Chapter 62 Callum （His Ending） #2
“Fuck what they say,” I growled, stepping in close, hoping she wanted me as near to her as I needed her to me.
“That’s all they are. Fucking rumors. You think I’ve gotten to where I am by caring about what others think?
We race because we love it, because it’s who we are. Not for anyone else’s approval.”
Her eyes shimmered. A tear slid down her cheek. I cupped her face, wiped it away with my thumb, and saw something flicker in her expression—a crack, a question, a whisper of hope.
“I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now, love,” I said quietly, “but you need to listen to me. You are more than just a rookie or a woman in this sport. You’re so fucking good, and they’re mad if they can’t see that.
” I saw it land. But I also saw the fight wasn’t over.
Not yet. “I know it’s scary,” I added, my voice gentler.
“But you’ve got to stop letting fear dictate your worth.
You belong here. You’re stronger than this.
Stronger than what anyone says about you or thinks of you. ”
She hiccupped on a sob, and it nearly undid me, so I said it. What I knew she wasn’t ready for—but fuck, I had to try. I didn't want the months—years—of pining to stop here.
“Can we see where this goes? Keep it low-key, just between us.”
She flinched. Visibly. “I can’t be someone’s secret again,” she whispered, and the words gutted me.
Again.
That one word made me feel like I was bleeding out. “What do you mean, ‘again’?” If this had something to do with the piece of shit ex who'd belittled her, I'd punch his fucking teeth in when I found out who he was.
“Drop it,” she whispered, and her voice broke completely. Tears spilled. She looked so small, so fierce, so shattered.
I let her go when she pulled away. I had to. She was already slipping through my fingers.
She buttoned my shirt, her hands shaking. I couldn’t stop staring at her. I wanted to say more. Do more. But she was somewhere else. Retreated into her mind, so far away already.
“Keep that,” I said, trying to ground her, or maybe myself. I wasn't sure anymore, because she was spiraling, and Jesus, I was now, too. “You look better in it anyway.”
She didn’t smile.
“This doesn’t mean I want this to be the end,” she murmured, eyes down. “I just… I can’t risk anything getting out right now. Not when everything feels so uncertain.”
“I understand,” I lied. “So, what, until the end of the season?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I—I’m sorry. I can’t think straight right now.”
“Okay,” I forced out, even though my chest felt as though it was caving in. I tried to smile, soft and warm, as if it didn’t kill me to let her go. “I watched you from afar for years. What’s a couple more months?”
It should’ve felt like a noble thing to say. It didn’t. It felt like shards of glass coming out.
Her next words made my jaw clench.
“You don’t owe me anything. You’re free to do whatever you want.”
The words sliced through me. I blinked at her, stunned, because what the actual fuck?
I hadn’t even looked at another woman this season.
Not once. The second she stepped onto the grid, I was a fucking goner.
No one else had stood a chance. Not a single night out, not a single hook-up.
And now she was tossing me into the same pile as every other mistake in her past?
As if I hadn’t already been walking around like she was the only thing that mattered?
“What makes you think I’d want to be with anyone else?” I asked, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. I failed.
“Because you’re Callum Fraser,” she said bitterly. “Everyone knows you don’t stay.”
The guy who didn’t give a shit about anything but winning. Maybe that used to be true, but not with her. I stayed in her bed. I wanted to stay in her arms. And she still thought I was just some fucking statistic.
I grabbed her shoulders. I needed her to feel this.
“I don’t know how else to show you how different you are.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I couldn’t. I kissed her hard and desperate and claiming.
Her fingers fisted in my hair. My hands gripped her waist as if I’d lose her if I didn’t hold tight enough. When we broke apart, panting, she stepped back again, putting space between us that I loathed with every fiber of my being.
“For now… friends… with extremely complicated, emotionally loaded, definitely-not-just-sex strings?”
Friends.
That fucking word.
There was no way she was fucking friend-zoning me right now.
Yet she said it as if it meant something, but to me, it meant nothing. It was a lie. A wall. A word people used when they were too scared to want more.
I didn’t say anything, I just kissed her again. Fiercer. She stumbled, and I caught her. My hands gripped her thighs, lifting her up, setting her down on the desk where I’d worshipped her last night.
My mouth crashed to hers again.
She was fire. She was home. She was fucking everything.
Her skirt bunched around her hips, her legs parted to invite me between them.
