Chapter 20 Callum #2
“Can you blame her?” Ivy raised her glass, one brow arching.
“First kisses say a lot.” She tipped forward conspiratorially, lowering her voice just enough to be dangerous.
“Is there chemistry? Does it make your stomach flip? Do you walk away thinking about it for days?” She smirked.
“If it doesn’t light something on fire, what’s the point? ”
Kimi coughed into his drink, eyes flicking to Lucy’s like she’d just detonated a bomb in his lap. Lucy just rolled her lips together before swiping her wine glass off the table and tipping it back, draining the rest.
Auri hummed thoughtfully, tapping her nails on the lacquered surface of the wooden table with one hand while the other squeezed my thigh. “Some first kisses come out of nowhere,” she said, gaze locking with mine. “And leave you wrecked in ways you don’t recover from.”
My jaw tightened.
“Ours did,” she added with a little shrug, as if she hadn’t just upended the table.
Fuck.
The table froze.
Marco, naturally, leaned in, always too eager to know the details of our intimate life. “Wait, wait, wait. You can’t just say something like that and not elaborate.”
“What he means is,” Kimi added, suddenly very invested, “we’ve been trying to timeline this for months. Where did it happen? Who made the first move?”
Auri gave a lazy shrug, her palm gliding higher up my thigh under the table, a perfect picture of innocence. “It’s not that interesting.”
“She’s lying,” I muttered, clearing my throat as I adjusted slightly in my seat. Or at least tried to, given I was half-hard and hanging on by a thread.
“That’s all we get?” Marco protested.
My wife rested her elbow on the table and propped her chin on her fist, hand sliding dangerously higher. “Does it really matter?”
“You’ve made us rely on fanfiction for dirty little details about your relationship until recently. I feel like you owe us at least this.”
Kimi leaned back against the booth and squinted up at the ceiling. “Imola,” he said confidently. “That leaked photo of Aurélie in Callum’s shirt.”
Marco nodded slowly. “Sì, maybe. I did show up at Fraser’s room the morning after the race. She was leaving, he was shirtless and covered in scratches.” He frowned, then shook his head. “But no. No, I don’t think that was the first kiss. Don’t you remember Miami?”
My cock twitched. Of course he remembered Miami. I remembered Miami. The first time Auri and I had sex, when my whole world turned upside down and I knew there was no other woman for me.
I reached for my water and took the smallest sip known to man just to keep my composure.
“You showed up at the club,” Marco continued, pointing at me like he was building a case. Kimi nonchalantly refilled all of our glasses with red wine. “You asked if Aurélie was there, then showed up like a man on a mission. You basically shouldered a bottle girl out of the way to get to her.”
Auri sipped her wine, sliding her hand up and over my cock with such infuriating ease I nearly blacked out. I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand, praying for divine intervention.
“Nope,” I said flatly. “You’re both wrong.”
Ivy narrowed her eyes. “Bahrain,” she said, like she was solving a murder.
“There was that clip that went viral. Some heated argument between you two after the race. TikTok had theories for weeks. You looked deranged, Callum. And Frenchie over here looked like she was ready to set the world on fire.”
We both shook our heads.
“Wrong again,” Auri said, voice practically humming.
Lucy tapped her chin. “Maybe we’re thinking about it all wrong,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe it wasn’t at a race at all. Maybe it happened between races. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere no one was watching.”
Four sets of eyes swung to face us.
Auri turned her head, meeting my gaze across the rim of her glass.
And in that moment, with her hand hot on my cock, her expression all innocent temptation and hidden lightning, I knew exactly what she was asking. Should we tell them? Do we leave it a mystery and let them wonder while she slowly jerks me off into a fucking breakdown?
Wait—no. That last part was just me being desperate.
“What do you think, mon amour?” Auri asked sweetly, voice all rasp and velvet and French seduction, her thumb now teasing the edge of my zipper like she knew exactly how close I was to losing it.
I cleared my throat again, looked around the table, and saw our friends staring at us, feral with curiosity.
So we said it.
“Suzuka,” we answered in unison.
Silence.
Marco blinked first. “Suzuka?”
“Like… the Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka?” Kimi asked slowly.
“That was so early in the season,” Ivy said, leaning forward. “Wait, hold on, what the hell? When did you even—”
“—where did it happen?” Lucy cut in excitedly, likely not knowing what a bomb this was that we’d dropped.
“Did you fuck in the paddock?” Marco demanded.
