16. Callum
I drifted in and out of consciousness with my head in Aurélie's lap, her fingers massaging slow circles into the knots between my shoulders.
She sat cross-legged on the bed, humming something under her breath, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be here, touching me, healing me.
I hadn’t even asked—she just scooped up the jar of salve she’d left on the nightstand and went to work the second I climbed into bed, exhausted and sore.
The warmth of her thighs against my cheek, the tender scrape of her nails over my scalp, the smell of her—lavender and citrus and whatever magic lived in her skin…
I could’ve died like this, and I wouldn’t have had a single regret.
“You know,” I mumbled, letting my eyes slip closed as her fingers pressed deeper into a tight spot near my neck, “you keep touching me like that, and I’m gonna make a mess all over your pretty thighs.”
She snorted, the sound sleep-laden. “You’re in pain and still thinking about sex. What a surprise.”
I cracked a grin against her skin. “Can you blame me? I’m in heaven.”
She pinched the back of my neck lightly. I groaned, more in pleasure than pain, and she laughed again—soft and wild and absolutely hers. God, I loved that laugh. I’d move mountains just to hear it one more time.
"Precious thing," I murmured, running a palm over her skin. "My favorite fucking sound in the world."
"I thought it was the sound of me coming?"
It was my turn to laugh now. "A guy can have more than one favorite sound."
"That kind of defeats the purpose of favorite, don't you think?"
I hummed. "D'accord. Alors ma chose préférée au monde, c'est toi, mon c?ur."
Okay. Then my favorite thing in the world, is you.
She didn't answer, just kept rubbing slow, careful circles into my muscles until my breathing slowed and my eyes drifted shut, exhaustion finally taking over. And every few hours, through the quiet darkness, she woke me up just enough to press pills into my hand. Her phone lit up like a tiny lighthouse on the nightstand, alarms blinking at precise intervals she’d set to make sure I never missed a dose.
Each time I stirred, her voice was there, soft and coaxing, like the tide pulling me back to shore.
You’re safe. You’re okay. I’ve got you. I love you.
By the time the sun peaked over the mountains outside our window, she was sprawled sideways across the bed, topless with her perfect tits exposed, one arm thrown dramatically over her face, hair a tangled mess as she drooled onto the pillow.
I bit back a laugh, the kind that warmed my chest and made my eyes burn at the same time. Christ, I loved her so much it hurt.
I reached for my phone out of habit, blinking blearily at the screen against the morning light, and stilled.
The notifications were endless, more than the usual frenzy.
Clips of the interview last night, of me kissing Aurélie live on camera.
Photos of me, Marco, and Kimi showing up mid-broadcast. A trending hashtag in different languages: #Caurélie.
I blinked harder. Thank God the world finally abandoned that cursed #Frabois nonsense. It sounded like a disease.
One post had over three million likes—a picture of me kissing her hand with the caption:
@romanceonthegrid: He sprinted to her on a broken body. That’s not PR. That’s love.
I barely registered the ache in my ribs from laughing too hard. I didn't care. This was wild and beautiful and perfect . Everything we'd fought against, everything we'd risked—and the world was falling at her feet like she fucking deserved all along.
I was about to wake her up and show her when my email inbox buzzed.
Subject: FIA Urgent Meeting Scheduled. Attendees Required: Fraser, Dubois, Bertolli, Bianchi.
I exhaled through my nose and sat back against the headboard. Of course they were pissed. They couldn’t just let us have this.
I looked at her again, face peaceful, breathing deep and completely unaware of the new storm we'd created.
I set my phone on the nightstand, careful not to wake her, but when I sat up, she stirred.
She rubbed her face against the pillow, mumbling something in French that sounded suspiciously like an insult to my Scottish bloodline.
I huffed a laugh under my breath. Cheeky little thing.
I couldn't resist, and couldn’t even pretend to fight it. I peeled the covers back just enough to crawl between her bare legs, pressing kisses to her warm skin. She whined low in her throat, half-asleep, hips shifting instinctively toward my mouth.
"Callum," she muttered. "S'too early… je suis fatiguée…"
I smirked against her skin and slid her panties off. "You insult my bloodline, love, you pay the price."
She thrashed weakly, mumbling curses, but her body told the real truth—already trembling, already wet for me, even half asleep.
