Chapter 60: Transatlantic Tease
The Tokyo hotel bathroom was a monument to impersonal luxury. Callum stood at the window, the city’s neon grid blurring through a curtain of relentless rain. He was jet-lagged, achey from a brutal training session, and buzzing with a low-grade annoyance that had followed him across twelve time zones. The photo from the gala had stayed grainy, the story hadn’t broken yet, but the silence felt like the held breath before a scream.
His phone vibrated on the marble counter. Aurora’s name flashed, a FaceTime request.
He accepted, and the screen filled with steam.
It swirled, opaque and white, before resolving into the familiar, slightly distorted curve of her shower tiles back home. Then her face appeared, beaded with water, her platinum hair darkened and slicked back. Her glasses were off. Her eyes were the only clear thing in the haze.
“Hey,” she said, her voice a low murmur over the pattering of her shower and his distant rain.
“Hey.” The simple sight of her loosened something tight in his chest. “Can’t sleep?”
“It’s two in the afternoon here. I’m just… procrastinating.” A droplet traced a path from her temple down her neck. She angled the phone, the view dipping, revealing the slope of a bare shoulder glistening with soap. It wasn’t an overt gesture. It was Aurora. Casual, uncalculated.
His breath hitched. He leaned against the cold glass of the window. “What are you procrastinating on?”
“Chapter twelve. It’s fighting me.” Her hand came into view, a washcloth moving in slow circles over her collarbone. “How’s Tokyo?”
“Wet. Loud. Full of people who want a piece of me.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m tired.”
“I can see that.” Her gaze was soft, seeing through the pixelated image to the fatigue he wore like a second skin. “You should be in bed.”
“Can’t. Team dinner in an hour.” He watched her hand, the slow, absent-minded journey of the cloth. “Show me more.”
A faint, knowing smile touched her lips. She didn’t play coy. She adjusted the phone, propping it somewhere so her hands were free. The frame captured her from the breasts up, the water cascading down her skin, the swell of her visible, soap-slicked. Her fingers trailed through the suds, tracing idle patterns.
“Wish these were your hands, superstar,” she whispered, her voice dropping, harmonizing with the rush of water.
A low groan escaped him. His body, previously exhausted, snapped to a single, focused attention. He could almost feel the heat of the shower, the slide of her skin under his palms. “Fuck, Aurora.”
“Tell me what you’d do,” she said, her eyes locked on the camera. Her fingers brushed over a nipple, circling it slowly until it pebbled into a tight peak. “If you were here.”
He was already unbuckling his belt, his own breath beginning to fog the cold windowpane. “I’d start right there,” he said, his voice rough. “I’d use my mouth. I wouldn’t be gentle. Not after the stunt you pulled with Jamie.”
Her head fell back, a throaty laugh mixing with a sigh. “Still jealous?”
“Possessive,” he corrected, pushing his trousers down. “There’s a difference.” He wrapped a hand around himself, his grip tight, a substitute for the feeling of her. “Then I’d turn you around. Press you against those cool tiles. You’d feel the chill and then you’d feel me, and all that cold would just… burn away.”
She moaned, her own hand slipping lower, out of the frame. The sounds from her end changed—the water, her increasingly ragged breaths. Her free hand braced against the wall. “Callum…”
“Are you touching yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Look at me while you do it.”
Her blue eyes found the camera again, hazy with pleasure but holding his gaze. She was giving him this, this unguarded, vulnerable sight of her falling apart. He matched his strokes to the rhythm he imagined for her, his other hand splayed against the window, the sprawling, anonymous city a stark contrast to this intensely private moment.
“I can’t wait to come home,” he gritted out, the words raw. “I’m going to take you in every room of that house. I’m going to make you forget anyone else even exists.”
“I already have,” she gasped. Her movements became more urgent, her eyelids fluttering. “I’m close.”
“Let go. I’ve got you.”
It was a shared crescendo built across continents, synced only by sound and pixelated sight. He watched her shatter, her mouth falling open in a silent cry he knew the shape of. The sight tipped him over the edge, his own release a hot pulse against the hotel window, his forehead pressed to the cold glass as he rode it out, her name a ragged whisper lost in the Tokyo rain.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of water and breathing returning to normal.
She eventually lifted a trembling hand, wiped the spray from the screen. Her face was flushed, beautiful in its spent serenity. “Okay,” she breathed, a small, shaky smile forming. “Maybe I can face chapter twelve now.”
He laughed, a real one, the tension of the week draining out of him. “Glad to be of service.”
He cleaned up, his eyes never leaving her as she stepped out of the shower, a blur of pale skin and mist. She wrapped herself in a towel, fumbled for her glasses. The mundane act was more intimate than what had just happened.
“The photo hasn’t run yet,” he said, the real world seeping back in.
She paused, the towel clutched at her chest.“I know. I’ve been checking.”
“Don’t. I mean it. My publicist will handle it. It’ll be noise for a day, then they’ll find something else.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
He didn’t. “I just don’t want you hiding in your house.”
“I’m not.” She squared her shoulders. “I went to the coffee shop today. Wrote three terrible pages. Lived my life.”
Pride swelled in him, sharp and fierce. “Good.”
“When do you land?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Saturday, late. Come over. I’ll be tired and probably grumpy.”
“I’ll bring whiskey.”
“Just bring you.” He heard a knock at his hotel room door. “Shit. That’s for dinner.”
“Go. Be charming. Don’t scowl at the photographers.”
“No promises.” He hesitated, wanting to hang onto the connection. “Aurora?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for the distraction.”
Her smile was soft, real. “Anytime.”
He ended the call. The bathroom was suddenly huge and empty again, just the hum of the vent and the endless rain. He dressed mechanically, tying his tie in the mirror. His reflection looked more settled, the sharp edges of his loneliness temporarily smoothed.
Back in the living area of his suite, his other phone—the one his manager primarily used—was lit up with notifications. One was an email alert from a media monitoring service. The preview text was visible on the lock screen.
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The breath left his lungs. He picked up the phone, his thumb hovering over the screen. He heard her voice: Don’t read the comments.
This wasn’t a comment. This was the first cannon shot.
He didn’t open it. He shoved the phone into his pocket, the weight of it feeling like a stone. He pulled his own phone back out and typed a quick message to her.
Callum: Article’s out. Don’t look. I’ll handle it.See you Saturday.
He stared at the sent message, imagining her phone buzzing on her cluttered desk, the peaceful aftermath of their connection shattered. The shower steam was gone. All that was left was the cold, clear glare of the spotlight, and it was now squarely, irrevocably, on her.