Chapter 216 Aurélie
aurélie
We’d kissed in fire, bled in silence, fucked in shadows, and vowed in ink. There was no going back. –Cal
Time had stopped meaning anything. Not in a scary way. In a warm, floating, champagne-soaked way.
Someone laughed. I think it was Marco. Someone clinked a glass. Someone—me?—said “oh my God” and then forgot why.
Callum was beside me. Solid, warm, and too quiet.
I leaned into him, my cheek brushing his shoulder, and he exhaled like I’d knocked the breath out of him just by existing. His arm was around me, so casually public, respectable enough to be newlywed-perfect and romantic enough to mean more to the two of us.
If anyone knew what he looked like under the table, they’d call the police.
I didn’t. I was busy being happy.
“I swear,” Ivy said, pointing vaguely with her fork at nothing, “everything feels like a good idea right now.”
“That’s how you know it’s a bad one,” Kimi replied.
Lucy laughed too loud. “What if we all got tattoos?”
Silence.
Then Marco blurted, “I’d do it.”
Ivy gasped. “You would not.”
“I absolutely would.”
“Everyone says that after wine.”
“I say it because of wine. Remember? Drunk and stupid. Perfect time to add to my sleeves.”
Someone said matching. Someone said tiny. Someone said absolutely not matching.
I tilted my head back against Callum’s shoulder, staring at the low golden lights above us, the way they blurred at the edges like stars you couldn’t quite focus on.
Married.
The word still didn’t fit in my mouth. It was so permanent, so surprisingly off-track of what I’d pictured for my life.
I traced lazy circles on Callum’s thigh and felt him tense again, subtly controlled, like a man gripping the edge of a cliff and refusing to fall.
“Are you okay?” I murmured, genuinely concerned.
He laughed a little too fast and winked at me. “Never better.”
I smiled, satisfied, and stole another sip of wine that might not have been mine.
“I want something permanent,” Ivy announced. “Like… problematic permanent.”
Lucy nodded solemnly. “Something we regret but secretly love.”
“Like my lower back tattoo,” I heard myself say, but my lips were numb and everything melted together.
Marco raised his glass. “To regret.”
“To love,” I added.
Callum kissed my temple. The table was louder now. Or maybe the world was softer. I wasn’t sure which.
I remember dessert plates, chocolate somewhere, honey on someone’s fingers.
I remember standing up and being surprised my legs worked.
I remember Callum’s hands on my hips as he kept me in front of him, awkwardly waddling through the restaurant, both of us laughing at nothing.
And then we were outside.
Warm ocean breeze. The slap of shoes against stone. Neon buzzing overhead like a dare.
A tattoo parlor that was tucked away. Small and local, with one flickering sign. No tourists, paparazzi, or common sense anywhere to be found.
I blinked at the sign, then looked at Callum. He looked back at me, eyes dark, a smile big enough to flash his dimple. That expression always meant there is no stopping this.
Beside us, Ivy squinted at the sign and leaned closer. “Did we… plan this?” Her posh British accent had completely collapsed, replaced by the quiet, husky clip of her country roots. Essex all over the edges.
“Nope,” Marco said cheerfully.
“I love this for us.” Lucy bounced on her toes, wobbled, and careened into Kimi’s chest. Kimi caught her with a huff, then fought a grin.
Callum grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me in for a swift kiss. My wedding ring caught the light. So did his.
I felt light. I felt dangerous. I felt like tomorrow could deal with itself.
The door buzzed when someone pushed it open, and we went in. No real plan. No time to overthink. Just a blur of boldness and buzzed bravado as we all stumbled inside like we were chasing a dare.
Next thing I knew, the coolness of leather pressed against the back of my legs.
A giggle caught in my throat from pure, giddy disbelief. Peace. Happiness.
The kind of honey-drenched afterglow serenity that made everything feel slowed down and sped up all at once—like my body was floating a half-second behind my thoughts.
I couldn’t stop smiling. I couldn’t stop thinking about our wedding.
How I’d never been loved like this. How I’d never belonged like this.
Somewhere in the blur of voices and movement, someone asked me what I wanted. I remember shrugging, flirtatiously smirking at Cal before leaning in and murmuring to the artist before I’d even finished the thought.
Hands guided me back, feeling gentle and familiar. The hum started, sounding like a mosquito in summer heat, until it lived inside my bones, reverberating through me until my blood heated and my teeth sank into my bottom lip.
