sainz-leclerc

[sainz-leclerc]

can't get you outta my head - cl16

pairing: charles leclerc x fem!reader (friends to lovers!) summary: in which you and charles are in the same friend group and find solace in one another OR you and charles fuck and can’t forget about it warnings: smut under the cut! oral (f-receiving!), outdoor sex, p in v, angst, pining, badly translated french (pls correct me), NOT PROOFREAD word count: 5.4k! (lengthy) author’s note: IN HONOR OF HITTING 1,600 FOLLOWERS I AM POSTING THIS TODAY!!!! double-postings today!!! i wrote this SOOO fast so sorry if there’s any mistakes. loved writing it tho and i know i was going to make it more enemies originally but making him softer and cutesy just felt right for now. i can always do another one if you guys want!! just let me know what you think! love hearing from you guys!!! xoxo

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BENEATH THE BRILLIANT canopy of the sun’s golden embrace, you recline comfortably upon the plush cushions of the lounge chairs, creating a sanctuary of comfort amidst the vast expanse of sand. Around you, a kaleidoscope of colors and textures unfold: vibrant beach towels strewn around carelessly, the glistening ocean stretching endlessly before you, and the verdant palm trees swaying in rhythmic cadence against the bright blue sky.

The sound of the ocean’s embrace upon the sandy shoreline murmurs in the background, a subtle undercurrent beneath the symphony of voices of your friends that fills the air. Your gaze drifts towards a cluster of your friends cavorting in the embrace of the water. Their figures, silhouetted against the shimmering expanse of the ocean, exude a carefree vitality. Like playful spirits unleashed, they tumble and wrestle amidst the crash of the waves, their laughter echoing.

You smile softly listening to a few of the girl’s banter over last night’s drunken escapades, flipping a page of the cheap magazine you purchased earlier.

“Joris a pratiquement mange de la merde hier soir.” Joris practically ate shit last night. Your best friend, also Joris’s girlfriend, to the left of you says in between laughter, as you all careen over with a laugh. 

“Au moins, il va bien.” At least he’s fine. You say with a soft smile, turning another page of your magazine. “Can we talk about Antoine shooting a firecracker out of his ass?” The words spark an immediate eruption of laughter, tears threaten to fall from your eyes from the sheer hilarity of the memory.

“Qu’est-ce qui est si drôle?” What’s so funny?

You turn your head and find yourself locking eyes with a pair of captivating green. In that moment, your heart skips a small beat, and a soft smile graces your lips as you gaze warmly at him. “Making fun of Joris and Antoine, bien sûr.” Of course.

A smile plays at the corner of his pink lips, and you can’t help but envy their perfect hue. You can’t help but notice the subtle dimples that grace Charles’ cheeks as he smiles. Did he always have those? With a casual grace, he raises a hand to scratch the side of his stubble before reaching for a towel casually draped over your lounge chair. As he leans over, droplets of water cascade onto your warm skin, a gentle reminder of the ocean’s embrace. You steal a moment to admire the bronzed glow of his skin, the sunlight dancing upon the small beads of water that cling to his sculpted muscles with a tantalizing allure.

A peculiar aura envelops the relationship between you and Charles. You didn’t speak often, although you were in the same friend group, and have known each other for forever. However, in the recent weeks, a shift has occurred. Perhaps it’s the shared experience of a newfound singleness has drawn you closer together, prompting conversations to flow more freely than ever before.

A delicate blush creeps onto your cheeks, a fleeting flush of warmth that you hope goes unnoticed against the backdrop of your sun-kissed skin. You feel a jolt of electricity shoot through you as Charles’s fingers brush lightly against your shoulders while the grabs the towel, igniting a subtle spark between you two.

“Allons-nous au club ce soir?” Are we going to the club tonight? One of your guy friends asks, sinking onto a sandy towel with a groan as he collapses onto the soft grains. 

For a moment, maybe a few seconds, silence hangs in the air. As if each person is lost in contemplation, weighing the prospect of the evening’s plans. Then, in a synchronous chorus, a resounding chorus of “yes” erupts from the group, breaking the silence with unanimous enthusiasm.

You remain silent, immersed in the pages of a trash magazine, each turn revealing scandalous tales that undoubtedly blur the lines between fact and fiction. Charles watches you intently from his position in the beach chair across from you, though not directly opposite. Positioned slightly to the right, his gaze lingers on you with a subtle curiosity, his expression betraying a hint of contemplation as he observes you amidst the circle of friends. Always in your own world.

“Lovie, tu participes?” Are you in? Your best friend beside you seems to notice your lack of response. Her arms stretch across the gap between your chairs, and she gently squeezes your wrist, a silent gesture of reassurance and solidarity. 

Lovie. You don’t exactly know why you got that nickname, but it stuck. And it carried over to most of the friend group calling you that since childhood.

You lifted your head up, the sun beading down on you causing your eyes to slightly crinkle, as you gave her a look that said duh!

Your friends smile widens as she claps her hands together, her excitement palpable as she sits up from her previously relaxed position. Her enthusiasm is infectious, casting a warm glow over the group as they all eagerly cheer in happiness with her. “Mon dieu!” Thank God! It was a squeal of relief. “Maybe you’ll meet a sexy man and fall in love and have his babies so you can forget all about that loser.”

Your heart clenches at the mere mention of your ex. The smile on your lip’s falters just slightly, but you quickly regain composure, determined not to show a hint of sadness surface while on vacation with your friends. With a subtle effort, you smooth away the brief flicker of vulnerability, masking it beneath a façade of cheerful resilience. 

You roll your eyes, “Nous verrons.” We’ll see. Your tone carries a hint of mystery as you look back into your magazine, letting the conversation of your friends flow into a different direction.

-

“Es-tu sûre que tu devrais en prendre unautre?” Are you sure you should have another? Joris says into your ear, making sure you’re able to hear him over the pulse of the music, his arm slung over the back of the booth behind you. You lean into his body, a drunken smile pulled on your lips.

He harbored a slight concern for you. While you were his girlfriend’s best friend, your friendship dated back to childhood, long before his relationship with her, and he held you in high regard. His care for you ran deep, and ever since your break-up, he knows that you haven’t been the same.

“Arrête de t’inquiéter pour moi.” Stop worrying about me. You shove his shoulder gently, before pointing to your best friend on the dance floor. “Inquiéte-toi pour elle.” Worry about her.

You let out a soft laugh as you witness Joris’s eyes widen in surprise at the sight of his girlfriend standing on the stage. With a knowing smile, you begin to slide out of the booth with intent to make your way to the bar, sensing the need for a fresh drink to accompany the unfolding spectacle.

Before you can even slide out of the booth, a fresh drink—scratch that, a refill of your drink, is placed in front of you. Your gaze follows the masculine hand holding the glass, adorned with an expensive watch at the wrist, tracing its path up the arm until your gaze meets Charles’ intense stare. His eyes, dark and captivating, lock onto yours, already filled with questions and a silent understanding.

You slide back over, silently signaling him to sit beside you. As he eases into the spot beside you, the proximity of his body sends a shiver down your spin, the heat radiating from him igniting a primal longing within you. Your bare skin tingles with anticipation as his presence fills the air with an electric charge, a silent dance of desire playing out between you in the dimly lit confines of the booth.

In the midst of the pulsating club music, words between you two remained scarce. Yet, you both found solace in the quiet companionship that enveloped you both. The energy of the club swirled around you, but the warmth of each other’s presence, you felt a profound sense of ease settle, much like a comforting blanket.

-

It wasn’t unnoticeable to the rest of the friend group. In fact, it was very noticeable. The way you and Charles seemed to find a connection with one another, especially post break-ups. 

It’s not that you were never friends, you just were never as close. So it came as a slight surprise to a few of your friends as they picked up the little changes that were made.

Like when Charles refills your drinks for you. Or when he notices that there is coconut in your meal, which you’re very allergic to, and sends it back to the kitchen. 

Like when you remind him to put on sunscreen, knowing he tends to burn easily. Or when you find yourselves sitting out by the fire at night, long after everyone went to sleep, just talking about the most random things.

“The CGI in that movie was terrible!”

“It’s a classic! You can’t hate a classic!”

“That doesn’t make the CGI better!”

Or

“I’ll have you know I’m a culinary expert.”

“Charles, I’ve known you for forever. Don’t lie!”

“I’m an innovator! Who else could turn pasta into charcoal with such ease?”

No matter the topic at hand, you and Charles always found yourselves engulfed in laughter, the gentle sound filling the air with warmth and camaraderie.

-

You didn’t want sadness to cloud your vacation, but sometimes emotions have a way of washing over you like relentless waves. One of the evenings, while your friends made plans to dine out, you made the wise choice to stay in. Although you didn’t want to miss out, you felt that you were not in the right mindset to be out with everyone. Some protested your decision, expressing concern, but you assured them that you would be fine on your own and ready to party it up all day tomorrow.

Charles shot you a funny look as he slid his hands into one of his pockets, leaning casually against the kitchen archway. His white linen shirt, barely buttoned and snug against his muscles, accentuated his tan, making it seem even more vibrant against the stark contrast of the fabric. A single glance from him stirred a whirlwind of emotions within you as you perched on the bar-stool chair, clad in nothing but a tiny pair of sleep shorts and a well-worn t-shirt. It was your ex-boyfriend’s shirt, a garment you should have long discarded, but its comfort proved too irresistible to part with. Despite the pang of guilt that tugged at your conscience, you found solace in its familiar embrace, a reminder of the past you couldn’t quite let go of yet.

The villa you currently stayed in was beautiful. Its whitewashed walls and wrought-iron accents blended modern and luxury all in one. Inside, the warm glow of the setting sunbathed the spacious rooms, casting an ethereal orange hue over the abundance of white and wood-colored furniture. As the click of the front door echoed through the villa, the chatter of your friends faded into near silence as they departed for dinner, leaving you alone in complete silence.

-

You find yourself eventually nestled in the corner of the oversized couch, cocooned in the warmth of a fluffy blanket draped over your body. With the television remote in hand, you flip through the channels, searching for something to capture your interest. Nothing quite grabs your attention, until you stumble upon a cheesy rom-com you’ve seen hundreds of times.

Lost in a trance, you’re oblivious to the world around you, the gentle breeze whispering through the open windows. The creak of the front door opening barely registers, and it’s only when Charles’ silhouette materializes in the archway beside the TV that you snap back to reality. A soft smile tugs at the corners of Charles’ lips as he gazes upon you, nestled comfortably on the couch, wrapped in a cocoon of warmth. His heart skips a beat at the sight of you, at the sight of your eyes looking at him with such softness.

“Que fais-tu de retour?” What are you doing back?

He shrugs nonchalantly, pushing off from the wall’s archway and making his way toward you. With an easy grace, he plops down beside you, propping one leg up on another couch cushion and allowing his shoulder and head to half-lean against you.

You both settle in a comfortable silence, the sound of the movie filling the air around you with a comforting ambiance.

“Penses-tu jamais que tu le surpasseras?” Do you ever think you’ll get over him?

The words send your stomach into a frenzy of somersaults, and a tightness forms in your throat, making it difficult to swallow.

You don’t answer immediately, instead you stare ahead at the television, your fingers fumbling with the fabric of the blanket nervously.

“Je l’espère.” I hope so.

His eyes are solemn as you look at him. “Parfois,” Sometimes. He begins, straightening his posture so he can fully look at you. “I think I’ll never get over her.”

His words hang heavily in the air, and though they sting a bit, you understand. You share the same sentiment.

“Mais toi,” But you. His hand reaches to yours, the one fumbling with your thigh. His eyes dart between both of yours, like he’s struggling to formulate his next words. “You just,” He starts before squeezing your hand in his. “You just make my days feel easier.”

You nod slowly, knowing exactly what he’s trying to say. “My pain, my heartache, just disappears whenever I’m with you.” Your voice is soft as you speak the words. The truth of them daunting.

“Sometimes I just wish I could turn my emotions off.” You say, unwrapping the blanket from your body, so that it only sits underneath you now. “Like I could just fuck someone and move on.”

Charles’ eyes widen slightly as the word ‘fuck’ slips past your lips. He nearly lets out an audible groan, his eyes tracing the contours of your collarbones peeking out from the oversized shirt that slips tantalizingly of your shoulder.

He licks his lips, swallowing a pronounced gulp, as his eyes trail back to your face.

“Yeah.” 

You could feel the tension in the air, like the both of you were considering fucking each other here and now. Charles couldn’t escape the thoughts of spreading you out on the cushions right here, spreading your legs and fucking you with his tongue.

As he locks eyes with you, you feel a flutter in your stomach, your thighs clenching involuntarily as his gaze lingers on your lips. You part your lips to speak, but before you can utter another word, a loud burst of commotion erupts through the front door. No doubt your drunken friends, clamoring for the fire pit.

-

You and Charles find yourselves in an awkward dance since then. Not too awkward, but the idea of you fucking each other escaped neither of your minds.

It was honestly twisted. The fact that Charles couldn’t stop picturing what you would look like beneath him, what your moans would sound like in his ear. He had fucked his fist twice to the though of you since he even heard the word ‘fuck’ slip past your lips on the couch the other night. It was honestly pathetic.

You couldn’t handle it either it seems. You found your eyes lingering on Charles way longer than necessary. The flex of his muscles as he enjoys a morning workout by the villa’s pool, the small smiles he gives you from across the room, and the small touches he gives as he walks by you has you driving yourself up a fucking wall.

So, when your friends decide to head out for a spa day, you and Charles hang back sitting across from one another a tad too far apart on the outdoor couch for it to be normal. It was as if you needed the space to stop from jumping each other’s bones.

The skimpy red bikini you wore did little to ease Charles’ thoughts. But he couldn’t help but feel grateful for the first time in weeks he isn’t thinking about his ex-girlfriend. No, he’s too engrossed in the idea of fucking you. Hearing your sweet little moans he just knows you would have. Feeling your smooth skin beneath the pads of his fingertips.

Charles could feel himself harden just by glancing at you lounging comfortably on the outdoor couch, the clouds covering the sun engulfing you guys in a moment of shade.

Across the couch from him, you tried to do everything but acknowledge Charles’ longing stare. But you couldn’t. Your body was all tense, in need of a release. 

“Charles, will you—”

Before you could even finish the sentence, Charles was standing over your figure on the couch. His hardened cock visibly noticeable in his short swimsuit. The muscles of his thighs flexed before you, as he visibly gulped at the vision of your breasts spilling out of the top.

“Assieds-toi droit.” Sit up. He murmurs softly, his voice carrying a gentle command as he shifts, prompting you to straighten your posture.

Was this really about to happen? You really hoped so.

It was as if Charles can see the desire in your eyes, answering the question of if you wanted this in his head almost instantly.

“Est-ce que je peux t’embrasser?” Can I kiss you? His thumb toyed with your bottom lip, tracing it as he licked his own.

You nodded your head before his lips pressed down onto yours, capturing them in a sweet embrace. His fingers tangled in your hair, gripping it firmly near your scalp as he deepened the kiss, igniting a surge of warmth and longing between you.

A soft moan escapes your lips as he slips his tongue into your mouth, pressing it hotly against yours. He pulls away for a moment, still standing above your sitting figure, as he takes in your blown out pupils.

“Ça a un gout si doux.” Tastes so sweet. His hand remains in your hair, holding your head in place to look at him. His eyes stare at your sightly swollen lips, a clench of need forming in the pit of his stomach.

He falls to his knees before you on the couch, kneeling between your two legs, as his other hand presses against your chest, forcing you to lean back against the cushions of the couch. The sun peeped through the clouds momentarily, allowing you to drink in the sight of just how light his eyes were.

His thumb grazes your bikini cladded core, rubbing light circles in a teasing manner. The pressure of his thumb wasn’t enough, but it was everything you needed.

He looked at you from between your legs, a smirk on his face like he knew just how crazy he was driving you. It was an image you never wanted to forget. 

“Touch me.” You begged, a breathy moan leaving your lips as his thumb pressed harder onto your swollen clit. 

It was all he needed to hear before sliding your bikini bottoms to the side and shoving his tongue to where you needed him most. The cool air of the outdoors was a stark contrast to the heat you felt between your legs. 

He took his time with you, like he wanted to savor every sweet moan you gave him. His tongue flicked around your clit a few times, before wrapping his lips around it. Your hand slid into his brown locks, slightly lightened form the sun over vacation, and pulled as you rutted your hips against his face.

“Mm, that’s it,” He groaned into your cunt, his words vibrating against you, sending your hips into a faster frenzy. He slipped two fingers into you, lifting his head to watch as you lulled your head back against the cushion and took your hands from his head to your breasts. You stretched the bikini top slightly, until your breasts spilled over the tiny triangles, your nipples already hardened from the need that burned within you.

Charles slipped one hand up to your breasts, taking one of your nipples in between his thumb and forefinger and pinching.

“M’god,” You half-shouted, biting your lip to prevent yourself for being too loud.

“Don’t deprive me from your sweet little moans, yeah?” He pulled his lips off your clit for a few seconds, giving you ample time to look at them glistening in you. You nearly came at the sight of it. 

He dropped his head back between your legs, flicking fast kitten licks to your clit, which had you careening forward with a cry of pleasure.

He sucked hard on your clit, eliciting loud mewls from you that were like a sweet melody to his ears. Charles could feel his cock straining against the tightness of his swim suit, he flexed his hips into the couch before him, in need of some sort of relief. 

He could feel you teetering on the edge of your orgasm, shoving his face deeper into you, his tongue slipping in and out of you at a fervent pace. It hit you hard. Your hips had a mind of their own, as they rode his face, the bony structure of his nose pressing against your clit sending you into a frenzy.

Charles replaced his tongue with his fingers and watched as you came down from your high. His fingers still working you over as he coaxed you through your orgasm, not letting up.

“I knew you would taste like heaven,” He smirks, finally removing his fingers, before slipping them into his mouth, and moaning at the taste of you on his tongue.

You groaned, your pupils blown out as you looked at him, your legs still spread and cunt fully exposed to him and the outside air. 

“Need more,” You practically begged.

“Need my cock, hm?” You nodded, wasted no time in answering. He pushed himself up from his knees, sitting beside you on the couch as he pushed his swimsuit down enough to free his cock. It was hot and heavy in your hands as you reached for it, precum already dripping from its tip.

You straddled his waist, raising up just enough for him to slip his cock into your already saturated core. Your hands grip the back of the couch behind Charles’ head, your fingers clenching it tightly as you take in each inch of him. His hands grip your waist, large fingers sprayed across as he guides your movements over his cock.

The squeeze of your cunt on his cock was better than Charles could ever imagine. The fact that he had to use his fist before you was honestly a punishment compared to this.

“Mon dieu,” My God. You groan as his cock stretches your walls. You waste no time in working yourself over his cock, the pleasure of it too good for you to do it slow. You chased that second orgasm as it teetered on the edge. You were already so close.

“That close already?” His smirk was permanent on his face as he flexed his hips up into you, hitting you deeper than before.

You nodded, soft mewls escaping your lips constantly. It was as if you couldn’t shut up now. His hands grip your hair tightly, pulling your head back to look up at the sky, as he pulls one of your hardened nipples in between his teeth.

You didn’t have time to tell him you were coming again, but the clench of your walls on his cock was enough of a warning for him. Your walls fluttered around him repeatedly, as his name fell softly from your lips followed with a string of curses.

As if he couldn’t hold back his orgasm any longer, he lifted you up off him and placed you to the side, his hot cum spilling over his cock and stomach in stringy spurts. Your body was limp against the cushion, your bathing suit covering nothing.

Still hazy from your climax, you look from the blue cloudy sky to Charles beside you. His eyes were glossy as he smiled, like he was fully content.

“Merci,” Thank you. You said softly, an acknowledgment for him giving you what you mentioned the other night.

He nodded once, giving a small smile as if to say thank you back.

-

It’s been weeks since you and Charles fucked on the outdoor couch of the vacation villa. You haven’t seen each other much since, not that you expected it. You were thankful it helped you forget about your ex-boyfriend just a little bit more. Like you could bare the idea of meeting other men. Which you were.

You claimed that Charles was a one-time thing. Although it was probably the best sex you’ve ever had, you knew you couldn’t do it again. It was a mutual one-time thing.

So, when you found yourself pressed against the bathroom door of the five-star restaurant, your short little sundress bunched up at your waist, and Charles’ cock buried deep in your cunt, it was a little unexpected. Not completely.

It was hard and quick, nothing but a string of breathy moans between you two as he pressed your chest forward into the door. You both came quickly, your chest flushed red and his cheeks slightly pink as if he just performed a hard workout. 

“Who’s your date?” He asks, the words slip out fast, like he’s trying to act like he doesn’t care.

You furrow your eyebrow for a second, before looking at yourself in the mirror, Charles standing tall behind your figure. “Just met him last night,” You flattened your hair as much as you could to make it seem normal. “I’m trying to get back out there.”

Charles smiles at you, although it seems slightly pained. “Good. Your ex-boyfriend didn’t deserve you.” His words were kind, and it made you smile that he even bothered to say it. 

“I should get back,” You begin, turning to face him. His eyes look at your lips one last time, like he’s contemplating kissing you again. “I’ll see you next week at Joris’s, right?”

He gave you a small nod.

-

Charles Leclerc is a liar.

Well, a liar when it comes to him saying he doesn’t think about you sexually. The way you feel around his cock. The way your breathy moans turn him on to no end. The way your breasts bounced with each thrust of his cock. The taste of your cunt on his lips. 

He’s a liar if he says he doesn’t fuck his fist almost every night to the thought of you.

But he was also a liar when it comed to him saying he doesn’t think about you not sexually. The way you loved to read trashy magazines, the way you always fidgeted with the rings on your fingers when you were nervous, the way your eyes glowed whenever you laughed. 

So, when Joris mentions you and a new potential boyfriend, he can’t help but feel slightly annoyed at the idea. The clench of Charles’ jaw at the sight of you and this ‘potential boyfriend’ across the yard at baby shower, does not slip past Joris’s eyesight.

“Y a-t-il quelque chose entre vous deux?” Is there something between you two?

Charles clutches the neck of the beer bottle in his fingers, bringing it to his lips, before straying his eyes from you to Joris beside him.

Charles’ eyes gleamed like he didn’t know how to answer this without admitting feelings he hasn’t even admitted to himself. He shook his head. No. Because there wasn’t.

“Vous étiez proches en vacances.” You guys were close on vacation.

It was just a statement, as if he wanted to see Charles’ reaction. Charles didn’t know if Joris was trying to insinuate anything, but Charles didn’t respond. Not as Joris’s girlfriend, your best friend, popped up behind you both, a tray of cupcakes in her hand.

You sat across the yard, deep in conversation with Theo, at one of the many heavily decorated picnic tables. The short purple sundress that adorned your body is a vision of effortless elegance. Delicate straps grace the shoulders, framing your breasts with a feminine charm. The skirt flows gently with every movement, swaying gracefully in the warm breeze.

You both knew it wasn’t anything serious, at least yet, but he had a way of making you smile, nonetheless. Despite only knowing each other for a few weeks and sharing a handful of dates, he made a point to take his time with you. He was considerate, never pressuring you into anything, especially after you had confided in him about your previous messy relationship one night.

“Tu es belle.” You’re beautiful. Theo whispered into your ear, his fingers toying with the fabric at the ends of your dress, resting right above your knees.

You blushed, your cheeks flaring a light shade of red, as you smiled into your lap. You lifted your head slightly, looking across the yard, where your eyes met with Charles. His eyes already watching you with such heat in his eyes it made your stomach do a somersault.

He felt an intense surge of resentment towards the guy who dared to lay his hands on you, his anger boiling as he watched him lean into whisper into your ear. Your cheeks flushed a brilliant shade of crimson under his gaze, betraying the effect of his words.  What could he possibly be saying to you?

