“I should go,” I whispered, even though my body was still humming from the way he held me, kissed me, made me feel like I could stay here forever.
“Stay,” he said, not as a plea, but as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t allowed to want that. It was raw and reckless and far too tempting.
I turned my head before I could fall apart again. “If I stay, I’ll never leave.”
He laughed once. Bitter. Broken. “Good."
Silence pressed between us; it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff with no parachute. My heart screamed for me to tell him that I didn’t want it to end here, that last night had meant more, that I didn’t want to go back to pretending he was just another helmet on the grid.
But I couldn’t.
“Last night…” I started. My voice cracked. I fiddled with the hem of his shirt I wore to distract myself. It didn't work. “I needed it to be real.”
He stepped closer, and his warmth threatened to undo me all over again. “It was.”
God, I wanted to believe him. Wanted to stay in that bubble a little longer. But there was no space for this—not in my world, not yet.
“I’ll see you in Monaco,” I said, somehow forcing the words past the ache in my chest.
He nodded once, slow. “I’ll be waiting.”
He moved toward the door and opened it—and we both froze.
Marco stood there, hand raised mid-knock, his gaze instantly flicking between us. His brows lifted as he took in my flushed face, Callum’s bare chest, and the absolutely wrecked state of the hotel room behind us.
The fragile moment shattered immediately.
“Bad timing?” Marco asked with an amused smirk.
Callum sighed, and Marco grinned, stepping farther into the room like he lived here. Callum shot him a look sharp enough to kill. “Just catching up, Marco. Nothing you need to worry about.”
Marco shrugged. “I was hoping to go over a few things before the Monaco flight,” he said as he dropped his bag on the chair. “But if I’ve interrupted a post-race debrief with benefits…”
He nodded to the marks on Callum’s chest, and I swore the ground tilted under me.
Heat rushed to my face as I tugged the collar of the oversized shirt,trying in vain to cover up. “It’s nothing, Marco,” I said quickly, already backing toward the door. “I was just leaving.”
I meant to make it out cleanly.
But then I felt it—Callum’s hand closing around my waist. The way he dragged me back to him, the way his mouth crashed onto mine without hesitation.
My breath caught, but my body moved before I could stop it. I kissed him back, hard. Desperate. Like I needed him just to stay upright. My hands flattened against the warm planes of his chest, and I melted into him, reckless and ruined.
I didn’t care that Marco was here. I didn’t care about anything except the fact that I wasn’t ready to let him go.
When he finally pulled away, his breath was ragged, his forehead resting against mine. The only sound in the room was our uneven breathing, tangled and thick and charged.
“I lied,” he panted. His voice was low, hoarse. “Earlier. When I said I’d wait ‘til the end of the season?”
He shook his head, his thumb brushing over the corner of my mouth. “I get if you need space right now. I do. But I’m not waiting months to touch you again.”
I sucked in a shaky breath, my ribs aching under the weight of everything I wasn’t saying.
“I’m not asking for a public thing,” he added, gentler now. “Not asking you to risk anything with Luminis or deal with the media circus. I’m also not asking to hide things. I’ll follow your lead just as much as you’ll follow mine.”
“Callum,” I said, voice thick with too many emotions I hadn’t figured out how to name yet.
His fingers grazed my hip. “I’m not going to pretend last night didn’t change everything. You feel it. Iknowyou do.”
