Chapter 218 Callum #2
Would there ever be a Sunday where I was just Callum, not Fraser?
Or would I walk into that house and feel like I didn’t belong… forever?
I glanced at her again, chewing the inside of my cheek. “What if I say the wrong thing?”
She looked up from her phone, brows lifting. “Are you asking for a cheat sheet?”
“Maybe.”
“If I tell you,” she said slowly, “will that make you feel better or worse right now?”
I paused, then groaned. “I don’t know. But it might stop me from throwing up on your father.”
Auri smiled, all gleaming teeth and mischief. “You’re fine, mon amour.”
“You’re evil.”
“And you’re in love with me.”
“Hopelessly.”
She glanced over, sunlight catching in her lashes. “They’ll like you. I promise. It just may not seem like it at first.”
“Did they like me before?”
“They didn’t know you. They did think you were a distraction to me, though.”
“You should consider giving TED Talks. Very encouraging, mo chridhe.”
She laughed again, and that sound—God, that sound could anchor me through a fucking storm. “I mean, they weren’t wrong.”
Her teasing did nothing to ease the anxiety that simmered in my bloodstream. Just kept it at bay enough to stay in control. I pressed my lips together and squeezed the wheel tighter. Tried to focus on anything but the internal spiral.
"Alright," I said after a few miles of silence. "I have questions."
"About?"
I flicked my eyes over the dash. "This thing."
She tapped her fingers against the window. "This thing is a piece of history."
I raised a brow. "This thing has no traction control."
"Nope."
"No anti-lock brakes."
"Nope."
I exhaled. "This thing is an actual deathtrap."
She snorted, like I hadn’t just pointed out that we were willingly driving a relic with no modern safety features through the winding roads of the French countryside at speeds as ungodly as the things we’d done in bed this morning.
But then she casually blurted, "I rebuilt it."
I turned my head so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. "You what?"
My wife glanced at me, eyes twinkling, fully amused by my reaction. "I rebuilt it. Stripped it down to the frame, learned everything from scratch. Took a few years, but she’s my baby."
I just stared at her.
Because there were a lot of things about Aurélie Dubois—Aurélie Fraser—that amazed me.
Her sense of humor. Her sharp wit. Her brilliant mind. Her skill behind the wheel, her goddamn tenacity. The way she loved with her entire being.
But this?
This was something else.
"You learned how to rebuild an entire car from scratch?"
"Well, yeah." She grinned. "I wanted to drive it. Figured I should know how to take care of it."
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I leaned back in my seat, shaking my head in awe. "You are the most impressive fucking person I’ve ever met."
She beamed. And fuck, if I wasn’t already married to her, I would’ve proposed right then and there. I melted, my shoulders dropping. She built this from the ground up, much as she’d done to herself. And that meant I could trust it.
“Ah, there he is,” she purred, facing forward again and sliding her hand across the console to grip my thigh.
I tensed, breath catching. Her palm was warm, firm, and grounding in a way that made my stomach flip and my chest ache all at once. My foot twitched slightly on the pedal. Not from lust—though there was always some of that with her—but from the weight of being seen.
"What?" I asked, voice rough, trying to remember what we were talking about.
“I was waiting to see my Cal come out,” she said softly.
I blinked at her, brow furrowing. "What are you on about?"
“You’re in your head,” she continued, eyes still on the road ahead.
“I knew you’d start spiraling the closer we got, so I figured if I got you talking, you’d resurface.
You always look for a distraction when you’re trying not to drown.
I thought driving would help, too. You feel most in control behind the wheel. ”
I looked at her, then back at the road. Then at her again, and back.
Like a fucking idiot.
Because I had no words for what that did to me.
She knew. She knew.
She saw the transition I didn’t know how to name, the subtle shift when my mind slipped sideways. When anxiety or guilt or nerves or whatever the hell it was started chewing at me. And she met it not with a lecture, or a fix, or a demand.
But with this. Laughter. Gentle redirection. Steady hands and car talk and an open road.
And just like that, I felt my chest ease, my hands steady, and my throat go tight. I swallowed hard, eyes misting over.
“You insisted I drive,” I muttered, “because you knew how bad it would be.”
“Partly,” she said breezily. “Also, you look hot behind the wheel.”
“Right.” I exhaled a laugh, still shaken. “And you look like a sin incarnate.”
Her fingers flexed on my thigh. “Merci, mon mari.”
By the time we crested the hill and pulled up to the vineyard, I was already half-done spiraling. But that spiral went full send when I actually saw the estate again.
I knew that my wife came from money. I wasn’t stupid. But this was next-level generational wealth.
Every inch of it was breathtaking. Rows of grapevines curved like sculpture across the hills on the east side in perfect lines.
Their deep green leaves glowed under the golden evening sun.
