum’s mouth, my ring flashing in the flickering candlelight like a secret between us.

He was already smiling when I pulled back, eyes half-lidded, jaw loose, the kind of smile that said he’d do anything I asked.

So I didn’t ask. I just plucked another strawberry from the lavish display on the table beside us and held it up for him to bite.

His teeth sank into the fruit, slow and deliberate, juice running down to my knuckles.

I watched the way his mouth worked around it—how his throat flexed when he swallowed—and felt my core turn molten at the thought of him doing that to me.

Then he licked the trail of juice off my fingers with one slow swipe of his tongue, winding around the inside of my knuckle like it was something sacred.

He plucked the mangled fruit from my hand and dropped it onto the tray, his eyes never leaving mine.

And before I could breathe again, he dragged me forward into a kiss that stole all of the air from my lungs.

We were tangled together on a pillowy, sun-bleached loveseat beside a low teakwood table, Callum settled sideways as I straddled his lap, one knee tucked into the cushions. His arm rested along the back of the loveseat, like he’d claimed every inch of it—and me—long before we sat down.

We were somewhere between dessert and disaster, drunk on each other under the stars.

Okay—and maybe the free-flowing champagne. We were on our second bottle, without a single care in the world.

The sea crashed against the shore a few meters away, white foam catching the moonlight, while our villa sat perched at the top of the dunes like something out of a dream. Its warm golden lights cast long, romantic shadows down the winding private path that led straight to us.

Everything else had gone quiet.

One strap of my white sundress slipped off my shoulder, the skirt loose and wrinkled from being pressed between his hips and mine all night. His white linen shirt was mostly unbuttoned, the front hem still wet from the champagne I’d spilled laughing ten minutes ago.

Or maybe twenty. Time had stopped making sense the moment I said yes.

God. I said yes.

A giggle slipped out of me, soft and disbelieving. Callum caught it like he’d been waiting for it, his hand curling under my jaw, thumb brushing the edge of my smile like he could feel it from the inside out.

“What?” he asked, voice wrecked from kissing me. “What’s going on in that pretty little head, ma fiancée?”

Ma fiancée.

Be still, my beating heart. And my wildly, inappropriate clit. And the part of me that just clenched around nothing.

RIP Aurélie Dubois. Cause of death: being called ma fiancée in Callum’s irresistibly sexy Scottish accent. Resurrected immediately as Mrs. Aurélie Fraser: his slut, legend, and soon-to-be wife.

Not Madame Fraser. That sounded too… Dom. And I was the sub who sometimes liked to bark back before I begged.

My thighs squeezed around him, and I didn’t even pretend to hide it. I was sitting on his lap, facing him, legs straddling either side of his hips. He dropped his hand to rest low on my waist. The other toyed with the hem of my dress like he was deciding whether to hike it up or tear it off.

“You keep calling me that,” I whispered, breath hitching as his fingers slipped just slightly higher. “And I might come before we even get inside.”

His grin turned wicked. “That’s not a threat, baby. That’s a challenge.”

Then he caught my left hand again and kissed the inside of my ring finger, soft and reverent, like it was a vow all its own.

My engagement ring glinted in the candlelight.

He didn’t stop at one press of his lips.

He did it to each finger, one by one, then slid his mouth to the pulse point of my wrist and sucked.

His mouth lingered there, lips dragging over the spot where my heart beat the hardest, before slowly trailing down the inside of my arm. And then lower. And lower still. He kissed along my elbow, across the slope of my shoulder, until he found drops of champagne I’d spilled on my collarbone.

I hadn’t even noticed it, but he had. Of course he had. He always knew how to find the parts of me that needed his attention. His mouth. His teeth. The kind of touch that made me unravel without a single word.

“Messy little thing,” he murmured.

“Clean me up then.”

He did—tongue first, then teeth—I arched with a whimper, clutching his shoulders like they were the only stable ground I had left.

My breath caught. I shifted my hips, rolling against his cock, and God.

I still wasn’t wearing any panties. Just the thin cotton of his linen trousers between us, hot and rough and infuriatingly in the way.

The pressure shot straight to my core like a jolt of electricity, like his mouth on my wrist was wired to my clit.

My nipples hardened beneath the thin fabric of my dress, and a quiet, helpless noise escaped my throat before I could stop it.