It was just his cock you were coming around last week. So, why is this fiery sense of jealousy threatening to consume him entirely?

It didn’t make sense. How could he feel such intense jealousy over someone he never even had a real relationship with? He never even felt this jealous over his ex-girlfriend.

It was just sex.

He told himself repeatedly. It was just sex. But it only made the burn in his chest only grow more.

-

You were a liar if you said that Charles Leclerc is never on your mind. You were a liar if you said that it was just sex.

Because, for some inexplicable reason, you can’t seem to get Charles Leclerc out of your mind. You remember how he made sure none of your dishes contained coconut, how he bought you those trashy magazines he knew you loved so much, and how he always made sure that you were smiling.

So, when Charles Leclerc stood silhouetted in the doorway of your front door, the moonlight casting a soft glow around him in the middle of the night, you couldn’t help but feel your heart skip a beat.

You took note of his hair in disarray, as if he had run his hands through it a dozen times, and the soft grey sweats that hung loosely on his hips. The taut muscles of his arms peeked out against the seams of the black t-shirt he wore. 

“Je n’arrête pas de penser à toi.” I can’t stop thinking about you. He utters the words with a look of anguish etched on his face, each step carefully navigating around your figure as he stands in the foyer of your apartment, a space he’s been in countless times over the years. But never alone. Never without friends.

You close the door and turn to look at him, not realizing just how close he was to you. “It’s like you,” he begins but freezes, taking a step closer toward you. You take a step back, the tight tank top you wore did little to hide your hardened nipples from the cold air, and your back hit the front door. “It’s like you possess every thought I have. Every single thought. You. You. You.”

You sucked in a breath as you looked into his eyes, more darkened than normal, almost as if he was angry at you.

“Qu’est-ce que tu m’as fait?” What did you do to me? His fingers trail up your arm to your collarbones, a trail of goosebumps following in their wake.

You gulp audibly, your lips slightly parted from the feel of his fingertips on your skin for the first time in weeks. You struggle to find the words until Charles is pleading.

He laughs slightly sarcastic, like he can’t believe this is happening to him. “I even bought those trashy magazines that you like so much, a whole stack of them at my place, because I cannot get you out of my fucking head.”

“Dit moi, it’s not just me.” Tell me.

You would be a liar if you said it’s just him. Your hands trail up to his shoulder, your fingers squeezing them in comfort as you stare into his eyes. His breaths getting heavier as your fingers trail his t-shirt classes skin, like he was yearning for it so much, like it burned him.

“It’s not just you.”

He doesn’t give you time to say much more, not until his lips are crashing down onto yours again. Like he couldn’t last one more second without your lips pressed to his.

[sainz-leclerc]

Dark Alliance || C.L + A.L

Dark Charles leclerc x reader x dark Arthur Leclerc

This series with contain dark themes, obsession, smut, gaslighting, manipulation, toxicity and probably more so I wouldn’t recommend if you can’t handle it also it will progressively get dark. This is fiction. Also this is very toxic wouldn’t recommend having a relationship like this in real life.

Backstory: you come back from college all grown up making your childhood bestfriend’s fall for you harder, the shared feelings for you have the brothers going at each others throats but when you, the sweet oblivious angel seem to take a liking to a boy, well let’s just say they share a mutual hatred for the man and make a pact to get rid of him and share you.

Read the warnings before reading this

i.

ii.

iii.

iv.

v.

Charles is 26

Arthur is 23

Yn /reader 20

[sainz-leclerc]

You have no idea how happy you made me by liking my story 🥺 I love your works and I love to see you still use this account. Here this is for you 💐

Omg love you boo 💞 Here, I have something for you 2 🌷

[sainz-leclerc]

what doesn’t kill me (makes me want you more)

{charles leclerc x fem!reader}

in which charles needs to soothe over the horrors of the weekend with you.

written in fulfilment of the prompt, “drunken kiss / tipsy”

warnings: semi-drunk sex, face riding, fem!receiving oral and squirting, use of light degradation (“whore”) with terms of endearment (“baby girl” / “mon petit”), unprotected sex

He was a sticky fucking mess after COTA, because he’d shown up at your doorstep, hand wrapped around the neck of an already lukewarm, half-drunk bottle of champagne that he doesn’t even like, but indulges in regardless, because he doesn’t know what else he can do to stem the white hot anger that’s threatening to erupt. His eyes are glassy and dazed and his lips red and wet, and despite how ragged he looks, he’s still so irresistibly pretty. He’d leaned against the door frame and grinned at you with an uncharacteristic confidence, especially given his shitty weekend. 

“You’re drunk,” you insist, but you don’t stop him when he pushes your door open with his wide-open hand, rings glinting in the dim light. 

“Not drunk,” he insists, although his words are slurred, and the flush in his cheeks goes all the way past the open collar of his shirt. Enticing is not strong enough to describe what he is to you, so you settle for biting the inside of your cheek and shutting the fuck up. 

Charles takes this chance to saunter in like he owns the place, tipping the bottle back with a ease that’s concerning. 

“Charles,” you say, backing up into your apartment, but he doesn’t seem to hear the warning in your voice - your fear that this thing you share is starting to become more than just a casual fling. He pushes the door shut, setting the bottle down heavily on your kitchen counter - eyes trained entirely on you.

“You didn’t come to the race.” There’s a trace of hurt that you can hear in his voice, so low these days. He reaches out to trace his knuckles down your arm, the briefest of touches. “I wanted… I was hoping to see you there.”

Your heart goes out to him, because you knew how difficult it’d been - knocked down to sixth despite his pole position, and invariably ending up disqualified after being fucked over and with nothing to show for his efforts. It’s his one of the worst blows he’d suffered this year, compounding the pain he’d felt at Monaco and Spain. You take a step closer and cup his face, feeling the residue of tear-streaks on his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” you say, and he nods, hands coming to find your waist. You don’t want to explain your distance - because how could you articulate this to him - your very real fear that he wants to keep this just a casual fling, while you’re dying to keep your feelings for him at bay.

“You didn’t miss much,” he shrugs, dismissively consigning the weekend to the part of his mind where he dumps all useless, uninspiring things. “But I missed you.”

You want to pull back, but his hold on you is so alluringly possessive. “Charles…”

His eyes flash up at you, green-gold and beautiful in the dim light. He looks so battle-worn that you can’t help wanting to bring him comfort - make him forget the sting of the weekend’s horrors.

You take his face in your hands, and allow yourself to make a quiet admission. “I missed you too.”

At your confession, Charles’ face instantly transforms - his sad smile morphing into one of relief and even, dare you say, happiness, and it’s pure instinct that makes him lean down so his lips find yours, passionate and hungry until he’s got you wrapped in his arms, holding you so close that your bodies press together without even an inch of space, and you’re both gasping for air when you pull apart, only to come back with even more searingly hot kisses because you just can’t get enough.

“Fuck, you taste so good,” he groans, and you fist your fingers in his hair, dragging his mouth back as you whine for more. 

He’s been here so many times he can practically memorise the direction of your bedroom; how many steps he needs to take to get you past the threshold, how quickly he needs to tear off your clothes (and his) before your knees hit the edge of your bed so he can fall into the soft mattress with you, rolling you over him so you can pin him down and grind into him with the wetness slicked between your legs already. He ruts up into you, hard and solid beneath. “Take whatever you want, Charles,” you gasp out, pulling your mouth from his so that you can prepare yourself to feel him slide in. 

He grips your hips, fingers tight on you as if to possess you with sheer force. “You. Want you and nothing else.”

Your heart pounds at the words he says - he’s never been this forward, this affectionate - this tender. You see the way his eyes go soft as he looks at you - or maybe that’s the alcohol buzzing through him, and he’s drunk, but you don’t let yourself get sucked in. You can’t afford this sort of heartbreak with him.

You take his wrists in your hands and pin them above his head, wrapping tight around the bracelets he perpetually has on, until he winces slightly. You stare down at him, almost smug at the way he’s trapped under you - he’s the one at your mercy. “You gonna be good for me, Charles?”

He grins. “So fucking good. Spread your legs for me.”

You lick your lips and do as he says, gliding the wet centre of your cunt along his bare cock. He makes a sound of approval, the veins of his wrists bulging as he writhes against how good it feels. “Made you all wet, huh?” He says, smug, and you kiss him instead of answering, because you don’t need to fuel his ego - he already knows how easy you are for him. You rock against him, a moan catching at the back of your throat as you manoeuvre your hips so your clit rubs gently against the tip of his cock, over and over until you’re both shaking, impatient to fuck, but neither wanting to give in.

“You’re going to come first,” he insists, even though his voice is shaky and there’s a fine sheen of sweat all over his chest that you want to lick up. “Already so close, baby, I can feel you…”

He’s not wrong, but you’re not willing to give in so easily - so you lift your hips from his cock, earning you a groan of frustration. “So damn talkative tonight,” you pretend to chide, sliding yourself up past his cock, his torso, his chest, and his eyes widen when he realises what you’re doing. “Maybe you need to put that mouth to better use…?”

He gives you a sloppy smirk, looking every bit wasted and happy-drunk. “Come here then.”

You tease him though, taking your time until he grows impatient and makes this deep growl that comes from his chest. He wraps his hands around your thighs and drags you hard, fast, up over his chest, past his neck, his jawline - so he can settle you and the ache between your legs over his mouth. Your thighs bracket his beautiful face, his eyes bright and gleaming with possibility when his mouth gets to work on you, and you moan his name, unable to stand the way he sucks your lips, your clit into his mouth, kissing and devouring like he’s a man starved. He holds you down on his face until you’re worried he’ll suffocate, but with the way he’s panting, the ease in which his mouth brings you to such ecstatic heights, you’re fuelled only by the pure need to come for him.

He makes rough sounds that will haunt your fantasies for years to come - as if he’s the one being given head instead. You bear down on him, rocking your hips in tune to his mouth’s torture, until you feel the inescapable need to come for him flood through your system. He glimpses the desperation on your face, the whimpers of “please” that fall easily from your lips, and he doesn’t change a fucking thing.

When you come, it’s a fucking mess - the rush of wet that you can’t control dripping down the sides of his cheeks, his chin. Charles keeps his eyes on you, not wanting to miss the sight of you coming for him. You’re hot all over - feeling the thrum of that molten, syrupy haze take over your body as you feel the orgasm wash over you. He moves your hips back and gently guides your body down until you’re flush to his chest, cheek pressed there while he soothes you down from your high. Your eyes are half-lidded, hazy in the afterglow.

He reaches over the side of the bed to grab for his shirt, so he can wipe his mouth, his face, tossing it to the floor once he’s done. You drag him back to you so you can press to him, bare skin against his own, and he sighs in contentment when you kiss him, threading fingers through his hair, drawing from him every last bit of anguish. His smile between kisses is such a welcome departure from his earlier despair, and you can’t resist rolling him on top of you, grinding your hips up against the aching cock you find. He groans when your hand wraps around him, the warm solid girth that fills you with an anticipation of how good he’d feel inside you. 

Charles kisses you hungrily, one hand coming to cup your face, swallowing your needy little sighs as you stroke him, feel his dick throb in your hands. “Cmon, baby,” he implores softly, “you know what I need.” His other hand wanders down your body so he can tease his fingers along your slick cunt that’s still tingly after your orgasm, and you buck against his touch, shifting away. “Still a little sensitive huh,” he grins, and you whine at him. “Okay mon petit… I’ll go a little slower.”

“No, Charles,” you practically sob out, “need you now, inside me, please.”

He sounds so smug when he says, “you think you deserve this, huh?”

You whimper impatiently, and it seems to flip a switch in him. He takes his fingers away, and before you can complain about the loss of his touch, he takes your wrists and pins you down, until you make these little simpering sounds that make him grin in satisfaction. “You don’t want to be fucked gently, do you?”

You shake your head - trembling because he’s so close to you.

“Tell me how you want it,” he says, the authority that creeps into his voice turning your skin to gooseflesh. 

“You know how I want it,” you whine at him.

He lets a slow smile spread over his face, thumbs rubbing the pulse points he finds at your wrists, which makes you squirm. “Yes. Of course. You want to be fucked like a whore, don’t you?” His accent catches on the word - turning it dirty, just like you want to be for him. 

Shit. Yeah. You feel your face grow so hot at the prospect. “Please,” is all you manage to say, when he leans down to litter kisses at the base of your neck, collecting your wrists in a singular grip and using his other hand to guide his cock inside you - and there’s no resistance when you’re this slippery and wanting and he’s got you in a complete chokehold. The slide of him inside you makes you moan - feeling your body stretch open for him to accommodate all of him. He loves to watch your face when he presses inside you - that initial feeling of being completely full of him so incomparable to anything else you’ve ever experienced.

He doesn’t fuck fair. He fucks dirty - like it’s the last time he’ll ever have you like this, thrusting into you with an intensity that you know will leave you sore and aching after he leaves. You love the reminder, the echoes of his body like a shadow that haunts you for days after. You lean up to kiss him, swallowing his moan as you wrap your legs around him and feel your body lose all sense of control. This sacred space of messy sheets and sweaty bodies is the only place you allow yourself to surrender fully to him - to be his entirely.

“I should’ve known why you didn’t come to the track,” he says in that teasing tone which drives you mad, “you were playing coy with me, weren’t you?”

You play along, leaning up to kiss his mouth as you make a non-committal sound in the back of your throat. “Maybe I was just busy.”

He laughs, sinking back into the kiss. “No. You just wanted to make me miss you, didn’t you? Make me crazy wanting you.”

Your little giggle is all he needs to switch things up a little, becoming just the tiniest bit more aggressive and wild with you. The snap of his hips inside you, that subtle change in angle hits against this spot inside you that makes you jolt up, struggling to keep your composure against his tight grip. “If you’d wanted me to come fuck you like this,” he chides, “you could have just asked.” 

His eyes twinkle with amusement when you give him a pointed look as if to say, but if I’d had to ask…

He half laughs, half pants with a wild streak in his eyes. “I know; I know. Fuck.” 

You take the chance to wriggle out of his grasp, reaching behind the expanse of his back and running your nails down from the back of his neck, past the long stretch of his broad plane of muscles. He jerks against the sensation, half grimacing, half grinning. “So good for me,” he says, a tenderness underscoring the rough timbre of his voice, and you can’t help squeezing around him - the sweet stretch his cock makes in you, how full you feel of him. The telltale signs of tension coiling inside you is powerful, and you’re helpless against it. 

“Charles,” you whimper, “I’m so close.”

“Good,” he hisses in turn, learning down to kiss along the soft slope of your neck, letting his teeth run erotic little paths down your skin - the gentlest scrapes driving you mad. You get so sensitive there, and he knows it - loves making you crazy for it. Your fingers tighten along his back, holding him closer to you, and he moans your name like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever allowed to roll off his tongue. “Tell me,” he utters, hot breath at your neck, “when you need to come.”

You squeeze your eyes shut as he continues to kiss at your neck, amplifying the pleasure twofold - a thousandfold. Your nails grip into his back and leave moon-crescent imprints there, but all he does is fuck you harder, to the tune of your groans, your pleas for more, Charles, and harder, please. He pulls his face away from your neck so that he can watch the pure ecstasy bloom across your face - the frenzied quality in your eyes, how swollen your mouth is with the taste of him - and he can’t help leaning down to kiss that mouth that has secretly always been his. You kiss him back eagerly - tenderly slipping your tongue into his mouth to glide over his own, feeling the vibration of his approving hum, until it’s too much - you have to pull away.

“Charles, I’m-“ but you’re too late, unable to complete the sentence before the orgasm rips right through you, making your body a quivering, helpless mess for him. Your nails sink in roughly and he groans with delight, pumping his hips into the spasms of your cunt until he, too, is lost to the sensation of his own orgasm. He chants your name, breaking apart above you with his own forceful shudder, daring to press his flushed skin taut against you as he slumps over, trapping you under his weighty, spent body. You rake your nails across his oversensitive skin, hearing him make satisfied little noises that sound like a purr. 

You catch your breath, unable to resist pressing your nose into the salt-sweet scent of his skin after sex - musky and perfect and all him. He makes the move to shift away from you, but you tell him, “no. Stay on me a little longer. Please.”

“But I’ll crush you, baby girl.”

“Don’t care,” you say, not wanting to let him - to let the moment go just yet. 

He just hums, eyes growing heavy and sleepy already. You kiss a sweaty curl of his hair and quietly urge him to sleep, and the lull of your heartbeat, the heat of your bodies entwined, is exactly the kind of consolation he needs after such a terrible weekend.

-

this is a little all over the place, but I’ve been stuck in a rut for weeks and thought I’d release this piece to get the momentum going again. I’ve been sitting on this semi-finished piece for weeks now, just never quite getting it right, but also coming to the conclusion that I’ll probably never get it fully right, and that’s okay! hope it brought some catharsis to the heartbreak of this weekend 💛 I know it did for me.

sending love, ives

[sainz-leclerc]

Funniest q2 shot

[sainz-leclerc]

— THE WAY I LOVED YOU

pairing: theodore nott x reader

summary: in which theodore nott will do anything to get you to go out with him, but you’re just as stubborn rejecting him

warnings: swearing, kissing, dangerous stunts and theo being stupid (ryan gosling in the notebook style), unedited since i wrote this in the middle of the night on no sleep again lol. enemies to lovers if you squint a bit

author’s note: since everyone loves theo i’ll pretend this isn’t just for my own selfish needs <3 (especially the notebook reference) also surprise surprise mc is a gryffindor as always, you’d never know i was a slytherin my bad guys… as always let me know what u think! enjoy, angels 💌

The first time Theodore Nott asks you out, you spill a pot of ink directly into his lap.

It’s not like you meant to do it. But when there’s a Transfiguration worksheet to be getting on with, the Slytherin boy seated next to you by Professor McGonagall asking you out would surely take anyone by surprise.

The second you twist in your seat to look at him in shock, your arm slides the pot right off the desk and directly onto his grey trousers, instantly staining them with the black liquid before you have a chance to speak.

Your hands fly to your mouth to stifle your gasp and you look up at him, anticipating an angry glare in return. Instead, he looks mildly surprised at the ever-growing stain on his crotch, but mostly… amused?

“A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed, darling,” he says, raising an eyebrow and suppressing a smile.

You begin stuttering out an apology and scrambling for your wand to wave away the stain before you can do something stupid like attempting to rub it off with your sleeve. Your cheeks instantly heat up at the humiliating image now plaguing your mind and you barely contain a sigh of relief when you realise the lesson has finished.

It’s a miracle your shoes haven’t left scuff marks on the ground in a cartoonish trail with the speed at which you leave the classroom. Godric knows why Theo Nott of all people wants to ask you out, but since it can’t possibly be for any good reason, you’d rather not think about it too much. This, however, isn’t helped by Hermione pestering you about why you look so flustered for the entire walk to the Charms classroom.

Twenty minutes later, her attention is finally diverted. On the other hand, it’s because she’s berating you for accidentally burning the end of her left eyebrow off with a charm gone wrong.

The second time Theo asks you out, there are thankfully no ink pots around.

“Hey,” he whispers from behind you, making you jump within an inch of your life despite his low volume. You swivel in your chair to glare at him, incredulous. Seeing that he’s startled you, Theo grins. “Sorry. What are you doing?”

“Baking a cake,” you deadpan, once your heart has started beating at a normal pace again. Holding up your Potions book, you feel the annoyance start to seep in when Theo continues looking at you, undeterred. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Apparently unfazed by your sarcasm, he drags out the chair next to you and spins it around to sit on it backwards. Settling his arms on top of the backrest, Theo rests his chin on them to look at you. “You never did answer my question.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you mumble, eyes scanning the page in front of you but taking in nothing. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to study-”

“Are you going to make me ask you again?” he sighs. You panic a little at his bluntness and continue pretending to read, not knowing what else to do. Theo takes your silence as encouragement and shuffles his chair closer to your own. “Go out with me.”

The arrogance practically drips off his voice, and the pit of anxiety in your stomach immediately turns into irritation instead. “No,” you grit out, slamming your potions book shut to scowl at him. “And I don’t hear you asking anything.”

“Okay,” Theo says slowly, nodding as though he understands. It’s clear that he doesn’t though, because the next words out of his mouth have you stunned. “Please, oh please, will you do me the absolute greatest honour of going out with me?”

”Merlin,” you exhale, pinching the bridge of your nose. Dropping your hands into your lap, you see no solution other than gathering your things to return to the common room. “You’re having me on…”

“I can assure you, I’m not,” Theo says quickly, stopping you from leaving by gently grabbing your elbow. You stop in your movements to catch him looking more unsure than you’ve ever seen, and you’ve never been more perplexed. “I’m completely serious right now. Go out with me?”

“Wh- I don’t even-” you sigh, cutting your senseless muttering off to cross your arms over your textbook. “Whatever happened to a simple ‘no’ sufficing, darling? Aren’t there a million other girls for you to go and pester? Godric knows you’ve got an entourage following you half the- What are you looking at?”

Amazingly, Theo’s expression has lost all trace of vulnerability and now displays a slightly faraway look, his signature lazy grin in full effect. “Sorry, I didn’t hear a word after you called me ‘darling’.”

Resisting the urge to hit him over the head with your textbook, you take a deep breath and grasp the potential weapon tighter in your hands before speaking. “As hard as it is for me to believe that girls actually fall for this rubbish, your history with them shows that they do. Don’t think for a second, I’m going to let you use me like they do.”

Theo considers your words for a few seconds, mulling them over as carefully as though he’s trying to solve a brain teaser. Eventually, he seems to come to a satisfying conclusion, because he tucks his hands into the pockets of his trousers and tilts his head. “So you need me to prove I’m serious about this… and then you’ll say yes?”

“Oh, for the love of-” Huffing, you turn on your heal without saying another word and storm out of the library. Theo doesn’t follow you, allowing you to clear your head and think about the incredibly odd interaction.

You’re climbing through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room when you realise you never actually refuted Theo and his theory to make you go out with him. Whether or not it was on purpose, you can’t quite decide.

Over the next few weeks, you start wishing you had stopped Theo before he could start trying to prove himself to you.

You can’t go a single day without the question of going out with him popping up. Much to your bewilderment, it isn’t always him asking. Sometimes it’s his friends, sometimes it’s students at the Gryffindor table who are sick of the multiple owls every morning flocking to your table with a note in their beaks. Sometimes it’s even your friends.

“I mean, really,” Hermione says at breakfast, huffy as always when reprimanding someone. “It’d be benefiting everyone if you just went out with him. Why don’t you, anyway?”

“He’s a Slytherin,” Ron butts in, talking to Hermione as though he’s explaining something to a child. He takes a gigantic bite of his toast before speaking, his next words coming out muffled. “Surely that’s reason enough.”

“No, that isn’t reason enough,” Hermione says sternly, furrowing her brows. “A good reason would have been all the girls he’s always with. Of course, that’s flown out the window recently. He’s also never given them as much attention now that I think about it.”

“He’s definitely not the worst of the group either,” Harry adds, leaning in as nosily as Ron. “Not like we’re talking about Malfoy…”

“Don’t you two have Quidditch tactics to be discussing?” you snap, exhausted by the subject already. The two boys hold up their hands in surrender, before shuffling down the bench. Whether that’s to be closer to the Quidditch team, or to get away from you before you start throwing hexes - you aren’t certain.

The fact you’re awake early in the morning on a Saturday isn’t helping your sour mood, and the Quidditch match being between Gryffindor and Slytherin only adds to this.

“We’d better go and get a good seat at the front, so we aren’t on our tiptoes for the whole game like last time,” Hermione says, already sliding off the bench. You give your cup of coffee one last longing look before you allow yourself to be dragged away.

