THIRTY-ONE
CALLUM
Kiss me .
She says it so quietly, I almost think I imagined it. But everything in me catches on those two words.
Our lips meet. Tentative at first, hesitant, like we’re both afraid we’ll break whatever fragile thing has brought us here. But then she exhales against my mouth. Breath shaky. Lips parting.
I kiss her deeper, hand sliding to her jaw, fingers threading into her hair. When her tongue brushes mine, soft and shy, a low sound escapes me—all relief, all desperate plea.
The satin of her top is cool and slippery under my hand. I trace the dip of her waist, my thumbs sliding beneath the hem to find skin. I feel her muscles flutter under my touch.
And fuck. It’s like touching lightning with wet hands.
Her breast in my hands, the weight of it fitting so perfectly against my palm. Her nipple tightens under my thumb as I circle it.
She’s all sweet desire and sharp gasps. These stuttering breaths and stumbling heartbeats. While mine just forget to exist.
I should stop. Pull back. Give her space. Give us both a moment to breathe.
“This is . . .” she whispers, her forehead brushing mine as her breath stutters out. “This is wrong, isn’t it?”
My hands are still on her, full of everything I shouldn’t want this much.
“Maybe,” I murmur, voice rough, like it’s pulled from my chest instead of my throat. “But it doesn’t feel wrong. Not with you.”
She closes her eyes for a second, a fragile pause, as if she’s negotiating with something in her head.
And then she nods. A small, almost imperceptible thing.
When she looks back at me, a breathy laugh escapes her. “Think we’re rusty?”
“Let’s just call this a refresher course,” I say, exhaling a soft chuckle that trembles at the edges. My gaze flicks briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes.
“In that case,” she says, tilting her head, “we should probably get a certificate when we’re done.”
I lean in, my lips brushing her ear. “I plan on earning it.”
And then we’re kissing again—hot, messy, all tongue and teeth and desperate want. She moans into me, arms locked around my shoulders, pulling me closer, closer—like she’s trying to imprint me on her skin.
She doesn’t know how close I plan to touch her. By the time I’m done, she’ll still be feeling me inside her for weeks.
My cock is already straining against my pants.
Has been since the second she said, “kiss me.” But now she’s arching against me and we’re a tangle of limbs over each other on a narrow couch.
Every shift of her hips sends blood thundering south until it hurts to hold back.
I grind into her thigh, just enough for her to feel what she does to me, what she—
“Callum—” she breathes, a warning, a surrender. I don’t know which.
“Tell me to stop,” I murmur.
She doesn’t.
So I drag my mouth down her throat, lips open, teeth grazing. She shudders in response. Her pulse races against my tongue.
“Just tonight, then,” she whispers, voice trembling with something that feels too close to breaking.
“Just tonight,” I echo.
But the words already taste like a lie.
Her fingers find the seam of my shirt, dragging it up, knuckles brushing along my ribs. I flinch as if she’s lit a fuse. I lift my arms, let her strip me. My shirt lands somewhere behind us, forgotten. Like everything but her.
I undo the first button of her top. Then the next. Each one slower. Taking in the flush of her skin, the ragged rise and fall of her chest, the stiff peaks of her pink nipples.
I reach the last button and—
“No, wait!” Her hand curls around my wrist, eyes dropping, lashes low. “My scars . . . they’re—”
I cut her off. Two fingers under her chin. Tilt her face up until she’s looking at me, seeing how much I want to worship her through my eyes.
“They’re you,” I say. “And I want all of you.”
She goes still, suspended between panic and hope. Like no one’s ever told her she’s wanted exactly as she is.
Her grip on my wrist slackens. I slip the final button free. The fabric parts.
Faint silver lines mark her skin like brushstrokes. A constellation of pain. Survival. Strength.
I press my mouth to the first scar.
She jolts. Her fingers fist in my hair, breath ragged.
I kiss the next one. And the next. Work my way across every line, licking, sucking, mouthing over each one.
“Fuck, sweetheart . . .” I whisper against her skin.
I slide my hands beneath the open shirt, push it off her shoulders, let it fall to the floor.
Now she’s sitting here. Bare from the waist up, chest heaving, nipples tight from the air, from the way I’m devouring her with my eyes.
“You have no idea,” I say, voice hoarse, “how fucking perfect you are.”
