Chapter 34: Morning Claim
Aurora woke to the solid, insistent heat of him against her thigh. The room was still shadowed, a deep blue seeping around the edges of the blackout curtains. Callum was awake behind her, his body curled around hers, one arm heavy across her waist. His breathing was even, but the rigid length pressed into her skin spoke of a conscious, gathering tension.
She shifted back into him, a languid roll of her hips that drew a low groan from his throat. His hand slid up from her waist to cup her breast, his thumb brushing over her nipple until it peaked tightly against his palm.
“Didn’t get enough last night?” she murmured, her voice sleep-roughened.
“No,” he said, the word simple and stark against the shell of her ear. His teeth grazed her shoulder. “Never enough.”
She turned in his arms, the linen sheets whispering, until she faced him. In the faint light, his eyes were dark pools, the green swallowed by hunger. She kissed him, slow and deep, tasting sleep and something uniquely him. Her hand drifted down between them, her fingers wrapping around his hard length. He was already slick at the tip. She stroked him, once, twice, feeling him thicken further in her grip.
“Time?” he managed, his hips pushing into her hand.
“Early,” she whispered, breaking the kiss. “My pace, remember?”
A faint, conceding smile touched his lips. He released her, lying back against the pillows, watching as she moved. She swung a leg over his hips, straddling him, the soft thatch of her curls brushing against his stomach. The dawn light was strengthening, painting silver lines across his chest, catching the sweat already beading there.
She took him in hand again, guiding him to her entrance. Sinking down was a conscious, breathtaking indulgence. He was so thick, stretching her exquisitely as she impaled herself by slow, torturous degrees. Her head fell back, a soft sigh escaping her as she settled fully onto him, feeling him buried to the hilt inside her.
“Christ,” he hissed, his hands flying to her hips, fingers digging in.
She began to move, a slow, undulating roll of her pelvis that was pure, calculated torment. Up, almost to the tip, then a slow, grinding descent. She set a rhythm that was all sweet friction and building heat, her inner muscles fluttering around him with each deliberate movement. She kept her eyes open, watching the agony of pleasure play across his face—the clenched jaw, the flutter of his eyelids, the way his breath caught each time she swiveled her hips.
“You’re a fucking dream,” he choked out, his grip tightening. “Riding me so perfect. So slow.”
She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, and changed the angle. The new depth made them both gasp. Her pace stuttered, grew more urgent. The slow burn was igniting into a wildfire. Her nails bit into the hard muscle of his pecs as she rose and fell faster, the wet, rhythmic slap of their joining filling the quiet room.
That’s when he moved.
In one brutal, fluid motion, he surged up, wrapping an arm around her waist and flipping her onto her back. The world spun for a second, and then he was above her, between her thighs, still buried deep inside her. He pinned her wrists to the pillow on either side of her head, lacing his fingers through hers. The sudden dominance, the complete physical control, sent a sharp thrill through her core.
“My turn,” he growled, and there was no playboy charm in it now, only raw, unrestrained hunger.
He withdrew almost completely and then drove back into her with a force that drove the air from her lungs. No more slow torture. This was a claiming. A frantic, desperate consummation of the time they were about to lose.
He fucked her like he was trying to brand himself inside her. Each piston-hard thrust jolted the bed frame against the wall, rattling the trophies on his shelves. She was helpless beneath him, her legs locked around his waist, taking every punishing, beautiful inch. The sounds were obscene—the slick slam of his body against hers, their mingled, ragged grunts, the creak of the bed.
“Look at me,” he demanded, his voice guttural.
She forced her eyes open, met his searing gaze. Sweat dripped from his brow onto her chest.
“This is what you get,” he panted, hammering into her. “What you take.What you own. Every fucking inch. You feel it?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, the coil inside her winding impossibly tight, her entire world narrowing to the point of brutal, glorious friction.
“Who fucks you like this?” he demanded, his pace becoming erratic, desperate.“You! God, Callum, you—”
Her climax shattered her, a silent, screaming rupture that tore through every nerve. Her back arched violently off the bed, her internal muscles clamping around him in frantic, rhythmic pulses. The intensity of it blurred her vision.
It triggered his own. With a broken shout that was half her name, half a curse, he drove into her one final, deep time and came, his body shuddering, his release hot and pulsing inside her. He collapsed onto her, his weight a crushing, welcome anchor, his face buried in the curve of her neck.
