Page 72 of Red Flagged
“I just didn’t know how to tell you the parts where I might fail you.” He exhaled sharply, almost like a laugh—but it cracked in the middle, like it hurt to say. “You think I only like control when you’re beggin’, aye? Nah, love. I like control because I’ve never known what it felt like to be safe… until you.”
His hand tightened slightly. Just enough to sayI’m still here. Stay with me.
“And I’m too fuckin’ scared to lose you. D’you hear me?” His voice broke again, grappling with the accent he hated but the one I loved with all my goddamn heart. “You’re my past. My present.My fuckin’ forever. I’m not running from anything, Auri. I’m running to you.”
He looked at me then. Eyes glassy, shoulders tense, every part of him trembling with something too big to name.
“You’re the love of my life,” he said, voice fraying at the edges. “And I want to marry you one day. I want to wake up beside you for the rest of my life—not because I control you, but because Iget to. Because you chose me. And if I’m not racing anymore, then fuck it, I’ll spend every day learnin’ how to deserve that.”
It hung in the air between us like incense. Heavy, sacred, and unbearable. I was speechless. Not the strong, seething kind of silence that came with fury. This was something else, soft and sad and splintering.
My heart ached. My lower lip trembled. My foot hovered over the gas, but I didn’t press down.
Because suddenly I wasn’t driving to outrun him anymore or push him outside of his comfort zone. I was trying to outpace the ache in my chest. The heartbreak. The humiliation. The way everything we’d built felt like it had just been red flagged.
And then, I jerked the wheel.
We screeched into a barely-visible gravel turnout at the edge of the road, the trees rising like sentinels around us, rain blurring the windshield. I threw the car in park and shoved the door open.
I didn’t wait for him, didn’t so much as look back.
I stepped into the rain like it was baptism. My hair soaked instantly, dress clinging to my skin as I teetered in my heels. My fists were clenched at my sides, holding in everything that still burned in my veins, heading straight for the metal barrier.
I just needed a minute. Needed to clear my head. Needed to get some fucking air in my lungs.
And that’s when I heard him behind me.
The scuff of shoes on wet gravel.
He was coming after me.
Finally. ?1
Lightning cracked overhead,illuminating Aurélie’s hair like a halo of gold fire. I caught up to her at the edge of the lookout, gravel crunching underfoot as I reached for her arm, only for her to whirl on me. The wind whipped around us, slicing between every breath, and for a second, neither of us spoke. We stood there, drenched and staring each other down like we’d both been pushed to the brink.
We were both cast in the halos of the headlights, like some fucked up apocalyptic scene at the end of the world. She stood in the beam, soaked and furious and goddamn divine, her black dress molded to every curve. Hair clung to her face in wet strands, eyes glinting like lightning itself had taken shelter in them. Rain streaked over her collarbones and down her chest, gathering between her tits.
I wanted to lick it up, drink the rainwater from her skin like it was holy water off a martyr’s body; proof that I could still besaved if I just got on my knees and begged. I could barely think past the visual. She looked like vengeance and power. Like she’d been created out of stormclouds and sex and rage. And I wanted to worship every inch of her until I passed out from sheer reverence. From hunger. From the overwhelming need to prove I was worthy of her sanctity.
“You didn’t fall in love with me because I was easy, Callum. I willneverbe easy,” she bit out, like it tasted bitter to admit. Her lower lip quivered. Her eyes shone—furious, wet, blazing with betrayal, black mascara bleeding like confessions she never meant for me to see. She looked like she was about to either kiss me or kill me, and I was pretty sure I’d thank her for either.
I swallowed, hard. My hands yearned to touch her, but I could tell she needed to get this out. We were so fucking close to the edge. Of the fight, of the breaking point, of the part where we either said what needed saying or shattered for good.
“If you want easy,” she spat, “go find a pit chaser who’ll kiss your ego and shut her mouth.”
The bone-chilling wind ripped around us, screaming louder than either of us could.
“But this woman?” She stabbed a finger into her own chest. “This woman doesn’t do third chances. She doesn’t reward recklessness. If you fuck up, you learn from it. You bleed for it. Youprovethat you’re ready to be better.”
She stepped forward and grabbed the front of my soaked shirt with both fists and yanked me toward her, until our noses almost touched. Relief crashed into me when her body pressed against mine. I didn’t deserve it, but fuck, I needed it. Even if she was dragging me to hell with her, I’d go willingly just to feel her this close.
Her voice dropped to a purr—sweet, venomous, dominant. “You want to be the Dom?” she whispered. “Fine. You can have the title.” Her grip tightened on my shirt. My fingers dug into herwaist. “But don’t forget how this works. I might kneel for you—might—but I’m the one who decides when, how, andifyou earn it.”
I shuddered. Her breath was hot against my jaw. I could feel her legs pressed against mine, the soft drag of her hips swaying into me. She already knew I’d cave. It was just a matter of how long I’d refrain.
“You think you’ve got the power?” she breathed. “You don’t get it, do you? I’m the sub, Cal,” she whispered. The nickname sounded so soft and intimate, her French accent curling around it like silk, all dangerous and precious in ways that undid me. It was her surrender and her warning, her power play and her plea. And fuck me, it gutted me. Because when she said my name like that? I would’ve handed her every key to my kingdom.
“And that means I own the game.” She leaned closer, her lips brushing mine without kissing. “Because if you’re not a good boy?” she purred. “You lose privileges.”