You haven’t even made it onto the Quidditch pitch before you’re already wishing for that cup of coffee to give you strength, because you find none other than Theo standing outside the Great Hall in his green and silver Quidditch robes.

As soon as he spots you, Theo plasters on that charming smile of his and opens his mouth, no doubt to ask you if you could talk privately.

Hermione interjects before he gets the chance. “Don’t bother, I’m leaving.” She simply sighs when you look at her, betrayed. “He’d have convinced you anyway! I’ll save you a seat.”

You watch her leave, helplessly before turning to Theo and crossing your arms. “Yes?”

“I have a proposition for you,” he says simply, getting to the point. The proposition has, without a doubt, got something to do with you and him and a trip to Hogsmeade, but you gesture for him to continue nonetheless. You can’t deny it’s been entertaining watching Theo come up with new ways to ask you out these past few weeks. “I’ll throw the match and let your lot win if you go out with me.”

This startles a laugh out of you, something between a chortle and a gasp. “Oh, you cheeky bastard,” you exclaim, but you can’t help grinning. That was quite possibly the last thing you expected him to say. “First of all, I think my lot is perfectly capable of winning on their own. And secondly… as funny as it would be, I’d rather not have your death and Malfoy’s subsequent imprisonment in Azkaban be on my conscience.”

You only realise just how wide your smile is when it starts to fade under Theo’s unwavering gaze. His lips twitch up into a smile and you immediately frown as an automatic response. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re bantering with me,” Theo says, grinning as though he’s extremely pleased with himself. You realise with a jolt, that yes you were bantering. “One step closer to agreeing to go out with me.”

“That’s not happening,” you protest, but it sounds fairly weak, even to you. “Like I keep telling you, I’m not going to be one of those girls.”

Theo shrugs. “And I think you already know you’re not one of those girls. It’s fine, I can wait.”

The relaxed manner in which he says this has you flabbergasted to say the least. Truthfully, you aren’t completely sure why you haven’t just agreed at this point. No one in the whole school is used to witnessing such extravagant displays from Theodore Nott, so you’ve accepted the fact you’re an outlier in this particular subject area. You’re starting to think Hermione’s right, and it’s pure stubbornness that’s keeping you going.

“You’ll be waiting a long time then,” you say, giving Theo a bland smile.

“Nah,” is all he says, the smile still gracing his unperturbed face. “Keep an eye out for me in the Quidditch stands.”

Theo winks at you before walking away in the direction of the pitch and you linger in the castle for a good few minutes before snapping out of it and walking in the same direction.

You find Hermione quickly at the front of the Gryffindor stand and you’re about to ask how long until the game starts when Lee Jordan’s voice begins to boom from the commentator stand.

“Strong start for Gryffindor with Katie Bell taking the Quaffle and- nope, Vaisey’s taken it and passed it onto Urquhart, his fellow Chaser and the new Slytherin captain.” You’re thankful for Lee’s commentary as it’s easy to follow and you probably wouldn’t have a clue if it weren’t for him. Surprisingly, he keeps it professional enough for a while. “Ginny Weasley tries to take the Quaffle after a near hit there to Urquhart, thanks to new Gryffindor Beater Jimmy Peakes and that very solid Bludger over there. Unfortunately, he missed-”

“JORDAN.”

“Sorry, Professor McGonagall, I meant fortunately. Slytherin Chaser Mattheo Riddle now has the Quaffle and seems to be aiming to score and- oops! He’s missed, thanks to Gryffindor Keeper Ron Weasley. Good on you, Weasley,” Lee says, unable to be impartial as shown by McGonagall’s glare. “As for the Slytherin Keeper, Nott seems to be distracted by something in the Gryffindor stands. Or should I say someone.”

Laughter echoes in every stand, much to your utter humiliation and some people even start whooping and cheering in your direction. Theo’s antics are common knowledge at this point, but it doesn’t make the laughter any less embarrassing. You try and maintain a shred of dignity by standing still and glaring as hard as you can at Theo. Horrifyingly, he starts to fly in your direction.

Lee looks at McGonagall before speaking, but she merely shrugs helplessly, looking flustered herself. “Er, well it seems Slytherin are open for Gryffindor to score. No one seems to be taking advantage, however, as I think I can speak for everyone when I say we want to know what’s going on with Nott and Y/N.”

Glancing at the others, you realise Lee is right and all the players are hovering in place, making no move to continue the game. They look partly confused, but mostly nosy.

Theo stops just outside the Gryffindor stand, his attention focused wholly on you. You raise both eyebrows in question, waiting for him to speak. “Go out with me.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t quite hear what Nott is saying, but I think we can all guess he’s asking her out again,” Lee says, causing a few more cheers and even a couple groans. “Take the hint, mate.”

“Theo, get back to the game!” you hiss, wrapping your arms around you as if it’ll shield you from everyone’s eyes. “You’re embarrassing m- What the fuck are you doing!”

Theo swings a leg over the side of his broomstick so that he’s sitting completely facing you, legs dangling dangerously off one side. Lee sits up a little in his booth and McGonagall looks positively horrified. “For unknown reasons, Nott is balancing precariously in a position no Quidditch player wants to- Merlin, he’s hanging off his broomstick!”

Everyone in the crowd screams and shouts when Theo slips off his broomstick, but they quieten down and watch with fright when they see he’s still holding on with both hands. You think you’re going to faint.

“Theo,” you plead, with the same voice you’d use to coax a bloody kitten out of a tree. “Get back on your broomstick. Please.”

“Only if you go out with me,” Theo says, eyes determined despite breathing a little heavier. The broomstick is thin and despite his strength, it’d be hard for anyone to maintain a grip for long. “Say you’ll go out with me and I’ll get back on.”

“Just say it!” Hermione grabs you by the shoulder to shake you.

Professor McGonagall seems to have shaken out of her previous daze and begins scrambling around for her wand while Lee narrows his eyes to better assess the situation. “Godric, Y/N. Just say ‘yes’ and end everyone’s misery already.”

“But…” you trail off, hands shaking as you keep your eyes on Theo’s white knuckles still gripping the broom. “I don’t want to encourage this stupid behaviour.”

Theo rolls his eyes as though he can’t believe you’re still objecting. He shakes his head at you, though his chest is shaking with laughter. “Go out with me, and I swear I’ll never do anything stupid again. Fucking hell, I’ll quit Quidditch altogether if you want.”

You open your mouth to say something, you’re not sure what, but before you can get a word out, Seamus Finnigan pipes up from beside you. “Personally, I say let him fall off the bloody thing.”

Tutting, you turn to Theo just to find the idiot raising an eyebrow challengingly. His left hand begins to loosen on the broomstick, deliberately.

“Theo, don’t you dare.”

He drops his left hand completely and you scream, the noise drowned out by everyone else’s yells.

“OKAY!” you yelp, heart in throat as you watch Theo dangling from his broomstick with one hand, clearly struggling. “Okay, I’ll go out with you, you stubborn idiot!”

The Gryffindors that hear you, begin to cheer, setting off the other houses and once McGonagall sees Theo begin to pull himself up on his broomstick, she visibly relaxes, slumping in her seat as she clutches her chest. Lee soon gets the message. “Finally, after a good month of watching Nott pine pathetically, Y/N has agreed to go out with the poor bast- Er, beggar. Sorry, Professor. By the way Nott, you’ve got detention for a week.”

Now sitting normally on his broomstick, Theo grins at you like the cheeky bastard that he is, with elation clear as day on his face. You struggle to fight off your own grin and you can tell by his expression you’re not doing a very good job at it. “Pull something like that again and I’ll push you off your broomstick myself,” you warn him, though it lacks any real threat. You were more worried than angry, and it definitely shows. “Okay?”

“No more stupid behaviour,” Theo promises, sounding sincere as he nods, messy hair falling into his eyes. The wind blows it out of the way almost immediately and you find yourself wanting to do it with your fingers. “After this, though.”

You furrow your brows as Theo flies close enough to the Gryffindor stand to get off his broomstick and hop right into the crowd, landing next to you. Broomstick in hand, Theo doesn’t take his eyes off you when he holds it out to Hermione. “If you don’t mind, Granger.”

Clearly baffled, Hermione gingerly takes the broomstick from him and watches the two of you, as enraptured as the rest of the school.

You face Theo properly, looking up at his eyes to see them glittering with pride and achievement. You tilt your head in question, wondering why he hasn’t yet returned to the game.

Theo answers you by gripping your waist to pull you into a stupidly dramatic, dizzying, wonderful kiss. His lips are soft against your own and cold from the wind, but the shiver that runs down your spine has nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the way Theo is pressed against you.

You could go on forever, but the cheers and claps and hollering around you remind you that you’re surrounded by all your peers and, Godric, your teachers.

Pulling away, you clear your throat and attempt to gain back some of your dignity by keeping a serious face. Theo attempts nothing of the sort as he’s still wearing a silly grin. You try and avoid his eyes for the sake of your nerves and you mutter the first thing that comes to mind. “Erm, good luck then. I hope you win.”

This is the wrong thing to say surrounded by your fellow Gryffindors as a few of them boo at you.

Theo rolls his eyes at the dramatics, while you simply scowl, pointedly at Seamus who seems to have boo’ed the loudest. Hermione is beaming at you when she hands Theo back his broomstick, though she also gives a little frown directed at Seamus.

Getting back on his broomstick, Theo hovers near you outside the stand. You lower your voice to a whisper that only he can hear. “I still hope you win.”

Theo shrugs, looking more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him during a Quidditch game. “I’ve already won, darling.”

[sainz-leclerc]

📸 END UP HERE

synopsis. when a guy keeps harassing his best mate’s cousin, there’s not a single thought on his mind that would make theo feel bad about wanting to beat the shit out of him.

theo nott x lestrange!reader. PLEASE. request more things for theo or mattheo. i’m literally in need.

theo couldn’t remember the exact moment, when his mind filled the urge to hit cormac mclaggen as hard as possible. on second thought, he definitely could.

theo’s been watching you ever since the party started. you were standing in the corner of the room, trying to get as little attention as possible — you wouldn’t even been there if amelia didn’t beg you to be her emotional support, so considering you were the best roommate (and friend) she could imagine, you said yes. maybe it was just the start of mistakes you were supposed to make that night, or so you thought.

you had a tight, dark red dress on you that hugged all your curves in the places it should. your make up just made you stand out from all the girls there, that’s what theo thought when he saw you. of course, you didn’t want to be there, but you couldn’t just pass on an occasion to dress up a bit, since you were going anyway. maybe your clothing choice was another of those mistakes.

nott’s attention was fully on you — a girl tried to hit him up? too bad, because she wasn’t even half as pretty as you were, and he knew you didn’t even try. it became obvious to all his friends that you were… quite a distraction. he would engage in a conversation, trying hard to have his focus on his friends, but then you would do something, and he felt obligated to look at you, but you were clearly oblivious to his gaze averting and coming back every once in a while.

“can you stop eye-fucking my cousin?” draco groaned, leaning on the wall behind them, bringing a cup to his lips, taking a small sip of alcohol. “it’s disgusting.” he added.

draco malfoy was the only reason that kept theodore from getting his hands on you, at least that’s what he would always tell people he bluntly ignored, when you walked into the room he was in. just because draco treated you like a sister, people thought nott would get a hold of his hormones.

but how could he, when you always looked so gorgeous?

“i’m not eye-fucking her, i’m a cultured man.” he said, getting lots of mocking laughs from mattheo and lorenzo (“you? a cultured man? never heard that much bullshit in my life.”). “i’m admir— ouch, c’mon, malfoy.” his fingers massaged the place that the blonde boy punched.

it all happened later that night, when nott was already a little lightheaded from a blunt he was smoking with mattheo. even if he didn’t want to concentrate on you, it was pointless, so he just watched you, shamelessly, being teased for it by his friend at the same time.

he noticed that cormac fucking mclaggen cornered you, and you had no possible chance to run away from him, your eyes scanning the room, looking for help until your gaze landed on theodore’s face, and he knew immediately. you watched him get up from the couchy, mumbling something to riddle before he made his way towards the corner you stood in.

he didn’t even say a thing, the discomfort in your eyes was enough to assume everything. he tapped the gryffindor’s shoulder, quickly throwing his fist forward, and you could’ve swore to god that you had heard bones crushing. theo just grinned mischievously as cormac looked at him a confussed expression, brushing his lip with his thumb.

but nott didn’t stop himself there, starting a fight. while mclaggen’s friends tried to pull the poor gryffindor away from theo, mattheo and enzo just stood behind him, with wide, prideful grins on their faces, shouting once in a while to encourage theo to “crush his skull”. if it wasn’t for blaise, who finally appeared (with amelia right beside him), the fight would go for probably even longer until one of the teachers didn’t interfere.

“stay the fuck away from her, mclaggen.” dark-haired spat at his opponent, the adrenaline running through his veins, so the bruises didn’t hurt at all. not until he was sat by the edge of the bathtub by you, when he realized that his face was throbbing with pain.

“theo.” you whispered, stading right between his legs, trying so hard to focus on patching him up more than the burning sensation of his hand on her hip. hearing the way you said his name almost made him groan — you were so perfect in his eyes that if he manned up, his hands would be everywhere, not just your hip. “could you please lift your head for me?”

there was something so incredibly intimate about that moment. he just fought for you, and instead of getting mad, you were right next to him, cleaning his face and hands off the blood, speaking so softly and touching him with such a gentle manner that theodore thought he died and woke up in heaven.

“i thought you said you wouldn’t be fighting random guys anymore.” you began, brushing his hair back, so you could press the wet towel to his forehead. “was he making you uncomfortable?” he asked, his tone a little raspy.

“well, yeah but–”

“then it wasn’t random.” theo shrugged, and if you two were in different circumstances now, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from crashing your lips into his. “he should’ve known that you’re my girl.” he mumbled as his hand slipped down on your thigh, his fingers digging into your soft flesh.

“you looked so good tonight.” he muttered after a minute of silence as you kept trying to concentrate on helping him first. a sigh left his lips as he pulled you a little closer. “i want to rip that dress off you, jesus. what are you doing to me?”

it took him one more swift pull to get you to straddle him. his fingers traced soft circles on your outer thighs as you were silently finishing up your job. your entire body was burning. unfortunately, your face was revealing the effect he had on you, and you hated it, because theo always made it his mission to make you blush as hard as possible.

the thing between you two was… indescribable. you weren’t a couple, but you acted like one, you weren’t friends with benefits, but you weren’t just friends. there were feelings involved and neither of you denied. there were mutual attraction, desire, urgency and neither of you could see themselves with someone else. if soulmates existed, then theodore faustus nott was yours and no one else’s.

“alright.” now, it’s your turn to sigh. you put the towel aside, cupping his cheeks, scanning his face for more bruises to patch up. when you were sure that you treated every single one, you let yourself relax, getting a soft chuckle from theodore. “you worried me, theo.”

he mumbled something under his breath, but you couldn’t pinpoint what it was, since he found his face nuzzling in your neck, leaving small kisses in the spots that he knew would make you shiver. he inhaled the sweet scent of your shampoo and perfume. oh, and did it drive him crazy.

he picked you up, your legs wrapped around his hips as he walked the two of you to his bed, merlin help how weak he felt, but carrying you around was something he did every single time you were at his dorm. theo put you down, letting you get comfortable in his sheets (he bought them, just because you said it looked pretty — so now he had floral themed sheets). on the other hand, he was searching for some clothes you always wear, so you wouldn’t suffer in a tight dress.

maybe he never directly said he loved you, but his actions and behaviour towards you was enough to tell you he did.

you’ve changed into clothes he gave you, allowing your… situationship to help you unzip your bra, and you fell down on his bed. it took you a brief moment to realise that you were still in your goddamn makeup. a long sigh escaped from between your lips. theo’s face lit up with confusion, although he understood why you were lazily getting up from his bed.

“you don’t have to go back.” he smirked, looking you up and down, admiring how gorgeous you looked in his shirt, pictures of him ripping it off you started playing in his head. god, the things he’d like to do to you right now. “i hated how you complained about your makeup stuff. bottom drawer is all yours. everything you need.”

and to be honest, you almost cried upon seeing what he prepared for you. any possible kinds of makeup remover (creams, lotions, gels), tissues, pads and tampons, cotton balls, all those products that he noticed you used for your hair and skin-care essentials, he even stocked your favourite shampoo that you told him wasn’t produced anymore. there were even the same exact products you used to put on your makeup, perfect matched foundation shade, all kinds of eyeshadow palettes you liked, lipsticks, chapsticks, lipglosses, even the glitter and gems you used for yule ball once.

“theodore faustus nott, you are so incredibly pussy whipped, i’m shocked it’s possible.” your laughs filled his chamber, when you got back from the bathroom. “at the same time, it’s so attractive that you bought all of that for me.”

“shut up, lestrange.” he rolled his eyes, his hand wrapping around your leg, pulling you onto him. “i would kill for you if you asked.” he mumbled against your skin, leaving a trail of kisses from your jawline down to collarbone.

[sainz-leclerc]

the love we left — carlos sainz jr

carlos sainz jr x fem!reader [8.8k] summary: you weren’t aware that your family’s worry had extended so far that they’d brought in the heavy artillery, it being carlos sainz of all people. the very same person who’d turned you into someone you didn’t recognise in the mirror anymore. warnings: 18+ explicit smut & language, very angsty, mentions of alcohol abuse and drug use, heartbreak, childhood friends, brother's best friend, public sex a/n: this has been sitting in my drafts, unfinished for a whole month so I went back and thought that it deserved a second chance. and voilà, here you have it! my very first carlos fic!! i'd love to hear your thoughts on this, because I love how this turned out. happy reading my lovelies!! x

The music was pounding, borderline rupturing your eardrum with good music that had you bobbing your head gently to the intimate beat. Everywhere you looked were bodies, moving in unison and hands roaming sweaty skin.

The bartender poured drinks like his life depended on it, and you watched him pour you another shot of tequila without a verbal request from you, shooting you a friendly grin and side stepping to help the next customer. You downed your shot, pulling a small face at the rancid taste as you made your way to the dance floor.

You didn’t know when you’d become this type of person. The person who’d spend their weekends in clubs, dancing the nights away until they got blisters on their feet and most likely woke up with their head in a toilet bowl. It had started out as something you and your girlfriends did, sneaking into clubs when you’d just turned legal, but then you’d started going alone because you found out that sitting in your apartment alone with your thoughts was way too much for you to handle.

You weren’t strong enough to deal with your emotions, preferring to find people and alcohol to distract you. It had worked out quite well for you and the multiple shots you’d taken over the span of two hours were starting to settle in your bones, buzzing right beneath your skin and giving you enough courage to seek out the dance floor.

Your body moved like it was an entity of its own, face tilted up to the ceiling and eyes closed as you felt the music. It rattled your bones and settled in your hips, the bottom of your heels sticking to the floor with every step you took.

I’ve never seen someone look so at home on a dance floor, he’d once said. The words came sneaking into your mind, unbidden. You could still remember the party, how your brother had bought the whole gang shots and you’d taken to the floor with laughter and happiness in your bellies. The DJ hadn’t been very happy when your brother and the man of the hour stepped up to the booth and completely took over with their non-existent experience of manning a DJ booth, but he’d relented when your brother had drunkenly explained that this man right here? He’s gonna be racing cars professionally, cabrón.

You were so far gone in your head, not even flinching at the pair of hands sliding over your waist and pulling you into a body. The person smelled of cigarette smoke and cheap cologne, and it made something roll in your stomach at the mix of it in your nostrils but you couldn’t pull away. He was yet another distraction from your messed up life, and you welcomed it in all forms.

If you let yourself take a step back and think of exactly why you allowed a complete stranger to touch you the way they were, you’d come to the conclusion that the reason was because the feeling of hands on your hips reminded you of him. That one damned night that changed you, that made you into this.

He’d cornered you against the wall, claimed your lips in a bruising kiss that left you panting and his hands. Fuck. His hands had gripped your hips so tight that you’d had bruises for a whole week after that encounter.

You’d thought that finally, finally the both of you would be together after years of pining; Spending your awkward teenage years wishing that your brother’s best friend would look at you as a girl he could imagine kissing, and not as his best friend’s sister and a family friend. But then he’d acted like nothing happened, leaving you in the dust with little to no explanation as he went to kickstart his career.

Bile rose in your throat as your brain entered dangerous territory, and you blinked your eyes open against the lights. It was blurry, and it took a few moments for you to realise that there were tears welling up in your eyes. You’d stopped crying long ago, but sometimes the tears managed to sneak up on you when you were vulnerable and drunk.

The hands on your body were suddenly too much, and just as you were about to run, someone grabbed you and yanked a little harder than you had been prepared for. You stumbled, a wordless shout leaving your lips when you were pulled to the side of the dance floor, legs struggling to keep up. It took a second for you to realise that someone had grabbed you and was in the process of dragging you off the dance floor, away from the sweaty and dancing bodies, away from the man who you’d danced with. Your eyes were scanning your surroundings, feeling too drunk to think of a good plan to escape so you settled for the only thing that would hopefully get someone’s attention.

Before you could open your mouth and scream, a hand settled right on your lips and muffled the sound, your eyes flickering up to the man in front of you in the hopes that you could shoot him the most pleading look through your eyes.

You found yourself looking into round and dark eyes, so eerily familiar that it made your stomach violently turn and you took a stumbling step back like shock itself had shoved you, turning around to promptly retch into a nearby trash can. You heaved and clutched at the edge of the bin with your hands, moaning miserably until it finally stopped.

“Come on, let’s get you outside.” His voice sounded somewhere behind you, somehow overpowering the pulsing music.

His hands grabbed at you, helping you steady yourself and you didn’t bother to spare him another glance as you weakly shoved his hands away. He didn’t fight you, nor say anything when you walked straight out of the club, legs feeling incredibly weak and hands shaking; like you were two seconds away from breaking down.

And you were. What the fuck was he doing here? Why would he come back?

The chilly air was welcomed when you pushed the back door open, stumbling out into the alley and breathing in, in an effort to sober up. You ignored your trembling hands as you dug around in your purse for gum, anything to get rid of the sour taste in your mouth but you doubted it would do much to settle the nausea roiling in your stomach.

You heard a scuffle behind you, causing you to freeze because you’d been hoping that it was all just your drunken mind playing tricks on you; Because it happened sometimes. It had happened in your dreams, and once when you’d smoked a dodgy rolled up joint and hallucinated him being there. But no, he was standing there when you turned around, eyebrows pulled together in that annoying frown he always wore whenever he disapproved of something. His face was passive though, eyes not giving away anything and it was so infuriating.

He’d always played the older brother, acting like he had some kind of right to decide over you just because he was your brother’s friend. But his feelings had been anything but fraternal, he’d made that very clear when he decided to fuck you and leave.

You swallowed, feeling nauseous as you stood staring at him.

“What are you doing here?” You asked, cursing yourself quietly when your voice shook. But you sounded stern, even in your drunken state and something about your tone made the man grit his teeth.

“I was worried—“

No. You didn’t need to hear the same old spiel again. He didn’t get to be worried about you, not anymore.

“What are you doing here, Carlos?” You cut him off, making him cringe at the way you said his name, sharply and angry - so differently from how you used to say it.

“Your family is worried about you.” He replied slowly.

The way he talked reminded you of someone who spoke carefully as to not scare away a skittish animal. It was very bizarre, the feeling so unreal that you had a hard time believing that your fucked up mind hadn’t decided to conjure him up on a random Sunday night. A few moments passed as you stared, and stared. He was truly there in the flesh.

You were aware that your mother had been worried, calling you every day to check up on you and you gave her the same old answer because what else was there to say?

You just weren’t aware that your family’s worry had extended so far that they’d brought in the heavy artillery, it being Carlos fucking Sainz of all people. The very same person who’d turned you into someone you didn’t recognise in the mirror anymore.

