I pressed my lips together and fought the laughter at the pure absurdity of the whole situation. I wondered briefly if these moments would ever stop, or if we’d forever be getting caught with some clothing item skewed.
The staff didn’t react. Not even a twitch.
He turned back to me, eyes wild. “I’ve never wanted to disappear into the sand more in my life.”
“Too bad,” I teased, grinning as I wiggled slightly. “You’re already buried in me.”
“Fuck me.”
“They just watched you do it.”
He groaned, and still, the staff waited, stoic and professionally dead inside.
Then, Callum stood in one smooth, feral movement. With me in his arms, still filled to the brim,my legs wrapping tight around his waist. His mouth returned to mine, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging for dear life.
For a second, I felt weightless. Airborne. Drunk on champagne and post-orgasm euphoria, giggling into his lips like the rest of the world—resort staff included—didn’t exist.
He pulled away just long enough to nod to the staff and tell them, “Thank you. Come back tomorrow. We’ll have a tip waiting.”
Then, withzero shame,he reached over and swiped the half-full bottle of champagne straight off the table as he walked us past. The bottle was cold against my spine. His cock was still deep inside me. And the path to our villa lit up like something out of a dream.
“Fuck it,” he muttered, shifting his grip and trudging up the sand with me in his arms. “I committed to the line. Let them see how serious I am.”
And the ring? Still glittering on my finger, proof of everything we were, and everything we would be, as he carried me inside.
The breeze waslight and warm as it swept in through the open sliding glass doors of our bedroom. It rustled the linen curtains, carrying the scent of salt and hibiscus with it. Waves rolled slow and steady in the distance.
Sunlight spilled across the foot of the bed, golden and gentle, warming the sheets we’d tangled in the night before. The whole room was awash in it—soft, diffused light that reflected off the white walls and pale wood, filtering through the curtains. It bounced off the mirrors, the empty champagne bottle still on the nightstand, the shimmer of glass catching on the windows and casting fractured halos on the floor.
It was quiet in a way I hadn’t known I needed.
Not the kind of quiet that came from noise-canceling headphones or soundproof rooms. Not the kind I used to crave in a helmet, engine roaring around me just to drown everything else out.
This was different. This waspeace.
And for the first time in my life, I could confidently say I wasn’t running from anything.
I rolled onto my side to admire the real view: Aurélie, still sleeping, her body half-buried beneath the sheets we hadn’t properly used. One arm was thrown over her head, her hair wild on the pillow and her lips parted like she’d drifted off mid-sigh. The engagement ring still sat proudly on her left hand, catching the sun like it had its own orbit.
And I swear to God, I felt my fucking heart trip over its own rhythm.
I used to think I’d been born to race. That the only place I’d ever really belong was inside a cockpit, chasing something just out of reach. Maybe it started when I was eight and figured out the faster I went, the less I could hear the screaming at home. When the beat-up family car became my first sanctuary and movement became the only place I felt safe.
I’d been the scrawny kid with a stutter. Too quiet, too poor, too easy a target. Every insult, every shove in the school hallway, every whisper behind my back—I’d stored it away like fuel. Proving people wrong became my purpose.
Until her.
Until the girl with the mouth of a sailor and a spine made of steel looked at me like I wasn’t a project or a paycheck or a ticking clock. She looked at me, fire blazing in her mesmerizing hazel eyes, like I was already enough.
And I didn’t realize how much of my life I’d spent running until the day I stopped.
Until Miami. Until Monaco. Until Silverstone. Until the second I saw her on the grid ten years after I first spotted her across the paddock in Spa and knew—her right there? She’s going to change everything.
And she did. Not with calm, but with a different kind of chaos. One that didn’t compete with mine, but matched it. Where I’d been precision, she was instinct. Where I’d been noise, she was volume turned to eleven. Where I’d been chasing legacy, she made me question what that actually meant.
Movement was always my comfort zone. Forward. Winning was the only thing that made the uproar quiet.
But now… now, the most natural thing in the world was holding her. Feeding her strawberries on the beach. Slipping my ring on her finger and watching her melt. Kissing her until she broke apart in my arms and whispered yes against my lips.
