Chapter 14 - Aurélie #2
I flexed my fingers once they were on, feeling dangerous.
My face was hot and it was a bit hard to breathe.
I went into the bathroom and turned to see the back.
My eyes flew wide when I saw that my lower back tattoo peeked through the corset lacing, the ink stark against bare skin, and I already knew this dress wasn’t making it to dinner. Not without starting an incident.
“Good luck convincing Callum on this one,” Ivy muttered as I scurried back into the room.
“Fermez-la,” I grumbled, telling her to shut up in French as I pulled the bedroom door back open.
Marco made a noise that could only be described as a strangled “ohhh.” Kimi coughed. Hard.
I did a little twirl, teasing, not thinking anything of it—until Marco’s jaw dropped even lower.
“Wait, wait, wait. Was that a tramp stamp?!”
I froze mid-spin, turning to look over my shoulder. “What? Oh no. Merde.”
Kimi leaned forward. “It is. It’s a literal lower back tattoo. Oh my god.”
Ivy slapped a hand over her mouth, cracking up. “You didn’t think the lace-up corset would show that?”
I flushed from head to toe. “I forgot!”
Callum fucking moved. He leapt to his feet and crossed the room in three long strides, wrapped an arm around my waist, and lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing. I shrieked, laughing as the lace rode up dangerously.
“Nope. Absolutely not,” he snapped, one hand braced under my thighs as he carried me back toward the bedroom. “You’re gonna start an international war if you walk into that dinner looking like this.”
“Oh my God,” Ivy wheezed. “He’s spiraling.”
“She’s gonna wear the gloves but not the dress, isn’t she?” Marco called after us.
“Pretty sure that tattoo’s just a map to the danger zone,” Kimi added.
“Ivy!” I shrieked as Callum kicked the door shut behind us.
He dropped me to my feet only to immediately back me into the wall, crashing his mouth onto mine with a groan so guttural it vibrated through my ribcage. His fingers tugged roughly at the corset ties down my spine, dragging them just enough to make me gasp into the kiss.
“Ma putain de sorcière,” he growled into my mouth. My fucking witch. “You want to walk out there looking like this? You want me to watch them look at you? Fantasize about what I did to you last night—what I’m still going to do when we get back?”
I melted into him as one hand hitched my leg up over his hip, the other still fisting the laces. Heat spread down my thighs. I arched closer.
“They saw your fucking tattoo,” he rasped, dragging his mouth down my throat, biting just beneath my jaw.
I shivered, nipples hardening against the dress, my tender breasts aching.
“You turned around and gave them a fucking view of it like a present. Like it doesn’t already have my name all over it. ”
I whimpered as he grounded his hips against mine—hard, precise, brutal. Every nerve ending in my body lit up like a goddamn power grid. “Mon amour, you’re so sexy when you’re jealous.”
“I swear to fuck, Auri—”
Then the door burst open again.
“ABSOLUTELY NOT.” Ivy’s voice cracked through the room like a whip. “Fraser, if you mess up her face, I swear to God—”
Callum didn’t let go. Instead, he pressed into me further, and I whimpered from the friction against my clit.
Ivy marched forward. “She has exactly two layers of foundation on, not nearly enough setting spray, and I swear if I have to redo that liner—”
“Ivy!” I choked out, breathless as I dropped my head back against the wall. “We weren’t—we didn’t—”
She pointed a manicured finger at him. “STEP. AWAY. FROM. FRENCHIE.”
Callum sighed and stepped back with all the reluctance of a man handing over his last cigarette. His lips were glossy from mine, eyes dark and full of heat and intent, and I was suddenly not so stable on my own two feet as my leg dropped to the ground.
“She looks like sex on legs,” he protested. “And you’re mad at me for reacting like it.”
“I’m mad at you for ruining my artistry,” Ivy snapped, grabbing my chin and inspecting my lips. “Ugh. Lip gloss smudged. You owe me a brown sugar shaken espresso with coconut milk, a single pump of white mocha, no cinnamon, and an extra shot.”
Callum raised a brow. “Did you run out of vowels or just human decency when you came up with that order?”