“I wanted to check up on you, see how you are doing.” He broke the drawn out silence, stuffing both of his hands into the pockets of his jacket like he didn’t know what else to do with them.

You remembered the odd habit he used to have, where he’d wring his hands whenever he felt out of place. It was such a minuscule detail that barely anyone took notice of, but you did. You always did.

Your eyes dropped to follow the movement, noting the casual jeans and the red hoodie under his black jacket. You quickly looked away, refusing to think about how good he looked.

“Well, now you have. So you can go.” You shot him a smile with no real joy behind it, turning around and walking down the alleyway in the direction of your apartment.

You knew that he wouldn’t leave you alone, and a big part of you wanted him to. But you couldn’t deny that one percent that wanted, needed him to stay.

The sounds of his footsteps let you know that he wasn’t far behind and you jumped like he’d burned you when you felt his fingertips touch your arm. Just a quick touch that lit your body on fire. Your eyes found his and you took a big step back, feeling your chest go tight at the slight downwards tilt of his lips, like he hadn’t expected you to react negatively.

“Nena, please. Let me walk you home, at least.” He said and your throat tightened up at the familiar pet name he’d called you since you were children and so incredibly naive.

“Don’t call me that.” You sniffled, bringing a hand up to rub at your nose. “You don’t get to show up here after two years and play the hero. I don’t need one, and I certainly don’t need you.”

“Lo sé.” He said, but he really didn’t know, did he?

You didn’t say a word, taking two steps before glaring down at your shoes. They had been a pain the whole night and now that the alcohol wasn’t doing its job of numbing the pain, your feet were starting to hurt from being pinched for the past few hours. You balanced yourself with a hand on the wall, slipping your heels off with a quiet grumble and shoving the offending footwear into the man’s chest. Carlos grunted at the unexpected force, hands coming up to catch the heels before they dropped and raising both eyebrows at you.

You weren’t looking at his face, but you could tell that he was baffled by your actions and it made you feel just a tad bit smug. If he was going to show up and insist on pestering you, he might as well make himself useful.

The concrete was uncomfortable to walk barefoot on, but it felt freeing and you took comfort in that feeling. Anything to not think about exactly who was walking a few steps behind you, feeling his eyes on you like hot coal on your skin.

“Do you live far from here?” He asked, tone cautious like he didn’t want to say the wrong things or set you off.

“No, why?” You turned your head to look over your shoulder and found him walking way closer to you than you thought. “Is the neighbourhood not up to your standards?”

You knew you were being petty now, playing unfair and it clearly annoyed Carlos as he looked away to avoid your cold gaze. It wasn’t his fault that he’d gone and got himself an even more lavish lifestyle where he raced cars for a living and got millions out of it. You’d always been proud of him, one of his biggest supporters before everything transpired and although you didn’t want to admit it out loud, you’d always keep tabs on him.

There weren’t enough fingers on your hands to count the amount of times you’d struggled to not pick up your phone and text him after he’d won a race, or if he did badly. The urge to comfort him and to be happy for him was still there, even years later.

“I live down the road.” You said, desperate to break the tension. “You can go.”

Carlos fell into step beside you, not sparing you a glance as he nodded.

“I know.” He said, but made no effort to leave you alone.

The two of you walked in relative silence, interjecting with small talk every now and then to fill the unbearable quiet that had blanketed over you. It took a few minutes for Carlos to relax, shoulders dropping like the tension was slowly seeping out of his body when he realised that you were beyond your anger now, speaking softly rather than the tone you’d carried a few minutes earlier. He didn’t like how you sounded though, mellow and short, like you’d given up on caring. It made something ugly swirl in his stomach to the point where he started to feel nauseous.

He was starting to spiral in his thoughts, trapped inside his head and just as he opened his mouth to speak, you beat him to it.

“How’s Ferrari treating you?” You asked and his head snapped to you. You weren’t looking at him, staring straight ahead with your mouth in a thin line. “You’ve been doing well lately.”

Carlos didn’t know if you were trying to act nonchalant and if you were, you were doing a piss poor job because he could see how you struggled to maintain a neutral expression on your face. He didn’t want to point it out though because his mind had finally caught up to your question, teetering along the edge of she’s keeping tabs on me.

“Yeah.” His voice was hoarse and he hurriedly cleared his throat. “It’s been good, felt like a dream when I signed the contract.”

You could still remember when he started karting, how he’d plead with his parents to buy him merchandise with the Ferrari logo poorly pressed onto the material. It had always been a dream of his, and something about him achieving it made you smile.

“I bet it was.” You said softly, glancing at Carlos to find him staring at you; eyes wide and searching, like he was taking in your smile. You hurried to look away, suddenly uncomfortable with the rush of old emotions storming back and taking residence in your entire being.

“How have you been?” He asked, genuine and curious.

You considered ignoring his question, not knowing how to answer him without making yourself out to be the most pathetic person to grace the earth. How could you tell him how you’d been in a downwards spiral for the past years? Could you even admit to the things you’d done, how you’d drank yourself to oblivion in hopes to numb yourself and worked dead end jobs to keep yourself afloat?

“I’ve been fine.” Your tone was flat, letting him know that you weren’t in the mood to delve deeper and thankfully he respected your wishes, keeping silent. “Well, here we are.”

You nodded up at the apartment complex you’d stopped in front of, suddenly feeling awkward as you found yourselves staring at each other with no idea how to proceed.

Carlos fidgeted as you stared at him, looking as anxious as you felt and it made you a little sad because you’d been better than this, once upon a time. You’d never known awkward silences or odd looks, but you’d somehow managed to go from close to whatever the fuck this was. Strangers. Ex-lovers. But could you even dub him as an ex-lover when you’d only slept with him once?

You took in the sharpness of his jaw, the stubble growing on it fitting him as well as you remembered but there was a certain edge to him that hadn’t existed last time you saw him. He looked fully grown up, like an adult who didn’t have time for children’s games and torrid love affairs.

Homesickness bloomed in your chest the further your mind delved into the past, suddenly wishing that things were different. Wishing that you’d swallowed your pride and picked up your phone.

Would he have answered? Did he change his number?

You swallowed excessive saliva in your mouth, trying not to grimace when it felt like swallowing gravel as your eyes traveled down his arm that he’d successfully managed to free from his pocket, hanging by his side. Your eyes latched onto the space between his thumb and pointer finger, where the tan skin was white and raised in a small bump. A healed scar that brought such a rush of memories that the words tumbled out of your mouth before you overthought them.

“Do you wanna come in?” You asked and Carlos couldn’t manage to hold his surprise in, eyebrows shooting up and jaw going a little slack. “Just… for a while.”

It probably sounded wrong, like you were inviting him with ulterior motives and you weren’t. Really. Just the thought of him touching you made bile rise in your throat and you realised that you weren’t ready. For any of this. But then again, would you ever be ready?

Whatever inner monologue you were running through in your head was halted when Carlos exhaled, glancing at the apartment building before nodding twice.

“Me encantaría.” He said, voice gentle.

You hurried to get your keys out of your purse, hands shaking a little and you didn’t know whether it was from your nerves being shot or the unhealthy amount of alcohol you’d consumed not even an hour ago. The door gave way when you turned the key and pushed it forcefully with your shoulder, stepping inside and flicking the light on.

It wasn’t much. A one bedroom apartment in a safe enough neighbourhood. Your brother had scowled and made his displeasure known when he’d helped you move in, even offering to find you a better place to rent out but you refused. Mostly because this was further away from your family and because it was yours. It had its defects and flaws, but you loved it from the moment you stepped foot inside.

Your brother and Carlos were like one person in two bodies, so you almost expected him to get his two cents in when he stepped in behind you and closed the door; Eyes roaming around and taking in the place. His face gave nothing away, as always, but then his brown eyes landed on you and his lips twitched.

“I like it.” He said, like you’d asked.

You gave a nod, secretly pleased but then you scolded yourself because why the fuck did you even care what he thought? Mierda.

“Glad to know you approve.” You muttered, annoyance pricking your heart and you didn’t know why. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll just be a minute.”

You left him to his own devices, standing in the middle of the living area looking a little lost while you sought out the comfort of your bedroom. The door closed with a click and you hurriedly changed your clothes to something more comfortable, snatching your makeup wipes where they’d fallen on the floor to wipe at your face. Your makeup was smudged, embarrassingly so but you couldn’t bring yourself to care when your heart was racing a mile a minute, thinking of the man on the other side of the door.

There was a moment of panic where you felt that shit, you shouldn’t have invited him in because this apartment was the only place he hadn’t touched, soiled with his fake promises and lies.

The memories of you in his bed came back with full force, thinking of how you’d woken up in the middle of the night with a smile on your face that got wiped as soon as you touched the cold side of his bed. He’d been nowhere to be found, and you’d contemplated staying and hoping that he’d come back in the morning but then you’d found his contract on the kitchen counter and the packed suitcases you’d somehow skimmed over when you were wrapped up in him.

It had felt like a gut punch and it still did as you stared at yourself in the mirror, swallowing against the nausea swirling up from your stomach to your throat. Your eyes welled with tears, and you gave yourself a moment to silently cry before you wiped angrily at your eyes, reaching for your toothbrush.

You thought back on your younger self, how she’d been so happy to have finally caught the eyes of her brother’s best friend. After years of pining and hoping that he’d see her as something more than his sister. How he’d once wiped a thumb under her eye when she’d first started experiencing with makeup in her teenage years, and he’d softly said that you don’t need so much of it. You’re beautiful, nena.

You deserved better, but you didn’t know what better was. Was it in the arms of a man or the bottom of a shot glass? It was a terrifying revelation, to realise how fucked up your life had become and it was all your fault.

Closure. That was what you needed, wasn’t it? But you didn’t want to move on from him, because despite it all, you still loved him.

Carlos had his back to you when you came out of your room, staring hard at the frames on the wall and you briefly wondered if he noticed how you’d deliberately left out the pictures with him.

“I remember this day.” He said quietly without looking at you. His finger pointed at a framed picture of you and your best friend, at an animal sanctuary with your hands stretched out, feeding a giraffe. “You were so happy to finally see giraffes, no one could pull you away from them.”

You wanted to smile at the memory, but it was hard when emotion was still clogging up your throat. You embraced yourself and sat down on your sofa, making a small hum of acknowledgement instead. Carlos turned around at that, sweeping his eyes across the small area before settling on you.

“Things change.” You said, because they really did.

“Sí.” He sighed, taking a seat in the ottoman. The seat furthest away from you, you noted. “I have that picture in my driver’s room. Not that one, but a similar one where you’re by yourself.”

You knew what picture he was referring to and it made you frown. Why would he confess to that?

“Why?” You asked, because that was the question, wasn’t it? Why, why, why?

Carlos inhaled through his nose, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Reminds me of how simple life used to be.” He said, like it answered the million questions in your head.

You didn’t ask him to elaborate, because you didn’t want to hear it. It must’ve been difficult to lead such a fast paced life, hopping from one country to the other and spending hours on driving cars. You’d imagine that it got a little too much at some point, rendering you homesick and yearning for a simpler life. But it didn’t work like that. Life rarely went the way you wanted it to.

“Why are you really here, Carlos?” You asked, the question so sudden that it cut through the false sense of security the both of you had managed to build.

He stared at you, eyes unmoving and it was so unnerving that you looked down in your lap, pulling the sleeves of your sweater over your hands.

“I miss you.” He said, and you barely managed to hold in the scoff. Barely. “I miss us.”

“There was no us.” You interjected, spitting the word out like it was venom.

It might as well have been because Carlos hands curled into fists where they stayed in his lap, something he always did to reel his frustration in. Somehow, that angered you. You weren’t the one who walked out. You weren’t the one who left him behind.

“I kno—“

“No, you don’t!” You hissed, fury finally unfurling in your chest. “El problema es usted no sabe mi dolor o mi vacío. You just walk back into my life like I’m supposed to welcome you with open arms.”

Your breathing was picking up, chest heaving with the lack of air you were heaving in and it did nothing to stop the pricks of tears in your eyes as you raised your head to glare at him. Carlos looked taken aback, hands slack from the previous fists and his eyes looked… Sad. Regretful. It was so pitiful that you couldn’t help but laugh wetly and humourlessly, bringing a sleeved hand to wipe at your nose.

“I don’t know what to say.” He admitted after a painful silence.

You looked away, sniffling as tears started falling traitorously, tracking your cheeks and you hated yourself for it. The last thing you wanted to do in front of Carlos was cry, but it seemed like your heart disagreed.

“I don’t know what you want from me.” You said, quietly. “You’ve already had me and it wasn’t enough.”

“It was enough.” His voice was more forceful than you expected, making your stomach drop. “It is enough. The fault was never with you, it was me.”

“Cállate.” You shook your head. “Don’t do the it’s not you, it’s me bullshit.”

Carlos sucked his teeth in exasperation.

“You know I’ve always loved you, nena.” He said and it made you look up.

Love? For a moment, your heart stopped beating in your chest as hope flared in every crevice of your body. But you reeled it in just as quick, because if he called fucking and dumping love, then you were better off. You might’ve been damaged but you still recognised that you deserved better.

“I don’t know.” You set your jaw. “You have a funny way of showing it, if you do.”

He sat up in the ottoman, ignoring the groan of protest it gave under his weight. The both of you stared at each other for a second and it felt like the longest hour of your life.

“That night…” He began, trailing off like he wasn’t sure how to put his thoughts into words. “Nena, I didn’t do anything that I regretted, and I still don’t. The only thing I regret is leaving you the way I did because you deserve so much better.”

Something wet touched your throat and you hurried to wipe at it, realising that tears were still rolling down your face. It irked you.

Carlos sighed heavily, like the conversation was too much to bear and you agreed with that sentiment, for once.

“Then why did you? Leave?” Your voice was quiet, broken and you hated the sound of it.

Carlos pulled a small face like it pained him to hear you so broken down, and it sent a small zip of satisfaction through you. You wanted him to hurt like you’d hurt.

“Because I was scared.” He confessed. “I was scared about everything. Your brother, this new life that I got pushed into. It was too much and I was panicking that night. I just wanted to feel normal again.”

“So… you slept with me and left?” You laughed bitterly.

Carlos cut you a stern look that still, to this day, shut you right up. He’d always had the face for it, the round and wide dark eyes and the bushy eyebrows. He could look intimidating when he wanted to, not that he ever scared you but you knew when to shut up.

“No. I sought you out because you were the only person who feels safe, who feels like home.”

He said feels. Not felt. So did that mean you still felt like home to him? You weren’t sure what to think or believe, feeling nauseous and lost all of a sudden.

“I realise that I went about it completely wrong.” He continued when you still hadn’t spoken. “I have a lot of regrets in my life, nena. But leaving you in my bed is the biggest of them all.”

The confession felt heavy, riddled with underlying emotions and confessions that you weren’t really ready to confront nor unpack. It was exhausting, all this new information invading your every sense and Carlos must’ve sensed how overwhelmed you’d suddenly become, because he palmed the tops of his thighs and sucked his teeth.

“Do you wanna get out for a bit?” He asked and you raised your eyebrows in slight bewilderment.

“It’s two in the morning.” You replied slowly and that prompted a smile from Carlos.

The sight of it was so unexpected and beautiful that it felt like a sucker punch, making you look away before you started staring.

“That never stopped you before.”

Before. Before when you’d sneak out of the house with your girlfriends to meet up with other friends and go to the most obscure parties. And Carlos would always be the one to catch you in the act, whenever he stayed over the house. He’d never berate or rat you out, just smirk and tell you to stay safe. To call if you ever needed him.

“Fine.” You relented, standing up and making your way over to the hallway. “Do you have a car?”

“Yeah, I parked it not too far from here.” He regarded you silently when you reached for your shoes, slipping them on. “Are you going to go out like that?”

It didn’t sound judgemental, only curious and that’s why you shot him an amused stare instead of picking up a fight out of annoyance.

“Yes.” You said, short and sweet.

He gave you a long stare before nodding, and that was that.

Fifteen minutes later and you were sitting in the passenger seat of a Ferrari, speeding down the deserted highway. There was no clear destination in either of your minds, but you cracked open the window and let the wind whip your hair, closing your eyes for a moment.

The radio was playing quietly in the background, almost drowned out by the roar of the engine, but it was comforting all the same.

Carlos hadn’t said a word since he started the car, only hitting you with a do you want seat warmers on? to which you’d shook your head. But he was good company, silent and comforting, just like he used to be.

“I love this song.” You said softly when the voices on the radio drifted off, the familiar tunes of Lovers Rock filling the relative silence.

Carlos didn’t say anything, just reached a hand out to turn the sound up a few bars, shooting you a glance that you felt in your core. It was amazing how he still made you feel like that, like someone had reached down your throat and fisted your heart violently. It was a sickening feeling, one that was so addicting and dangerous but you still yearned for it.

You were still mad at him, but you could also see a clearer picture now that he’d given you his side of the story and apologised. It wasn’t that you forgave him - that would take time - but you weren’t holding a grudge as strong like before.

It was hard though, to not acknowledge how he still made you feel like the wide eyed teenage girl who’d once saw the stars and moon in his dark eyes, who’d feel sick with love and admiration for him.

Because love can burn like a cigarette,

and leave you alone with nothing.

There was an irony to the lyrics, one that seemed to fit your current life like a glove. Carlos cleared his throat.

“Are you hungry?” He asked, breaking the silence.

Your stomach still felt unsettled from the drinks you’d had and from him showing up and upending your life, so you shook your head in the negative and turned your head to look at him.

“No, thank you.” You whispered.

Carlos didn’t take his eyes off the road and you took the chance to look at him, taking in the sharpness of his jaw and his strong nose. His hair was longer than last time you saw him, floppy and soft without any product in it and it should’ve annoyed you how beautiful he looked. Like something straight out of a romance movie.

There were a slight shadow under his eyes though, looking a lot like a person who carried the weight of the world on their shoulders and you fisted your hands in your lap to avoid reaching out to swipe a thumb over the bags of his eyes. You’d been so swept up in your anger that you’d failed to realise that Carlos was probably hurting just as much, he just couldn’t show it or self-destruct.

“Estás mirando, nena.” His voice, paired with the pull of his mouth made you look away.

Warmth spread all over your body when you realised that you’d been caught staring, for far too long to play it off.

“Where are we going?” You asked, in desperate need to change the subject and Carlos noticed it, because his nose flared as he tugged his bottom lip between his teeth; Like he was trying to hold his smile off.

“La playa.” He said.

The air had chilled considerably when you stepped out of the car, the wind whipping your bare legs and you pulled your sweater over your hands to find some comforting warmth as you gazed out over the beach.

It was dark, completely deserted even by the boardwalk and it was perfect for you, not in the mood to run into anyone who might know the man who was currently walking a few steps behind you.

The sand found its way into your shoes but you paid it little to no mind as you hurried your steps to the shoreline, far enough that the water wouldn't reach you, but close enough to hear the ominuous sounds of crashing waves.

"It's cold." Carlos said and you turned around, taking in the scrunch of his nose as he glanced around.

"Es perfecto." You said, waiting until Carlos looked over at you to give him a tentative smile. There was something in his face that changed at the sight of your open and vulnerable expression, but you didn't stop to think too hard on it.

Instead, you reached for your oversized sweater and pulled it clean off your head, ignoring Carlos' sounds of mortified and confused protest. His voice climbed in octaves when you kicked your shorts off, toeing your shoes away before you began walking backwards toward the ocean.

"Ay, what are you doing?" He asked, taking a step forward like he wanted to stop you. "You're gonna get sick!"

You ignored him, only breaking eye contact when the current carried up the shore, frothy water licking your calves and it was so cold that you felt it in your entire being. A sharp gasp left your lips, but you were determined to get a dip in just to clear your head.

It had been a long night, and getting sick was the last thing on your mind as water enveloped you.

Carlos watched silently, though his heart was pounding against his ribcage whenever he lost sight of you for a mere second. You'd always emerge from the water, smiling like you were in your own world and that's probably what stopped him from stalking right over and yank you out of the bed of water.

You looked so free, the complete opposite of how you'd looked the entire night and he selfishly didn't want that look on your face to diminish. Granted, you weren't smiling out of joy nor were you directing it at him, but the burden on your shoulders looked a little lighter when you finally started walking out of the water.

He tried hard not to stare at your body, the skimpy lingerie doing absolutely nothing to hide the most private parts of you. Carlos didn't know if he was just imagining things, but you'd truly grown into yourself since he last saw you.

You were shivering when you reached him, arms embracing your upper body like they were going to provide the warmth you needed to not send yourself into shock. He shrugged his jacket off without thinking when you hurriedly redressed in your sweater, water still dripping down your hair and body.

Carlos was ever the worrier, sitting you down on the sand and draping his jacket around your shoulder. You didn't protest, happily accepting it with a stuttered thank you that had his chest squeezing.

"You've always been good at surprising me." Carlos said when a few minutes had passed. He smiled when you gazed at him, trying not to react when you shifted and accidentally bumped your thigh against his.

You pulled away slightly, looking out into the darkness.

"How long are you staying?" You asked, quietly and slowly like you weren't sure if you wanted to hear the answer.

You knew realistically that he couldn't stay, he wouldn't. Carlos had a whole other life to live and a job to tend to, but you'd foolishly believed that maybe he'd stick around.

Carlos had a crease between his eyebrows that told you otherwise though, and you knew what was coming out of his mouth before he even said the words.

"Two days." He replied quietly, the sound almost getting swallowed up by the rushing waves in the distance. "I'm supposed to be in Italy by now but I wanted to see you."

You smiled despite yourself, a small graze of the lips that had Carlos inhale through his nose.

"I'm glad you came." You confessed out loud, the very same words you'd been scared to utter for the past hour.

Now they were out in the open, and Carlos was staring at the side of your head like he'd maybe heard wrong.

"Me too." He said softly, watching you shift as a breeze blew by.

Your thigh grazed his and this time, you didn't move away, letting the warmth of your flesh seep through his jeans.

"I'm sorry for everything." Carlos pulled a leg up to rest his cheek on the knee, head turned towards you. "I wish I could take it all back."

"I know." You said quietly.

You looked at each other in silence and you took in the slope of his nose and the tanned skin. The apples of his cheeks were a little sunburnt, lips dry but oh so full and inviting. You stared at them, thinking back to how they'd tasted that one fateful night.

Carlos cheeks went a little pink at your scrutiny and you quickly looked away, feeling yourself flush warmth all over at being caught staring so obviously.

"Come with me." He said and you blinked, confusion marring your face when you turned back to look at him. "To Italy. Just to get away for a bit. You can meet my friends and watch me race."

You hesitated, feeling lost all of a sudden because you weren't sure if you were ready for it yet. But a small part of you wanted to go with him, to let go of this life of destruction you'd managed to envelop yourself in.

Carlos hesitantly touched your hand that you had in your lap, fingertips against the palm of your hand and that one small touch was so electrifying that you filled your belly with air, holding your breath until it hurt your chest before exhaling.

"Charles has a girlfriend who I think you'd get along with well. She’s very much like you." He continued, sounding an awful lot like a salesman and it made you smile. “You’d love her, I think.”

You didn't know who Charles was, but the name rang a bell and you took a shot in the dark that it was his teammate.

"I probably would." You replied slowly and Carlos pinched eyebrows relaxed a tad bit when you finally broke your silence, like your silence had built some anxiety. "Can I think on it? I just —"

"Yes." He interrupted you, like he completely understood. "You don't have to explain yourself. I'll be around for two more days so you can take your time."

You thought about your brother, wondering if he knew what had spiralled that night before Carlos left to start his career. Did he have a hunch or did Carlos tell him? All you really knew was that your brother had flown out plenty of times to attend races, so you knew that they were still in contact, and by the looks of it, good friends. He’d invited you along the first few times, only stopping when your polite no’s had turned into snapping.

