She made a face, waving her hand dismissively. “Ugh. Okay. Then I sound like a broken croissant?” That did me in. I was full-on laughing now, head tilted back as she rolled her eyes, biting back a smile of her own. “I meant to say broken record,” she admitted, cheeks pink. “But now I can’t stop picturing a broken croissant spinning on a turntable.”
“Oh, my God,” I murmured, shaking my head, grinning like a fucking idiot. “You are… something else.”
“In French, it’sdisque raillé.”
“Yeah. Broken record. You weresoclose.”
Aurélie groaned. “So simple.Record.I was right there.”
“But nowhere near as entertaining asbroken croissant.”
She was laughing now too—real and breathy and contagious—and I swear, something inside me just tumbled headfirst into being hers. It wasn’t just the way she looked right now, flushed and wind-kissed and curled into my passenger seat. It was this. The warmth. The ease. The fact that I hadn’t laughed like this in months. Years, maybe. She could’ve said anything just then. I was already gone. Falling so fucking hard for her that there was no chance in hell I’d be able to stop it.
And yet, somehow, it still kept getting worse.
Because now I couldn’t breathe.
All I could see was her from earlier. How she’d looked at me while I knelt before her, tightening her harness. The reverence in her touch when she’d slipped her fingers into my hair. The fucking whimper she made when I kissed her stomach. It had short-circuited my brain and gone straight to my cock, and it had taken every second of my own goddamn jump to recover.
And now she was smiling at me. Sweet and soft and so fuckinghere, her hand resting on her thigh like she didn’t know how close I was to crawling over the console and kissing her senseless.
But I didn’t move.
Because what she needed right now wasn’t the fire burning behind my ribs. She needed safety. Steadiness. Not possession. Her needs were more important than mine.
So I swallowed everything I wanted. Everything Ifelt.
“You don’t need to thank me,Aurélie,” I said quietly, looking straight at her. “I meant what I said earlier. I care about you more than you know.”
Her breath caught, a flicker of something indefinable passing through her eyes before she nodded. “I believe you,Callum.”
Steeling myself, I opened the car door and moved around to her side, offering my hand. She took it without hesitation, her fingers slipping into mine like they’d always belonged there. Fuck, theyfit. Perfectly. As if the universe had been waiting for this very moment.
Every instinct screamed at me to pull her into my arms, press her back against the car, and kiss her until she forgot every reason she’d ever learned to guard herself, but I didn’t. Not yet. Not when she’d just started letting herself breathe again. I needed to give her the space to find her own strength, quietly vowing to be there if she faltered. I held her hand instead—steady and pretending I wasn’t shaking on the inside.
We moved toward the lift, the silence between us full of unspoken things. Every step echoed with restraint, want,reverence. When we stepped inside, the dim glow of the overhead light painted her in soft gold. She didn’t look at me, not at first. Just exhaled slowly, her shoulders lifting and falling like she was still trying to come down from the fall, from the day, fromme.
I turned to face the doors, fists clenched at my sides. Then she shifted beside me, the faint brush of her arm against mine lighting me up like I’d touched a live wire. Her hand slid to the railing, fingers ghosting along the cool metal, and I cracked. My hand found her waist—just a touch, just to ground myself—but the second I felt the warmth of her through that sweatshirt, I wasdone. I stepped in close behind her, my palm flattening against her hip before I even registered the movement. My other hand mirrored it, bracketing her in.
She didn’t flinch or pull away. Instead, she leaned back into me, her hands slipping over mine where they held her, keeping them there. I sighed, and she tipped her head back against my chest, her hair brushing my jaw. My heart fuckingstuttered.
We stood like that, pressed together in the golden light, the metal doors reflecting us back—her flushed and glowing, me barely holding it together. She was soft in my hands, and I was trembling with the need to kiss her neck, her jaw, every inch of her, but I didn’t move. I just held her. Just breathed her in. Just waited.
Becausethiswas everything.
Having her beminewas everything.
The faint trace of lavender wafting from her hair—as if the universe could never strip that away—was everything.
And when the doors finally opened, I didn’t move until she did. Only then did I lead her down the hall to the entrance of my flat. The soft click of the door closing behind us seemeddeafening in the otherwise quiet living room, the only sound besides the distant hum of city life outside. Her eyes wandered over the space, slow and assessing, lingering on the modern decor, the floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the city skyline, and the lamps that cast a warm glow across the open-plan living area. Her expression was unreadable at first, but then her lips curved slightly, a hint of surprise breaking through.
“You live here?” she asked, her voice carrying a note of disbelief.
I shrugged, trying to play it off. “Don’t sound too impressed,Dubois. It’s just a place to sleep.”
She raised an eyebrow, her gaze flicking back to the view. “Yeah, sure. Just a place to sleep.”
“Hungry?” I prompted her.