His hands weren’t still—not for a second.

One stayed at my waist, gripping tighter, thumb dragging in slow circles over my hip bone like he was trying to keep me grounded.

The other slipped beneath the edge of my dress and skimmed the inside of my thigh, dangerously close to where I needed him, but never quite enough.

Just the heat of his palm. Just the promise.

I was soaked. Squirming. Half-intoxicated and dizzy from the heat pooling low in my belly, and we hadn’t even made it off the beach.

“I still don’t believe this is real,” I murmured, dazed,aching, and stupidly in love. My forehead tipped to rest against his temple, too overwhelmed to hold myself upright. My hips writhed again, chasing friction, every nerve in my body alight and greedy.

“It is.” He turned his face to gently capture my lips with his. “You’re mine. Forever now.”

I melted into him, hands twisting into the hair at the back of his neck. My lips brushed his just once, teasing, before I whispered, “Do we get to start planning our wedding for real now?”

He chuckled. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, mock-offended, then dropped his voice to something dark and amused. “Did you think we weren’t before?”

I opened my mouth to sass him, but he didn’t give me the chance.

“All that talk of peonies and wearing white and bending you over the altar?” He nipped my jaw; I shivered. “You think I forgot that?”

A choked, filthy sound clawed out of my throat. “No,” I managed on an exhale.

He hummed. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it. You, looking like a sin in satin while I make you mine twice in one night. My ring on your finger. My cock buried so deep in you my name will be imprinted inside you.”

Then he kissed me, hard and claiming, until I sighed into his mouth. He pulled back, but I chased him and bit his earlobe hard enough to make him flinch.

“You proposed, Callum. You don’t get to half-ass the husband part now by escaping wedding planning.”

His grin turned downright dangerous. “And right this moment…” he breathed, one hand cupping my breast through my dress, thumb brushing over my nipple until it peaked for him.

I ground my hips against him, hard enough to make him groan, and he flexed up into me with a sound that punched straight through my core.

His eyes flared—twin flames in the dark—and I saw our entire future in that look. The rings. The ceremony. The rest of our fucking lives.

“What would make me a good husband to you?” he murmured, voice pitched like a prayer. “What do you need, mon c?ur?”

“I want you to fuck me like one.”

“You want me to fuck you like one.”

I rolled my hips again, chasing it—chasing him—the orgasm already tingling, reaching its fingers through my nerves like a warning. My breathing picked up, ragged and shallow, as I clutched at his shoulders for balance.

“Yes,” I gasped. “I need you. God, Callum, I need you.”

“Oh, baby,” he said, low and dark, fingertips skimming higher up my thigh. “You think husbands fuck their wives whenever they whine pretty?”

“I think mine should.” I batted my lashes. Bit my bottom lip. Let my voice go all soft and syrupy as I rolled over him again. “Please fuck me like a good husband would.”

Callum melted. Visibly. An adorable little grin tugged at his lips. I softened into him, sweet and needy and obedient. He shifted, and I nearly sobbed when his touch left my thigh. He was so close.

He flexed his hands, dragging me down slow and hard over his cock again, the friction enough to make me tremble.

Then again. And again. I rode him, soaking him, grinding over the thick, perfect pressure of his cock, the friction from the fabric equal parts heaven and torture—too much and not enough, rough and soft against my pussy.

His pants were drenched now, gliding easier from the lubrication of me completely losing control in his lap. And every time I tried to shift the angle, to chase more, he pulled back just slightly, controlling every movement like he owned my body—and knew exactly how to keep me on the edge.

He clicked his tongue once, shaking his head. “Mm-mm. Not when she’s being a brat.”

“N-No,” I stammered, whimpering as my thighs trembled around him. “I’ll be good. I promise. Mon fiancé… mon amour… please…”

Callum’s eyes went half-lidded with hunger. “Does it make me a sadist,” he murmured, “that I love watchin’ ye beg?”

And fuck. His accent thickened, rasping over the syllables like velvet-wrapped gravel. The g in “beg” disappeared entirely. His mouth dragged low and loose around the word, like he wanted to taste it and keep it all to himself. Because when I begged, it was only for him.

I moaned loudly and dug my fingers into his shoulders, eyes fluttering shut. The breeze whipped through my hair, lifting it from my clammy skin. Cool where I burned for him, hot where I was already unraveling.