He kissed me hard then, filthy and possessive, like the tide might rip me from his arms if he didn’t hold on tight enough. My fingers tangled in his hair. His hand splayed across my back. I writhed against him in the water, gasping into his mouth as his hips rolled once, twice, against mine.
When he finally pulled back, lips red and jaw flexing, he said, “Come on. Before I fuck you right here.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said flippantly.
He lifted me like I weighed nothing, one hand under my ass, the other clutching the back of my neck as he carried me out of the water back to our towels, droplets cascading down both our bodies, glinting in the sun like stars. I wrapped myself around him, dizzy and drunk on him, helpless to anything but the need clawing through me like wildfire.
He dropped to his knees in the sand, never letting me go, just lowering me until my back hit the towel and he was stretched above me, soaked and fucking feral.
The breeze licked over my skin. The scent of salt and sweat and him wrapped around me like a promise. And when he tugged the rest of my bikini free and kissed his way down my stomach, I forgot about the sun, the sky, the whole spinning world.
All I could think about was his mouth on me. His voice in my ear. His hands spreading me open like he had all the time in the world to worship me.
And God, he did.
His name fell from my lips like prayer. Again and again. The sea roared in the distance. And Callum Fraser, my soon-to-be husband, made a home of my body in the sand.
My legs shook around his shoulders. The tide whispered somewhere around us, waves echoing the rhythm of my release.
Callum didn’t stop until I was gasping, writhing, twitching beneath him like I belonged to his goddamn mouth.
When he finally pulled back, the facial hair on his chin glistened and his eyes were fucking ruined. His hands framed my hips like he was still claiming me.
I reached for him blindly, pulling him up, pressing my lips to his, tasting myself on his tongue, and trembling like I’d never stop. He laid over me, forehead to mine, both of us panting, our bodies slick, our souls undone.
And before I could stop myself—before I could think or breathe or evenpretendto be rational—I blurted it. The words ripped out of me like a moan, breathless and broken. I wasn’t even sure I meant to say them. They just…happened, but I meant every word.
“I don’t want to wait to be your wife, Callum.” My chest rose against his, voice hoarse and shaking with everything I felt. “I mean it. Let’s just… get married. Here. Now. I don’t need anything else.”
The man I loved looked at me like I was both the beginning and the end of every fucking thing he ever believed in.
His pupils blew wide. Something ancient flickered across his face, filled with need, possession, and fuckingawe—and in a blink, he was moving.
He grabbed my wrists and pinned them over my head, dragging a shocked gasp from my lungs as my back arched off the towel. His chest pressed to mine, hot and slick, every muscle tight with restraint, he was moments from shattering.
“Say it again,” he rasped, voice raw. His grip shifted, one hand holding both my wrists, the other sliding down to my hip to lock me in place beneath him.
“Callum—”
“Say it again, Auri.” His eyes searched mine like they were the only compass he’d ever trust.
I swallowed. My whole body trembled under his touch. “I don’t want to wait to be your wife. I want it. I want you.”
He groaned like it hurt and healed at the same time. And then he plunged inside me, hard and deep.I cried out, arching into him, wrists still pinned, body lit from the inside like a fuse.
“Fuck,” he gritted, grinding into me, forehead pressing into mine. “You say that shit and expect me to go slow? Knowing you’re into this as deep as I am?”
My laugh was half sob, half sin. “I mean it, Cal.”
He kissed me like he was carving his vows into my mouth. “I want it too,” he breathed. “I want to wake up to you on every continent. I want to see my name in your passport and your brand on my fucking ring finger. I want the whole damn life. Forever, Aurélie.”
And just like that, we both broke open and bloomed—wild and wrecked and finally whole.
He kissed me hard and then rolled off me with a groan, collapsing beside me on his towel like a man who’d just seen God. Or at least come close enough to taste divinity.
We were both gasping, flushed, drenched in sweat and saltwater and sand in places I didn’t want to think about. My bikini top was on the sand an arm’s reach away, completely unwearable in that condition. My limbs felt like honey. AndCallum fucking Fraser looked over at me like I was the last thing he’d ever believe in.
“That’s it,” he rasped, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I’m marrying you. Sand in every crevice and all.”