My hands roamed as if I couldn’t decide what to devour first. Her skin was hot beneath my palms, soft against my callouses.
Wayward pieces of her hair tickled my face as I sucked on her tongue and bit her bottom lip, wanting to leave my touch behind when she walked out of here.
“Do friends kiss like this?” I whispered against her mouth, my voice frayed with hunger and heartbreak.
She moaned, and I snapped. I dragged my mouth down her jaw, her neck, licking, sucking, branding her.
She was mine, even if she was in denial right now.
“Do friends touch like this?” I asked, unfastening the buttons she’d just done up, baring her again in her beautiful pink lace bra.
Perfect little nipples pointing through the delicate fabric.
She gasped when I cupped her breasts, my thumbs brushing over them. She arched into me, helpless.
Friends? Fuck that.
“Do friends know how you taste?”
I dropped to my knees, watching every reaction. Her pupils were blown, lips parted, chest rising like she couldn’t catch her breath. She was shaking.
“Aurélie, eyes on me, love.” Her gaze snapped to mine as if she couldn’t help it.
Always so good for me. “Good girl.” My voice dropped into something primal, low, and hungry.
My hands slid up her thighs as I murmured, “Don’t look away.
” She needed to be here in this moment with me, watching me, knowing it would be me at the end of all this.
I shoved her panties aside and dove in, feeling starved.
She was so goddamn soaked already. Her taste coated my tongue instantly.
Sweet. Addictive. Fucking divine. I didn’t just want to taste her, I wanted to own this.
I wanted to bury myself so deep in her she’d feel me every time she crossed her legs.
I moaned against her, because this—this was everything. Her scent. Her heat. The way her thighs trembled against my jaw. The soft, desperate whimpers that spilled from her lips as I licked and sucked and devoured like a man possessed.
God, I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted to ruin her for anyone else.
I was greedy. My tongue flicked and curled, lips wrapping around her clit like I was marking her from the inside out. Every moan she made, every gasp, it just drove me faster, deeper, filthier.
She arched against my mouth, her hands yanking at my hair. Her voice cracked as she came, high and frantic and perfect.
But I wasn’t done.
I kept licking, lapping up every last drop of her pleasure, groaning into her as though it fed me. As if it rewired something inside me, and maybe it did.
I only stopped when she whimpered—overworked, shaking, wrecked. Still, I gave her one last lick. Slow and possessive.
I stood, chest aching and cock throbbing, but I didn’t care. I’d stay on my knees forever if she let me. She looked ruined. Dazed and flushed and utterly undone. And fuck, I was proud of it.
I wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her toward the door, helping her walk when her legs couldn’t hold her up.
She’d said friends.
But her body? Her taste? The way she looked at me?
That wasn’t fucking friendship.
That was mine.
But I wasn’t done. I pressed her to the wall beside the door, boxing her in. I kissed her again. “Taste yourself,” I growled into her mouth. She moaned. “Do friends make you come all over their tongue?”
Her breath caught. She was trembling.
Yeah, I didn't fucking think so.
I pressed my forehead to hers. “Do friends let you leave like this?”
She smiled, all crooked and painted. “Guess you’ll have to redefine the term.”
I didn’t smile back. Couldn't fucking believe she was serious about this.
Friends. That word and I now were now enemies.
“C’est cruel, ca,” I murmured. That’s cruel. Then, in a reverent tone so she could hear how serious I was, “Tu es belle, même quand tu t'en vas.” You’re beautiful, even when you’re leaving.
She didn’t say anything. Simply swallowed, and I hoped she could taste what I'd done to her. I brushed her arm with my fingers. Light. Barely there. My last chance to memorize her, maybe until the end of the season.
I wanted to fucking die.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“Stay,” I said. Not as a plea. Just the truth, spoken aloud before I could stop it.
She turned away. “If I stay, I’ll never leave.”
I laughed once, feeling jaded. “Good.”
The silence that followed nearly broke me.
She started to speak again. “Last night…” Her voice cracked. She fiddled with the hem of my shirt like she didn’t know where to look. Look at me, baby. “I needed it to be real.”
I stepped closer, soaking in the last of her warmth. “It was.” God, it was so fucking real it scared me, but her walking away right now scared me more. That was how I knew I was in way over my head.
“I’ll see you in Monaco,” she said.
I nodded once, slow. “I’ll be waiting.”
