Chapter 66: Team Tease
The laughter from the team dinner still echoed in Aurora’s ears, a humid, beer-soaked cacophony that clung to her skin even in the taxi ride home. She replayed the moment on a loop, each time the humiliation digging deeper.
It had been an accident. A stupid, casual slip.
Callum had been holding court, reliving a crucial match moment, his hand absently rubbing the back of his own knee. She’d leaned over, her voice low and meant only for him. “Does it still tickle there? That one spot just behind—”
Lars, his defender with the hearing of a bat and the tact of a bulldozer, had caught it. “What spot? Nordskov has a ticklish spot?” The table had gone quiet, all eyes on them. Callum’s hand had frozen. His smile had remained, but his green eyes had clicked to hers, a shutter coming down.
“Tell us, Aurora,” Lars had pressed, grinning. “Where is it? This is vital intel. Next training, we exploit.”
Panic, hot and slick, had risen in her throat. “No, I just meant—”
“Behind his knee,” she’d blurted, the words tripping out in a desperate, too-loud rush. “If you brush it with your fingers, he… twitches.”
The eruption had been immediate. Grown men, world-class athletes, had howled. Someone had thumped the table. A spoon had clattered to the floor. Callum had sat perfectly still, the smile now a rigid, polished thing on his face. He’d looked at her, and in that look was a promise of a very specific, very thorough revenge.
Now, in the villa’s cool, dark entryway, the silence was absolute and oppressive. He dropped his keys into a ceramic bowl. The clink was like a gunshot.
“So,” he said, his voice dangerously pleasant. He shrugged off his jacket, moving with a predator’s loose-limbed grace towards the open-plan living area. “You’ve been conducting independent research.”
Aurora hovered near the door, her arms crossed. “It was an observation. From, you know. Being in close proximity.”
“Close proximity.” He turned, the terrace lights casting his face in sharp relief. “You reduced me to a… a fucking reflex in front of my entire team. Lars is probably designing a set-piece around it as we speak.”
“I said I was sorry at the table.”
“You mumbled it into your wine.” He took a step closer. The scent of night air and his cologne washed over her. “They won’t forget that. Do you know how long I’ve cultivated a reputation for being unflappable? And you take me down with a feather-light touch behind the knee.”
She lifted her chin, defiance sparking through the shame. “It’s endearing.”
“It’s a weakness.” Another step. The space between them crackled.
“It’s human.”
He was in front of her now, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his irises, the faint stubble darkening his jaw. He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertips just brushing the sensitive skin there. Her breath hitched.
“You know what’s also human?” he murmured, his voice dropping to a low, intimate rasp. “Retaliation.”
He didn’t give her time to reply. His hands closed around her upper arms, firm and purposeful, and he marched her backwards, through the living room, down the short hall, straight into the sprawling bathroom. The motion-activated lights flickered on, harsh and clinical against the white marble.
“Callum—”
“Quiet.” He released her only to reach into the vast glass shower enclosure, twisting the chrome knobs. Water erupted from the overhead rain head and side jets, hitting the tile with a roaring hiss. Steam began to billow, clouding the mirrors.
He turned back to her, his gaze sweeping her body, from her flustered face to her simple dress. “You’ve been thinking about it all night, haven’t you? What I was going to do. How I was going to make you pay.”
She had. The thought had coiled hot and tight in her belly throughout dessert. “No,” she lied.
A slow, dangerous smile spread across his face. He reached for the zip at the back of her dress. It gave way with a metallic whisper. “Liar.” He pushed the fabric from her shoulders. It pooled at her feet. Her bra and underwear followed, his movements efficient, devoid of tenderness. The air, thick with steam, felt cool on her naked skin.
He stepped back, fully clothed, and looked at her. His eyes were dark, hungry. “In.”
She stepped over the threshold. The water was scalding, a shocking, delicious contrast to the cool air. It plastered her hair to her skull immediately, streamed down her face. She wiped her eyes, pushing her glasses up her nose out of habit, though they were already fogged.
He was still watching from the doorway, a spectator. “You looked so smug at the table. So fucking pleased with your little secret.”
“I wasn’t smug!”
“You had that look. The one you get when you think you’ve won something.” He began to undress, his movements deliberate. Shirt buttons. Belt buckle. The rasp of his zipper. He kicked his clothes aside and stepped into the shower, closing the glass door behind him with a definitive thud.
The space, so vast moments before, shrank to the confines of his body, the pounding water, the steam. He was a wall of heat and hard muscle, water sluicing over the defined planes of his chest, the dark trail of hair leading south. His erection was already full and heavy against his thigh.
He backed her up until her shoulders met the cold, wet tiles. The contrast was jarring. He caged her in, his hands flat on the wall on either side of her head, leaning close. Water dripped from his hair, his nose, onto her lips.
“Payback’s a bitch, sweetheart,” he growled, the words lost in the roar of the shower.
Then his mouth was on hers, not a kiss but a claiming, hard and demanding. She tasted the red wine from dinner, the mint from his toothpaste, and underneath it, pure, unadulterated heat. His tongue plunged into her mouth, mimicking a deeper, more primal act. She kissed him back with equal fervor, her hands grasping his slick shoulders, her nails digging in.
