12. Aurélie
The hotel lobby looked like the kind of place that charged extra if you breathed too hard on the marble.
A single crystal chandelier hung like a halo above the front desk, glittering with every movement.
Somewhere near the elevators, a grand piano sat untouched—ornamental and probably out of tune with reality.
And I couldn't fucking breathe. Not because of the chandelier or the goddamn piano, but because Callum was standing behind me. Smug, calm, and smiling like a man who hadn't just made me soak his lap so thoroughly he'd come in his pants and needed to adjust his shirt when we climbed out of the car.
Heat licked up my neck. He told me not to apologize, but that was…
an uncontrollable reaction. I glanced back at him, only for the memory to hit hard .
His soaked sleeves. How he held me tightly through his own release.
The moment of quiet after. The way he looked at me as if I'd bled starlight into his hands.
Fuck.
I snapped my gaze forward and tried to act normal. No, I absolutely wasn’t still aching in lace that clung like a second skin.
I didn’t even blink—was that normal?—and walked straight to the front desk with the kind of casual ease that said I belong in five-star spaces , not I'm still leaking through my panties and my boyfriend behind me is covered in our cum .
Callum hung back with his arms crossed and a cocky little smirk on his face that screamed, You know exactly what you did, mon c?ur. Wet stains on full display.
Mon Dieu, kill me now, please.
“Bonjour,” I said, adjusting my purse strap and bouquet of flowers as I handed my ID over. “I believe my bags were delivered to my room earlier. I just need a keycard.” I was emotionally drained now and ready to be in bed with him, not having to interact with the hotel personnel.
The receptionist tapped a few keys, then smiled wide. “Of course, Miss Dubois. Thank you for booking our penthouse suite.”
I blinked rapidly, my brain playing catch up. “Your what?” Then, as the words sank in, I turned slowly, eyes narrowed on the gorgeous bastard grinning at me as though he hadn’t just spent the last fifteen minutes destroying my central nervous system. “Callum.”
He lifted a brow and looked entirely too pleased with himself. “I changed the reservation.”
"When… how?—"
"You shared your calendar with Antoine and me, love."
Oh, this motherfucker. I gave that to his pilot so we could coordinate my flight schedule to take care of Callum last week. What I didn’t expect was for Callum to take matters into his own hands and change my hotel reservations.
I huffed and turned back to the front desk. The woman handed me a keycard, but I couldn’t look away from her fast enough. I felt Callum's heat behind me before I felt his arm sliding around my waist like a tether.
“Come on, love,” he murmured with a tender kiss to my temple. “Let’s enjoy the view.”
" Impossible ," I grumbled in French, thanking the attendant before marching toward the lifts. Callum kept his arm draped around my waist with a grip that said I already own you , and walked with the confidence of a man who'd just brought me to my knees with nothing but his voice and his fingers.
He was too goddamn cocky for his own good.
And if I thought the ride up was going to cool us off, I was dead fucking wrong.
When I was done being his good girl for the night, I was going to make him beg on his knees for more.
The doors to the lift slid shut behind us with a hushed ding , sealing us in a gold-trimmed box of polished mirrors and low jazz.
My breath was already uneven. Callum stood close behind me, maybe a little too close.
His body heat felt palpable in the small space.
I didn’t move, because if I did, I’d rub against him.
And if I rubbed against him, I’d melt all over again. I needed to get a fucking grip.
But then he leaned in, breath warm against the shell of my ear. “Still dripping?” he murmured, voice low and sinful.
I slow-blinked at my reflection. My cheeks were flushed, lips kiss-bruised, hair haphazardly falling out of my loose ponytail. I looked like I’d just had the orgasm of my life in the backseat of a chauffeured sedan.
Because I most definitely had.
And now he was behind me, radiating dominance and restraint, looking like a man who wanted to leave fingerprints on every inch of my skin.
“Spread your legs,” he said, barely louder than a whisper.
“Callum—”
“I didn’t ask you to speak, mon c?ur. I asked you to obey.”
My knees went soft. I conceded, unable to do anything other than follow his direction.
The moment my stance widened, his hand slid up under my skirt from behind, the other holding my hip firmly to yank me back into him, right into the wet mess plastering his clothes to his hard, muscular body.
