Page 22 of Red Flagged
It was like walking into a conversation halfway through and missing something important. And now I felt like I was catching up. This was our reality—myreality now. Not just overwhelming emotion and love and surrender, but trust andchoices. I had to choose this life.
And I would, every single day until my last breath.
So I hung on to every word, letting it rewire the way I saw her. No less perfect, but more beautiful because of her resilience.
“Wait, you have a…?” My voice trailed off. Apparently that was all my brain was capable of.
Aurélie giggled, nodding slowly. “It’s a type of birth control. Tiny little thing that sits in my uterus and releases hormones to keep my cycles manageable.” She frowned, and the way her brow furrowed with the movement made me press my lips gently to her forehead. “Or at least,moremanageable. Fewer periods, fewer flare-ups, less blood.” A pause. “Most of the time.”
Hormones. Pain. Scar tissue. Blood. Fainting. Words that sounded too small for the panic still clawing at my chest. I couldn’t picture it. Something foreign inside her, something meant to help, but not always enough.
She was in pain and she hadn’t told me. She carried this—livedwith this—and I hadn’t known. And sheapologizedfor being moody and irritable during her last period. Like this was her fault somehow.
I brushed my knuckles down her cheek, needing to feel her warmth and know she was okay. “You really scared me,” I whispered.
“I know.” She leaned into my touch, her lips parting slightly. “But I’m here. See?” Her pulse fluttered beneath my thumb, and with a dreamy sigh, she added, “I just want to feel good, baby. Make me feel good.”
The words hit like a punch. Every instinct warred inside me—the fear of hurting her, the urge to protect her, and the dark, desperate ache to give her anything she asked for and take what I needed. Her breath hitched as my thumb slid over her bottom lip.
“Auri…” I warned, but it came out rough, half-gone already.
She pouted, eyes heavy. “The only pain I want tonight is from you.” Christ. Her voice wasn’t broken—it was reverent. The sound of someone who trusted me enough to fall apart in my hands. I bent until our foreheads touched, letting myself feel her completely.
“You should’ve told me,” I murmured.
“I didn’t want to worry you. Your anxiety is bad enough.”
I pulled back to look at her lovingly. “Too late for that, love.”
Aurélie grinned. “I know.” Her breath mingled with mine, warm and slow, and for a second the world stopped spinning.
Maybe lovewasjust another word for surrender.
This woman—thisbeautiful, maddening woman—got me in ways I hadn’t thought possible. She never treated my anxiety like a flaw to fix. She treated it like a language she wanted to learn. Where others saw weakness, she saw tenderness; where I spiraled, she steadied. Somehow the pieces of me that felt too jagged, too much, became something useful in her hands. We built strength out of each other’s cracks, proof that even broken things can hold weight when they lean together.
Her pulse fluttered beneath my thumb. The fog in her eyes made my gut twist, but the hunger behind them? That was real. That was all her. Even in pain, she burned for this—for me.
“Cal, I’m not fragile when I ache,” she whispered, golden-green eyes glittering. “My body may bend, but I am not breakable.”
“You’ve never been fragile,” I said quietly. “You’re the strongest thing I’ve ever touched.” My thumb traced her bottom lip. “But even strong things deserve to be held.”
“I don’t need saving, mon cœur. I need to be seen.”
I closed my eyes. I needed that too. More than anything.
But even more than that, I wanted to give her what only I could give her. Not just pleasure, not just love, butspaceto be soft and aching, defiant and desperate, fragile and filthy. To be hers, and for her to be mine.
I wanted to be the arms that held her steady when her own strength faltered. The voice that called her home. The man who knew how to unravel her, not to destroy, but to deliver.
I’d waited ten years for her. Ten years of headlines, podium interviews, scattered glimpses across the paddock of a girl who drove like the devil and smiled like she didn’t know she’d been born a goddess. I used to think it was a passing fascination, respect and admiration, the kind of thing you carry in secret just to prove you felt something once.
This wasn’t a fantasy; this waseverything, and it was so much better than I could have ever imagined.
I looked down at her, golden and wild and too fucking beautiful to be real. “What’s your middle name?” I asked softly, not even sure why the question made my throat ache.
She tilted her head, confused. “Camille,” she murmured.
But it didn’t sound likeCamille. In her voice, it came out likeCah-meey. That soft French lilt that never failed to ruin me, the way her mouth shaped it, all round, delicate, and honeyed. Not a single harsh edge, not even in the consonants, and holy fuckinghellI about passed out on the spot.