That was when it hit me. How pain had once been something to brace against. Something to survive.
Something done to me. And now—now it was something I chose.
Something I gave myself to. Something precious when it came from the right hands, for the right reasons.
Pain and pleasure folding into each other until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Until surrender felt like power.
I knew, dimly, that this chair wasn’t made for sin, but I felt filthy in it anyway.
My back arched, my thighs trembled. I gripped the arms of the chair like it was the only thing anchoring me, breath catching every time the needle dragged again, again, again—branding ink into my skin.
I should’ve minded the burn, the sting.
Instead, I almost came.
The pain didn’t scare me. Not when it meant his name, his words, something sacred written into my skin forever. Not when the fire of it lit me up from the inside out, hotter than the Aegean sun, deeper than my bones.
And it wasn’t the needle that had me soaking through the liner on the bench.
It was him.
Cal—my beautiful, brilliant, broody husband—stood leaning against the wall of the narrow booth, arms folded, ankles crossed.
A casual stance. But nothing about the way he looked at me was casual.
It was searing. Still. Focused. Fucking ravenous.
He was only feet away but might as well have been inside my skin.
His head tilted like he was studying art—except it was me.
Me, drunk on marriage and sex and adrenaline, trembling from the vibration of the machine and the weight of his eyes. My dress was bunched around my hips. One strap had fallen off my shoulder. And I couldn’t tell what burned more: the sting of the needle or the memory of his voice.
You take pain so pretty, baby. Do it for me.
God, I could hear it.
Low and private and mean with worship.
I squeezed my eyes shut, thighs trembling, lips parting on a moan I barely swallowed.
My whole body was buzzing. And it wasn’t just the needle. His dominance lived in me, had rewired me. I could feel it in the arousal between my thighs, the way my nipples peaked beneath my dress, the way my breath hitched when I remembered his belt across my ass and his mouth on my tears.
You’re mine. Say it.
Take what I give you.
I think I’ve finally found how far you’ll drip.
The needle scraped across bone and I gasped, thighs rubbing together helplessly. The artist gently stilled me with one hand, muttering something soft and patient that I barely registered.
I wasn’t thinking about the tattoos anymore.
I was thinking about Cal’s voice in my ear when he made me come in his lap at dinner. I was thinking about the way he’d pinned me on the bed with the spreader bar and grunted that’s it, baby, take it as I sobbed into the mattress.
I felt like I was taking it now.
The needle paused. There was a cold swipe of something on my hip.
“You okay?” the artist asked.
I blinked and swallowed.
“Yeah,” I managed, my voice raspy and distant.
I didn’t tell him I was thinking about how my husband was going to kiss this ink with his tongue. That I’d beg him to trace every letter until I cried. That I’d wear this pain like a trophy.
When I glanced up, Cal’s eyes were locked on my thighs, right where my white lace thong disappeared into the shadow at the apex. It did nothing to hide the evidence of what he’d already done to me.
His jaw was set, his cock thick behind the zipper of his pants, and his chest rose slow and hard like he was breathing me in.
Oh. Mon. Dieu.
Our eyes met.
I let my knees fall open just slightly. Just enough for him to see the mess he’d made of me.
His cum still leaked through the lace, my arousal seeping down my thighs, raw from need and ruin.
Maybe I should’ve cared that maybe the tattoo artist would know, but all I cared about right now was baring myself to my husband.
Showing him his eternal reward for choosing me.
His mouth twitched. I smiled back—ruined and wet and wrecked for him in the most delicious way.
Then the needle buzzed again.
And I thought… good girls take pain. But only the ones who belong to someone get off on it.
And I fucking belonged to him.
Then I remember watching Cal sit for his turn.
The man who loved me. The man who ran to me. The man who crawled to me. The man who rose to the occasion, even when it shattered him. The man who married me. And now—the man who inked a piece of me onto his body. Permanently.
I remember settling into a corner across from him, hips still burning from the tattoos I’d just taken. My skin sizzled under the new ink along my wrist, but it wasn’t the sting that held me still.
It was my husband, Callum Fraser. The king of Formula 1. The man the motorsport world bowed to.
The man I bowed to.
And right then, him shirtless on his back, arm outstretched, jaw locked against the pain, breathing heavy as the needle traced something into his ribs.
For me.
I didn’t make a sound. Didn’t say a word. I just sat there, dress wrinkled, thighs still sticky, ring catching the light as I watched the man I loved offer himself up like a prayer.