I opened the door—and we both froze. Marco stood there, hand raised to knock. His eyes flicked between us, brows lifting as he took in her flushed face, my bare chest, and finally, the rumpled hotel room behind us.
“Bad timing?” he asked, too smug to be sorry as he walked right through the door.
I sighed, and he grinned, then pushed the door open farther and walked in like this was his room. I shot him a look sharp enough to kill. I was not in the mood to deal with this right now. “Just catching up, Marco. Nothing you need to worry about.”
“I was hoping to go over a few things before the Monaco flight,” he said, dropping his bag on the chair. “But if I’ve interrupted a post-race debrief with benefits…” He nodded to the marks on my chest.
I felt Aurélie’s embarrassment like a slap. She tugged at the collar of my shirt, trying to hide. “I was just leaving.”
That’s when something in me snapped.
No. No more letting her walk away without knowing exactly what she meant to me.
I turned and grabbed her waist, dragging her back to me. Her eyes widened before I kissed her—hard, desperate, unapologetic. She gasped, but then she melted into me, her hands resting on the planes of my pecs. Her body pressed to mine like it already missed me.
I didn’t care that Marco was there. I wouldn't care if the whole damn paddock was. I needed her to feel it. All of it.
When I finally pulled back, I pressed my forehead to hers. My breath sawed in and out of my lungs, and I pressed my forehead to hers. Her lips were red and swollen, pupils blown wide, skin flushed.
"I lied," I panted, voice low and hoarse. “Earlier. When I said I’d wait ‘til the end of the season?”I shook my head, brushing my thumb over the corner of her mouth. I couldn’t stand not touching her.“I get if you need space right now. I do. But I’m not waiting months to touch you again.”
She sucked in a shaky breath.
“I’m not asking for a public thing,” I added, voice softening. “Not asking you to risk anything with Luminis or deal with the media circus. I'm also not asking to hide things. I'll follow your lead just as much as you'll follow mine.”
"Callum," she said on a heavy sigh.
My fingers skimmed her hip. “I'm not going to pretend last night didn’t change everything. You feel it. I know you do.”
She blinked, lips parting, like she wanted to deny it, but couldn’t.
“I’m not going to push you.” I dropped my forehead to her temple, kissed the spot gently.
“But don’t expect me to keep my hands off you if we’re sharing a hotel again.
” That earned me the tiniest, reluctant smirk.
“You said friends,” I murmured, “but the way you kissed me just now? Doesn’t feel very friendly, love. ”
She rolled her eyes, but it was weak.
I smiled. “So let’s call it what it is. Friends… with proximity issues.”
She laughed softly. “That’s not a thing.”
“You tried to friend-zone me, so yeah, it is now.”
She bit her lip. “So… what? We act normal in public?”
“And act not-so-normal in private.”
Her cheeks flushed a deeper pink and she bashfully said, "I'll think about it."
I kissed the corner of her mouth again, softer this time. "Can I put a timeline on that? I fear you'll use it as an out indefinitely.” She narrowed her eyes at me and I chuckled.
“I make no promises on when I'll have an answer for you."
She was going to be the death of me. I grabbed her hands and squeezed them. “Okay. Then I'll see you in Monaco in a few days.”
She pulled back just enough to meet my eyes again. There was something softer in hers now. Something that didn’t feel like goodbye, and I thanked my lucky fucking stars for that.
Then she whispered the words that ruined me. “Peut-être à Monaco. Au revoir, Callum.”
Maybe in Monaco. Goodbye, Callum.
And then she was gone. She didn’t look back as she walked out, but I stood in the doorway, watching until she reached the end of the hallway, stepped onto the elevator, and nodded once at me before the doors shut.
I wanted to storm down there, pry the doors open and yell at her to come back, because every part of me screamed to follow her.
I stepped back into my room, my shoulders dropping in exhaustion and defeat. Marco started to talk, but my attention snagged on my phone on the bedside, lighting up. I walked over to it to see three texts from Aurélie.
Aurélie
Au revoir doesn’t mean goodbye.
It means "until I see you again".
That's the only way I could walk away.
I stared at the screen, heart thudding. My fingers tightened around the phone. It took me a full ten seconds to breathe again.
Then I closed my eyes, and wrecked myself by letting myself believe she meant it.
Whatever this was between us, I was already in overdrive, and I didn’t know how to slow down.
TO BE CONTINUED…