“Oh my God,” Ivy groaned, throwing her hands in the air. “Get back in the corner and cool your dick off, Casanova. Some of us are trying to work.”
He smirked as he backed toward the door, slow and deliberate, eyes never leaving mine. “You’re lucky I’m a gentleman,” he murmured. “Otherwise I’d be on my knees right now.”
Ivy muttered something under her breath. “DO NOT say ‘on your knees’ while I’m standing right here.” Then she slammed the door on him.
I bit back a grin, chest still rising and falling too fast. “Okay, okay. I’ll behave.”
“You’ll both behave,” she corrected, rushing to fix my gloss before turning toward the rack. “Now come on. We need one that doesn’t make him feral.”
So I reached for the one I hadn’t been sure about. The plunging twist-front dress that seemed almost perfect—long sleeves, soft fabric, stopping at the top of my knees. But there was something about the weight of it in my hands. As if it was keeping secrets.
“This one’s elegant,” Ivy said after she tightened the knot at my waist, “but still dangerous.” She brushed her hands over my shoulders, turned me toward the mirror, and met my eyes in our reflection.
“Still the epitome of France’s most impressive woman under thirty.
And it shows. Beautiful. Smart. Charming.
Fluent in sarcasm. World-class at everything from racing to sexual tension to putting dickhead executives in their place.
” She paused. “No wonder Fraser can’t keep his eyes off you. ”
She stepped around me to face me. “This is the safest option,” she said softly, “but it won’t make him want you any less. And I think you know that.”
I blinked slowly, the words catching somewhere in my chest. My limbs still felt floaty and warm from the Vicodin, my head full of fuzz and heat, but Ivy’s words pierced straight through.
“I don’t know if I want safe,” I whispered, then hesitated. “But I think this is powerful.”
“Exactly.” Ivy nodded once. “Let him suffer with that.”
When I stepped out, I didn’t say a word.
Just padded barefoot into the living room, smoothing my palms down the satiny black fabric.
The neckline plunged low, dipping into a deep V that stopped just above my navel, cinched with a knot that hugged the smallest part of my waist. From there, it draped over my hips like poured ink—shimmering, fluid, obscene in its simplicity.
The slit climbed high up one thigh, flashing skin with every step, but not enough to flash that bloody handprint. It was modest. Technically. But the way it clung to every inch of me like it had been sewn on by sin itself? There was nothing modest about that part.
And there was certainly nothing innocent about the strangled sound Callum let out when he saw me. “Christ.”
Kimi coughed into his drink. “Holy shit, Dubois. You’re going to be the problem tonight.”
“You look like you just fucked a diplomat and crashed his motorcade,” Marco said.
“Where do you come up with this shit?” I wondered before turning my eyes back to Callum, who hadn’t moved. Progress, I guess. A good sign that this dress would suffice.
He stood braced against the counter, his knuckles white, gaze tracking every inch of me—down, then up again, slower this time. Reverent. Hungry. And then, “Turn around.”
I did. I obeyed because I was born to heed his every command. Barefoot on the rug, back straight, heart hammering. I turned slowly.
He exhaled. It was the kind of sound he made when his mouth was on my skin and his hand wrapped around my throat. Reverent and ruined. Exactly how I loved him.
“That’s the one.”
Simple. Absolute.
I bit my lip.
Ivy’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Marco stared like he’d seen a ghost. Kimi had buried his face in his hands.
They didn’t exist in that moment, because Callum was now quiet and controlled. He walked toward me like he was stalking prey. I smiled, slow and wicked and all for him.
“What?” I teased. “Too much?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t have to. He cupped my jaw with one hand, thumb brushing just under my cheekbone, nose brushing mine.
“I can’t promise you’ll make it through dinner,” he whispered, softly enough that only I could hear. “You look perfect. As usual.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“And if you torture me much longer…” His other hand ghosted over the knot at my waist. “I’ll untie this myself.”
I rolled my lips together, fighting a cocky smirk. “Then you better pray I don’t make you beg for it in front of everyone.” Then I turned around and fled back to the bedroom before I forgot we had a dinner to attend.