Chapter 20 Callum
Milos wasn’t known for nightlife, but this place was different. High-end, tucked away, the kind of spot where billionaires and discreet royalty came to misbehave.
The restaurant dripped with quiet opulence. Low ceilings, dark wood, polished granite, and the faint smell of leather and sea salt. The lighting was golden, flickering, and just dim enough to excuse bad decisions.
And fuck, Auri glowed in it.
She walked a step ahead of me, hips swaying with that unbothered, post-sex looseness that came from a fresh orgasmic haze, in a white sundress that did nothing to hide the heart-shaped curve of her ass.
Thin straps, bare shoulders, and a cherry anklet I’d clasped on her ankle myself right before she stepped into her wedges.
She’d fucking giggled, too. That girlish, sinful sound I wanted to bottle.
All I could think was mine. My wife. My ruin. The reason I was still half-hard and off balance and seeing Heaven in candlelight. And as soon as I saw her framed in the decadent lighting, I knew I’d never survive dinner.
Every man in this restaurant would look at her, a feminine vision of softness and sin, and every man would know they couldn’t touch.
I pressed a hand to her lower back as we made our way through the maze of sleek booths and low conversation, guiding her deeper into the restaurant like I was leading her into a confessional.
I angled us around a sweeping wooden column and into the place’s back corner, where we found the others already seated in the booth.
We were late. Of course we were.
It was a square setup, deep and plush, built for privacy and loose inhibitions. Ivy and Marco sat tucked close on the left side, shoulders brushing, drinks in hand. Her lip gloss was a little smudged. His sleeves were pushed to his elbows, revealing all those tattoos he spent his life hiding.
Maybe it meant he was letting himself be seen. Maybe it meant he felt safe with us now. Like our found family had become something real and worthy.
Kimi and Lucy sat across from them on the right, though together was generous.
There was a good six inches of obvious, raw attraction between them, the kind you could both feel and taste.
Kimi had one arm stretched along the back of the booth behind her, not quite touching.
Lucy’s hands were in her lap, spine rigid, cheeks flushed as she stared determinedly at her water glass. No one spoke to the other.
God, the sexual tension at this table could’ve started a forest fire.
A bottle of chilled champagne already sat, sweating and open on the table. The glow of candlelight flickered against glass and polished wood, catching in Aurélie’s hair as we approached.
“You’re late,” Marco called as we approached, voice full of mischief.
“Fashionably,” Aurélie replied breezily as we stopped at the head of the table. “We had to take care of something.”
“Oh no,” Ivy muttered, reaching for the bottle of champagne in the center. “You just got here.”
Marco leaned over the table, eyes wide. “Wait. Was that a sex thing? It was, wasn’t it?”
“Please don’t elaborate,” Kimi huffed.
“Actually, do elaborate,” Marco insisted.
Ivy rolled her eyes and poured champagne into the two empty glasses waiting in the center of the table. “Marco, don’t encourage them, you bloody bellend.”
“Why? They look happy!” he defended. “Look at them. Callum looks like he just won another WDC title and got a blowjob under the podium.”
I laughed under my breath, cheeks warm. He wasn’t entirely wrong. There was a certain, indescribable peace in me, a weightlessness that accompanied the skin-on-skin afterglow. I’d never felt more content. Or more hers.
“Aurélie, how do you always look like you’re glowing?” Lucy asked, genuinely curious, head tilted as she looked up at her.
I smirked. Auri leaned into my side with a practiced ease that told me she already knew the answer, and was fully prepared to say it. She opened her mouth, about to speak—
“I told you,” Ivy cut in flatly. “Magical weenie syndrome.”
Kimi immediately stood up, hands raised in surrender. “Please sit and end this conversation before it takes a turn none of us come back from.”
“Thank fuck,” Ivy sighed, not even looking up as she sipped her drink. “I refuse to let them do this again.”
Lucy slid out of the booth and gestured dramatically. “In the middle, you two. None of us want to sit next to you while you radiate married energy and foreplay.”
“We don’t radiate foreplay,” I said dryly, though my hand stayed at the small of my wife’s back as she laughed softly.
We shuffled in—Auri first, me sliding in beside her. She scooted closer, warm and flush against my side, right where she belonged.
Marco tipped his glass at me, smirk sharp. “Well damn. You’ve got that look, mate. Like somebody tied you up, blew your mind, and then handed you a national holiday.”