“What are you thinking about?” Carlos voice brought you out of your thoughts and you realised he’d been looking at your face the entire time, trying to read your thoughts when your eyebrows furrowed.

“Does he know?” You asked and Carlos looked confused for exactly two seconds before his eyebrows smoothed out, a humourless smile twitching his lip as he gazed out at the ocean in front of you.

He pulled up both legs, resting his forearms on his knees and clutching his hands together.

“Yes.” He said and your stomach dropped a little. “He came to a race in Miami a year ago and I felt… guilty. He was talking about how you should come to a race sometime and how concerned he was for you.”

Your eyebrows jumped. Your brother knew. How much did he know? He hadn’t even brought it up with you, not once.

“I told him.” He let out a laugh with no real joy behind it. “He punched me, called me a motherfucker and left.”

Your mouth gaped open as you took in the new information, eyebrows raised so high that you were scared they’d get stuck in your hairline but you couldn’t bring yourself to relax.

You had never really been that close to your brother, close enough to spend some time in the same circle of friends whenever it was called for but you weren’t sit down and talk about your feelings close. It shouldn’t have surprised you that he hadn’t reached out to you and spoke to you about how you’d fucked his best friend, but he hadn’t treated you any different the past year. He still called and texted to check on you, expressing his worry whenever you gave him the old I’m fine reply. Now you knew why he’d been so gentle with you.

“I deserved it.” Carlos said after a stretch of silence, looking at you.

It made you sad for him then, and a little ashamed of yourself that you’d never stopped to consider how Carlos had felt in all of this. You’d always thought that he ran because he couldn’t deal with turning you down gently, but looking at him now? He was clearly struggling as well.

“You didn’t.” You said and Carlos pulled a face like he didn’t believe you. “I’m just a little horrified that my brother knows I slept with his best friend.”

The both of you smiled at each other.

“It’s not his business, anyway.” Carlos said, leaning his weight to one side so he could bump his shoulder against yours. “Just you and me, ¿verdad?”

“Sí.” You smiled like the words he was saying didn’t turn your stomach inside out.

Carlos looked straight ahead, and you scooted closer to him with a shiver, still cold and wet. He didn’t even hesitate to put his arm around you when your sides pressed together, leaning your head against his shoulder and basking in his warmth when a breeze blew by.

Your stomach was doing somersaults, twisting with nerves and a sense of giddiness and you really hoped that he couldn’t hear the harsh pound of your heart against your rib cage when he turned his head to press a kiss to the crown of your head.

“Te amo, nena.” He whispered, faint and intimate but it still felt like he’d reached into your bones and rattled them with a violent shake.

Hearing the quiet love confession come from his mouth stunned you, hope blooming in your chest as you picked your head up to take a look at his face. He was close, so close, and the inviting pout of his lips made it all the more difficult to resist pressing your lips against them.

Carlos inhaled sharply through his nose when you grazed your lips against his, a whisper of a touch that electrified you to the core. The arm around you tightened, pressing you closer as your noses brushed.

“Kiss me.” You whispered and Carlos did exactly that.

The press of his lips made you warm all over, hands coming up to clutch his hoodie when he pried your lips open; the touch of tongues making you push harder. It felt a lot like coming home, like universe had aligned itself, and you basked in the feeling of it all.

“Nena.” Carlos murmured when the kiss reached its end, lips touching yours as he spoke. He pushed his forehead to yours, eyelashes laying so pretty on the tops of his cheeks as he closed his eyelids. “I want you, I’ve wanted you for years. But maybe we should take things slow.”

You nodded, though you couldn’t resist stealing another kiss that he was all too eager to respond to. A groan rumbled in his chest when you placed both hands on his wide shoulders, letting him guide you to lay down on the sand.

It wasn’t as dark as it had been when you first arrived, but the faint light cast an almost beautiful shadow to his face as he hovered above you. His eyes were dark pools, staring into yours while his hand brushed wet strands of hair from your face. He crooked them behind your ear, cupping your cheek to bring you up for another kiss that had you whimpering for more.

Take things slow. Wasn’t two years enough? How much longer were you supposed to wait?

Carlos must’ve shared that sentiment, trailing his lips down your jaw to your throat in sucking kisses. He licked your skin, tongue warm against your flesh as he tasted the saltwater and you squirmed at the touch.

“Need you, Carlos.” You murmured when he pulled away.

He laughed breathlessly like he couldn’t believe the words you were saying, a hand travelling down your body with his eyes fastened on yours. You didn’t even dare to blink, staring at him until his hand found its way into your shorts and underwear, brushing his finger against your clit. Your eyelids fluttered shut, mouth going slack when he swiped his fingers through the mess of wet, bringing them back to circle your clit.

You grabbed him with terse hands, gasping and moaning while he brought you to a quick climax. It was sudden and fast, absolutely earth shattering when you climbed up to the edge and toppled right over. Carlos silenced your moans with his mouth, not kissing, just slotted over yours as he stole your breath and sounds.

“You sound beautiful, nena.” He murmured, fingertip nudging your sensitive clit just to see the way your mouth dropped open in a shivered gasp. “Missed that look on your face.”

“Carlos.” Your voice sounded pleading, hand sliding to the back of his head to bury your fingers in his hair. “Want you right now. Please.”

He let out a shuddered breath, pulling his hand out of your shorts to unbutton his jeans and zip them down far enough to fish himself out. You struggled to not stare down between the two of you as you kicked your shorts and panties off, marvelling in the sounds he made as he spit in his hand and jacked himself off; slicking himself up generously.

There was a moment where you looked at each other, unblinking and silent. His cock slid against you, slicking himself up further before his head caught where you were clenching in anticipation. It was stupid and reckless, to not use protection and to even do it so publicly but you needed him.

You couldn’t wait for another hour, and neither could he, judging by the way he slid inside with a gasped breath. Your eyes clenched shut as the intrusion locked your body up, finding comfort in his hands as he brushed your face and pressed kisses to it. You relaxed, feeling the girth of him stretching you out the further he pushed inside.

It had been a while since someone had stretched you to your limits like he currently was, but you were eager to feel every inch of him and you made it clear by wrapping your arms around him, spreading your legs further like an invitation.

Carlos let out a breathless laugh, pushing his lips against yours in a loving kiss and you lost yourself in it as he began thrusting. He hit you deep, kissed your spot with the head of his cock and the coarse hair of his groin rubbed deliciously against your clit.

It wasn’t romantic, not something you’d see in movies, but it was intimate and perfect for you. He conveyed so much in the movement of his hips, eyes stuck on you like he didn’t dare to look away in fear of missing every twitch and movement of your face.

You got a hand between the two of you, moaning and gasping when your second orgasm crept up on you. It made your head spin, how fast you’d been brought to the edge yet again and you clenched around him, screaming out your climax. Carlos wasn’t far behind, all kinds of curses streaming from his lips as he pulled out and came on your lower abdomen.

The stark contrast of his warmth against your cool skin made you shiver, still struggling to come down from your high. Carlos let out a drawn out groan that screamed of sudden exhaustion, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket to wipe the come off your skin before he dropped down; Half on top of you and half on the sand.

“Where are you staying?” You asked, voice a little raspy from how dry your throat was.

“My parents house.” He replied, eyes taking in the slope of your nose and the pout of your bitten raw lips.

You turned your head to smile at him, eyes fluttering as he pushed forward to kiss your mouth.

“You can stay with me.” Your voice was timid, a little shy and it made Carlos smile.

“Bueno.”

Carlos’ hand found your collarbone, stroking the pads of his fingers against the raised bone. His eyes caught on the glimmering necklace around your throat, heart stopping for a split second when the pendant caught the light and he realised what he was looking at.

The number 55 was staring up at him, so small but so glaringly obvious that he wondered how he’d failed to notice it.

You must’ve sensed his body language shift, eyes flicking over his face where it remained unmoving.

“I wanted to keep you close to my heart.” You whispered and it was like gospel to Carlos’ ears. “I never stopped loving you.”

His eyes flicked up to yours, face softening even more.

“Neither did I.”

He thought of the years he’d lived through without you, thinking of the missed time and opportunity he could’ve had with you if he had just picked up the phone. But it didn’t matter now.

Carlos gazed at your face, at the stars reflected in your eyes, and made a vow to himself to never let you slip away again.

[sainz-leclerc]

—the seasons of love

or: the enemies to lovers situationship fic charles leclerc x female reader summ. the beauty of winter, the second time. minors dni. nsfw warning under the cut. 7.7k part one part two part three part four part five

18+ because: hate sex, rough sex, spanking, hand job, biting, choking, orgasm denial (m to f), unprotected sex, brat taming, name calling (slut), oral (m receiving), angst, angst, more angst.

Arthur turns the corner into the kitchen, swinging around the wide, arched door frame. You’re stood at the island, the chilly edge of the granite countertops pressed against the exposed line of skin between your shorts and your top. A plate of toast sits on the heavy ceramic plate in front of you, and you make a shaky-handed attempt at spreading mashed avocado over the dry, cool bread. Charles clears his throat a few feet away, pulling his coffee mug off the machine shelf. It’s not even steaming.

“Ciao Arturo,” you speak. Even your voice sounds sweaty. “Dimenticare la testa?” Forget your head?

Arthur’s eyes dart between the two of you. Charles, you, and then back again. Charles is lucky, his back is turned to the whole thing. You’re the one who has to deal with his questioning glances. He stirs sugar into his cold coffee, and the spoon clinks against the sides of the mug painfully loud. 

Arthur smiles. “Occhiali da sole,” sunglasses, he says, reaching for the plastic frames on the counter, pointing them between you and charles. “sto interrompendo qualcosa?” Am I interrupting something? 

You glance at Charles, still stirring his cream and sugar, and you realize he won’t be turning around, not while his brother is in the room, not while he’s still got a bulge in his shorts. You almost laugh. “Nope. I’m making breakfast, he’s being a bitch.”

“Ah, so, the usual?” Arthur jokes and you nod, try to stifle a laugh so you don’t get an earful later. You fail, and Charles is flipping both of you off over his shoulder. You raise your brows knowingly towards Arthur—See? What did I tell you? “Ok, well. I’ll see you guys out there?”

“Yup,” you nod. “Probably in like an hour-ish? For me, at least.”

You watch, butter knife in hand, as Arthur trudges out of the house, the shuffling of his nylon snow pants and the thud of his heavy boots across the floor. He slams the door shut behind him, a quirk of the old house—the refusal of the heavy door to latch shut unless you threaten to pull your shoulder out of its socket when you close it. You’d spent half your childhood trying to shut it properly.

“A bitch?” Charles is teasing as soon as his brother is gone, abandoning the coffee he won’t be drinking and slotting comfortably behind you. He pokes your sides, has you curling in giggles as he continues through his own laughter, “I’m a bitch?”

“You are!” You laugh out, escaping his grip and pointing the avocado covered butter knife at him. “I’ll cut you.”

“Sure you will, baby,” he smiles, and then he kisses you because you’re alone and he can. There’s been lots of kissing just because you’re alone—just because you can—as of late. Since that one date you’d agreed to a few weeks ago, and all the subsequent basically-almost-half-dates-half-hookups you’d experienced since. Officially, though, there has been no second date. Unofficially, you’re dreading knowing he’s going to ask any time now. 

It’s not that you don’t want to date him, you’re just not sure you want to be dating him. It’s the difference between what you’re doing now, or having fun and being happy and keeping it all to yourself, or making it into something, turning up to joint-family parties in the same car with an overpriced bottle of wine and listening to your grandma talk about your kids having his hair. It’s belonging to yourself or belonging to him, and you just aren’t sure you’re ready to belong to anyone. 

He’s ready, you know. You know, because he all but wrote it down for you in Vegas. Your agreeing to go out on a single date was the consolation prize, the taunting, the holding what might be over his head like a carrot on a string. 

“We have to be more careful,” you say, wiping the last of the green fruit onto the practically stale toast. It’s been twenty minutes, at least, since you’d put it in the toaster. “Arthur’s silly, but he isn't a fucking idiot. None of them are.”

“Eh,” he shrugs. “I’m not worried.”

“Well, I am.”

“Why?” He laughs. The two of you are on such different wavelengths right now it isn’t even funny. “I mean, would it really be that bad if they found out we were seeing each other?”

You bite down hard on your toast, you have to because it’s so stale. “It would, actually,” you say around the dry bread. Crumbs fall to the counter below you. You sweep them off with your palm onto the floor, and then under the edge of the counter with your sock-covered foot. 

“Oh, come on,” he says, all nonchalant. He takes a sip of his cold coffee and winces, cradles it in his hands like it’s going to provide him any warmth. You don’t laugh, don’t even want to. “They’re going to find out eventually.”

“Says who?”

“We aren’t going to keep it a secret forever.”

You nod. Slow and intentional. “Keep what a secret?”

“Us.” You hate the casualty of it, of the label, of the grouping you two together. You hate that he can just say it like that, let it fall from his lips like it’s nothing. 

“There isn’t an us.” You choke on it—us—like it’s a swallowing sword. It’s not that you’re… opposed to the idea of us, so much as this is the last way you wanted to start referring to the two of you as a unit. 

“I mean,” he dumps the coffee into the sink. “We’ve been fucking for a year, dating for a few weeks.” The coffee gurgles in the drain, echoes through the kitchen. He flips the sink faucet on. “I think there’s an us to be talked about.”

“We aren’t dating, Charles,” you’re quick to correct, because, well—you aren’t dating. “We’re seeing each other,” you take another bite. It’s not good, beyond just the toast, you think maybe the avocado was a day from being perfectly ripe. “It’s different.”

He fills the mug to the top with water and dumps it again. “Okay.”

“I’m serious,” you insist, but your inflection betrays you. 

“Okay.” He repeats the action, drops a dollop of dish soap into the bottom of the mug and swirls it around so fast the water spins out over the edge of the mug. Fill it, dump it, swirl a sponge around angrily, fill it again. 

“Dating is like, dating is like a label.” Dump it again. “We don’t have a label. We’re free to see other people if we wanted to.” You drop the toast onto the plate, three notes taken from it, each progressively worse. 

“Okay.” Fill it, dump it—until the water isn’t soapy anymore. He leaves the mug face down on the dish strainer, carefully, without making a sound. It’s impressive, his silent, brooding, angry act. You know he’s full of it, that he wants to scream at you so bad. It annoys you, almost—that he won’t shout.

“Is that all you’re going to say to me?” You say, because you don’t like the implications of him refusing to yell at you. That’s like. It’s almost. You can’t even face it. 

“What is it that you would like for me to say?” He spits, slams the faucet off. You almost flinch. Almost. “That I don’t want to see anyone else? That I think you’re full of shit and feel the same way I do!?”

He’s never—he’s never yelled at you before, not really. Sure, he raised his voice in Vegas, he did. But he’s never yelled at you. Your dynamic has always been sharp, yes, but it was never loud. It’s always been grounded in the smart-ass comments, in the quick wit, the silence of arrogance and annoyance and frustration. It’s never been loud. It throws you off balance, completely off kilter. You don’t know why you wished for it, why you were annoyed with his previous refusal. You—you don’t like it. Not at all. 

You can’t think straight, much less speak straight. “I don’t know, like… I don’t know.”

“Like, like, like,” he mocks you. His words are like venom. He’s such a fucking child. “Like, what!?”

“Jesus fucking Christ!?” You yell right back, aren’t even hurt by the mocking so much as annoyed it’s the best he could come up with. He’s better—smarter—than playground insults. You expect more from him at this point. “Are you fucking seven years old!?”

“Maybe!” He slams his hand on the edge of the counter. You hope it hurts as bad as it sounds like it does. “Maybe I fucking am!” You scowl. This is an ugly look on him. You don’t know what you ever fucking saw. 

“Fuck you!”

“No, fuck you!” He wags a finger at you, he actually fucking does it, points a finger at you like he’s scolding you. 

You smack his stupid fucking finger out of the air and when you do, he grabs your arm, pulls you crashing into him, into his lips. He kisses you, and you kiss him back, but there’s nothing romantic about any of it. No, no. This might be the angriest you’ve ever seen him, all teeth clacking, tongues fighting, hands groping. 

It’s reminiscent, almost. Of the time that really wasn’t all that long ago, even if it feels like half a lifetime. To the time where his only goal was to shut you the fuck up, when the only reason he fucked you was because he thought someone needed to put you in your place. 

He’s not taking his time with you. Not today, not this time. No, he’s pulling your shorts down fast, grabbing at your bare ass and pulling you flush against him.

Your hands bury themselves in his hair, pulling the short locks, pulling his mouth to yours. Everything is so greedy and selfish and a fight—a fight to win the unwinnable game. 

He’s crude with it, crass almost—the way his fingers move against your cunt. Quick, hard, mean. You hate yourself for how wet you are, how easy you make it for him to slide in a finger, and then another, to fuck into you with a burning curl. 

When you settle into it, just as your breath picks up and your hips start to move against his hands with some semblance of rhythm, he’s pulling his hand away with a guttural fuck, moving back to your ass, giving it a hard smack. 

Two can play at that game, you think, hand diving into his shorts. You take his cock and stroke him, impatiently thumbing pre-cum over his head and fucking him with your hand. He’s hard before you have to do any work, had spent the morning half-way there already. 

He bites on your bottom lip so hard you think it might bleed. “I fucking hate you,” he says into your neck, biting the skin there, too. 

“Good,” you say, lips curling into a naughty smirk. “I like it like that.”

He’s rough when he moves you around, almost shoves you, turns you and bends you over the countertop. It’s cold, even through your shirt, it’s cold. You push the plate away, the half eaten toast relegated to the other end of the kitchen island. 

There’s no teasing, no warning. Just him, fucking right into you, leaving you grabbing at the smooth granite for any sort of stability, to brace for all of him. You can feel the fabric of his shorts; he’s got them pulled down just enough to have his cock out, and it reminds you of the fucking sauna this summer. 

In the same way you were given no warning, you’re given no time to adjust. He’s already fucking into you with hard, measured thrusts that slam you against the edge of the counter. You think he might fucking break you, split you right down the middle. It hurts so good. 

He’s quiet, lets the sounds of your skin smacking against him do all the fucking talking, tell the story the both of you already know. You can’t find the words. You’re just there, against the cool granite, full. Full. So fucking full. 

It’s unlike him to be so quiet, but, you don’t mind it. You don’t think you can hear another sentence out of his mouth without wanting to walk clear off a cliff. 

Gibberish moans are forced from your lips before you can even process them. “Fuck—fuck you,” you manage to sputter out, and then he’s reaching around to cover your mouth with a flat palm, leaning over you and whispering in your ear all husky. 

“Shut the fuck up, or I stop,” he says, and you nod. You nod, but his hand holds steady, moves slowly down around your throat, applies just enough pressure around your neck to make everything that little bit hazier. You choke on your words, bite back moans until you taste copper. 

When he’s had his fill, he’s turning you back around to lick into your mouth and hoisting you up onto the counter, taking you like that instead. Harder, harder. Impossibly fucking harder. You’re scratching lines over his back, dragging your nails over his skin and whining against his shoulder. When you toss your head back in a last-ditch effort to keep yourself quiet, he laughs—and then you’re looking at him.

The eye contact goes on for what feels like a decade, him fucking into you with reckless abandon while maintaining a steady, furious glare. He pushes his forehead against yours, lips just out of reach, ghosting over yours with every thrust of his thick cock. 

You open your mouth to moan, feel the threat of your orgasm in your core, in the way he perfectly fucks you. 

“Fuck you,” he breathes into your mouth, and the anticipation of the kiss that never comes burns. He breaks his glare, can’t look at you any longer, can’t kiss you, either. His eyes fall to your body, to the space where he disappears into you. He’s captivated by it, watches with a hard stare as he fucks you senseless. 

You could see his denial of your orgasm coming before you started fucking, so when your leg starts to shake and your cunt clenches around him so nicely, you’re unsurprised by his, “don’t you fucking dare.”

The problem for him is, he forgets that you’re just as pissed, that you don’t give a fuck what he says. No, you know that he’s all fucking talk, could never actually bite what he barks, not with you. He’s all talk, and he’s just as close as you are. Nothing short of your families walking through the door right now would get him to stop railing against you. 

So, you come around him, feel a special kind of satisfaction at the way his face contorts, at his canding, “God,” and the way he comes tumbling after you with a groan and a fuck. 

(four hours later) 

“Qu'est-ce qui a rampé dans son cul et est mort?” What the hell crawled up his ass and died? Lorenzo asks in the ski lodge. Both of your families are eating lunch at one of the restaurants on the mountain, and Charles, in his ever ending broodiness, opted to sit at the farthest possible end of the table from you and his brothers. Mostly, from you. He sits silently in a conversation with your father and brother-in-law, ever the entertainer. 

“Il est dans une de ses humeurs,” he’s in one of his moods, you reply. “J'ai râlé toute la matinée à la maison,” bitched all morning back at the house.

“Ouais,” yeah, Arthur adds. “Quand je suis retourné chercher mes lunettes, il ne s'est même pas retourné pour me parler,” when I came back for my sunglasses he wouldn’t even turn to talk to me.

“Je parie que sa copine lui manque,” I bet he misses his girl, Lorenzo settles, rocks back on the legs of his chair. A pang of green runs through you, gross and envious. 

“Sa copine?” His girl? You ask. 

“Ouais. Chaque fois que je l'appelle, il me dit "j'ai quelqu'un chez moi" ou "je suis chez un ami,” Yeah, everytime I call him he’s talking about “I’ve got someone over,” or “I’m at a friend’s house,”” Lorenzo reasons. Your jealousy is replaced with mortification as you realize Charles not only has a girl, but that the girl is you. 

“Someone should call her,” you say. “Get him laid so he isn’t so fucking annoying.” Lorenzo laughs and Arthur offers up a half-hearted smile, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Your phone rings on the tabletop. “Arthur!” You scowl. “Gross! I can't stand Charles.”

“Je dis juste que pour deux personnes qui prétendent se détester, vous passez beaucoup de temps ensemble,” I’m just saying, Arthur defends, for two people who claim to hate each other, you two spend a lot of time together. 

We don’t—you want to tell him—we don’t spend a lot of time together, but then you think of all the times they don’t know about, all the nights and all the hours and all the days. “Cela aurait effectivement beaucoup de sens,” It would actually make a lot of sense, Lorenzo laughs. “He likes pulling pigtails.”

“I know you love me boys, but I wouldn’t touch your brother with a ten foot pole,” you insist, and it sounds convincing—at least in your own head. Only time will tell, you suppose, if you managed to convince them of the lie. 

You enter the family room seven and a half minutes before Charles does. Where he is for those seven and a half minutes, you don’t care, as long as it’s not anywhere near you. Your families have always done this a couple days after the New Year, your own little joint Christmas celebration. Over the years, you’ve found it to be varying levels of both endearing and infuriating. 

“It’s hot in here,” you say, plopping yourself down onto the sofa, fanning yourself with a magazine from your mother’s coffee table. 

“Really?” Your sister peruses, eyes unmoving from her phone screen. “I was about to put on a sweater.”

“Yeah,” you continue, abandoning the magazine and instead opting to gather your hair into a messy, half-twisted knot off the nape of your neck. “I’m on fire.” You secure it with the thin black band from around your wrist, look to your sister as you pull loose pieces out to frame your face. “What’s the damage?”

She assesses the situation, pulls a few more hairs out of the knot and twirls one around her finger. “Has your hair always been so shit as holding a curl?” She asks. You nod, tucking all of the loose strands behind your ears in a swift movement. 

