Page 38 of Close Contact
“I mean, I didn’t even date as a teenager. I didn’t have the time. I was always traveling, always chasing something. I didn’t make time for… this. For anyone, really, but myself.”
“You still made time to fuck around, though,” she teased, but her voice was light, not accusatory, and so very French. God, I would never get tired of hearing it, and I lived for these privatemoments with her. She folded her arms on my chest and leaned on them, our faces impossibly close. So close I could count the freckles sprinkled across her nose, just like the ones I’d traced across her back in Imola. I’d memorized them like constellations on a star chart.
She shifted slightly, and even in this quiet moment, my body responded to hers like it was second nature. And it was, because at some point she’d become my gravity, my fire, my everything.
That little movement was just enough that my cock, apparently still feral for her, twitched against her thigh as if it hadn’t just blown its load in my shorts mere minutes ago. I was done for. Absolutely hopeless and completely gone for her. And yet, I was ready to do it all over again.
I smirked. “Yeah, because I could and it was easy.”
She shrugged, tracing her fingers over my chest, over my embroidered driver number—17—up on my right shoulder. “Why are you telling me this?”
I looked up at her, watching the way her lashes fluttered. “Because I don’t want to fuck this up.”
Aurélie tilted her head. “I don’t think you could.”
I exhaled hard. “You say that like it’s simple.”
“It is,” she said. “You showed up when I needed you the most. You ran here just because you wanted to see me. You don’t hide how you feel. All of that means something to me.”
My throat tightened. My chest, too. She had no idea what she was doing to me, what her words did, how she was changing every piece of me so I belonged to her. “I just…” I shook my head, using the feeling of the floor beneath me to ground me just a bit more. “I didn’t grow up with this stuff. People didn’t make space for me—this world barely made space for me. My parents loved me, but they were always busy with their own agendas or fighting. My dad wanted me to go further than he ever did, so he had me practicing every second I wasn’t in school. My mumworried constantly for my safety. They didn’t get it, not really. I felt like a burden more than a gift.”
She shifted to sit up a little and smoothed a hand over my chest, fingers splaying over my heart. “You weren’t a burden. Your parents’ views were the burden. Your dad pushed too hard. Your mum pulled too tight. Their mistakes—that’s not on you.”
I swallowed hard. “They’re good people.” I paused to think about my parents, their thick Highland accents, their kind eyes and warm smiles, and how much better things got when I left home and my career took off. “We lived in a small village outside Edinburgh. Nothing fancy. I just wanted out so badly, I didn’t stop to figure out where I was going.”
“You made it somewhere. Actually, you made it to the pinnacle of this sport and are considered one of the greatest of all time,” she said. “And now you’re here, with me.”
I stared up at her, overwhelmed by how fucking right that felt. And maybe how she didn’t judge my humble beginnings despite her own privileged one wasn’t lost on me, either. “No one’s ever really seen me before,” I said quietly.
“I see you,” she whispered.
My hand cupped her cheek. “I know.”
The moment stretched. It was intimate and quiet, but somehow still heavy as I wondered what this deep, soul-altering feeling inside my chest was whenever I was around her. So I did the only thing I could think to do. I flipped us, grinning like a bastard as I pinned her beneath me and started tickling her sides again, because fuck, I wanted to hear that girlish, carefree giggle from her again.
“Callum!” she shrieked through laughter. “You little shit!”
“Just making sure you still think I’m young and full of energy,” I teased. She laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe, wriggling under me as her face reddened. I looked down at herand knew without a doubt that I was completely and utterly gone for this woman.
And I never wanted to come back.
Callum shiftedto pin my wrists above our heads, his fingers wrapping tight around them, and yet all I could do was smile. He hovered over me on the gym floor, his body still hot and slick from everything we’d just done—our matching orgasms, the laughter, the wrestling. Now, we were stretched out on the padded mat like we had nowhere else in the world to be. His nose brushed mine. His weight rested gently on top of me. His hips cradled between my own.
I felt entirely held.
The entire world ceased to exist. All the PR stunts, the media frenzy, my family, the pressure of the sport—none of it mattered when it was just the two of us. I wasn’t sure how it was possible to be completely consumed by another person, but Callum… he made me feel seen, wanted, andadored, as if I was something precious to him. Actually, I knew it was, because he wouldn’t behere if he felt otherwise. This man didn’t do anything without intention.
“I still can’t believe you ran here,” I whispered, grinning up at him.
He smiled, too, all lazy and so fucking gorgeous it made my chest ache. “I’m trying not to think about it. My legs are going to hate me tomorrow.”
“Perfect. Just in time for your home race. Ready to see a woman kick your ass?”
“As long as it’s you, I don’t mind losing.”
I paused and exhaled slowly, knowing that the soaring in my heart meant one thing, and it was that I was past the point offalling.I was very much in love with him. I wasn’t even sure when it happened, what moment made me realize it, or what marked the shift.Maybe it was the night we met. Maybe it was long before that. But I wasn’t falling anymore, and it scared the shit out of me, because I didn’t want to get hurt again.
“Such a romantic,” I murmured, trying to make it playful, except my voice was quieter than I meant it to be. “Though I knew that from the moment I saw your tattoo.”