I licked her slowly—long, lazy drags of my tongue—until she was gasping quietly, hands gently holding the back of my head.
I pressed my face deeper into her, inhaled her scent, and groaned.
Fuck. I wanted to spend my entire life right here, buried between her thighs that were now shaking around my head.
I grabbed her hips to hold her still when she started rocking against me, then sucked on her swollen pink clit. When I flattened my tongue in a harsh stroke, she came with a soft, shattered sob into the quiet morning. She collapsed back onto the bed with a dreamy, sated smile that nearly ended me.
I kissed the inside of her thigh one last time, tucked the sheets around her carefully, and padded toward the kitchenette.
Still achingly hard and grinning like a bastard, I made her coffee using one of those little pod things. It was easy enough—coffee wasn't my thing, but it was hers, and she would need the caffeine after waking up so many times to take care of me.
The coffee maker whirred to life, and I'd never seen her move so fast. She sat up, hair wild, body gloriously naked, blinking the sleep from her eyes.
"What time is it?" she asked, stretching her arms over her head and yawning adorably before leaning over the edge of the bed to rifle through her bag. Ass in the air, welts from my belt still faintly visible and practically begging for me to claim it as my own.
The only part of her I hadn't taken yet. But I would, and when I did, she would feel me there for days.
Fuck.
"A little after eight," I croaked.
Then she sat back up with the shirt Kimi and Marco had gifted her last night with a lopsided smile on her face. She didn't know I was watching, and that told me everything I needed to know: that gift had meant something to her.
This woman was not accustomed to people caring enough to make her a priority. It was like a second language she never thought she'd be fluent in. But she was learning. She was letting herself be loved. She was letting herself be chosen.
Acts of kindness may be foreign to her now, but they wouldn't be for long. Not with the way I planned to smother her in it. She wasn’t just going to get used to being loved; she was going to be fucking ruined by it.
Aaaaand now I was turned on for a whole other reason.
She was healing . She was blooming right in front of me.
And I was standing there like the world's proudest, horniest gardener, ready to build her a fucking greenhouse and a throne inside it. And if anyone so much as looked at her wrong while she blossomed, I’d salt the earth they stood on and use their bones to fertilize her happiness.
Seeing it happen in real time made me want to pin her down and fuck her until she forgot there was ever a world before me.
And that was when I lost the goddamn fucking plot and my cock decided we wanted to stay inside her for the next twenty-four hours, consequences be damned.
All I could think about was filling her so full of me she'd taste it.
Fucking Christ, I was so hard, and a glance down showed I was already leaking into my boxers.
Deep breaths.
Aurélie pulled the shirt over her head, none the wiser to the filthy thoughts circling my brain. I blinked and shook my head to try to clear it, then turned to put creamer in the coffee and stir it.
We were going to have bigger issues to deal with than how badly I wanted to fuck her.
I walked back over to the bed, stepping over the spot on the carpet her greedy little cunt had soaked last night, and handed her the mug.
She gave me a soft, grateful smile before taking it.
I climbed up to sit behind her, hands grabbing her waist. I pulled us both back until she sat between my legs and I leaned against the headboard.
She settled against me and hummed. "How are you feeling this morning?"
I sighed and ran my palms over her stomach as she sipped on her coffee. "Fine. A little sore, but I don't have a headache."
"Progress, yeah?"
"Mmhmm." I nuzzled my face into her neck, scraping my jaw across her skin. She moaned, and my dick jumped so hard I knew she felt it against her lower back.
She stilled. "Is that a baguette in your boxers, Fraser, or are you just happy to see me?"
I barked out a laugh, so fucking real and raw and so goddamn in love with her it hurt.
"Both," I rasped against her ear, sliding my hands under her shirt to cup her breasts. "Always both when you're around."
She giggled and ground her hips back into me, slow and teasing.
Do not turn into a caveman right now, Fraser. Do not.
"I want you," I whispered, pressing a slow kiss behind her ear. "I'll always want you. But I love you enough to just be here, wrapped around you and feeling you breathe."
She shook her head. "So poetic," she teased, but I felt the way her body softened, melted into me, and Christ, if I had been standing, I would've dropped to my knees. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for her to drive me insane without even trying.