Chapter 8 - Callum
It was dark by the time I left the track. Rain pelted the windshield as if it wanted to break, and I was halfway to insanity after the last forty-eight hours.
Today should’ve ended in triumph. Our plan had worked, and the cameras caught everything we needed them to.
Aurélie had gotten what she wanted: me out of the car before I worsened my injuries, and I’d gotten her out of that Luminis tampered shitbox before she killed someone—or worse, herself.
And together, we’d forced the FIA’s hand.
They’d have to listen us now and make changes.
Lawyers, statements, lawsuits, meetings, scrutiny from supporting team principles.
Complicated, messy, and perfectly us.
This way, we both won. I would change nothing.
Except all I could see was her bent over in the medical tent, face twisted in pain. Pale and shaking with one hand pressed low on her abdomen. That image looped in my mind like a curse.
The medics had said she was fine and stable, but they didn’t know her or her body the way I did. I knew when something was off, she just hadn’t admitted it yet. She’d brushed me off, telling me we’d talk about it later.
I couldn’t shake the harrowing, sickening feeling that had rushed through me when I saw her like that.
Couldn’t fucking shake the thought that I’d pushed too hard, that my plan was overzealous, that I was responsible for her pain.
That maybe all the stress, the pressure, the months of chasing the truth—my obsession—had broken something in her.
She’d just told me this morning that she couldn’t have kids, but now I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made whatever invisible pain she carried worse. Guilt gnawed at me, and panic chipped at the composure I’d barely kept intact.
The steering wheel creaked under my ironclad grip as I turned into the hotel car park, avoiding valet just so I could make sure her car was here.
It was parked crookedly, the navy color of it sparkling under the flood lights.
I killed the engine and stared at it for a moment, trying to process the relief and fear twisting together in my gut.
The car felt too small for the air inside it, making me feel claustrophobic.
Patience was never my strong suit, but this…
this was something else entirely. The helplessness of knowing she was hurting, but not being able to do anything to fix it.
The lack of control in a plan I thought gave us the most control.
By the time I made it up to our floor, my thoughts had dissolved into static. Every light felt too bright, each ding of the lift too loud, all my steps too slow. I told myself I just needed to see her—see her breathing and alive—and everything in me would quiet.
When I made it to our suite, the world went still.
The curtains were drawn, and the faint scent of lavender and rain wafted around me.
Aurélie was sideways on the bed, sprawled on her stomach, cheek propped on her fist as she scrolled on her phone.
She didn’t notice me at first, so I paused at the doorway of the room, admiring her.
Her hair hung in loose, bouncy post-braid waves that always made me weak in the knees.
It reminded me of the first time I’d spoken to her in a bar in Bahrain.
One of my shirts hung off her shoulder, red cotton clinging to her golden skin, the hem bunched high at the curve of her ass.
And her face—fuck, that perfect, angelic face—was flushed, looking like every fantasy I’d ever wanted.
For a second, I forgot how to breathe. She was a domestic vision, all bare, golden, and sinful. I had to tear my mind away from the direction it wanted to go. Today had been long and stressful, she was in pain, and I was on the verge of another panic attack.
Finally, Aurélie lifted her thick lashes, and her hazel eyes met mine. She gave me a lazy, coy smile that did absolutely fuck-all to help me inhale and exhale like a normal human.
“Bonsoir, mon amour,” she purred, low and breathy, almost sultry without meaning to be.
The sound of it slid down my spine and my pulse went feral.
“You’re back later than I expected.” She rolled onto her back, her hair tumbling over the edge of the bed as she tilted her head to look at me upside down. “I’ve missed you.” Her voice was syrup-sweet.
My eyes dragged over her—the way my shirt stretched taut over her breasts, the smooth line down the middle of her stomach, the little hitch of her breath when she realized I was looking.
It shouldn’t have affected me the way it did after the day we’d had, but there it was, my body answering before my mind could catch up.
Jesus Christ.
“I had to handle the press.” My voice came out rougher than I intended, sounding distant to my ears as I watched her trail her fingers over her legs, hooking under the hem of the shirt to drag it up higher.
I cleared my throat and set my bag down, trying to find steady ground. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she answered, almost dreamily.