She shakes her head, disbelief still clinging to her like armor.
I lean up, mouth at her ear, and thrust my hips forward, so she feels every hard inch of me.
“Then explain this,” I rasp.
Her breath catches, and I don’t give her time to find it.
I lower my mouth to her breast, hot breath skating over the tight, begging tip before I flatten my tongue around it in one perfect, devastating circle.
She gasps, high and broken.
I answer with a groan as I suck her into my mouth until her spine bows with a cry that I feel all the way in my cock.
I move to the other breast, give it the same yearning attention.
And then her hand slips down. Finds me.
Hard.
Straining.
Aching for her.
“Jordie—” I hiss as her palm presses over me and my hips jerk into the contact.
She strokes again—long, steady, and knowing. I swear I see flashes of light. The thin cotton of my track pants only makes it worse. The friction. The fucking pressure.
It’s torture and heaven rolled into one.
I can feel it coming, that edge, close and cruel and too soon, and I won’t let this end like that.
I reach down and catch her wrist, groaning as I pull her hand away.
“Not like this. Not until you come,” I say, “Twice.”
Her breath catches. “Twice?”
I drop to my knees in front of her. I swear she stops breathing as I tug her shorts down. The fabric slides past her hips, down her thighs, pooling around her ankles. And what’s left of her is barely hidden behind damp lace that’s doing a terrible job of pretending it’s not soaked.
“Callum . . .” she breathes.
I lean in, press a kiss to the inside of her thigh. “Relax for me.” Another kiss. Higher now. Closer. Her scent curls around me—dark, heady, intoxicating.
I hook my thumbs under the waistband of her panties and peel them down. My hands glide up her knees, spreading her open to take my first real look at her.
And my mouth waters.
She’s a whole new religion.
I lower my lips along her slit, tasting her slick.
Nothing has ever tasted like this. Like heat and honey and the kind of wreckage I’d kneel through fire for.
“You taste like the sweetest fucking thing I’ve ever had,” I say in between licks.
I flatten my tongue, tracing the seam of her, before flicking over her clit, circling it once, then twice, a third time, before sucking it into my mouth. Her hips lift off the couch, chasing my mouth.
My fingers tease at her entrance. I push one in. She’s goddamn tight, warm, perfect. I add another, stretching her, filling her, curling until—
“Oh, God—I—” she moans as her walls flutter around my fingers in sync with the throb in my cock.
“You’re so close, sweetheart,” I murmur against her, “Come for me.”
I suck her clit, hard and slow, while my fingers pump into her faster. The wet sound of it fills the space between her ragged breaths. Her hips buck, thighs tightening around my head.
Then she shatters. Comes. Splintering moans of broken yeses and fragments of my name.
When I finally pull back, I stay kneeling between her legs, lost in the sight of her draped across the couch—spent, wrecked, legs loose, chest heaving, nipples glistening.
A grin pulls at my mouth as I press a kiss to the inside of her thigh. “That’s one.”
She leans down to me. Her hands come to my face, fingers slipping into my hair as she kisses me, open and messy, as if she likes tasting herself on my tongue.
When she stands, I follow her up, our mouths never parting.
Hers skate down my chest, over the lines of my stomach, to the waistband of my pants. She pulls my pants down in one smooth pull, knuckles grazing skin, and when they hit the floor, I stand bare in front of her—fully exposed, throbbing, already leaking for her.
She looks. Takes her time. And when her fingers wrap around me, her grip is hot. Confident. Fucking out of this world.
My hips tug forward. Her thumb swipes the slick bead at the tip, then she strokes my length so slow it borders on cruel.
“Jordie,” I rasp, breath gone, control dissolving. “If you keep—”
She smiles. A wicked, slow-dawning thing that curves her mouth.
She shoves me back onto the couch. I fall without a fight, utterly helpless as she swings a leg over me, straddling my lap with effortless grace. Her thighs bracket mine, and for a second I just stare—at her, at us, at the way this shouldn’t be happening and yet feels inevitable.
She reaches between us, hand wrapping around me, guiding me to her. Just the tip of me brushing her entrance.
I bite down a groan that feels like it might break me in two.
She sinks onto me, inch by agonizing inch. She stills halfway, breathless. Shuddering. Like her body needs a second to adjust, to make space for me.
