Page 71 of Red Flagged
He sighed, but he didn’t speak.
I turned my head enough to catch him in my peripheral. “Submission isn’t weakness, Callum. You should know that better than anyone. It’s a choice. And so is partnership.” My voice dipped into something intimate and brutal. “If you want us to work… we have to be equals. That means you don’t get to control everything. That means full transparency. That means trusting me to hold you when you fall,just like I trust you.”
The silence in the car grew thick. Only the rhythm of the rain filled the space between us. That, and the shuddering thud of my heart against my ribs.
I kept my eyes on the road. On the blur of headlights and wet pavement. But I felt his stare like a weight pressing into my skin.
I knew what he saw: the woman who had given him everything—body and soul—with the confidence that he wouldn’t break it.
Now I was asking him to do the same. To let go. To fucking trust me.
Finally, opened his mouth, but I didn’t let him speak. I floored it one last time, the tires screaming beneath us, and our bodies jolted back against the seat.
“Don’t like it?” I asked sweetly, my tone dipped in venom. “Your stomach’s in knots, your palms are sweating, and you’re starting to wonder if I’m even going to stop, aren’t you?”
I eased off the gas, letting our speed drop to a more “manageable” eighty. Maybe ninety. Still reckless, still mine.
“A little scary, isn’t it?” I went on, low and sharp. “When someone else gets to make the choices? When your safety is in someone else’s hands? When you realize you’re not the one calling the shots anymore?”
He stared at me, jaw feathering, the muscles in his neck taut as cables.
“I could take you anywhere right now,” I whispered. “You gave me the wheel. Trusted me. Even when it scared you.”
I looked at him then and saw it in his face—that war between pride and pain. Between needing to lead and aching to surrender.
So I gave him the truth.
“So why,” I asked softly, “can’t you do the same when it actually matters?”
He didn’t speak at first. Just stared ahead, jaw slack, breath shallow. And then, so quietly I almost missed it, he murmured, “Because letting go means I have to trust you not to leave when you see how much of me is still broken.”
His hand came down on my thigh, firm but trembling.
“And I trust you, Aurélie. I do. But sometimes I still look at you and wonder if I deserve to be loved this completely. If I’ve earned the kind of grace you give me.”
“You can’t only trust me when I’m kneeling,” I whispered. “I let you use my body last night, Callum. Gave you the last pieces of me. Let you own me. Let you fucking mark me. And you held that power like it was sacred.” I blinked hard. “You touched me like I was holy.”
No brakes. I took the next turn sharp and fast, like I didn’t care if we spun out.
He squeezed my thigh again, his voice low and reverent.
“You are holy, Aurélie Camille Dubois. Don’t you fucking get it? You’re the altar I built my future on. I didn’t keep you outbecause I don’t trust you. I kept you out because I didn’t trust myself to be worthy of staying in.”
Fucking pain and poetry.
This goddamn man.
“I would’ve stood by you,” I whispered. “I willalwaysstand by you. But I’m not just some soft thing to tuck behind your choices. I’m not your good little secret. And I am not going to sit there smiling while you dictate my life.”
I slowed a little more.
“So tell me, mon amour… can you really handle what it means to let go? Or do you just like the illusion of it when I’m naked and begging?”
“Every plan I made ended with you in it,” he said hoarsely, voice thick with emotion as his hand gripped my thigh. “You’ve been in control of me for the last ten years, whether or not either of us knew it.”
I frowned, but before I could ask a follow-up question, he continued.
His thumb dragged over the inside of my leg like he needed the contact, like it was the only thing anchoring him tome. I could hear his breath catch, ragged and unsteady. When he spoke again, the words were softer, the accent more pronounced. Raw and unfiltered.
