Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
CALLIE
Taylor Swift blared from the wireless speaker Bluetooth’d to my phone as Mum and I worked on the wedding cake she’d been commissioned to make for a wealthy client in Aberdeenshire.
Usually, Mum only enlisted my help when the project was challenging.
This was a six-tier wedding cake, each tier a different flavor, two types of sponge, and the fondant was to emulate rippling silk fabric.
It would then be topped with a cascading arrangement of sugar flowers—peonies, roses, and lilies.
I was working on tier number three, a joconde sponge with Kirsch syrup and chocolate ganache.
Basically, a wedding cake version of an opera cake.
There was a skill to wrapping the fondant so it looked like draped fabric.
Mum had shown me how and I’d practiced on rehearsal cakes before attempting the final thing.
Mum was happy with my work, so now I was focused on the sugar flowers.
Although this wasn’t my area of expertise per se—and I loved my pastry making—there was something therapeutic about cake decorating.
Mum and I were lost in the zone.
Until Taylor was cut off by my ringtone.
We both winced at how loud it boomed through the speaker, and I hurried over to disconnect it. The screen told me it was a friend from Paris. Stephanie. She was the one who had introduced me to Gabriel.
“Steph!” I answered, happy to hear from her. “How are you?”
“Callie.” She pronounced my name like Ca-Lee. “I have sad news.”
It was only then I heard the sorrow in her voice. “What’s happened?”
“It is Gabriel. He’s gone, Callie. His body was found in a hotel in Portugal. They are calling it suspicious circumstances. It’s even made the news here in Paris. Something about corruption in the police department.”
Abject shock and disbelief made me instantly light-headed.
“Callie?”
“I’m here,” I choked out. “I … I … don’t know what to say.” The thought of Gabriel, beautiful, charismatic Gabriel, gone … “How did he die?”
“It was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But there’s a journalist here in Paris who is calling it foul play. He said Gabriel was working with him to expose the corruption at his station. That he’d run away because he was in trouble and that he was killed for what he knows.”
Oh my God. I stumbled back, grasping blindly for one of the stools we kept in the kitchen. I felt hands on my shoulders and turned to see my mum gently steadying me, her eyes wide with worry.
My tears slipped free. “Thank you for telling me,” I said through them.
Stephanie sniffled. “He was a good person. He cared about you.”
I nodded, my tears falling faster as a sob broke on my lips.
“I will let you go, but I will text you the funeral arrangements once I know.” She hung up quietly.
“What’s going on?” Mum asked in a panic as I lowered the phone.
“Gabriel.”
“Your ex?”
I nodded, swiping at my tears. “He’s dead.”
A heavy cloud hung over me as I waited at the house for Lewis to return from work.
I knew I’d have to tell him about Gabriel because I couldn’t force myself to pretend I wasn’t deeply saddened by the news.
I might not have been in love with Gabriel, but I’d cared about him, and every time I thought of his special spirit gone from this world, I wanted to cry all over again.
Yet I was worried about Lewis, how he might misinterpret my sadness.
We’d come so far in such a short time. We’d offered each other trust so quickly, and I was proud of us for dealing with our past with such forgiveness and understanding. Still, I knew my relationship with Gabriel was a sore spot for Lewis.
I didn’t want anything to ruin what we were building, but I also didn’t want dishonesty between us.
When he strode upstairs into the living room that evening, I waited on our borrowed sofa, my hands twisted on my lap as I picked at a hangnail.
Lewis was already chatting about the lunch he’d had with his dad, but I couldn’t process anything.
“Callie?”
Suddenly, he was in front of me, lowering his tall body onto his haunches to take my hands. Worry creased his brow. “Callie?”
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.
Fear darkened Lewis’s eyes. “The baby?”
Guilt flashed through me as I reached for his face, not having realized that would, of course, be his first thought. “No. God, no. The baby is fine. I’m fine.”
He covered my hand and lifted it but only to press a kiss to my knuckles. “What’s going on?”
Taking a deep breath, I told him about Gabriel, and I couldn’t help the tears that freely fell down my cheeks.
Lewis muttered a hoarse curse and sat down beside me to pull me into his arms. “I’m so sorry, mo chridhe.”
Surprised, I sniffled. “You’re not upset that I’m upset?”
“Of course not.” He kissed the side of my head. “Baby, I’d be upset if Roisin died. Of course you’re upset. You dated him. He was a part of your life for a while. Plus, the circumstances are awful if that’s true.”
I sobbed suddenly, clinging to him. “I love you. You can never die, Lewis. Promise me.”
