Page 80 of Red Flagged
His hand found the back of my neck. He pulled me in and crashed his mouth into mine, all salt and rain and too much emotion. When he broke the kiss, his forehead pressed to mine.
“Come on, love,” he murmured. “Let’s go. You’re shivering.”
“So are you,” I shot back with a feeble smile. He put himself back together, and I just stood there, trying not to focus on the crime scene between my legs.
I wanted to believe it was nothing. Just a period. A flare. Stress. Hormones. Anything but what I was afraid of. But fear is a funny thing. Sometimes it doesn’t scream. Sometimes, it just whispers:You already know.
Did it matter either way now? The blood was here. That made it real. Whether it was a period finally arriving or the loss I’d quietly suspected all along, either way, something was ending. And I wasn’t ready to name it out loud. We had too much to worry about, places to be, people to talk to. Now was not the time to drop this bomb on him.
Callum hovered at my side like a shadow, silent, alert, his hand landing gently at the small of my back. Keeping me standing tall, holding me together molecule by molecule. As if I wasn’t already broken. He stepped back to guide me toward the passenger door and opened it carefully, his body blocking the rain.
I whirled to face him. “I amnotgetting back into your,” I glanced at the logo on the seat and scoffed, “quarter-million-pound McLaren with blood running down my legs!”
He blinked at me like I’d just started speaking in tongues. “You think I give a fuck about the leather right now?”
“I do!”
“Aurélie.”
“I’ll ruin it, Callum!”
“Get. In. The fucking car. We’re not doing this again.”
I hesitated, glancing at the beautiful, expensive leather and sleek interior of the car again, but my teeth were chattering and I was so,sofucking cold. But the car didn’t deserve my blood all over it.
“You either sit down nicely like the lady I know you can be, or I pick you up and throw you in there dripping, and I swear to God, if you kick me, I’ll spank your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit through the GPDA dinner.”
I giggled. He raised a brow, and I immediately shut up. That looked suspiciously like he was pulling the Dom card on me, and I knew right away that he wasn’t joking.
I glared, then promptly folded. “Fine. But I’m sitting on your jacket.” I climbed onto the seat like a soaked, bloodied, tantrum-prone heiress and tucked his jacket under me.
The second the door slammed shut, I cranked the heat, flipped down the passenger mirror, and snapped the visor light on… andgaspedin horror.
“Oh no,” I muttered to myself. “Putain demerde. C’est pa possible.”This can’t be real.
My makeup wasdestroyed. Mascara rings under my eyes. Lipstick gone. Bruises mottled and showed through my smudged foundation. My hair? Soaked, tangled, entirely unsalvageable. My entire face was the lovechild of roadkill and raccoon.
Callum dropped into the driver’s side quietly, looking devastatingly hot soaked like this, with his dress shirt plastered to his toned chest and abs. His pants suctioned to his groin, and I contemplated murder for a moment.
Seriously, what thefuck? How was it fair for him to walk away unscathed, while I looked like a drowned sewer rat who’d narrowly escaped the clutches of a trap?
I touched my split lip and winced. “Jesus Christ.” Then louder, for his benefit, “Look what you’ve done to me.”
Callum adjusted his seat and murmured with a cocksured smirk, “You liked it.”
I didn’t respond, mostly because he was right. And partly because I was already digging through the glovebox for tissues. To dab the blood off my thighs, to blot the tears, to try—futilely—to clean up this fucking mess.
“This,” I muttered, glaring at my reflection, “is not what they meant by afterglow.”
He laughed smugly. “Speak for yourself, love. I feelgreat.”
“Remind me to punch you before dessert,” I grumbled. “That is, if Ivy doesn’t beat me to it.”
And right on cue, my phone buzzed in the cupholder.
“Speaking of the devil,” I muttered, swiping to answer and put it on speaker.
“And she shall appear,” Callum added.