“Fuck, Callum.” Her breath hitches, eyes closed, face a portrait of pleasure and the sweetest ache. “You’re a lot.”
I stroke her waist, watching her stretch around me. Watching myself disappear into her heat. “You can take me, sweetheart.”
She trembles in my arms.
And I do, too.
Because she’s gripping me so tight, so deep, it’s not just physical—it’s fucking transcending. She slides down until she’s sitting flushed. Until every inch of me is buried in her to the hilt.
“You feel . . .” she starts, then breaks off with a whimper. Her forehead tips forward, pressing into mine. “Oh, fuck—I can feel all of you.”
I kiss her. Wet, open-mouthed. “That’s because you’ve got all of me.”
And then she moves. Hands press to my chest. Hair spilling, a curtain of dark silk that traps us in this burning rhythm. Breasts rising and falling in time with each roll of her hips, a rhythm engineered to ruin me completely.
“Sweetheart,” I groan, the words torn from somewhere deep. “You’re so goddamn—” I can’t even string a sentence.
She rides me hard. Each snap of her hips more desperate. Flesh meets flesh. Skin on skin. A timed orchestra of our moans. Of half names and full worship. Faster. And faster. Even faster. Melded with the slick, obscene sound of friction and wetness.
“Callum, I’m going to—”
Skin slaps. Breath stutters. She gasps. I groan.
And then she comes. So hard I almost follow her to the point of not knowing where I end and she begins.
I hold her through it, arms locked around her back, lips pressed to the curve of her throat, whispering her name like it’s the only language I still remember.
We slow. The urgency melts into something deeper. An unhurried, reverent rhythm. A tender drag of skin on skin. A roll of hips that feels more like worship than want.
We look at each other—really look. Like we’re seeing something impossible. Like we’re both waiting for the moment to vanish and stunned when it doesn’t.
Her fingers curl against my shoulders. My thumb strokes the side of her face, catching on the slight tremble in her breath. Something shared between us.
Is it really supposed to feel this easy? This good? Like we’ve been finding our way to this moment our whole lives?
I slide my hands under her thighs, lifting her with ease and guiding her onto her back, still buried deep.
Braced above her, I drink her in.
She’s glorious, skin luminous with the sheen of our effort, every inch of her a breathtaking wreckage of pleasure.
I claim her mouth in a kiss that’s nothing but fire and hunger as I thrust again, chasing that edge with nothing left to lose.
“Callum,” she gasps, raking her nails down my back, “I want to see you lose control.”
Fuck.
Whatever fantasy I had about pacing disintegrates.
My hips piston forward, hard and deep, setting a pace that’s pure need. She arches to meet every thrust, body rising to take everything I give. Soft curses break against her lips, another orgasm catching her off-guard. Sharp, sudden, and raw as she pulses around me again, tighter than before.
“Jordie. Fuck—I’m—” The words fracture as I break with her, every thrust stuttering, hips locking tight as I lose it inside her. Lost to the feel of her, the sound of her, the way that I am completely, fucking hers.
For a moment, there’s nothing. A kind of white-noise stillness where my body is too full, too wrung out to move, to think. Just the dull thrum of heartbeat against heartbeat, and the weight of everything we just became.
We stay like that. Tangled. Spent. Stunned by the force of it.
Silence stretches between us. Only breath and skin and that unbearable sense of something ending too soon.
Eventually, I shift just enough to look at her. Eyes half-lidded, lips kiss-swollen, cheeks flushed rose. A vision of ruin I never want to recover from.
“That was three, by the way,” I say, my voice suspended somewhere between disbelief and the echo of her name in my mouth.
A lazy smile curves her lips. “Overachiever.”
“Do I get my certificate now, or are there more . . . exams?” I ask, nudging her knee with mine, barely hiding the smile threatening my voice.
She laughs, muffled against my chest. “I’ll get it framed. You can hang it in your office.”
“Perfect,” I say, pressing a too-long kiss on her temple, “Right next to my medical degree.”
I roll onto my side, tucking her close. Let myself soak it in. The press of her body. The quiet weight of her trust. The way she fits against me.
Just tonight, she’d said.
But as she drifts off, cheek against my chest, I already know—this isn’t something I’ll be able to leave behind come morning.