The lavender fields on the west side buzzed with bees and smelled like summer as the breeze drifted through the open windows.
And the house—no, chateau—rose from the earth like a goddamn oil painting.
It was a fucking work of art. Elegant. Timeless. Ridiculously large.
I let out a low whistle. "Jesus." I rolled to a stop and engaged the e-brake. Auri wasted no time unbuckling her seatbelt like this was just another Tuesday.
"You never mentioned you lived in a fucking chateau," I muttered.
Aurélie slid her glasses up into her hair. “It’s not that fancy.”
“Baby, this is literally a chateau. There are spires. Spires, Auri.”
She shrugged—actually shrugged—and opened the door, not even bothering to wait for me.
“Did you sleep at the top of one of those towers?” I called after her. “Braiding your hair and waiting for woodland creatures to bring you tea?”
She ducked back down to grin at me through the open car door. “No, that’s the east wing, where étienne sleeps. The birds on the west wing only bring champagne.”
“Wings. Unbelievable,” I grunted, climbing out. We met at the front of the car, her bare shoulders glowing in the warm light, sundress rippling in the breeze.
She reached for my hand without thinking. I took it just as instinctively. We stood there for a second, side by side, looking up at the place that made my pulse stutter.
“I’m not saying I feel like a Victorian orphan about to ask for more gruel,” I said. “But I am saying this might be the part where I get smited for impure thoughts.”
She bit back a laugh. “You nervous, Premium Fraser?”
“Premium? Is that a joke?” I raised an eyebrow. “You’re literally French royalty. I’m clearly the Discount Fraser. I married up so hard I’ve got altitude sickness.”
She hummed, all faux elegance. “You do have that limited-edition, high-performance look. Like you come with a warning label and a maintenance manual.”
“I am high maintenance,” I protested. “You’ve read the fine print.”
“Cover to cover,” she said sweetly. “And I annotated it. And tasted it with my tongue.”
I snorted. “You terrify me as much as you turn me on.” My hands landed on her hips before I even realized I’d moved. Her dress shifted in the breeze, silky fabric brushing my knuckles. She was heat and honey and chaos and mine.
“Good,” she whispered, eyes dropping to my mouth, pupils dilating. “Keep that energy.” She bit her bottom lip, like she’d just had a thought she wasn’t ready to admit. Then her voice dropped into something low, sultry, almost shy. “This version of you makes me… très—uh… fuck—how you say… slippery?”
I choked. “Slippery?”
She cringed, stifling a laugh. “I meant seductive. Or hot. Or—damn it, I don’t know.
” She grabbed the lapels of my shirt and yanked me closer, lips barely brushing mine.
“My nipples are hard. My panties are soaked. And I’m used to your cock keeping me full enough to forget my name, mon mari.
I’m in withdrawal and I swear to God, if you don’t ruin me the second this visit is over, I’ll do it myself. ”
“Auri.” Her name fell out of me like a moan and a warning. “Christ, lass.”
Rational thought no longer existed. I pressed her against the hood of the car, my hips flush to hers, her dress caught between us like a fucking tease when her legs parted.
She gasped, her head tipping back with a wicked smile. “You’re hard,” she breathed. “So hard. What happened to Victorian orphan energy?”
“I lied.” I dipped my face to her neck, dragged my mouth over the pulse there, and whispered, “I’m gonna fuck you so hard your ancestors feel it.”
Her breath stuttered. “You’re not even inside me and I can still feel you everywhere.” Her hands slid down my chest, gripping my belt, pulling me impossibly tighter. “I want the primal version. The one that growls and doesn’t ask. The one that—”
“You’ll get him, mo chridhe,” I gritted, grabbing her hand with a firm grip before I defiled her in questionable ways on her family’s estate. “You’ll get all of him. But not here. Not yet.”
She whimpered, frustrated. Glorious. I caught her chin, kissed her rough, teeth and tongue and all of it. A collision of lust and need and ownership.
Then I pulled back, lips swollen, breath erratic. “You better pray this goes fast.”
She smirked. “If it doesn’t, I’ll just make it worse. And trust me, I will misbehave in front of your in-laws if I don’t get my way.”
“Auri.”
She grinned like the brat she was, backing toward the steps that led to my judgment day, as if she hadn’t just destroyed me on the front lawn of her ancestral estate.
And judging by the look on her face, she knew exactly how this night would end: bent over those fucking ancestral steps while I made her ancestors proud, covered in the soil that made this land sacred.
And just like that, everything inside me settled.
Even if her parents hated me. Even if the dinner was awkward. Even if I fumbled my French and made a mess of this whole thing—she was holding my hand, and I’d carry her boxes, meet her family, survive whatever interrogation they gave me. I’d even do the dishes afterward.
Because at the end of it all, we had each other.