Chapter 214 Aurélie #2
Marco ducked with a yelp, laughing as it bounced off the edge of their table. “Wow. You people are uncultured. No appreciation for stand-up. That was wedding-themed comedy gold! ”
“Oui,” I said sweetly. “We have taste.”
God, I was buzzing. From the wine. The laughter. The way my skin still smelled like my husband. The weight of the ring on my finger. Everything felt liquid and electric and right.
I turned toward him, and he was already looking at me with heat in his eyes, hungrier than just celebration and affection. This was the man I married—unleashed and undressing me with his eyes, every inch of him aching to brand me as his again. I swore, if we didn’t leave soon—
“Ivy,” Colette said as she emerged from the back room, holding a bottle of dessert wine and smiling with quiet amusement, “I think your friend is about to combust.”
“Which one?” Ivy smirked. “Because Lucy’s been mentally undressing Kimi since before the ceremony, and those two—” she gestured at me and Callum— “have been dry-humping each other through telepathy for at least an hour.”
Lucy turned a deeper shade of scarlet. Kimi shrugged and flashed her a sly look that spelled trouble.
“I like them,” Colette murmured to me, watching the group. “They’re unhinged. But they love you.”
“They do,” I said, my throat thick with it. “They really do.”
The door to the tasting room burst open and a gaggle of middle-aged women stumbled in on a wave of floral perfume, laughter, and matching straw hats. A tour group, loud and giddy, shattering the moment like glass.
It was our cue to go.
We all drained the last of our wine—some more gracefully than others—and rose from our seats in a clatter of chairs and half-hearted groans. I stood first and reached for Callum’s hand as he tugged the hem of my dress back into place, fingers brushing the silk.
Colette swept in to hug us both tight, pressing a kiss to my cheek before she turned to Callum. She leaned in and whispered something in French that made his ears go pink.
I didn’t ask.
“I’ll handle the paperwork,” she said, waving us off like we weren’t newlyweds on the verge of combusting. “Now go celebrate your love, but don’t be strangers, chérie.”
“Never,” I promised.
The second the door shut behind us at the villa, I kicked off my heels and let out a half-sigh, half-laugh.
“I cannot believe Marco said—”
“Mon amour.” Callum’s voice was husky and pleading. “You’re going to need to change, or I’m going to fuck you in that dress.”
I froze, glancing over my shoulder.
He was unbuttoning his linen shirt, the motions unhurried, rolled sleeves showing off the way his forearms flexed.
His veins rose beneath sunkissed skin like he knew I was watching.
And merde, why were his hands always so devastating when he wasn’t touching me yet?
I pictured them wrapped around my throat, steady and unyielding, pinning me exactly where he wanted.
Confident, patient hands that knew how to take and how to worship in the same breath.
My skin prickled. Heat bloomed low and fast. My pussy pulsed, leaving behind an ache the made me desperate for him.
I kicked my sandals off one by one, eyes never leaving his. Licked my lips. Reached up and tugged the veil free, letting it slide from my fingers and spill to the floor like a white flag for a battle I wasn’t even pretending to fight. The olive comb followed, clattering softly, forgotten.
He stilled. He was still half in his vows, half in his feral post-wedding brain. But all of him—my husband—every part of this emotionally complex, devastatingly intelligent, darkly devoted, wickedly self-possessed man was mine.
We just stared at each other—panting, wanting, already halfway undone. The air between us felt charged, electric, like the moment right before a storm breaks. Like foreplay without a single touch.
I grinned, pulse racing. “We’re supposed to meet everyone for dinner in twenty minutes.”
And the way his eyes dropped, slow and appreciative, told me exactly how little that mattered. He crossed the room quickly. “We won’t need twenty.”
His hands found my face first, rough and greedy, like he’d been starving for this all day.
He kissed me hard, desperate, crowding me backward with every step until my spine hit the wall and I gasped into his mouth.
That gasp turned into a moan when his teeth grazed my bottom lip, like he needed to bite something just to stay grounded.
His mouth found my jaw, my throat, the place beneath my ear where he knew exactly how to undo me. I tilted my head without thinking, fingers already gripping the collar of his shirt.
The dress whispered between us. His ring flashed when his hand slid up my side, like even that was watching. His hands were in my hair, on my hips, lifting my thigh. He kissed me like we hadn’t just promised forever and he still had something to prove.