They lay like that, tangled and spent, as the room grew lighter. The frantic energy seeped away, replaced by a heavy, post-storm calm. He shifted his weight off her but gathered her close, their limbs still intertwined.
“I don’t want to go,” he muttered into her hair, his voice thick.
“You have to.”
“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “The car’s coming in an hour.”
The hour passed in a blur of quiet touches and practicalities. They showered together, a slow, soap-slicked ritual under the steaming water that was more about connection than cleaning. He dressed in the uniform of his other life: dark jeans, a simple black crewneck, a baseball cap pulled low. He looked like any handsome man, except for the watch on his wrist that cost more than her car, and the poised, athletic grace in his stillness.
Downstairs, a discreet black SUV idled in the sealed garage. He pulled a hoodie over his head, the ultimate modern disguise.
“The security code is 0601,” he said, turning to her in the stark fluorescent light of the garage. He held her face, his thumbs on her cheeks. “My birth month and day. Don’t answer the door for anyone. There’s a guy named Leo in a gray sedan at the end of the driveway. He’s there for you. If you need anything—anything—text me. The Wi-Fi password is on the router.Eat my food. Sleep in my bed.”
She nodded, her throat tight. This was the reality.The leaving.
He kissed her, hard and quick. “Watch the match tomorrow. I’ll be looking for you in the crowd.”
Then he was gone, ducking into the back of the SUV. The garage door lifted, swallowed the vehicle, and sealed shut again, leaving her in a sudden, profound silence.The house felt enormous. A museum of his absence. She wandered back to the bedroom. The sheets were a tangled testament to their morning. The air still smelled of sex and him. She straightened the duvet, a futile attempt at order, and then simply stood, surrounded by the icons of his very public life.
Her gaze fell on the laptop, still open on his desk. The screen had gone dark. On an impulse, she walked over and touched the trackpad.
The screen flared to life, still paused on the football highlight reel from the night before. It was him, of course, in mid-stride, the ball a blur at his feet. She watched for a moment—the kinetic grace, the focused fury—and then closed the window.
Behind it was a browser, open to a gossip site. The headline made her stomach drop: NORD-SEX! Who is Callum N.’s Mystery Blonde? There was a grainy, long-lens photo of them from last night, her face partially turned, his body shielding her as they hurried from the restaurant. The comments were a torrent of speculation and venom.
She slammed the laptop shut.
The silence pressed in again, louder. She was alone in the fortress he’d built, and for the first time, she felt the true weight of the walls. Not just keeping the world out, but keeping her in.
She found her oversized sweater from the night before, pulled it on, the cashmere soft and smelling of him. She went downstairs, past the sterile living room, and into the kitchen. It was a chef’s kitchen, pristine and utterly unused. She opened the massive stainless steel fridge. It was stocked with pre-made meals in neat containers, protein shakes, and rows of water.Normalcy. She needed something normal.
She made tea, the familiar ritual calming her nerves. Carrying the mug, she ventured into a room she hadn’t seen before—a den with a massive television and shelves that weren’t filled with trophies, but with books.Real books. She scanned the titles—a mix of biographies, history, a few well-worn classics. This was a quieter corner of him.
On the coffee table lay a single, remote control, and beside it, her own laptop bag, which he must have brought over from her house. She stared at it.
Her unfinished novel was in there. The sprawling, stubborn manuscript she’d come here to finish, the one that had stalled amidst the quiet desperation of her old life.
She sat on the enormous, unfamiliar couch, pulled out her laptop, and opened the document. The cursor blinked accusingly on a page she’d last worked on weeks ago. The words looked alien, flat.
From the other room, the grandfather clock in the foyer ticked, a solitary sound in the vast quiet. Outside, the sun was fully up. Somewhere over the Atlantic, he was climbing into a private jet. And she was here, in his world, surrounded by the evidence of his absence.
She took a sip of tea, put her fingers on the keys, and began to type. The words came slowly at first, then faster, pouring out of the quiet and the loneliness and the strange, defiant warmth of his hoodie. She wrote about isolation. She wrote about the noise inside a silent house. She wrote about a character who was, for the first time, terrifyingly, exhilaratingly, not alone.