Chapter 40: Morning Claim
The dawn light was a pale, watery grey, seeping through the blinds and etching the tidy lines of his room in dull silver. Aurora woke to the solid, insistent heat of him against her thigh. Her mind, usually a swirl of narrative the second her eyes opened, was preternaturally still. Her body, however, was vividly, overwhelmingly aware.
Callum was on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes, his breathing even.But he was not asleep. The hard, thick length of his erection pressed against her leg was proof. It was a silent, demanding question.
She shifted slowly, turning onto her side to face him. The movement made him stir. He didn’t move his arm, but his lips parted on a quiet, controlled exhale. She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, the defined planes of his torso in the grey light. Last night’s words—I love you—hummed in the space between them, a vibration she felt in her teeth.
Without a word, driven by a need she couldn’t name, she slid her leg over his hips and rose up, kneeling over him. His arm slid away from his face. His green eyes were dark, watchful, still clouded with sleep and something else. Something intense and waiting.
She reached between her own legs, guiding him. The tip of him, already slick from his own desire, nudged against her entrance. She was wet, a slow, aching readiness that had built from the moment she woke. She lowered herself, taking him in with a slow, deliberate roll of her hips.
A sharp gasp escaped her, punched from her lungs as he filled her, stretching her exquisitely. He was so deep like this, seated fully inside her before she even began to move. His hands came to rest on her hips, his thumbs stroking the sharp bone there, but he let her lead.
She started slow, a grinding, circular motion that made him curse softly, his head falling back against the pillow. His eyes closed. Up, then down, a deep, dragging rhythm that had her own breaths coming in short, shaky bursts. She braced her hands on his chest, feeling the powerful beat of his heart under her palms. She rode him like that for long minutes, the only sounds their mingled breathing and the soft, wet slide of their bodies joining.
“Look at you,” he rasped, his eyes opening again, fixed on where their bodies met. “Taking all of me. So fucking beautiful.”
The praise, low and gritty, coiled heat low in her belly. She increased her pace, rising higher, sinking harder. Her nails bit into the firm muscle of his pectorals, leaving crescent moons in their wake. A faint sheen of sweat glossed his skin.
The controlled atmosphere began to crack. His breathing grew ragged. The hands on her hips tightened, his fingers digging in. The earlier stillness was gone, replaced by a gathering tension.
“Aurora,” he warned, his voice thick.
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. She was chasing something, using the physical act to corner the emotional truth he’d uttered in the dark. She leaned forward, her lips close to his ear, her pace never slowing. Her breasts brushed against his chest.
“You told me you loved me,” she breathed, the words a hot whisper against his skin.
His entire body went rigid beneath her. His eyes flew open, meeting hers. There was no shock in them.No denial. Just a profound, naked truth that was more terrifying than any rejection.
He didn’t speak. He just stared up at her, his gaze holding hers captive. And his silence, his utter lack of retraction, was the most potent aphrodisiac she had ever known. A raw, electric current jolted through her, centering in her core, making her clench tightly around him. A ragged moan tore from his throat.
That was all it took.
With a guttural sound, he erupted into motion. In one powerful surge, he flipped them, reversing their positions so violently the breath was knocked from her lungs. He loomed over her, his arms caging her head, his eyes blazing. The careful order of the room, the neat trophies and straight-hanging jerseys, stood in stark contrast to the wild disorder of him above her.
“I did,” he said, the two words a low growl.
Then he was driving into her, no more slow worship, no more patient riding. This was a claiming. He hooked his arms under her knees, pushing them back toward her shoulders, opening her utterly to his punishing rhythm. Each thrust was a piston stroke, deep and hard, the slap of skin echoing off the walls.
“You saying it back?” he gritted out, fucking her with a desperate, focused intensity. “Is that what you want?”
She couldn’t speak. Pleasure, sharp and almost painful, was building too fast. Her heels dug into his back, urging him on, deeper, harder.
“Use your words, princess.” He withdrew almost completely, then slammed back in, hitting a spot that made her cry out, her vision swimming. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want—” she choked, “I want you to fuck me. Just like this.”
A savage grin touched his lips. “That’s not what I asked.”
He shifted, lowering her legs, planting her feet flat on the mattress. He leaned over her, his mouth crashing down on hers in a kiss that was all tongue and teeth and possession. His pace never slowed, becoming even more relentless, the angle changing, grinding against her clit with every deep penetration.
She was unraveling, the coil springing too tight. The confession, his refusal to take it back, the brutal, perfect friction of him inside her—it was all too much.
“Callum, I’m gonna—”
“Come,” he ordered against her mouth. “Come all over my cock. Let me feel it.”
It was the filthy command that broke her. Her orgasm detonated, a shockwave of blinding, white-hot pleasure that rippled out from her core, clamping down on him in rhythmic, pulsing waves. She screamed into his mouth, her body arching off the bed, trembling violently.
He rode her through it, his thrusts growing jagged, losing their rhythm. With three final, brutal drives, he buried himself to the hilt, a raw, broken shout bursting from him as he came. She felt the hot pulse of his release deep inside her, each spasm wringing a final, aftershock shudder from her own spent body.
He collapsed, his weight a welcome anchor, his face buried in the crook of her neck. Their sweat-slicked skin stuck together. The room was filled with the sound of their ragged, gulping breaths.
Slowly, the world pieced itself back together. The grey light had warmed to a soft gold. A beam fell across the rumpled black sheets, over his discarded jersey on the floor.
He rolled off her, onto his back, but immediately pulled her against his side. Her head found its place on his shoulder, her hand splayed over his still-pounding heart. The silence now was different. It wasn't empty. It was heavy, loaded with everything they hadn't said.
After a long while, his phone buzzed on the nightstand, a violent, intrusive rattle. He ignored it.It buzzed again. And again.
With a sigh that seemed to come from his bones, he reached for it. He glanced at the screen, his expression hardening into the focused mask of Callum Nordskov, the star. Not the man who had whispered love into her skin.
"Training," he said, his voice rough but already distant."I'm late."
He didn't move to get up. His arm tightened around her. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, a gesture so tender it made her throat ache.
The phone buzzed again.
"Fuck," he whispered, but it wasn't directed at the phone. It was a sigh into her hair, a sound of profound resignation. The outside world was at the door, and with it, all the reasons why three words whispered in the dark were the easiest and hardest thing he’d ever said.