I sucked in a breath as his palm found the curve of my inner thigh.
“Fuck,” he growled. “You’re still soaked. You’re really going to walk into the penthouse like this?”
“You did this to me,” I whispered.
He chuckled, dark and low, and moved his hand around to my front.
“Don’t remind me. I’ll have to reward myself.
” Then he did the unthinkable—dragged one thick finger up the lace, right over my swollen, drenched slit.
I shivered. The bouquet of flowers dropped to the ground and my palms hit the mirrored wall to brace against the sensations.
"You're a greedy girl, Auri. You know that? You came all over my lap and here you are, fucking melting for me again." He stretched the lace of my panties taut like he had earlier, and I almost cried. I'd been free of it for less than twenty minutes. Fuck.
I watched it all in the reflection, my mouth falling open. His hand under my skirt. His other shifted to grip the back of my neck, holding me there, pinned and helpless, and loving every second of it.
The lift dinged as we passed each floor.
“Stay still,” he murmured, rubbing slow, tight circles over my clit, the lace creating a dangerous friction that had my toes curling.
I whimpered. “Please. Callum…”
“Say my name again and I’ll stop the fucking lift so you can make another mess all over the fucking floor. Right here. Right now.”
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood.
Floor twenty.
“You want to come again before the door opens?” he whispered, kissing the shell of my ear.
“Want to walk into the suite a sloppy, fucked-out mess already?” I whimpered, and I trembled as I fought the orgasm off.
“Or…” He nipped my earlobe, then gently pulled his hand away.
I nearly cried from the loss. “…you can wait ten more seconds and I’ll ruin you properly. Against every surface in that suite.”
The lift chimed. Penthouse. He bent down to scoop up the flowers, then he laced his fingers with mine and stepped back, smoothing his shirt like he wasn’t still soaked in the aftermath of our orgasms.
“You decide, mon amour,” he said, pulling me into the hall. “Do you want mercy or destruction when we get inside?”
I gulped but stumbled after him, waiting in a daze for him to unlock the door with the keycard I hadn't realized he'd taken from me until now.
The suite was obnoxiously perfect. Floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the quiet sprawl of Spielberg’s twinkling skyline, a private terrace, plush rugs, a bottle of champagne already chilling in a silver bucket.
Both of our bags were set neatly at the foot of the bed.
The room was lit by a lone lamp on the desk in the corner, the rest of the room cloaked in darkness and glowing in moonlight.
I barely stepped over the threshold before Callum shut the door and tossed the keycard and bouquet onto the entry table. So casual, as if it wasn’t the ticket to my fucking undoing.
I turned to him, still processing. “You really booked the penthouse without asking me?”
He was already stalking toward me. "No. I just changed your reservation."
"D'accord, petit malin, and while you were at it, did you happen to book your own room?"
“You ran across the world for me,” he said by way of answering, as though it was nothing. As if I hadn’t been slowly losing myself since the second I saw his car crumple against the barrier in Montreal. “I think this smart ass , as you put it, is allowed a few indulgences.”
I stared at him and that stupid, arrogant, beautiful grin on his face. The one that only appeared when he knew he’d won.
"Indulgences? Like everything tonight wasn't an indulgence for you?"
"It was fucking torture for me, too, love."
I wrapped my arms around his neck, trying to eliminate as much distance between us as possible. "I'm sorry for everything." It was barely a coherent sentence with the way each word broke. "I panicked and I'm sorry. I don't know how to get out of my own mind sometimes?—"
"You don't have to know yet. You just have to stay. Let me love you while you learn."
And God , something shattered inside me. Not painfully like a fracture, but like release. A long-awaited lifetime of walls crumbling for the final time.
My whole body shook violently as sobs wracked me, tears falling before I could stop them. I didn’t know how to tell him just how deep my issues ran, but that I was trying .
All I've been doing lately is try, only to feel like a failure.
“Auri,” Callum rasped, and the vulnerability hanging in that single syllable had my heart splintering apart. I squeezed my eyes shut, and he grabbed my wrists gently before pressing me back against the wall.
“Cal.” I sounded as weak and broken as I felt.