Charles is here now, lingering in the archway between the family room and the kitchen, his hand leaving indistinguishable fingerprints on the trim above his head while he nurses a beer, nurses a conversation with your brother-in-law. His hair is a fucking mess and you’re going to kill him, something you become so, so certain of when you notice the buttons on his shirt are mis-aligned, that just above his waistband, a single piece of plastic is missing, loose threads left in the wake of the long lost button. 

As if second nature, your fingers trail over your own, down the linen shirt that clings to your figure. A missing button. He has a missing fucking button. Your eyes don’t stop at the torn threads; all the way down to his sneakers, all the way back up to his messy hair. 

He brings the glass beer bottle to his lips gently, parting them ever so slightly to allow the smooth brew to cool his throat. When he pulls it back, his lips are damp with condensation and ale, tongue swiping the pink skin clean. 

“I need a drink,” you announce, standing from your seat and moving to the kitchen. He doesn’t move out of your way when you approach the doorway, has this stupid, satisfied smirk on his face as he takes another swig of beer. It’s the look he only gets after he has you. 

“You broke a fucking button,” you mutter as you squeeze through, finger grazing the loose fabric strands that hand above his waistband. He stiffens at your contact and now you’re the one with the rotten, pleased smile. 

“Leave a gap,” he says, looks past you and into the family room. You haven’t wanted to punch him this bad in at least a week, maybe two. You longed for the days when it was all you worried about: finding the next opportunity to hit him. Things were so much simpler then, so black and white. Now it’s wild colors and they’re all bleeding into each other to create a particularly shit-toned shade of brown. 

Given the opportunity, you’d go back. Back to the Ski Lodge and Vegas and the sauna. Back to Monaco and the yacht and that one chilly winter night. All the way back to last year, to the club, to right before the club. You’d stop yourself if you could. But you can’t, can you? No, the best you can go back is ten minutes. 

(Ten minutes earlier)

“Fuck you,” he groans, hushed and gravely, rutting up into you.

The closet is hot and humid with the air that pours in through the attic entrance. Dark, too: smells like fabric softener and lemon furniture polish–not that you’re smelling any of it now. No, right now all you can smell is him, raspberry and incense and a summer hike through a forest. 

All you can feel is him, the stretch of his dick as it fucks deep into you. You moan against his hand, the calloused palm muffling your whimpers, cheek flush against the drywall. “Show up with your fucking ass out,” he says, hand forcing the hem of your skirt up higher, higher than your hips, slipping under the fabric of your shirt to cup your breast.

He’s fucking up your hair. You’d spent half the morning curling it and here he is, running his rough fingers through the hairsprayed strands like he owns them, like he has any right to knot them into a messy ponytail. You swat his hand away from your hair, and it snakes around your neck. “Don’t be a fucking brat,” he goads, the heavy weight of his fingers leaving you white and fuzzy with pleasure. 

You shake your head, free your mouth from his palm and pant, “Fuck you,” you spit. “Fuck–ah,” he ruts up into you with all the force he can muster, pulling you off the wall, bringing  your back flush against his chest. “–fuck you.”

He laughs, buries it in the skin of your shoulder, biting a purple bruise into the space there. “Bab–God, so fucking tight.” Your back arches against him, body moving, craving, begging to feel more of him, all of him. Every last inch. 

You can feel him in every nerve ending and it still isn’t enough. You know he can give you more, that he can leave you sweaty and sleepy and monolingual if he really wants to. You know, because he had you sprawled out on his bed last weekend, dried tears crusting on the corner of your eyes, muscles weak and chest heaving against his sheets. 

Tears prickle your eyes when his grip on your throat tightens, when he pushes to see how far you’d let him go. You move a hand to wipe them before they fall. You still have to face the family after this, can’t walk out there with black streaks running down your cheeks. The tangled hair is more than enough to get them asking questions. 

His hand moves up your jaw, locking into your hair again and turning your head to face him. Look at me, he says, pulling you into a hard kiss. His long, measured thrusts fuck you open. His dick makes you drunk; floaty and dizzy and off balance and so, so fucking needy. You’re close, he states, knows your subtle breathing changes well enough that it doesn’t even have to be a question anymore. You nod against his lips, lick into his mouth, across the scrape of his sharp teeth. “I’m gonna. I’m coming,” you choke, breathing shallow and rapid. 

“No,” he whispers, hard and gravelly into your ear, biting on the lobe. A hand moves between your legs, dips into your slick and sends a jolt through your entire body. You don’t even know which hand he moved, can’t feel anything but his two fingers circling your clit, his dick fucking into you. “Not yet.”

His instructions are thinly veiled, but you’ll follow them anyway. Your body writhes against his hand, hips fighting your mind, moving in any rhythm that might make you finish harder, faster, even a second sooner. 

Your leg shakes under you, muscles weak and strung out. “Give it to me, Charles,” you beg. You know he’ll let you come as soon as he does. “Want you–fuck–want it so bad.”

“Ouais? Putain, such a slut for me.”

You nod eagerly, try to shake away the thoughts of release with it. He makes it so fucking hard. “I am, I am,” you insist. You are, you are. For him, every fucking time. 

You know he’s close the same way he knows, the micro-changes in his movements, his breathing, his words. You know he’s fucking close when he loses his rhythm, tries to bury himself impossibly deep inside you, to actually rip you fucking open. 

“Where?” He asks, offers you the option only because you aren’t in the privacy of an apartment. As of late, he’d been having his way with you, getting you messy and marked with him. Clean up is significantly harder in a fucking linen closet. My mouth, you mumble. Let me taste you.

He nods, picks up the steady pace of his fingers. You first, he instructs. “I want you to come for me, baby.” The pet name, always the pet name. Even when you’re this pissed at each other, it’s the only word your brain holds onto when you come around him, clench tight and quiver on his dick, muffling your own cries with your hand.

He pulls out of you with a whine and a mumbled fuck, a hand on your shoulder, turning you, pushing you down to your knees swiftly. There’s nothing careful about the way he fucks into your mouth, bruises the back of your throat as you muffle your gags around him. “Your fucking mouth,” he groans. “Makes me fucking crazy.” Your eyes meet his and you roll them, hollow your cheeks and swirl your tongue and watch, like it’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen–watch his face contort when he comes undone, thick stripes of him painting the back of your throat. 

You swallow. Clean, no mess, wipe the spit with the back of your hand and flatten your hair, twist what’s left of the curls into some semblance of what they were before he pulled you into the closet by your wrist. 

You hurriedly re-button your shirt and flatten your skirt over your thighs. You’ve been gone too long, both of you have. Your families are going to catch on if you keep it up like this, all horny rendezvous in humid closests because he can’t keep his hands to himself. 

His hair is pointing in every which direction, and when he runs his hands through it he misses a chunk. You reach to fix it and he swats your hand away. 

You scoff. “Stay here, leave a gap,” you tell him and he rolls his eyes. You’re the brat, though, right? You turn the doorknob slowly, peek your head out into the empty hallway. He laughs behind you, what the fuck are you doing? “I’m going to the bathroom,” you quip.

He reaches over your head, wraps his fingers around the edge of the door and pulls it all the way open, moving forward until he’s flush against your back. “No UTI’s on your watch,” he mumbles. 

You elbow his chest. “I said to wait here.”

“Fuck that,” he says, squeezes out behind you and the door. His feet are heavy on the hallway floor as he dips into the kitchen. You scurry in the other direction towards the bathroom.  

It’s your parents anniversary party where it all comes to a messy boiling point. Thirty years of love, twenty-something years of parentage, and still. Still, you surprise them when you knock on the apartment door with a boy on your arm. A boy who, you assume to the surprise of Arthur and Lorenzo, is not their brother. The person perhaps most surprised by your bold decision making, however, is Charles. He’s glaring holes into you all night. 

You try to take it as a compliment. You look good tonight, took careful consideration of your hair and makeup and clothes—your best black cocktail dress, all silk and long sleeves and exposed back, and your highest nude heels. You look good, and you like to think he notices, even if you’re nearly certain he’s watching your date more than you.

Your date, Jean, the friend of a friend and a blind date two weeks ago, hovers behind you like a lost puppy in his crisp white shirt and freshly pressed black slacks. He’s French, as french as they come—spends his evenings smoking cigarettes on the balcony and drinking wine with a careful pallet, distinguishing between the sweetness and the high notes and the low notes and all the wine terms you don’t understand. He’s a bit hushed and likes to make fun of your pronunciation and loves, loves, loves sex. 

You don’t know how you get separated from him, where he disappears off to, You don’t know what compels you to follow the sightline of the stare that burns into you, to follow Charles out onto your parent’s balcony, but you do. You do, and the air is chilly and you shudder, skin prickled with goosebumps. You can hear the music playing through the glass door. If it wasn’t so terribly cliche, you’d swear la vie en rose is filling the air. 

“Hey,” you nod, and he acknowledges you with nothing more than the raise of his brows. He leans against the balustrade, the cold metal of the railing clinking against his rings. You stare into the bottom of your wine glass, swirl the liquor round and round.

“Are you trying to make me jealous?” He asks, and you look up to him. He’s not looking back, smirking down at the ground at nothing in particular. 

You roll your eyes, swallow down on the pit knotting in your stomach. “Oh, please,” you scoff, halfhearted and lackluster. “Like that would ever work on you,” you reply. 

He chuckles, cranes his neck to look at you. “Maybe not,” he says, “but your games are always so fun.” His voice is low, unplayful. Horridly serious, despite the laugh. 

“I don’t play games,” you replied, step closer to him, to the edge of the balcony. You lean against the railing, gather your hair and pull it over one shoulder. Everything is so weird now. 

He quirks a brow, lets a genuine laugh slip and looks at you again. “What’s Jean, then?”

Your cheeks burn red but you refuse to let him get the upper hand. “Why do you care? It’s none of your business,” you shoot back, all spite and venom and irritation. You knew he’d be here and yet, still. Still, you hoped it wouldn’t be like this. 

It was naive. Moronic, even. You should have known better. 

He leans in closer, your faces no more than inches away. “Oh, but, it is my business when you’re trying to make me jealous,” he says, voice hushed, almost disappearing into the sound of the street below you. 

Your eyes drift away from him, back into the apartment, into the dynamics of your families, into the way Jean hides in a corner nursing a drink. He’s so nervous, needs constant babysitting. You turn back to Charles, to his pink cotton shirt, top two buttons undone. It’s begging to be ironed. “And what if I am?” you challenge, and your voice threatens to betray you, to expose the vulnerability you try so hard to conceal. 

A flicker of something, something you’re too scared to properly identify, flashes across his face. “Then you’re wasting your time,” he replied, voice tinged with the same something his expression is. 

Your frustration bubbles. He makes you mad in a young way, in a fiery sixteen year old girl way. Pissed at the drop of a pin over nothing in particular. “You think you know me so well?” You ask, and he smiles down onto the street. It makes you angrier. “Well guess what? You don’t.”

There’s an air of arrogance about him. He drips with it. “I know more than you think,” he says, dips his head in the direction of the party, or your date. “And he is not your type.”

You couldn’t hold back your retort if you wanted to. “Oh? Tell me then, Charles, what is my type?”

“That guy is a bitch,” he says, stupid, satisfied smirk on his face, digging dimples into his cheek because he thinks that he’s so, so funny. “So, for starters, your type is someone with the confidence to make you come.”

Your cheeks flush with embarrassment, with anger. His words cut through you like a hot blade, the lack of decency, of basic respect. He gives more to a stranger than he does you, at this moment. You’d come to expect a lot of things from him over the years, but never, never, was blatant disrespect one of those things. He’s been raised better, you knew he had been, that Pascale would be red with fury if she heard him speak to anyone—much less you—like that.  “Go to Hell, Charles,” you say, quiet, steady, without a single crack of betrayal, and then you’re turning to head back inside.

The sliding door is cracked, and you almost literally run into your date, standing just out of view from your previous spot on the balcony. You’re even more embarrassed at his eavesdropping, but it’s not like you can blame him, not with the show you and Charles always manage to put on.

Jean is visibly uncomfortable, all flushed cheeks and red ears. “Est-ce que ça va?” Are you okay? He asks, and the concern in his voice is evident, even through the embarrassment. 

You force a smile, hope he hasn’t heard most of the conversation with Charles and attempt not to burden him with the emotional complexities that come with your past, with your present. “Je vais bien,” I’m fine, you reply, downplay the whole event. “C'est juste un truc de famille,” It’s just a family thing. 

Jean nods, and it’s so uncertain you know he heard what you hoped he didn’t. “Je l'ai écouté,” I heard him, he admits, and your stomach churns. “J'espère ne pas avoir aggravé les choses,” I hope I didn’t make things worse.

You wonder how that would be possible—how things could get any worse than they already are. 

“Ce n'est pas de ta faute,” It’s not your fault, you say, half-apologetic, half-hushed. “Charles et moi avons une histoire compliquée. C'est juste... difficile à expliquer,” Charles and I have a complicated history. It’s just… difficult to explain.

It’s not that difficult to explain. You and he hooked up a year ago. Since then, you’ve hooked up a lot. The feelings have been felt, the emotions turned, the hearts dropped. But you’re past it all now. You’re past it, both of you. It’s history now. It’s history. It’s history. 

Jean gives you a half-hearted smile, and you know then that it’s as good as done between the two of you. He clears his throat, looks past you onto the balcony, onto where you assume Charles is still preparing more salt for your wounds. “Je devrais rentrer chez moi,” I should go home, he says, “Réunion anticipée demain,” Early meeting tomorrow. You know it’s a lie because you know he doesn’t work on Sundays, but you’re not in the place to call his bluff, not when you’ve got a full hand behind your back. 

You offer to walk him out to his car, but he turns you down. You don’t give him the option to avoid your company on the walk to the elevator. It’s silent, the sound of your feet on the floor, the elevator moving up through the shaft, the dinging of the doors. 

He steps inside, presses the ground level button and when the doors close between you two, you know it’s the last time you’ll see him intentionally. You wait five minutes before you’re pushing the elevator button, too, stepping in and heading down to the floor level. You need air. You desperately need air, and the balcony of the apartment is no longer a safe place for you. 

You cut into an alleyway between your parents’ building and the neighboring one, lean against the chilly brick wall and close your eyes. 

Breathe in, breathe out. It was never supposed to turn into this. The whole fucking point was that you didn’t want it turning into this, all messy and boundariless and bleeding over into the rest of your family’s dynamics. That was the whole point, it was. Your whole reasoning in Vegas, on the trail, after his best win. The whole point was to keep the damage minimal. 

In. Out. You don’t know what the point of it all is, anymore. Why you’re still playing this game when it’s clear the rules are so long broken they can’t be remembered. You need to just. You need to just let it be. Let it be what it’s supposed to be. 

In. Out. You know that it would work with Charles, you know it like you know your own hand. You know it would be good, and you used to be able to rationalize why the tiny little chance you were wrong outweighed any potential. You can’t rationalize it anymore, you can’t. You want to, because it’s easier to keep on, keeping on. But you can’t. It just doesn’t make sense anymore, not even to you. 

Breath in, breathe out—until you hear his feet scuffing on the sidewalk. 

They’re hurried, and you figure they’re making their way to you. You listen to them walk past the alleyway three times before you open your eyes. He’s pacing, typing away rapidly at his phone screen, brows furrowed, hard lines running through his face. He’s typing and pacing and muttering about something under his breath. 

“Charles,” you speak, and he jumps, completely and utterly startled by your presence. He sighs out your name softly, like he’s going to startle you back, and then he’s approaching slowly, cautiously, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Who are you texting?” You ask. 

“Who do you think?” He says, offers up a weak chuckle, and then, before you can say another word, “I’m sorry.” His voice is ridiculously sincere, all drowned in guilt and regret. His eyes are soft, his lips pursed. “I shouldn’t have said that, It was stupid and immature and I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

You sigh. “Yeah, it was,” you admit, voice half tinged with resignation. 

He takes another step. His posture is so docile, lacks any kind of defense. He knows he fucked up. “I can be a real fucking idiot, sometimes,’ he continues, a rare example of self-awareness. 

Despite your frustration, you nod. “Yes, you definitely are.”

He leans against the bricks next to you and you look up to the sky again, close your eyes and breathe the air again. Anything to keep your resolve, to keep your wits about you. 

“But, you have to admit. I was right about one thing.”

Even closed, your eyes tell the whole store, scrunch and wince before rolling open to look back at him, certain that nothing you invite to come from his lips is going to make any of this better. You frown because curiosity always kills the cat. “And what was that, Charles?”

“I know you,” he huffs, pushes air past his lips like he knows better than to do what he’s about to do. “Well enough to know you know he isn’t a match for you, that you only brought him around to make me jealous.”

Honest, honest, it wasn’t your intention. It was an added benefit, sure, but it wasn’t the intention. No, the intention was to move past Charles, to finally, finally move on from what the two of you had. The problem with that, though, is that somewhere over the course of the last year, your type had become Charles. You’d tried to force the attraction with anyone who was opposite, to the antithesis of Charles, and that’s how you wound up with Jean. He was different, in every category, and the line between hate has always been very thin, you reasoned with yourself. Very thin. Very thin, you knew, because you walked it with Charles for twelve months. For all of the seasons. 

“It hurt,” he admits. “It really bothered me seeing you with someone else and that’s not an excuse for what I said,” he continues, and you drop your head to look at him. He’s looking at the sky, too. Like he’s trying to rationalize his own words with even himself. “it’s not, but it’s the only explanation I can give you.”

Somewhere on the street, an overhead light clicks on, fills the street with orange, cuts harshly around the buildings and into the alleyway where you both stand. It casts hard shadows on everything, on everything but him. It lights him softly, somehow, apologetically soft like the universe itself wants to apologize for his actions. 

You think maybe you should be the one who’s sorry, the echoes of your spat still hanging in the air, heavy in the darkness just a few steps away. 

Your voice trembles when you speak. “I didn’t know it would hurt you that much,” you admit. “I was just trying to move on, to prove that I could.” Prove to him, or prove to you—you aren’t sure. 

The pretense falls between you, almost suddenly, all at once, and the air is different. It’s not angry and it’s not apologetic. It’s just. The air is just shared. Shared pain, shared sadness and hope and understanding. 

“You know,” he says. “You know you don’t have to pretend with me.” His voice is soft, but it’s firm, unwavering. “I never wanted you to.”

Your breath catches in your chest, heart pounding fast. Fast. Faster than you can think. You can feel it in your toes, in your temples, in your fingertips. He looks to you, your eyes meeting and your heart jumping that much more. “I can’t pretend anymore,” you admit, below even a whisper. It’s a miracle he hears you. “I can’t pretend I don’t care about you, Charles.”

He reaches out, fingers brushing against the skin of your cheek, wiping away a tear you hadn’t even noticed had slipped. He murmurs your name, half-pain, half-hope, and you finally recognize it, the something about the way he looks at you, the way he talks to you. The something, you finally see it. It’s been looking you in the eyes this whole time and you’d been so blind to it all.

He was wrong in Vegas, you could be this smart and that dumb all at once, because here he is, looking at you and speaking to you the same way he always does, and for the first time you see it for what it is: tender, candid, and utterly consuming love. 

"I've been so scared," you confess, voice quivering. "Scared of losing what we have, scared of ruining everything if I let myself fall."

He holds your gaze, a comforting anchor in the midst of the uncertainties. “I’m scared, too,” he admits, and you find solace in it. That even him, who’s known for how long now—you can’t remember, even he feels scared. You don’t even care if he’s lying, if he’s just saying it because he knows it will make you feel better. You don’t care, because it does. It makes you feel so much better. “But, I’m more scared of not trying.”

The truth hangs in the air between you, fragile but undeniable, a connection that has endured far more than it should have. “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” you say, voice finding steady ground now, your eyes locked on his. “But I’m done denying what’s been here all along.”

He cups your face with both hands, a sweet smile on his face, a stutter to the way his Adam's apple bobs. His thumbs brush your tears, and he says your name so sure. “I’ve loved you for so long,” he says. “Through all of the painful silences and the complicated, unspoken shit.”

Tears stream down your face now, a mixture of everything overwhelming you in the best way. You place your hands over his, hold them against your face like it’s going to ground you to the reality of his words. 

“I’ve loved you, too,” you whisper, voice riddled with quiet intensity. “I have,” you laugh. He smiles. “Even when I didn’t fully understand it, even when I pushed it away.”

Charles leans in, forehead resting against yours, breaths sharing the little space between your lips. “I want to be with you,” he says, a plea. “I want to be with you, even if it’s messy and uncertain.”

Your face is half as bare as your heart, now, and you’re sure he’s got mascara all over his thumbs, that you’re a real sight for sore eyes. But when you kiss him, he kisses you back.

He kisses you back, despite it all, despite how long you made him wait. He kisses you back and somewhere in the space between the kiss and the tears, you both find the space to laugh and you know you’ve made the right decision. The decision to leap. 

For him, you don’t know why you ever hesitated. 

[sainz-leclerc]

—the seasons of love

or: the enemies to lovers situationship fic charles leclerc x female reader summ. autumn seemed to arrive suddenly this year. minors dni. nsfw warnings below the cut. 6k. part one part two part three

18+ because: cross continent booty call, shared shower, oral (fem receiving) overstimulation, biting, begging, teasing/dirty talk and lots of emotionally immature angst

It became normal after that, routine, almost. Like clockwork, the two of you finding each other. In your apartment, sometimes, but mostly at his. His apartment, his yacht, his gym, his car.  There were days where it felt like it was all you did, Fridays where you would think that you’d spent five whole days underneath him. 

Race weekends felt impossibly long, impossibly far away. You think that his apartment doesn’t feel like him because he’s never there, because he spends all his time on a track or a yacht or the streets of Maranello. 

And you’re soft. You pretend not to be, because you wish you weren’t, but you are. You are, because you know that there is a spring in a national park in the States that looks just like his eyes, all blues and greens and browns that are so saturated they look fake. Because when you were at the club last week with your sister, someone had walked by and you knew they wore the same cologne as him. Because you see the color red and wonder what he’s doing, every single time. 

He’s in Vegas this week, a big fucking party, Miami on the hard stuff. You’re home, going through life’s motions and waiting–though you’d never admit it– for him to come home. 

You wake up in an empty bed, sprawled out in the middle of it, stretching against the white sheets with a groaned yawn.  You can taste the cottonmouth on your tongue, smack your lips a couple times before giving up and climbing out from the cozy comforter and trudging into the bathroom, feet creaking over the hardwoods as you move through the apartment. 

You phone chimes from your nightstand and you move back into the bedroom, leave the water running and the toothbrush in your mouth for your retrieval mission. Sitting at the top of a night’s worth of notifications is a text from him. Check your email. You roll your eyes, half-type out a witty response before an email notification flashes across the top of your screen. [email protected] No Subject. 

You tap it, and inside the subjectless email you find two things. One, an attachment to a plane ticket to Vegas that leaves in… five hours. And two, a single Please?

You roll your eyes, toss your phone down onto the bed and return to the bathroom sink to spit out your toothpaste. He’s fucking lost it. He’s really done it this time, like, Jesus, he’s done it. 

There is nothing you want to do less than pack a bag, find a ride to Nice, and hop on a plane all the way to Vegas just to see him in some messy ass hotel room. 

(Sixteen hours later)

You’re sitting on the edge of the hotel bed when he gets back from media day, Ferrari polo and light wash jeans and a dumb smile greets you, grumpy with arms crossed over your chest. “Did you have to send me a fucking plane ticket?” You snapped.

He shrugs, kicks off his shoes and pulls his phone and wallet and pass from his pockets, sets them down on a coffee table. “You’re here, aren’t you?” There’s something masked with the smug tone in his voice, some kind of genuine relief that you’re here. It makes your stomach queasy. 

You roll your eyes. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t deny the truth in his words, or the relief you felt at seeing him walk through the heavy door. As sick as it makes you, you miss him when he’s gone in a way you aren’t supposed to; all soft and innocent and young. 