When I stepped closer, she reached for me. Quick and mischievous with a wicked little grin. Her palms slid to the backs of my thighs, nails scraping lightly through the fabric, anchoring me there. Heat spiked through me so fast, my head rushed.
“Hey,” I warned, low. It came out more like a groan than a protest.
Her smile softened. “You look tense, baby.”
Fucking hell, she knew what she was doing to me. I was seconds from acting with my cock first and thinking with my brain later. Why did she always have such a fucking chokehold on me?
She slid one hand higher, over my ass, around my hip and under my shirt, her nails tracing my abs until they curled just beneath my waistband. A shiver ripped through me so violently, I hissed through my teeth.
Up close, I saw the languidity in her movements. Her skin glowed with that fever-warm flush that was equal parts intoxicating and alarming. Her eyes were glassy, her pupils too wide in the dim light. The color in her cheeks darkened when she bit down on her plump bottom lip.
God, it made my cock throb in my jeans.
Wait. She was in so much pain earlier, and now she was fine. My brain apparently had some coherent thoughts left, because I suddenly recalled Ivy telling me Aurélie had taken a pill before strapping in for qualifying yesterday.
“Auri, baby…” I managed, every muscle tense with restraint. “Did you—did you take something?”
Her lashes dipped. “Mmm. Painkillers.” The words dripped out like honey. “Les forts ones,” she added nonchalantly.
A strangled sound tore out of me—part laugh, part groan. “Your Frenglish is coming out, baby.”
She giggled. “It’s because I feel good.”
I stepped closer, so her head was between my thighs.
Before I could breathe, she turned her face into me, nuzzling like she didn’t even realize what she was doing.
All I could picture was sliding my cock into her throat, dragging my piercing against her tongue, fucking her mouth until she was crying and gagging.
Blood rushed south faster than taking Eau Rouge flat out.
“Auri,” I pleaded. She just hummed, and from this angle she looked like something born of sin and starlight—Aphrodite remade for the modern world, halo slipping into horns, desire dressed in devotion. Gold hair spilled over the edge of the bed like it had been poured there by a jealous god.
I grabbed a fistful of it, those long blonde strands that drove me so goddamn crazy catching against the callouses on my hand.
I shouldn’t have touched her—Christ, I knew better—but the sound she made when I did, that tiny half sigh, half moan pulled every thought out of me.
Stole the breath right out of my lungs and stitched the frayed edges of my heart right back together.
She was all glow and desire and impossible temptation, the kind of beauty no man walked away from unscathed.
That delicious pink flush spreading down her neck belonged somewhere unholy, and my mouth suddenly watered at the idea of sinking my teeth into the supple flesh of her pulse point.
I wanted to claim her and bury myself so deep inside her she’d forget her own name unless I said it.
“Shhh,” she hushed, tongue flicking out to wet her lips, a soft gleam that caught the light and my sanity along with it. That single slow drag was the kind of thing meant to undo men and start wars. “Stop trying to translate and just feel with me.”
That one sentence short-circuited whatever self-control I had left.
I didn’t know the right response anymore.
My hand tightened in her hair. Not hard, just enough to make her look up at me through her lashes, dazed and devastating, and I couldn’t tell if I was restraining her or myself.
Concern and arousal collided so violently I almost saw stars.
For a heartbeat I forgot what I was trying to talk about, forgot everything except the feel of her and the pounding behind my ribs.
“Les forts ones.” Fuck. “How strong are we talking?”
Aurélie only smiled, seemingly blasé, as if the question didn’t matter. She sighed, and the movement made her chest heave. Her nipples were pointed beneath the Vanguard red fabric stretched across them. I loosened my hold in her hair, and finally she answered. “Strong enough to stop hurting.”
My heart kicked. “Mon c?ur.”
She made a soft, distracted sound and rolled to the side, pushing up onto her knees. The motions were unsteady but graceful. On all fours she fumbled for a small amber bottle on the nightstand, and her perfect heart-shaped ass was on full display for me. It took everything in me not to pounce.
She shook the bottle once before pressing it into my hand. “It’s a prescription,” she mumbled. “Vicodin. My doctor gave them to me after an incident last year. I just… forgot how strong they are.”
Relief flooded me, heavy and dizzying, chased immediately by guilt. It wasn’t dangerous, but explained the fog in her eyes and her slow movements.