“I meant every word,” he breathed into my mouth.
“I know,” I whispered back, threading my fingers into his hair, gripping the curls as I rose on my tiptoes. “So did I.” His hands slowed and his lips softened. I pressed my forehead to his, eyes fluttering shut. “We have time later. All night.”
He nodded like he agreed. But the way his eyes dragged over me? That look said liar.
I pushed his chest until he stepped back, then turned toward the bedroom with a soft, teasing grin.
Just as I was reaching for the zipper on the side of my dress, he grabbed my waist, spun me around, and tossed me onto the bed like I weighed nothing.
I landed with a bounce and a breathless laugh, hair fanned out, dress hiked halfway up my thighs.
“Is this the part where you ravish me, husband?”
He cocked a brow, already stalking toward the bed, sleeves rolled, shirt open, eyes fucking molten.
“Oh, now you want to play innocent?” he growled.
“You’ve been teasing me since the second we woke up this morning.
You think I didn’t notice how smug you looked when I couldn’t stop staring at your ass in that dress? ”
“Was it my ass, or my tattoo? Be honest, mon c?ur, because typically only you get to see that.”
He stopped at the edge of the bed, looking down at me like I was prey, like I was something he’d already claimed but still wanted to devour.
“It was both. The tattoo, the ass, the fact that ye weren’t wearing a bra…
the way the fabric clung to every inch of ye like it was custom-made to destroy my self-control.
Ye wore it knowing what it’d do to me, didn’t ye? ”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tartan ribbon—our handfasting ribbon and dropped it onto the bed beside me like a promise.
I gasped, mocking outrage. “Excuse you, I am a vision of bridal elegance.”
He yanked me toward the edge by the ankle. I gasped, then giggled as the dress bunched around my hips. “You’re about to be a vision of fucked out.”
“My husband,” I teased, voice breathy as I tried to sit up. “We could wait until tonight. I promise it’ll be worth it.”
His fingers gripped my thighs like a warning.
“I waited long enough for you to come into my life, mo chridhe. I’m not waiting now.
Especially not when you already got off earlier.
” He brushed his mouth across the back of my neck.
“And I swear to fuck, I need you if we’re going to make it through dinner without me bending you over the nearest table. ”
I grinned like the brat I was and dragged my own hands over my hips, waist, ribcage, until I tugged the neckline of my dress down over my tits, cupping them just enough to make him lose his mind. “So possessive. I married a caveman.”
He tugged me even closer. “You married a man who knows how to make you come in three minutes flat.”
“Two, if you use your mouth,” I shot back. “Which I know you’re dying to.”
He snarled, grabbed my hips, and flipped me onto my stomach in one motion. The dress twisted beneath me, silky and disheveled, exposing my bare legs, the air hitting the damp lace between my thighs. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even pretend to.
Callum dragged me back until my hips hovered off the edge of the bed, feet planted on the tile floor.
The position forced my back into an arch, back, my hands braced on the sheets in front of me.
I could barely catch my breath, let alone stop the laugh that escaped, flushed and aching, the sudden movement jolting heat straight to my core.
“Callum—oh my God—”
“We just got married,” he growled behind me, his breath hot at the nape of my neck. “So now I get to do this. Whenever and however I want.”
“This is ridiculous,” I managed, squirming as I looked back over my shoulder.
His voice dropped, guttural. “So’s this fucking dress.”
He reached between my shoulder blades and traced the open edge of the backless design, fingertips dragging down until he hit the small of my spine. His other hand reached for the tartan again. A symbol that bound our vows. That bound me to him now.
In one smooth, practiced motion, he caught my wrists behind my back and began tying them. The fabric was snug but never cruel.
I didn’t fight it, because he had me in my favorite position: submissive and pliant to his demands. I’d be rewarded for making him feel good, and I couldn’t fucking wait.
“I was going to change first,” I teased, half breathless, half teasing. “At least let me out of the dress.”
“No, it’s too late for that,” he grunted. “Leave it on.”
A shiver rippled down my spine.
Then his fingertips brushed across the garter—the one he gave to me before I walked down the aisle.
He groaned as he traced it up my thigh, fingers featherlight, reverent, like he was touching something sacred.
Then he crouched low, and my knees almost buckled when his stubble scraped the inside of my thigh.