“You’re infuriating,” you say, but you’re smiling. 

He nods, closes the distance between you, sinks down onto the edge of the bed beside you. “You know you love it,” he says, the corners of his lips upturned when he kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you. Until you’re turning purple in search of oxygen and mourning the fact that you need it, you’re kissing him. 

“Why am I here?” you ask, half breathless. 

“Are you asking me?” He replies, dodging your line of questioning with one of his own. 

You smile, laugh a little under your breath. “Who else am I asking?”

“Yourself,” he shrugs, kisses you softly. His fingers dance along your jaw, move to brush a part of your hair to the side. You let him. Because he’s kind of  cute when he does it.

“No, no,” you sigh, pull your leg up under you. “I’m asking you; Are you okay? Why am I here?” You ask, because, even for the two of you and your decades of knowing the other and the last… almost year of this muddled mess, this is weird. A first class ticket in your email is weird. You getting on the plane is weirder. 

“I can’t miss you?”

Your lips purse. Somewhere in another world, they smile. “Not supposed to,” you kiss him again, hand on shoulders, because you want to smile. 

“There’s a lot we’re not supposed to do.”

“Yeah,” you nod, fall back onto the bed with a huff. He chuckles. The white ceiling paint stares back at you. Fresh. Crisp. Clean. “No meetings today?”

“They’re done.”

“Ah,” you say. He stands up and the entire bed shifts with the loss of him. His heavy feet move across the echoey room. It’s silent but for the hum of the air conditioner, the tap of the pads of his fingertips against his phone screen on the other side of the room.  “Charles?” You ask, prop yourself up onto your elbows. 

“Hmm?” He hums, his eyes focused on his screen. “Sorry, um. Work… email.” You don’t envy his multitasking skills, but they do put a smile on your face.

“Did you fly me out here to fuck me?”

He scoffs, looks up for just a moment to meet your eyes. “No,” and then he’s back to typing away. 

You sigh, make sure he hears it. You don’t handle not having his attention well, not when it’s just the two of you. “But you’re going to, right?”

You wonder if you can get him flustered enough that he starts to type what he says. He’s been good at wrangling you recently, at reeling you in. But, if you can get under his skin you’ll surely be in trouble with him. Surely. He smiles at the screen. “If you think you can take it.”

When you scoff, his smile grows. You’re playing right into his game. “I’ve taken it every other fucking time, haven’t I?”

“So well.”

You roll your eyes, drop back onto your back. “Why do you say shit like that?”

“I like riling you up,” he quips, and you can hear the smile on his face, the dimples digging into his cheek. God, those dimples, they might just fucking kill you. 

“No!” You say, voice drenched in sarcastic awe.

“Yes!” He matches your tone, his phone clattering down against the table. You sit up again, pull your leg to your chest and rest your chin on it. His eyes are on you now, the email answered, his attention undivided. You love his attention. 

“Alright… can we, like,” you gesture into the vast space between the two of you, “get on with it?”

“Can you, like,” he mocks you, “let me fucking shower?”

You click your tongue against the roof of your mouth, bite the inside of your cheek, “Can I come?”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to fuck you.”

“Really?” You hate your tone, how childishly innocent it sounds, like your mother just said you could buy whatever toy you wanted at the store. You’d expected a hard shutdown.

“Yeah,” he moves past you, casual smile and strong hand pushing your shoulder, knocking you over like a glass of water onto the bed. “But, I mean it,” he warns, threatens to wag a finger at you. You’d bite it off if he did. 

“Okay,” you say, rolling yourself off the bed and onto your feet, trailing behind him a few steps. He’s already tugging his shirt over his head and you watch his shoulder blades flex with the movement. You never remember just how broad he is. It’s always a lovely reminder. 

“I’m serious,” he shakes his head. “No sex.”

You hurry forward to catch up to him, pat him solidly on the back as you squeeze between him and the door frame. “Whatever you say,” you hum. His hands make a move for your sides, to pinch the skin there and curl you over, but you dodge him with a loud giggle. 

He says your name and his tone is flat. It’s almost romantic, you think, the plainness of it, the lack of urgency. Rather than face that, you dip your hand past the glass door of the shower, turn the water on and listen to him close the bathroom door somewhere behind you. It’s just the two of you, but he clicks the lock anyways.

You glance over your shoulder at him, hand held out into the stream of water to test the temperature. He comes up behind you, bare chest against your back, arms snaking around your waist, thumbs toying with the waistband of your pants. He works over the buttons with ease, says something about making things even against the skin just above your collarbone. 

With a laugh, you push your ass back against him, bend at the waist and slowly pull off your pants and underwear. A fucking tease, he says, clears his throat and moves around you to lose his own jeans.

The shower is big, but the shower head is small in size, mediocre in water pressure. You know before your leg is all the way in that one of you will be fighting to stay warm. You also know you’ll stoop incredibly low to avoid having to stand shivering in the corner while watching him shower. Biting is not off the table. Neither is a right hook. 

It goes on like that for some time, the haphazard cohabitation of the hotel shower. 

“Would you–” you elbow your between him and the glass door, into the line of hot water. He reaches over your head, switches the flow of water to the wand, picks it up and brings it to his shoulders, the water flowing over the body, over his chest and through the muscles of his core. If you weren’t so fucking cold you’d jump him. “Charles,” you pout. 

He laughs, the kind that requires a step back to stabilize him, and then he’s holding the shower wand inches above the crown of your head, hot water streaming down your face so quick that you have to plug your nose to relish in the heat of it. 

“Thank you,” you say all nasally, voice muffled by the water that falls over your lips. He slots it back into the showerhead and adjusts the water again so you’re not being waterboarded any longer. You wipe your face with both hands, smooth your soaked hair back over your head and look up at him. He kisses you again, promptly, quickly, with childlike haste, just because he can—you suppose. “What was that for?”

He shrugs. You supposed right. 

In your haste, both of you had forgotten to grab the tiny shampoo and conditioner bottles from the vanity counter, and after winning rock, paper, scissors—and Charles demanding best of three like a first-grader—you’d made the treacherous journey back across the ice cold tile to grab the toiletries. You’d used them first as compensation for your hard work, and rather than hand them to him when you’re finished, you reach around to set them on the corner shelf.

He rolls his eyes and you smile, lathering the shampoo into your hair. 

Your head falls back under the water, eyes closed, fingers rinsing the shampoo from your hair. You hear him moving, fighting with the travel-sized shampoo bottle you’d more than almost used up. You wait for the smart comment that never comes. When you squeeze past him, switch so that he can stand under the water, your ass brushes over his leg, over him, hard and erect in a way it wasn’t five minutes earlier. His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth and you laugh. “What happened to ‘no sex!’” you tease, do your best impression of his voice. 

“This isn’t sex,” he replies all matter-of-factly. It makes your smile grow. “This is showering.”

You shake your head, roll your eyes and reach for the conditioner. “You always shower like this?”

He laughs under the water, shoulders shaking and flexing and making your life so much harder than it needs to be. You could draw maps on his back, trace from freckle to freckle until you run out. “Only when you’re not around.”

You reach out to touch him. If he can kiss you just because, you can draw pictures on his skin just because, especially after he finds the space to say something like that to you, to make you blush from the inside out. He reacts to your touch, to your fingers cutting through the smooth sheen of water that runs over him. It puts a coy smile on your face. “I’m around now, aren’t I?” You leave a kiss on his shoulder blade. 

“You are,” he says, turns to face you, slinks his arms lazily around your waist and pulls you flush against him. “I’m not worried though. You’ll take care of me.”

You bite against your bottom lip, try to contain your smile. He’s right. You know he’s right and he knows it too. “Will I?” you hum. 

He smiles so you don’t have to, moves his lips painfully close to yours, hovering so close you can almost feel the ghost of them. “You will,” he breathes.

You can’t bite your grin any longer. “I will,” you reply, and because distance has never done you two well, you kiss him, pull off his lips with an innocent smile. “As soon as you condition your hair.”

“Fuck conditioner.”

You laugh. “Fuck conditioner?”

“Mmhm,” he hums against your lips. “Fuck it.”

“Yeah,” you nod. “I still have to rinse my conditioner, though.”

He groans like he’s just noticed your slicked back hair coated in the smooth conditioner, pushes you under the shower head, gives the top of your head a scrunch before letting you finish ringing it out. 

You stumble out ahead of him soon after, feet wet on the cold tile floor of the hotel bathroom. The mirrors are fogged and the air is thick with steam, slowly being sucked away into the ceiling vent fan. You pull a fluffy white towel down from the bar, hastily wrap it around your body, tuck it shut with a knot at your chest. He tells you that you don’t need it while drying his hair with a hand towel and you laugh–tell him there’s not a chance in hell you’re spending the night sleeping in soaked, chilly sheets. 

“You’re not going to do much sleeping,” he remarks, pats your ass over the cotton fabric. You squeal, practically skip forward at the contact of his hand and leave him behind in the bathroom. 

“You tell that to all your girls?” You ask, fingers trailing over the edge of the bed as you move past. “Or just the ones who know you’re a liar?” 

He reappears with a towel tied around his waist, the smaller one he’d used for his hair draped around his neck, damp hair stuck to his forehead and shooting out in every which direction. There’s something horribly beautiful about it. “Mm-mhm,” he clicks, “just you.”

“Oh,” you hum, turning to face him with a quirked brow and quizzical smile.”Well now I feel special.”

He opens his mouth to speak, parting his lips just so slightly before pursing them shut again. “Yeah,” he breathes out, and you barely hear it over the turnover of the air conditioner. 

“Yeah,” you repeat, and somehow it’s quieter. 

You sit down in the armchair perched in the corner and the silence lingers, heavier than the steam and louder than the air conditioner. He stares at you for a beat too long and you feel your heartbeat in your temples, stare right back at his stupid green eyes. He scoffs and walks back into the bathroom. “I’m tired of this,” he says into the mirror, wiping away the fog with a flat palm. 

“Tired of what?” You ask, fear the threat of his answer more than the actual answer itself. You know what he’s tired of; you. This. All of it, he’s tired of it all, and you don’t blame him. It’s become exhausting.

You know what he’s going to say, and still. His words hit you like a sucker punch. “This fucking hotel room shit.”

Your jaw flexes and you nervously chew on the tip of your tongue. “You’re the one who called me.”

He doesn’t leave space for the words to linger. “That’s not what I meant,” he says, turning to lean against the vanity counter, can barely glance at you. Your stare holds strong. “You know that’s not what I meant.” The thing is—you don’t know. You haven’t a clue what he means if it’s not the obvious elephant sitting between you. 

“Say it, then,” you tell him and your voice oozes a confidence you didn’t know you could possess. It’s a facade. A good one, and he still sees right through it. 

“Oh allez, tu es trop intelligent pour être aussi stupide,” Oh, come on, you’re too smart to be this dumb, he says, crosses his arms over his chest like you’ve done something he needs to defend against. 

“Say it, Charles.”

He finds the nerve to smile. You wish a ghost would pull the towel hung over his shoulders tight around his neck. Maybe then he would feel more like you do. Instead, he uses it to dry off the back of his neck and tosses it somewhere out of sight. “You say it.” 

“No,” you mutter, and then louder, you repeat, “No, I’m not going to.”

“You won’t?” He asks, pushes himself off the counter and stops in the doorway, leans against the frame and if he wasn’t so insistent on starting something right now, you’d take a picture before kissing every muscle on his body. 

“Mm-mm.” 

“Fine,” he replies all bluntly, but there’s nothing short about his tone. No, no, you know there’s no chance he’s dropping this. 

“Fine.”

He sighs, eyes closed and heavy breath and head dropping to the sky like he’s begging—or praying— for some sanity or patience or whatever virtue he so badly needs when it comes to dealing with you. Eventually, he speaks to the ceiling, and the dramatic cringe and nose-bridge pinch that precedes his words makes him look more than pained. “I want more than this. I want—” he cuts himself off like he hasn’t already let it all boil over, like there’s any chance he’d keep it unsaid, that he’d be capable of stopping himself. “I want us.”

Your heart dives into your stomach, sends them both sinking through the floor. “You don’t.”

“I do,” he speaks, still to the white ceiling. You follow his sightline. The ceiling is textured. 

“No, you don’t,” you think there’s a chance that your desperation to convince him this isn’t what he wants is really nothing more than a half-hearted attempt to convince yourself of the same thing. “You don’t, because then it’s all going to be fucked.”

Finally, he looks at you, or through you, or near you. Finally, he stops looking at the stupid textured white paint on the ceiling. “But what if it works? If we work?”

We.

“What if it doesn’t? If we try and then everyone gets invested and then it’s all ruined? Our parents and our siblings? We can’t ruin that.” You can’t. You won’t. You refuse to be the one responsible for any tension between your families, between your mothers. They’re the kind of friends that you don’t find more than once, and you wouldn’t dare to mess it all up after all this time, certainly not for a boy—for the boy. 

“So, what?” He asks. There’s a terrible ribbon of torment laced through his voice. “We just ruin each other?”

You sink in your seat, reply to him meekly. He doesn’t usually make you shy.  “Maybe.”

He says your name, that same ill-inducing tone to his voice. “If it was just us. Just me and you and nobody in our families had ever met,” he gestures between the two of you, always talking with his hands even when they’re half-limp and dejected. “Then what would your answer be?”

“I wouldn’t have to answer,” you dodge. Dodge, dodge, dodge. It feels like all you can do. “You wouldn’t want me.” Your words reek of haunting vulnerability, and you hope you’re the only one who picks up on it because it’s game over if he hears it. He’ll know it all; the lie and the truth and the debilitating fear of them both.

“You know that isn’t true,” he scowls, but his voice is soft. You hate it. You do, you hate it so much. You hate it. You’re tired of this conversation. You didn’t spend all those hours three seats over from a colicky  baby and its miserable mother to argue with him about what you were. You just were, can’t that be enough?

You snap like a crunchy autumn leaf under a steel-toed boot. “Fine! Fine. Yes,” you concede to the fictional world, the alternate timeline with death and taxes etc, etc. To the universe where everything is different.  To the world where everything is different, but everything is really just as it is; where the more things change, the more they stay the same. “My answer would be yes, let’s just say ‘fuck it’ and try because why the hell not? It’s not like we got along before all this.”

“Exactly. If we crash and burn, so what? We just go back to hating each other.”

“I can’t. I can’t, Charles. I care about my family too much.”

“You’re just scared. God, you’re like a child,” he speaks without thought, letting the words fly with reckless abandon. If you wanted to argue with him you’d latch onto that line. You don’t, though. You don’t want to argue, you never did. 

“I don’t know what you want from me,” your voice cracks. It goes unaddressed by anything more than a shrug. “I don’t.”

“I want you to stop being a fucking coward and go on a date with me!”

“Charles,” you frown. Your nose burns. The gap, the gap, the gap. The impossible to bridge gap that you and he stand on either side of, waving aimlessly, begging the other with a silent plea—please. Please see what I see. I promise it’s better my way. 

“One date,” he says, barely above a whisper, holding up a single finger. It’s his plea. “Nobody has to know we’re doing it.”

“I…” your breath catches in your throat, mind racing through potential responses. You lean forward in your seat, put your elbows on your knees and bury your face in your hands before you start crying. You won’t cry, you can’t. He can’t make you cry. 

You sniffle, even though you aren’t crying—an audible reminder to yourself that you won’t be crying. That you’re eliminating the effects before they can even start. He must think you are crying, though, because the tension in the room deflates with every step he takes across the room. He lowers himself to your level, and you can feel the ghost of his hands lingering in a space just beyond your skin, like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch you. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have, fuck. I’m sorry,” his voice is so guilty, his hands finally touching your knees, thumbs moving in smooth, calming circles over your skin. You don’t have an opinion on the way you melt into putty under his touch. 

When you pull your hands away from your face, they fall into your lap, find his and mold into some tangled mess of fingers. You take a deep breath—an attempt to steady yourself before finally speaking again, and with a subtle shake of your head, you’re able to silently explain to him that you’re okay, that his words are not the reason you’re so upset. 

It’s so much more than that, than being a child or a coward of anything else he could possibly throw your way. With just as many words, he searches your eyes for answers, for a why that you couldn’t give him if you tried. 

Everything with him is so unsaid. 

“Okay,” you whisper echoes around the room. “Okay, a date,” you nod. 

His furrow softens, the lines in his face smoothing over and the corners of his lips fighting a smile. “No,” he says softly, as if trying to give you an out, to free you from any perceived obligation. “You don’t have to do that.”

Your hand finds its way to his cheek, a gentle gesture of reassurance, and you lean in, pressing a soft kiss on those lips that want to smile so bad. It’s not about making him happy, though. It’s about letting yourself entertain the idea of satisfaction, of individual happiness. 

He’s so. There’s no getting sick of kissing him, there just isn't. You sigh into his mouth and stand up, and you still want more. You still want more, towels dropping to the cold floor. Your knees bump against the back of the bed and it’s all giggly, and you still haven’t had enough. You maneuver onto the bed without separating, like the world might end if you’re not kissing him, and you’re convinced it might never be enough. That you’ll always crave more. 

It’s all so comfortable, the way you two move around each other. It’s fluid. It’s calm. It’s soft, the look on his face when he’s slotted comfortably between your knees, His fingers trace your skin softly, almost ghostly in the way they graze through the valley of your breasts. You shiver. The goosebumps make you laugh against his lips. 

He takes care of you, kissing you, trailing his lips down to your boobs, taking your nipple in his mouth, moving his tongue in sharp circles. Anything to elicit a reaction—get you all perky and poised for him. He palms your other tit with his big, strong hand, and your hands find a home in his hair, running through the curls, dragging your nails through the short locks at the nape of his neck. 

You pull him up to kiss you and his hand slots comfortably on your jaw, sliding down slowly over your throat, applying a phantom pressure. It’s all bumping noses and sharing breath, him biting his bottom lip before swallowing yours again. He’s afraid to hurt you. It’s so fucking hot.

He moves you around so easily, hands on the back of your knees, pushing your legs against your chest before licking a long stipe through your cunt. You moan louder than intended, because it’s him doing it. Because it’s him doing it. He spreads them next, big strong hands inside your thighs, leaves a soft kiss on your clit. Out of necessity, your hands find something to grab in his own, spread flat over your stomach now, his tongue moving in quick, hard flicks over your clit. It makes you pant–writhe and pant and whine. 

You search for grounding everywhere when his tongue sinks inside you, nose brushing against your clit—your palm your own breasts, white-knuckle the sheets and his shoulders and the sheets again. 

His hands move up your sides and he curls his tongue around your cunt, pulls a pornographic moan from your lips. You write, moving up onto your elbows and he spreads your legs wider, wider, wider. Fuck. Fuck, he’s so good to you. An arm loops under your leg, around your thigh and over your cunt, sliding through your lips and opening you up for him all pretty. His eyes meet yours and he’s so pleased with himself, a genuine smile at the state he’s got you in and then he’s sucking down hard on your clip, pulling off with an audible pop. Your head falls back, your hole body tensing with pleasure when he doesn’t fucking stop sucking and licking and fucking. Your hands are on his again, gripping onto him for dear life, moving wherever he moves. 

Your legs shake, fight against the hand on the inside of your thigh to close around his head, but he’s stronger than you. Fuck, he is. “So pretty,” he tells you, and you shudder, smile hard against the sheets and bury your hands in his hair.

“Right there,” you say through short, heavy pants, and then it’s all out the window. Game over, and you’re coming in his mouth and he still isn’t stopping so you just keep coming—so fucking hard, grinding against his mouth without any sense of rhythm. You think you could live in this high forever.

He kisses you, moves you—god, you’d be a ragdoll if he wanted, you think you really would. He moves you under him, up on your side and kisses down your shoulder, down your arm. He’s so kissy, can’t stay off you. It’s soft and romantic and it doesn’t make you ill at all, honest. 

His words, though, they still want to keep up your little act. “You want me to fuck you, baby?” He asks, moving his dick through your slick, lining himself up to fuck you. 

“Yes, yes,” you mewl, nodding hurriedly. He kisses you, sinks into you somewhere in the middle of it and you gasp into his mouth. 

“Fff…” he trails off, bottoming out into you. “You okay?” he asked. You nod. You nod because you’re so full of him you can’t speak. The gesture is more than enough for him, provides him with the permission he needs to start fucking into you, to brace himself with a hand on either of your hips and thrust deep inside of you, bottoming out each and every time. “Fuck. Fuck, c’mere,” he groans, and then pulls you back against him, your back flush against his chest. 

You crane your neck to kiss him, moan into his mouth when he’s cupping your ass and fucking you. You moan—gasp—and he fucking laughs. “Oh my god,” you whimper. “So good.”

He breathes sharp through his teeth, the bottom of his jaw rutting out with every thrust and then he’s biting your shoulder. He bruises the skin and kisses it better. 

“You’re so fucking hot,” he says, and you want, so badly, to make him feel as good as he makes you. 

“Wanna fuck you,” you say. “Let me fuck you.”

He doesn’t need convincing. “Okay,” he nods. “Okay, please.”

You’re half-hearted in your push back against his arm. He’s the reason he pulls out of you and falls back onto his back, makes space for you to straddle him and grind against him and kiss him and kiss him and let him kiss you. 

With a cocky grin and dark green eyes he moves his cock through your slick, lets a smug laugh slip through his lips as he lines up with your hole so you can sink down on him, slow. Slow. Slow because the stretch burns every fucking time. 

“Fuck,” you stumble, “s’big.” 

He meets you halfway, lifts his hips up off the bed to minimize the time he spends not buried inside of you. He smiles all stupid and your stuttered whine. “Fucking took it all the other times,” he breathes out, fingers digging deep into the skin over your hips. 

“Fuck you,” you laugh. He winces, and it only makes you laugh harder, lean down to kiss him so your chests are pressed against each other and grind your hips. His arms wrap around your middle, big and strong and pulling you impossibly close to him and the pace that he sets underneath you. They roam your body, his hands dancing over your sides and your back and knot into your hair, keep roaming until he’s grabbing at your ass. 

“You’re so fucking wet,” he says. You don’t need his words to know that, the sounds of your cunt clenching around him audibly demonstrating just how wet you are with every single thrust. “Always so good for me.” 

It doesn’t take long for you to come again, with the new angle and the new vulnerability. It never takes long with him, like he knows every inch of your body and just how to use it. “Mhm, fuck. Jesus,” you shudder, breath choppy and desperate. He’s relentless through your orgasm, like always, and it just extends it, draws it out painfully long. “I fucking l—ah—” you clench around him, legs shaking on either side of his abs. Your spasms aren’t calmed by even his strong hands, but he keeps them there anyway. 

“I love fucking you, baby,” he says, nibbles on your ear, kisses nowhere in particular and everywhere at once. You’re filled with butterflied by his crude words. 

“Do it, then,” you beg. “Please, fuck, please, Charles.”

In a single, swift movement, he pulls you off him and flips you onto your back. Immediately, without any semblance of hesitation, you’re reaching for his cock, to guide him back to where you want him, to where he belongs. You ache when you’re this close to him, when you’re this close and don’t have him, aren’t full of him. 

His hands find both of yours, interlock your fingers and move them somewhere above your head, pinned against the sheets. “Don’t say my name like that,” he whispers.

You play dumb, but your cheeks are flushed. “Why not?”

“You drive me crazy,” he says, kisses you before you can even attempt to rebuke his claims. 

“Me?” you laugh, fingers dancing over his abs. If his eyes weren’t so fucking green , you’re sure you’d find the reaction to your touch, the flexing of his muscles under the pads of your fingers, to be quite the show. 

He smiles all soft. “You.”