He broke the kiss, his breath ragged. His mouth trailed down, over her jaw, her throat, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. He bit gently at her collarbone, then lower, taking a pebbled nipple into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth. She cried out, the sound swallowed by the water and steam. He lavished attention on one breast, then the other, his tongue rough, his teeth a sharp, exquisite threat.
He dropped to his knees on the shower floor.
The sight alone was almost enough—Callum Nordskov, on his knees, water cascading over the powerful muscles of his back, his face level with her sex. He hooked one of her legs over his shoulder, opening her fully to the spray, to his gaze, to his mouth.
“Wait,” she gasped, but it was a plea, not a command.
He didn’t wait. He leaned in and dragged his tongue through her folds, a long, slow, filthy lick from back to front. She jolted, her head thudding back against the tile.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his voice husky against her flesh. “You’re already so fucking wet. Were you thinking about this when you were selling out my secrets?”
Before she could answer, his mouth was on her again. This was not the gentle, worshipful act of before. This was voracious, deliberate, focused entirely on her undoing. He used his tongue like a weapon, flicking ruthlessly over her clit, then lapping broad strokes, then plunging it inside her. He alternated, building a brutal, perfect rhythm. He slipped two fingers into her, curling them, finding that spot inside that made her see white behind her eyelids.
“Oh god, Callum, right there, please—”
He growled, the vibration against her most sensitive skin sending shockwaves through her entire body. He fucked her with his fingers, his mouth never leaving her clit, sucking and licking with a focused, relentless intensity. The world dissolved into sensation: the pounding water on her back, the slick heat of his mouth, the rough tile against her skin, the coiled, tightening spring deep in her belly.
“I’m… I’m going to—”
“Come,” he ordered, his voice guttural, his breath hot. “Scream my name. Let the whole fucking villa hear you.”
It broke her. The orgasm ripped through her with a violence that stole her breath. Her body bowed, a silent scream locked in her throat for a second before it shattered into a raw, ragged cry that bounced off the marble tiles. “Callum!”
He rode it out, his tongue gentling, prolonging the waves until she was shaking, her leg trembling over his shoulder. Only then did he pull back, rising to his feet. He looked utterly feral, water and her essence on his chin, his eyes black with lust.
He turned her, swiftly, forcefully, so her hands were splayed against the tile. “My turn,” he breathed into her ear, his cock pressing against the cleft of her ass.
He reached between her legs, guiding himself. He didn’t ask. He just pushed, one thick, unyielding inch, breaching her. She was overwhelmingly sensitive, clenching around him, a sob catching in her throat.
“Easy,” he coaxed, but there was no hesitancy in his thrust. He pushed deeper, filling her in one slow, excruciatingly complete movement. A guttural groan tore from his chest. “Christ, Aurora. So fucking tight.”
He withdrew almost all the way, then slammed back in. The force drove a sharp gasp from her lungs. He set a punishing rhythm, each thrust a deliberate, powerful surge that forced her up on her toes. His hands gripped her hips, his fingers digging into the bruises he’d left on the beach, claiming them anew. The sound of their bodies meeting, wet and slick, was louder than the shower.
“This,” he grunted, driving into her, “is what happens…” Thrust. “…when you give away…” Thrust. “…my secrets.” Thrust.
She was beyond words, lost in a feedback loop of overstimulation and raw, mounting pleasure. Each impact sent a fresh jolt through her, building on the echoes of her first climax. She felt stretched, owned, completely at his mercy. It was terrifying. It was everything.
“You take it so well,” he snarled, his pace becoming frantic, uneven. “My clever girl. My talkative girl.” One hand snaked around her hip, his fingers finding her clit again, a rough, circling pressure. “Come again. For me. Now.”
It was an order she couldn’t disobey. Her second climax crashed into her, different from the first—deeper, more convulsive, wracking her entire body with violent shudders. Her inner muscles clamped around him in rhythmic pulses, and with a final, broken shout, he followed her over the edge, his release hot and sudden inside her, his body shuddering against her back.
They collapsed against the tile, breathing in ragged, syncopated gasps. The water rained down, cooling from scalding to warm. He stayed buried inside her for a long moment, his forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, his hands sliding from her hips to splay possessively over her belly.
Slowly, carefully, he pulled out. He turned her gently, gathering her limp body against his chest. She was boneless, her face pressed into the hollow of his neck. He kissed her temple, his lips soft against her waterlogged hair.
“Truce?” he murmured, his voice now a wrecked, tender thing.
She managed a weak nod against his skin. Her voice, when she found it, was hoarse. “Truce.”
He reached behind her and turned off the water. The sudden silence was profound, broken only by their slowing breaths and the drip of water from the shower head. He reached for a thick, white towel and wrapped her in it, then himself.
He led her, silent and spent, to the unmade bed. They fell into it, a tangle of damp limbs and damp towels. He pulled the covers over them, gathering her back against his chest, his arm a heavy, secure weight around her waist.
In the dark, with the scent of sex and steam still clinging to their skin, he nuzzled the back of her neck.
“For the record,” he whispered, his lips moving against her damp skin, “it’s not just behind the knee. The inside of my wrist is just as bad.”
A faint, incredulous laugh shook her shoulders. “Noted.”
He kissed her shoulder. “Don’t tell Lars.”
Outside, the deep Mediterranean night held its breath. Inside, in the tangled sheets, the only sounds were the whisper of the ceiling fan and the synchronized beating of their hearts, both still learning the rhythm of the other.