Auri nearly choked on her wine. I took her glass and set it down with a smirk, then slid my hand over hers, coaxing it off my cock long enough to lace our fingers together.
Cool metal from her rings bit into my skin.
I was still hard, still on the edge, but I’d take her hand over anything. Every time.
“We crossed paths on a run one morning,” I told them casually. “Raced each other. It just happened.”
“It did not just happen,” Auri scoffed. “You cut me off before I could win, body-slammed me into a tree, and kissed me.”
“Hmm.” I tilted my head, savoring the flush climbing her throat. “Could’ve sworn your legs went around my waist.”
Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me? You kissed me first.”
I shrugged, completely unrepentant. “Did I?”
“Oh my God,” Ivy groaned. “They’re insufferable.”
“They’re so in love,” Marco said, visibly gagging. “It’s disgusting.”
“But also, like… hot,” Lucy muttered into her drink. “So hot,” she added, taking a long sip.
A beat passed. Then Ivy angled her head, suddenly laser-focused on the other side of the table. “Alright. Enough about the newlyweds that smell like sex and champagne.” Her green eyes glinted. “Kimi and Lucy. Spill it.”
Lucy stiffened. Kimi winced.
Rookie mistake—both of them.
“You’ve been making eyes all night,” Ivy said, gesturing between them with her wine glass. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Lucy insisted. Way too quickly.
“Really.”
“Yes,” Kimi added flatly, the edge of his Finnish indifference starting to show. Like he was deeply unbothered. Which meant he was probably two seconds from losing it.
Ivy squinted at him, then at Lucy. “Right. Sure. Totally believable.” She took a long, dramatic sip. “Go on then.”
Lucy blinked. “Go on what?”
“Kiss her, Kimi,” Ivy said, now grinning like the devil herself. “Bet you won’t.”
Kimi didn’t speak. He just turned, curled his fingers under Lucy’s jaw, and kissed her.
Properly. None of that drunk, unsure, should-we-or-shouldn’t-we bullshit.
No hesitation. No second-guessing. Just leaned in and took her mouth like he’d been waiting all fucking night for the green light, and now that he had it, he wasn’t wasting a single goddamn second.
Lucy made a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a laugh… and kissed him right back.
The table exploded. Ivy squealed. Marco howled, slapped the table, and shouted something in Italian. Auri bounced next to me like she’d just witnessed a marriage proposal.
And me?
I just watched it all, hand still holding my wife’s, cock still hard as a rock, and smirked, because that? That was familiar. That look in Kimi’s eyes as he pulled back and tried to play it cool, even though he was visibly wrecked.
Been there, done that, had the rings to prove it.
“There,” Kimi said, as calm as ever. “Happy now?”
Lucy buried her flaming face in her hands, laughing so hard she nearly collapsed into his lap. She was mortified, but she didn’t stop smiling.
Auri tracked the whole thing with those golden-green eyes that missed nothing. Her gaze flicked between Kimi and Lucy, sharp and knowing. The corner of her mouth curled with a pleased little smile.
She loved this part. The slow unraveling. The moment people stopped pretending they didn’t want what they wanted.
God help me, I did too. That was our origin story.
It was also the problem with being high-profile celebrities. Everything risked being on the front page of the tabloids if you weren’t careful—and in those early, shaky stages, you wanted to avoid that all cost. Once the world entered your relationship… only the formidable survived.
And then Auri turned that attention on me.
That was when I made my fatal mistake.
I slid my arm around her waist and hauled her into my lap. She settled immediately, like she’d done it a thousand times before and now it was second nature. Like she didn’t know exactly what it did to me.
She adjusted the skirt of her dress with infuriating subtlety, the hem riding just high enough to tease before she settled fully over my thighs, the back of it bunching to cover the waistband of my pants.
God help me.
I was not okay.
From where I sat, I had a perfect view over her shoulder, of the way her thighs parted beneath the table as she settled fully against me, heat and softness flush to my body like she’d been made for this exact position. Her weight grounded me and unraveled me all at once.
I was tipsy enough now that my restraint felt thin, frayed at the edges. My thoughts lagged behind sensation. Behind the drag of her dress over my knuckles. Behind the subtle shift of her hips like she was testing me.
Our hands rested together in her lap, fingers loosely entwined, and the candlelight caught on the metal there—matching rings, hers and mine, glinting like a reminder I couldn’t escape even if I wanted to.
We’re married.
The thought hit me all over again, sharp and intoxicating. Not a secret. Not a fantasy. Not something fragile.
We were married.