Thembeing his parents.Properlymeaning without an audience.
I hadn’t questioned it, especially after everything we’d just dropped on them.
An engagement. A possible fertility journey. A quiet elopement brewing. And now… his retirement.
I knew how much weight he gave that conversation. How much of himself he owed to the people on the other end of that call. I knew how difficult that conversation was to have fromfirsthand experience—the least I could do was let him have the space to honor it.
I moved slowly, letting the warmth of the morning kiss each step. My feet sank into the sun-warmed sand, grains sticking to my heels and the spaces between my toes.
A salty breeze lifted the hem of my linen cover-up and whispered secrets through the palm fronds above. The beach glittered like it had been brushed in gold dust. This was our little slice of heaven, untouched and still. Just the sea, the sky, and the soft hush of the waves—no cameras, no chaos, no clocks.
I laid my towel down with the same care you’d unfold a love letter, pressing each corner into place. I twisted my hair into a loose bun, securing it with the claw clip I’d attached before walking down here.
The breeze cooled the sweat at the back of my neck. With a sigh, I dropped the cover-up to the sand, stretched out on the towel, clad only in a pink string bikini. I reached for the bottle of sunscreen beside me.
The lotion was cool against my fingertips, but my skin drank it in fast—still warm from the sun and the remnants of last night’s sexcapades. My hands swept slowly over my chest, my stomach, the curve of my hips. Across the sore stretch of my inner thighs and the ache low in my belly. My abs flinched under my own touch. My lower back tingled where Callum had held me, gripped me, worshipped me like he couldn’t believe I was real.
I winced as I adjusted, the soreness radiating down through my hips and spine in delicious little waves. It was a reminder of everything we shared and the life that awaited us.
I smiled, soaking it all in. Phone face-down, notifications silenced. Just me, the sea, and Harper Rose’s new album purring softly from the speaker beside me. Her breathy voice paintedpromises of first kisses, forbidden nights, hearts broken on satin sheets.
I’d met her once. The day I won my first race, the Monaco Grand Prix. She told me I was doing the damn thing and that I was an inspiration. If I wasn’t a fan before that, I certainly was now.
I sang along under my breath, lips curling around the words.
No one was here to hear me but the waves. It was warm and indulgent and peaceful in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. Not performative peace. Not earned peace. Just… being.
And I didn’t need an audience.
I felt… golden. Unbothered. Blissfully soft and fucked-out and sun-drenched. Happy. Healthy. Alive. Stupidly, irrevocably in love.
I didn’t hear him at first—not over the waves or the song or the fluttering heat between my thighs—but I felt him. There was a distinct shift in the air. A ripple of something magnetic.
Callum.
I tipped my head back to look at the path. He strolled down the sandy path like a wet dream in motion—shirtless, sunlit, and smug, swim trunks slung low on his hips. His shoulders were broad and muscular, his chest kissed pink where I’d clawed him the night before. A towel hung lazily over one shoulder, and his facial hair was gloriously unshaved, messy and infuriatingly sexy. That tousled hair of his looked like he’d dragged a hand through it on the way down the path and called it a day.
He wasn’t smiling. But his eyes—those molten, hungry eyes—never left me.
God.
Sex on fucking legs.
Suddenly, I couldn’t remember a single lyric of the song playing. Couldn’t remember anything, really, except how badly Iwanted to climb him like a tree and undo every ounce of peace this sun was trying to give me.
He dropped his towel beside mine and sprawled out with that signature Callum laziness—limbs long and loose, torso gleaming, eyes half-lidded. Then, instead of settling flat on his back, he rolled to his side and propped his head on one hand. His gaze swept over me once, slowly, like he needed to check I was still here.
And then he asked the last thing I expected.
“How’s your body feelin’, love?” His voice was soft, Scottish lilt curling around the vowels. “Things got intense yesterday. And I know you were still cramping from the new IUD.”
I shifted onto my side to face him, mirroring his position. I’d expected some cheeky remark, a flirty growl, a filthy memory on his tongue—hell, even jumping straight into the conversation with his parents. But no, of all things, he chose that.
I blinked at him, stunned. Then I smiled, so warm it hurt. He always did this. Always saw me first.
“Better,” I murmured, brushing sand off my towel. “Still sore. But in a good way. And the cramps are easing up.”
His fingers found mine between the towels. Gentle. Grounding. “You’d tell me if it wasn’t, yeah?”
