Page 53 of Flat Out
"Fucking divine," I groaned, sucking the fabric between my lips like it might give me another drop of her. "These stay with me." She quivered beneath me, her chest rising and falling in frantic bursts as she watched me devour the evidence of her undoing.
I kissed the inside of her thigh, then her hipbone, then her ribs, moving my way back up her body slowly. Her wrists were still bound above her, eyes fluttering open, wet and glassy and so fucking vulnerable it broke something inside me. I unlatched the cuffs, and her hands immediately cupped my face, trembling against me.
I couldn’t stop touching her and pressing my lips to her skin. I was scared she might disappear again if I let go for even a second—because Iwasafraid.Terrified, actually. Not of losing her body; of losingthis.Her love, her fire, her forgiveness. No matter how many times she'd try to convince herself she wasn't worthy of love, I would be right there yanking her back to me.
“I thought you were dead.” It came out like a fractured breath, raw and thin, a sound that splintered down the middle as she clutched my shoulders like she couldn’t bear to let me go. “I thought I watched youdie.” The second the words left her, herbody seized on a half sob, half gasp, as if voicing it had ripped the wound back open, fresh and bleeding.
I pressed my forehead to hers, desperate, shaking, kissing the salt from her cheeks like I could erase the words themselves. “I’m here,” I rasped. “God, I’m here. You didn’t lose me.”
She swallowed, her voice breaking again, quieter this time, like a confession clawing its way free. “I didn’t want to say it out loud,” she whispered. “Because that would make it real. And I’ve been holding on by a thread, Cal.”
Her words sliced me in half, right down the sternum, every syllable a blade. It hurt so much fucking worse than all my injuries combined.
“I flew across the world to make sure you were okay and you wouldn’t let me in. I thought you were done with me.” Tears ran in rivulets down the sides of her face. She was crying for me—over me—because she lovedthathard,thatrecklessly. She gave all of herself, even when it hurt like hell. “I was so mad at you,” she gritted out between clenched teeth, voice raspy and angry. I'd never heard her like this before. Grief and fury wove together in a dangerous cocktail. “But more mad at myself because I couldn’t save you.”
I stilled. "Youdid," I told her quietly and earnestly, like it was the only truth I had left to give her.
She shook her head, still trying to carry the weight of it all on those slender, freckled shoulders. “No,” she choked. “If I’d said something sooner, if they’d listened—if I’d just?—”
I paused my movements and brushed a knuckle down her tear-soaked cheek. "They didn't listen. They failed usboth. But you?" I met her eyes, making sure she saw all of me when I said this next part. "You were the only one who fought. The only one whotried." Her lower lip wobbled, but I pressed on. "You didn't save me from the wreckage, Aurélie, but you screamed loud enough that the whole world finally looked."
More tears slipped from her eyes. I leaned in, brushing my lips over hers. My voice broke. "That's how I know I matter to you. You fought for me when I couldn't even move. So no, maybe you didn't save me by pulling me out of the car, but you damn sure made them see what they'd done."
She opened her mouth, ready to argue, but I kissed her before she could say another word. I couldn’t let her carry it anymore, not when I had arms strong enough to take it. Not when she’d already given me everything. She offered me every raw piece of herself tonight. She let me strip her bare, humiliate her, praise her, worship her filth and her fury. I’d taken it—because it was sacred and it was mine. I let her crawl, beg, cry, because I thought if I emptied her, it would fill something in me.
But watching her now? I was the one undone. She wasn’t just mine because she said she was. Shechoseme. This unhinged, brilliant, lightning-struck woman with rage in her soul and gold in her spine had chosenme. Just a kid from the outskirts of Edinburgh who'd come from nothing, who was the cause of his parents' marital issues until he left home. The reason they were broken. The one who'd clawed his way to success and never chased anything but podiums, titles, and proof he was worth something.
I didn’t chase love. Never had, because love meant risk. Love meant slowing down long enough tofeel. Love meanther. From the second I saw her in the paddock all those years ago, I’dknown. I was always going to be hers. I'd been hers for ten fucking years. She didn’t just win me over. Sheruinedme.
Now she was sobbing beneath me, shattered and precious. And I was finally allowed to have her. No more lies, distance, or denial. Just the truth—raw, red,breathingbetween us: she was mine, and I was so fucking lucky. I kissed the parts of her she gave so freely, and the parts she didn’t know how to share until tonight.
“Aurélie,” I breathed. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.”
She laughed. It was a broken, trembling sound. “I was on my knees, Callum. For you.”
“I know,” I said, voice fraying with the edges of my soul. “And I have never seen anything more perfect in my life.”
“I don’t know how to accept love like this,” she murmured against my skin. “I don’t know what it’s like to be loved loudly.” I kissed her temple, her cheek, her mouth, finally understanding it all as the pieces clicked into place. “I’m trying, but it’s not overnight.”
She wasn’t just crying. She wasn’t just overwhelmed. She wasfree. Free from the burden of loneliness. Free from the silence of being background noise her entire life. Free from the lie that she had to carry everything alone, from believing she’d never be enough for anyone. She clutched me tighter, crying harder—not from pain, but becauseevery wall had finally collapsed.
I brushed the hair back from her damp forehead. “I don’t care. We’re healing,” I whispered. “Together.”
Her fingers laced in my hair, tears leaking from her eyes. I gripped her hips and thrust into her, eyes falling shut momentarily. A whole goddamn month without this, and I felt like a born again virgin with how fuckingintoxicatingshe felt. Tight, soaking me, squeezing me so hard I saw stars. I groaned as I adjusted to the feel of being inside her.
“Hey,” I whispered, cupping her jaw. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
She shook her head, but I knew what she needed. I drove into her harder, and we both moaned. Her body clamped down around me, legs wrapping tight and I prayed she never let go. She sobbed harder and whispered my name like it was a goddamn prayer as I made love to her. Her eyes fluttered open,vulnerable and all the golden-green shades the universe had blessed me with. But she didn’t flinch as she held my gaze.
I wrapped her in my arms, sliding deeper inside her, like I could thread us together. And with that, for the first time in a week, in a month—maybe for the first time ever—we truly breathed.
Callum held me.Our bodies tangled, sweat mingled, breath beginning where the other’s ended. I clung to him. He was my lifeline, my soulmate, my other half. He was still inside me—hard and warm and rooted in our reality—touching every sensitive nerve that lit me up, bringing me closer to the edge each time he thrusted. I looked up at him through my never-ending tears, and his eyes glittered in the low light of the room. My heart squeezed as I realized that maybe I was holding him together the same way he was for me.
He sat back on his heels, pulling me with him until I was upright in his lap, my chest against his, his hands spreading wide over my back while mine twisted in his hair. I gasped from the shift—because fuck, I could feel everything this way. Every thick inch of him, his piercing, every subtle pulse, the way my vagina clenched around him like my bodyknewthis was our destiny.
This was right where we both belonged.
His cock twitched inside me when I whimpered. My knees pressed into the mattress on either side of him, thighs quivering from the aftershocks still rolling through me. Our skin stuck where it met—slick and flushed, a little raw from the scrape of his stubble and the friction of where our bodies kept finding each other. I nuzzled my face in his neck and gasped against the salt of his skin. He held me tighter as I moved my hips up and down, then he reached for my hand, unsteady and wrists an angry red from the cuffs, and pressed it to his chest. His heartbeat slammed into my palm.