Auri didn’t even flinch. “Wrong person tied up, Marco,” she said casually, eyes glittering. “Shame no one wants the dirty details. It’s a very patriotic story.”
I barked a laugh, dragging a hand over my face, heat blooming in my chest. God, I loved her.
Ivy recovered first, wheezing, “You people need to be supervised.”
Marco raised his hand. “I volunteer.”
“You’re disturbed,” Kimi muttered as he and Lucy reclaimed their seats at the far end of the booth.
There was still a noticeable gap between them that was smaller than before, charged now with something tentative and electric.Close enough for an occasional subtle raze.
Far enough to pretend they weren’t thinking about something more.
I glanced at Auri, wondering if we were ever that obvious about what was between us, a small smile tugging at my lips as I thought about it all.
Once an inextinguishable flame, now an everlasting constellation, charting the sky of everything I’d ever want again.
Menus appeared. Drinks were ordered—another round of champagne, a bottle of something red that Marco insisted would “change lives,” and a parade of shared plates that started arriving almost immediately.
Warm bread, marinated olives, grilled halloumi drizzled in honey, and a decadent array of artisan cheeses and cured meats arranged like a still-life painting across the middle of the table.
By the end of the second round of drinks, the group was fully feral, and it was hitting me like velvet.
A floaty warmth buzzed beneath my skin, light and heady and golden, the kind that blurred the edges of everything just enough to make me feel weightless.
Like all the air in the world had been replaced with pleasure.
Then I felt something soft graze my palm under the table.
I glanced down—and nearly fucking choked.
Lace. Warm and damp.
Her panties.
She’d taken them off.
She’d taken them off and pressed them into my hand like it was nothing. Like we weren’t seated in public, surrounded by friends, sipping champagne with half a dozen forks clinking against porcelain.
My fingers closed instinctively, clenching around them like they were the only thing tethering me to sanity. Then I slipped them into my pocket like it was the talisman of our marriage.
Auri’s hand slid onto my thigh a second later, subtle and slow, and I felt every nerve ending flare like she’d just touched me with fire. Her fingers inched higher, just a fraction, then a little more.
I looked at her—and that was my first mistake.
A faint blush crept up her neck, blooming across her chest in that telltale sign that the alcohol was hitting.
Her lips were pink and glossy. Her eyes were bright and blown wide.
One strap of her dress slipped off her shoulder, and suddenly all I could see was skin.
And memory. And every filthy promise we hadn’t even made yet.
I swallowed hard, shifting in my seat, willing my body to not react.
Fucking useless.
So I did the only thing I could.
I focused on our friends.
Marco and Ivy had shifted closer, magnetized.
His hand found the back of her neck, fingers gently massaging into her skin as she sipped her drink, and something about the way she shivered made him smirk.
A beat later, Ivy reached up, grabbed his hand, and tugged his arm until it rested across her shoulders. She twined their fingers together.
Marco’s laugh changed after that. Lower, warmer, like he’d been claimed mid-sentence.
Lucy, loosened by alcohol, leaned in toward Kimi with a confidence that hadn’t been there earlier.
She brushed her fingers along his forearm when he made her laugh, lingering just a second too long.
His ears flushed immediately, the tips going pink, but he didn’t pull away.
Didn’t move at all, actually, as if he was afraid to break the spell and she’d stop touching him if he so much as breathed wrong.
And then—Jesus Christ—she reached up to fix a lock of hair behind her ear, and he leaned in to say something just for her to hear. She laughed, soft and startled, and looked up at him with a gaze that practically glowed.
There it was. The shift that was subtle and quiet and dangerous.
I felt Auri clock it instantly. Of course she did.
Because that secrecy—that forbidden, hypnotizing pull of something that shouldn’t happen but does anyway—was something we knew all too fucking well. And I knew that the mischievous grin on my wife’s face meant nothing but trouble.
Lucy giggled at something else Kimi whispered in her ear and swatted at his arm, her cheeks flushed and her smile just a little too pleased. “If you keep flirting like that,” she said softly, “you’d better have the track record to back it up.”
“What, you planning a full report card already?” Marco drawled, leaning further into Ivy’s space, brown eyes glittering with trouble as he angled his body toward hers like it was instinct. “You better be careful, mate. Lucy looks like the type her rates her kisses out of ten.”