Page 63 of Close Contact
His arms tightened around me. He was my unmovable rock I didn’t know I needed. Then he pulled away, one hand brushing a piece of hair off my cheek. “You don’t have to say thank you,” he said softly. “But I’m glad you’re saying it to me and not someone else.”
The corner of my mouth tilted. “Possessive much?”
He didn’t even pretend to hide the heat in his eyes. “Always when it comes to you.”
We stood like that for another moment, the world still spinning on the edges of our bubble. I should say it right now. Tell him how I feel. But then he bent and picked up theduffelbag I’d dropped, slinging it over his shoulder alongwith his own, like it wasn’t even a question that we were leaving together.
“I was coming to meet you.”
“I know. He won’t touch you again,” he said, voice like gravel. “You should come back to my place. You can shower. I haven’t yet either.”
The implication of showering togetherknowingwhat happened the last two times? I’d told him to be a good boy, and we’d both wrapped our hands around his cock to jerk him off. And then there wasImola, just last week, when he’d backed me against the tile, whispered filth in my ear, and slid his finger where no one else ever had.
The heat those memories sent crashing through me was instant. Visceral. My thighs clenched, my core tightening with the ghost of him still inside me.
Suddenly, all I could think about was being surrounded by him—his hands, his mouth, his body. Steam rising. Water beating down. His fingers tangled in my hair. Nothing between us but the need for each other.
I swallowed hard, brain stuttering. It felt wrong to be turned on, but I needed to erase the feel ofSantino’sgrip from my arm, the taste of fear still clinging to my throat. Now all I could think about was being kissed senseless under hot water by the man who would never treat me like anything less than sacred.
“Won’t people see us?” I blurted, voice just a touch too high.
He didn’t miss a beat. “Then we’ll tell them we’re heading to an after party.”
I blinked. “Did you plan this?”
Callumflashed apanty-meltinggrin that revealed his dimple. “I’m looking for any excuse to get you alone.”
And just like that, my brain completely short-circuited. I was dangerously close to dragging him further into the shadows and demanding he make good on every filthy promise he’d everwhispered into my ear. So I pivoted, desperate to ground myself in something—anything—that wasn’t the pulsing heat building between my thighs.
“Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s get out of here.”
But I just stared at him holding both of our bags, still in his race suit half undone, knuckles split open, waiting for me to go with him.
“You keep doing that.”
He arched a brow. “Doing what?”
I exhaled. “Making me feel like I’m not alone anymore.”
Something shifted in his expression. Something wrecked and reverent and so full of want I couldn’t breathe.
He stepped forward and kiss to my temple. “You’re not. Not with me.”
As we walked back toward the paddock lights, our shoulders brushed, and I realized I’d stopped shaking.Callumhad become my safe place.
I could’ve gone back to my hotel. Showered, changed, regrouped. Pretended everything was fine. But I didn’t want fine. I wantedhim. For a long time, I wasn’t sure if I could survive loving someone again—not in a world where safety was an illusion and the monsters didn’t always hide under beds.
But he’d fought for me.
And I was so fucking in love with him I could barely breathe.
By the timewe reached the flat, we weren’t even pretending to keep our hands off each other.
Auréliewas already tugging at my race suit, half-unzipped, her fingers shaky but determined. I kicked the door shut behind us, dropped both of our bags, and kissed her like she was the only thing I needed to survive. Because she was.
We fumbled through the hallway, bumping into walls and laughing between gasps. Every time I got a hand on her, she melted into it—needy, bold, perfect. Fingers in hair and lips clashing and hearts pounding. She yanked my fireproofs over my head, and I gripped her hips, pulling her against me as I pushed her race suit over her thighs.
The trail of our clothes marked the path we took. One by one, we peeled away everything that wasn’t us.