He held me closer. “Mo chridhe, I wish I could promise you that, but no one can. I can promise you that I will love you long after I leave my body behind in this world.”
That made me cry harder because the thought of him not being here was utterly terrifying. Suddenly, I needed him. I needed him to surround me and overwhelm me and make the rest of this sad world disappear.
I reached for his mouth, pressing a salty kiss to his lips.
Lewis kissed me back but then pulled away. “You’re upset.”
“I want to forget. Everything but you and me.” I cupped his handsome face in my hands. “Make love to me, Lewis. Please.”
He searched my face for a few seconds and then decision made, he slipped his hands under and lifted me with ease as he stood. I looped my arms around his neck as he carried me downstairs, as if I was the most precious thing in the world.
Lewis lowered me to my feet by our bed and slowly, studying my expression, checking in with me, took my shirt and jeans off.
He nudged me onto the bed and hooked his fingers into my underwear.
My breath caught, excitement rippling through my belly as he slowly pulled them down my legs.
He discarded them on the floor and stood gazing at me spread out on the bed.
His eyes zeroed in on that gentle swell of my belly.
Possessive wonder filled his expression.
He removed his clothes as slowly as he’d removed mine, taking his time, eyes moving over my body. His erection strained toward me, but Lew ignored it as he climbed onto the bed and bent his head to my stomach. My belly trembled against his touch as he planted soft kisses all over it.
“I love you,” I whispered, a fresh tear spilling down my cheek.
Lewis looked up, his expression tightening at the sight of my tears. “Callie?”
“Don’t stop. Never stop. Always only ever you,” I promised.
He swallowed hard and eyes holding mine, he kissed his way down the swell until he reached the apex of my thighs. Then he gently opened my legs. I lost his eyes as he licked my clit.
“Oh my God,” I whimpered, my back arching, hips lifting into his kiss.
He licked at me until my clit distended and then he sucked.
“Yes, Lewis, yes.” My thighs fell open wider as the tension tightened and coiled. Lewis gripped my hips tight, keeping me right there, as he worshipped my body with his tongue.
I came on a cry of pure bliss, my hips shuddering against him.
I was still throbbing and pulsing as he pressed kisses all down my legs, around my ankles, which were surprisingly sensitive, before making his way back up my body.
He stopped at the swell of my stomach and pressed a most tender kiss there.
“Lewis.”
My breasts were next on his worship list, and I caressed and touched him as he laved at my nipples, groaning and grinding his hips against mine. My hands slid south, my fingers digging into his perfect, muscular arse, wanting him inside me.
Lewis grunted, lifted his head, but then crushed my mouth beneath his.
It was hungry, but savoring. Like he was kissing me for the first time.
I moaned and pulled at his hair tie. The silken strands fell free, and I wrapped my hands in his hair, holding his head to me, breathing in his kiss like it was everything I needed to survive.
Lewis slowed the kiss, nipping playfully at my lips, all the while he nudged his cock between my thighs.
It was the quietest we’d ever been during sex.
But it was perfect. We didn’t need words at that moment as he slid slowly inside me, filling me.
We continued to kiss as he thrust gently, but as the pleasure grew, it became harder to catch our breaths.
Our lips parted, our eyes locked. My fingers bit into his waist, as I panted against his mouth and lifted my hips to meet his gentle thrusts.
“Mo chridhe.” He glided in a little faster, a little harder as our orgasms started to build.
“Baby.” I clung to him, my hands moving to his arse again so I could feel his thrusts. So thick. So beautiful. So deep. “No one has ever been so deep inside me.”
His eyes flared with understanding and he slowed his glides again.
“Lewis?”
“Savoring it,” he huffed out. “Savoring every second inside you.”
It was torturous and beautiful, and I cupped his face in my hands as our hips moved in sync, not chasing climax this time, but enjoying the journey to it. Never in my life had I felt so connected to another person, and I could see that in Lewis’s eyes too.
When my orgasm hit, it was so big, it took me by surprise. But I held Lewis’s gaze as my inner muscles tightened around him and my body shuddered beneath his.
“Callie!” he gasped, tensing for a brief second before he groaned long and hard with his release.
He pulsed inside of me as he shivered through his orgasm, clutched in my tight heat as I continued to throb around him in little aftershocks.
“Fuck,” Lewis panted, breathless.
I soothed a hand down his back, staring up at him, experiencing the awe I saw reflected back in his eyes.
“How lucky are we?” I whispered softly, grateful more than ever after the sadness of the day to have him in my arms.
Emotion gleamed in Lewis’s eyes, and he bent his head to brush a soft kiss over my lips. “So lucky, mo chridhe. The luckiest.”