Your hand pulls him to you by the back of his neck, something about you can’t say something like that and not kiss me after, and then you’re licking against his teeth and it’s all so hazy—the way he slides back inside you between gasped breaths, the way you bite down on his bottom lip when he fucks you so well, and the way your legs wrap around his waist when you come, trying to pull him closer, deeper, to feel him with every nerve ending. 

“That’s right,” he says, a rare calming presence through your orgasms. He doesn’t do this often, not with you, at least. “Atta girl,” he laughs. “Make a mess.”

He fucks you through it, he does, but it’s slow and steady until you’re finished, back in reality, and then he’s the messy one—fast, hard, fucking into you with reckless abandon. Fast, fast, faster. It’s fucking blinding. Fuck, it’s good. It’s so good. 

He groans against your shoulders, hips snapping against yours. “Yes, yes, yes,” you chant, because you’re so fucked at this point that English attempts to escape you. “You’re so fucking close, yes,” you moan, “please, give it to me, baby,” and then he’s coming, head buried in your neck. His body weight is heavy on you, every muscle tensing as you’re fucked full of his cum. 

The two of you are so close, have never been fucking closer, and it still doesn’t feel like enough. “Fuck,” you giggle, and his whole body shakes with his own laughter, moving up to kiss you. You smile through the whole thing, through the hard kiss and the soft pecks that follow, through his fingers brushing the hairs from your forehead and the feeling of him dripping down your leg. Through all of it, you’re both smiling. 

It’s giddy, almost, and God. God, you’re so fucking happy.

[sainz-leclerc]

—the seasons of love

or: the enemies to lovers situationship fic charles leclerc x female reader summ. and all of the sudden it was summer. minors dni. nsfw warnings under the cut. 5.9k part one part two part three part four

18+ because: public sex (not caught, not almost caught. just. public), dry humping, language.

“Please,” he begs, voice cracked and half-broken. His fingers dig into the fabric on your hips, pulls you down harder, moves your hips faster. You love feeling him grow under you. You can feel his dick, hard under you in his shorts, and you can feel yourself, hot and bothered and soaking wet. He pushes you impossibly further down against him, sinks his teeth into your shoulder, around the strap of your tanktop and the material of your sports bra. 

It’s so hot. So hot and steamy and everything is sweaty and flushed. You think you might have to drink a gallon of water after this, that it’s the only way you’ll be able to accomplish another task all day. The sauna had to be the worst place to do this, to finally break after all this time. It’s hot and it’s dangerous in more ways than you can count. 

You barely hear him over the thick heat covering both of your bodies, over the dehydrated ringing in your ear. “What?”

“Enough,” he breathes, thumbing at the waistband of your shorts, trying to slip you out of them, to have you all the way. “Wanna be inside you.”

“Mm-mm,” you hum against his lips, smile out of the kiss because you know your words will piss him off. Your hand covers his, practically intertwines between his fingers, holds him still at your waistband. He’s pouting before you can even tell him. “No, this is all you get,” you mutter, moving his hand further down, until it’s resting where the fabric of your shorts meet his, where you grind against him, against his hand. “Anyone could walk in.”

He pulls your shorts to the side, lets his thumb slide between the fabric and your underwear, slides up and down over your slick, all messy and wet through your underwear. It makes him shake his head, how much of a mess you already are for him. You relish in it, watch him with a sick smile. “Let them.”

You laugh, elbows on his shoulders while your hands run through his hair, all sweaty and salty and lacking the familiar scent of his shampoo. No, no, it just smells hot. Everything smells hot and humid. “You don’t mean that.”

He leans into your fingers, lets your nails drag across his scalp gently with fluttered eyelids. He looks pretty and content and you hate it. “I might,” he mumbles into your shoulder, kisses the skin just past your clavicle, nips a bruise on top of a bruise on top of a bruise. Just in case you forget. 

“If you did,” you hum, sitting up, raising your hips off his and reaching behind your body, under your ass to palm him through his shorts, to put the outline of his dick just where you want it–where you need it. “You’d let them hear how good you feel instead of biting off my fucking shoulder.”

“You want to hear me?” 

“Yes,” you nod. He takes a deep breath, almost spits it out in a laugh and you can predict his actions before he even starts. “FU–” you smack your hand over his mouth before he can even get the vowel sound out, head whipping around to look at the door, to wait for the handle to jiggle against itself and for someone to push it open to see what all the commotion is about. When nobody does, you turn your attention to him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” You scold, a laugh tickling the back of your throat through the muffled rage. He’s such a fucking idiot. He licks a long stripe across your palm and he about curls over in laughter when you yank your hand away disgusted. 

He shrugs, toothy, dimpled grin on his face. “I was making sure you could hear me.”

He thrusts against you, fingers digging into your hips, flat hands spanning your back, your sides, groping at your boobs through far too much fabric. He agrees with your assessment, he does, because he’s pulling up the hem of your tank top, of your sports bra, pulling them up over your chest so he can properly play with your tits. You know you should keep them covered, stay as clothed as possible just in case, but every nerve in your body reacts to his touch, his gentle fingers over your skin, and you’re in no place to be sensible.

You kiss him, hard and deep and not very mean at all, nothing like you usually do, all noses bumping and half giggles and foreheads resting against each other. “I hate you,” you whisper into his mouth before kissing him again.

You swallow his laugh. All of this is entirely too laugh-ey for your comfort. It’s weird. It’s all so weird, this new dynamic; the way you both stumble back and forth, swing like a pendulum from one side of the line to the other. One minute, you wish you could strangle him with his own tongue. The next, you’re lavishing in the taste of his laugh. “You wish you hated me,” he says. You don’t say anything. You do wish you hated him. You do, because it would be so much easier. If you hated him the way you used to, you wouldn’t be here like this, fucking his lap, desperately tugging on the waistband of your shorts to pull them tighter across your cunt. Nothing you do will make it close enough, not as long as you refuse to actually fuck him, to let him fuck you. “Cat’s got your tongue now, does it?”

You shake your head, kiss along his jaw, nibble his ear and his neck and his shoulder; you give him a taste of his own medicine. “Mm-mm, just feels good,” his skin muffles your words, makes them short and lispy.

He laughs. You’re so fucking sick of the fact that you aren’t sick of his laugh. It exhausts you, the way his dimples dig into his cheeks, the way his shoulders shake and his abs flex and you get to watch it all up close. It’s fucking infuriating. “You don’t think I’ve fucked you enough to know that sex doesn’t shut you up?”

You smirk, grind down onto him and God, it feels so fucking good. Better than it should. “And what does shut me up, Charles?”

“One of my life’s great mysteries,” he says, and you don’t know how long it’s been since he last met your eyes. He’s so glued to the two of you it’s bordering on pathetic, loose jaw and half-lidded eyes watching every movement of your bodies. He looks at you like he’s starved. It makes you fucking crazy, and he’s the only one that does it–which is that much more annoying. Nobody looks at you the way he does. 

It’s just the time. The reason he watches you the way he does. It’s time. Time apart, a lot of it. It’s just the time, you tell yourself again and again. “I missed this,” you tell him, and it’s because of the time. 

“Arguing with me?”

“No, no. Missed you.” Because of time. Because of time. Because of time. You think maybe you’d gotten addicted to it all, to the push and the pull and the promise of things never going anywhere. That you grew reliant on it, on him, to be there when you needed him to be, when nobody else was good enough for a quick fuck. You’d become an addict, a sloppy drunk who’s favorite drink is him. The orange juice is gone now, and you’re back to consuming him and it’s like you never stopped. 

He grabs at your ass, at your shorts and your underwear and your thighs, at anything that might possibly force you down onto him harder and quicker. The pace is fading fast, and you’re both losing the fight to keep being smart. “Fuck,” he groans, the same way he always does when he’s close. 

“I know,” you whine, nodding, fucking against him like your life depends on getting off. “Me too.”

“So good, baby,” he coaxes you. You hear the pet name, you always hear the pet name. You always tell him to shut the fuck up because it makes you mush, putty in his hands everytime. This time, though, this time you’re silent, breath pausing against his skin. “Sorry, sorry,” he corrects before you can. You weren’t going to, not this time. 

“No, it’s okay. God—it’s okay,” the conversation gets harder and harder, your mind cloudier with each passing moment, with each thrust bringing you that much closer to the tantalizing edge. 

“Yeah?” He moves you quicker, finds the space somewhere to rut up off the hard bench and into you. “You like that shit now?”

  You nod, eyes pinching shut, fingernails digging into the skin on his back. “From you, baby, fuck, I do.”

He sighs, pained, half-whimpered. You don’t know how you aren’t coming yet, how the fuck you’re still having a conversation. You’re blindingly close. He’s closer. “Stop saying shit like that to me, gonna make me–fucking… fuck,” he sputters out, and you feel his dick twitch in his shorts. God. Next time–fuck. Next time, you want him dripping down your leg. 

The thought of it is enough to unravel you, to leave you following right behind, thinking maybe, maybe you can fit in another smart comment, something to still manage to assure that you’ve got the upper hand. Something that, when the two of you walk out of here, you’ll be able to replay back as the moment you won the battle. You’re wrong. “But it makes my jo…” your words trail off into a laugh, a stuttered moan that’s lost all semblance of the joke. 

(twenty-two minutes earlier)

You'd decided to take some time after Monaco, to separate yourselves in an attempt to untangle the mess of webs you’ve wrapped yourselves in. You’d turned to the gym to blow off all that excess steam left behind in his wake. Only problem is, your gym is his gym, and you’ve spotted each other from across the place more than once. 

As you entered the sauna, the steam enveloped you, wrapping you in a cocoon of warmth and relaxation. You were looking forward to some peaceful time alone, a chance to unwind and forget about the newfound complications of your life. 

The tranquility is short lived, however, when you notice Charles sitting on the other side of the room. 

Your eyes meet for a split second, and in that fleeting glance, a myriad of emotions pass between you. Surprise, annoyance, that same third thing you’ve been trying to kill for months. Both of you.

You didn’t have time to dwell on his presence, not with strangers in the sauna with you. 

You took the farthest possible seat from him, trying to focus on the hot air working your muscles instead of the irritating man glaring at you. You can feel his eyes, their stare only dueling your frustration. 

Minutes pass in tense silence as you both pretend not to notice each other. The other people in with you, acting as a silent buffer, your own personal sauna Switzerland, get up and walk out, leaving the two of you alone. The moment the door closes behind the last person, he’s jumping down your throat, his annoyance no longer restrained. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, tone laced with irritation. 

You rolled your eyes. It’s been so long since you’ve gotten to play your little game, no way you’re backing down this early. “I could ask you the same thing,” you retorted, crossing your arms defensively. 

He let out a humorous chuckle. “Maybe I wanted some peace and quiet,” he shot back.

You scoffed. “Peace and quiet? You’re the last person I expect to want that,” you said, unable to hide your disdain. 

Charles glared back at you , clearly unappreciative of your sarcastic wit. “Well, we can’t all be perfect like you,” he replied. The tension was thick between the two of you, thicker than it had been in a long time. “Can’t you find another gym to steal?” 

You huffed, tired of his complaints. “I can go wherever I want. It’s not my fault you’re so inflexible with your workout schedule,” you shot back, trying to mask the unease you felt. 

He leaned back in his seat, a hint of smugness in his voice. “And can you at least wear something a little more… decent? You’re not leaving much to the imagination,” He comments, eyes flickering over your outfit. He’s just a douche, you’re wearing a sports bra and running shorts. 

You annoyance flares. Who the fuck does he think he is, acting like a boyfriend—an overprotective one at that. Fuck him. Fuck him. “Oh please, I don’t dress to impress you,” you retorted flatly. 

He seems unphased by your rage, which only makes you angrier. “It’s distracting,” he mumbled.

Fed up with his attitude, with everything he decided to represent by waking up and coming to the gym and walking into the sauna, you decide to call his fucking bluff. You got up from where you were sitting, moved closer to him, hands on your hips. 

“You want to see how revealing my clothes can be?” you challenged, folding over the waistband of your shorts, revealing just a bit more skin. 

He blinked, caught dumbfounded by your move, by your sudden proximity. “That’s not what I meant,” he stammered, bravado faltering. You took a step closer, gaze locked with his. 

“Then what did you mean, Charles?” you asked, voice softening just enough to let him think he’s going to get off easy. He’d never be that lucky, not when he’s talking like he owns you, like he has any right to your body or the clothes you put on it. “Did you mean to criticize everything I do, everything I wear, or just assert some kind of dominance over me?”

He looked taken aback by your words, and honestly, you didn’t blame him. Your tone surprised even you. It was clear he hadn't expected you to challenge him like this. “No, that’s not what I meant at all,” he replied, voice softer now. 

“Then what is it, Charles?” you pressed, refusing to back down. “What is it about me that’s bothering you so much?”

He hesitated for a moment, and then finally spoke, his voice tinged with frustration. “It’s not that I’m bothered by you,” he said, “I just… I don’t know how to be around you.”

You took another step closer, closing the distance between the two of you. You roll your eyes, huff and puff and almost groan because he’s only reminding you of why the two of you agreed to keep your distance in the first place. He can’t hang, can’t get with the program and understand that you just can’t deal with the implications of him.  “What do you mean?” you ask, voice cooling, wanting to understand him. 

He hesitates, gaze locked on yours. “It’s like… every time I’m with you, everything is just. It’s different,” he admitted. “I can’t pretend it’s not.”

You can, you can pretend. You like pretending. Pretending is easy, far easier than facing the facts, facing the feelings. Your heart skips a beat, his words resonating with the feelings you’d been trying to bury. “So, what are we then?” you asked, already gearing up to refute any claims he goes making about us, about we, about any other multitude of pluralities he wants to stutter out. 

He has no sort of a clear answer. “I don’t know,” he replies, harrowingly candid. You don’t think you’ll ever be faced with him being this vulnerable and not feel like throwing up.  “I wish I did, but I don’t.”

The vulnerability in his voice breaks any and all anger you’d managed to carry to this point. You almost felt bad, a pang of sympathy tearing through your chest. You knew he was struggling as much as you were. “I don’t know either,” you admitted, voice threatening to fall into silence. You both stand there for a beat too long, heavy with the weight of it all. And then, in a moment of impulse, you reach out and take his hand, intertwine your fingers with his. 

His thumb moves over the back of your hand, but he says your name like you’re hurting him, like he’s truly pained to hold your hand. “I can’t lose you. I won’t,” he whispers. “I can’t, I can’t keep running from it.”

You were taken back by the sincerity, but rather than pull away, recoil into safety like a scared turtle into their shell, you squeezed his hand gently. “I don’t know if I’m ready,” you spoke honestly, more generously than you had yet allowed yourself to. “But I. Yeah, I can’t lose you.”

And just like that, the months of rebuilding the barriers and the boundaries has all gone to shit, all the walls melting to the floor in a steaming puddle. The tension that had been built, destroyed, redbuilt, for so fucking long that it felt like a tightly wound spring just begging to snap. 

Without another word, you leant down, closing the distance between you and pressing your lips against his. There was no fight, no anger or frustration or game to win, it was just a kiss. It was no longer a hookup, a friends or enemies or… frenemies with benefits situation. It’s not an itch that needs to be scratched anymore. It’s a gap, begging to be bridged, to be explored after so long. 

You moved to straddle him, out of pure convenience–no distraction, no battle for domination. Just you, sitting on his lap, and him, kissing a smile onto your lips. 

As you pulled apart, breath heavy and hearts pounding, you looked at him, searched his eyes for the same fear you felt, gentle fingers making a half-hearted attempt at styling his hair. “I don’t want to ruin this,” he says. You don’t know how it could possibly make any sense, how you could possibly feel like you do, but you miss him. He’s right here in front of you, and you miss him. 

You nodded, “I don’t either,” you confirmed. You don’t know which one of you moved first, who started it all. Just that you were the first to speak again. “We shouldn’t.” Push.

“I know.” Pull. 

“But I want to.” It’s pained, just like everything else. You know better. You both know better. 

“I know, I know.”

You gathered at the entrance of the trailhead, the air full of laughter and excited chatter as all of your friends caught up, planned for the hike ahead. It was Marta’s idea, and she’d swore to you up and down that Charles wasn’t going to be there, that he had too much to focus on with summer break coming to an end in just a few days. 

It has been so long since the whole group got together, and when you’d gotten the text it sounded like the perfect excursion, the best way to spend a warm evening. You beam talking to them, catching up on work and romance and family and other friends. Your gaze sweeps over the group, stopping dead at the sight of him. Either Marta had lied to you, or Ricky had lied to Marta. 

“What’s he doing here?” you asked her, and she followed you gaze. 

“Who—oh. I don’t know, honest.”

As if he can feel your eyes on him, his gaze meets yours for a fleeting second. The shared surprise, the shared irritation, it tells you that he didn’t know you’d be here, either. There’s something else there, too, something about a reminder of shared history, an acknowledgement that no matter how hard you two try, there’s no escaping each other. 

You set off on the hike on opposite ends of the group, as far away from him as you can manage. Maybe, maybe you’ll be able to put off the inevitable for just a while longer. You’re not naive enough to think you can make it to the viewpoint without ending up next to him, without being forced into conversation. 

It lasts all of fifteen minutes before you, Marta, Charles, and Ricky have all been relegated to the back of the pack. You’re not surprised it’s the three of you—Ricky has Chiara strapped into this little backpack carrier, and it weighs him down. Marta spends more of the hike snapping pictures of the baby than watching where she walks, while Charles is attempting to be a professional photographer at every possible lookout point, grabbing a picture of each and every interesting thing he sees. And you, well. You’ve always been a slow hiker. 

The two of you still stand with Marta and Ricky between you, walking four wide through the trail. Marta’s already planning Chiara’s first birthday, trying to work around everyone’s schedules to make sure the whole friend group can be there. Ricky talks Charles’ ear off about work, about if they choose the best possible hiking trail and whatever else it is straight men talk about. 

Despite your separate conversations and the couple between you, your eyes continually find his, drawn in by the laughter and animated gestures that always annoyed you so.  There’s just something so. So painfully familiar about the unspoken and impossible to ignore tension between the two of you. You feel like a child, the way your mind blanks and time stops for just a second every time you meet eyes. It’s stupid. It is.

“Aimez-vous cette randonnée?” Enjoying the hike, Ricky asks you, oblivious to the tension floating around him. 

You tear your eyes from Charles, offer a distracted nod. “Ouais. Excellent moyen de passer la soirée,” Yeah. Great way to spend the evening, you reply. 

You hear the rest of the group before you can see them, huddled off to a decent-sized lookout point, one with a clear view of the entire country. The sun is just starting to set, casting a warm, golden glow over your home, sparkling off the calm sea. 

The group dispersed around the opening, snapping pictures of the view and with each other. You find a seat-shaped boulder to sit on, silently appreciating the sights, irritatingly aware of Charles’ proximity. You can always tell when he’s nearby, can feel him like he;s electrically charged. 

He’s only a few feet away, carefully crafting away at an Instagram story when he speaks to you for the first time all evening. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he speaks softly, mumbles almost, and doesn’t bother to look up from his phone. 

“Always is,” you reply, eyes fixed on the horizon. 

He nods in agreement, and the air is so heavy. So, so heavy. 

Marta cuts through it all with a photocall, and because of the laws of nature, you and Charles find yourselves side by side. Like you said, electric. Magnetic, maybe; the pull. 

The camera clicks, captures the smiles and the shared experience and he’s looking at you again. It’s like it’s just the two of you, sometimes, all muddy history and lingering potential. 

With the picture captured, conversations resume, groups disperse, and everything is back as it was; even the innate awareness of where Charles is. 

As the hike continues to the summit, you and he move together in step. The familiarity is like a blanket, something comfortable amidst the messy chaos of emotional turmoil. 

“I used to love sunsets like this,” Charles began, snapping the silence of shoes on dirt and half-crunched leaves. 

You turn to him with piqued curiosity. “What changed?”

He hesitates, locks his gaze on the path ahead. “Life, I guess. Responsibilities, expectations, the weight of it all. It’s easy to forget to appreciate the simple things.” He shifts his steps slightly, brushes his arm against yours and makes you shiver. He makes you so nervous. You fucking hate that he makes you so nervous now. He’s looking at you, and you’re the one fixed on the trail. It’s a simple swap, but it feels heavy, it does. “Hey,” he says, soft. Comfortable. 

You pick at your nails. Anything to avoid his eyes. “Yeah?”

You can hear it in his pause before speaking that he’s choosing his words carefully. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately,” he began, gaze never leaving the side of your head. “About us, about everything.”

Your heart races the same way it does everytime he tries to have this conversation. You know what he’s referring to. You always know, even if he doesn’t say it outright. “Yeah,” you nod, meet his eyes and dare him to continue.

He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing when he does it. “I just. I think we owe it to ourselves.”

His words sink into your skin slowly, poisoning your every cell like he just has to put voice to every thought that haunts you. “Charles,” you start, voice soaked in uncertainty and longing. He holds up a hand, stops you before you can continue. 

“I’m not asking you for an answer,” he says, and a lump is already forming in your throat. “I know you need time. I don’t understand it,” he chuckles, “but I know it.”

“Charles,” you whisper, voice barely audible. 

His fingers brush against yours in the space between your bodies. It’s so small, such a minute gesture, but it speaks volumes, gives you permission to feel, to open up to the possibility that lies before the two of you. 

“I know you’re scared,” he says, dares to hold your hand, to run circled over the back of yours with his thumb. “I don’t have answers, but. I don’t know,” he admits, “I don’t know, maybe we can figure them out together.”

You have to look away, you do. Because if you don’t watch the cotton candy sky, the watercolor oranges and yellows and pinks and blues, you might just cry right there on the hiking trail. He always does this, it’s his go-to move recently; make you feel all safe and stupid and like it’s okay to be vulnerable. 

You huff, think carefully before nonsense tumbles from your lips. “How did we end up like this?” You’d asked, as if it wasn’t obvious. The two of you had stumbled your way into this situation the same way you’d stumbled through the rest of your lives, bouncing from opportunity to opportunity just hoping, praying, that someday it would all work out the way you thought it would. 

“Does it matter?” he replies. 

This isn’t how you thought it would end up with Charles. You thought things would always stay the same—they’d made it this far, through this much in the past two and a half decades. What could possibly change the irritation between you two now? If you hadn’t softened with Jules, with Herve. If none of it had made you budge, why on God’s green Earth would a single drunken night change everything? 

It shouldn’t. There’s no reason that the cards should have fallen like this, but they did. They did, and now everything is so fucked up because you’re soft for the one person you’d counted on never being soft for. 

“No,” you finally say. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

He doesn’t fill your silence, the two of you just sit in it, continue up the trail, following the sound of your friends’ voices, of the music playing from someone’s speaker. 

L’appel du vide. The call of the void. The French and their incessant need to make everything sound more romantic than it is. Only they could romanticize the impulse to be destructive. You’re faced with it at the trail peak, standing on the edge of the cliff next to him. 

You could push him, solve all your problems and create half a dozen more. You could jump, solve all your problems and leave one big one for the rest of them to deal with. The problems would be solved, they would. 

“Okay,” you say, the toe of your shoe twisting into the gravel. 

“Okay?” He asks, in the middle of taking a picture of the sun. It’ll be dark when you get back, the sun is disappearing into the horizon as he photographs it. 

“I guess we,” you sigh. He shoves his phone in his pocket. “We can figure it out together.” It’s a terrible admission, an agreement that something does exist, that there is a thing, glaring at you with a third eye and needs to be dealt with, sorted out, controlled. 

He nods, doesn’t poke or prod for anything he knows you can’t give. “Alright.”

“Yeah.”

You don’t give into the call of the void that summer night. You couldn’t, even if you wanted to. The void had left you a voicemail in the early hours of the year, before the sun rose and after the moon set, lost somewhere in the dawns. The void had already called, and you’d already answered. 

(1 hour later)

You were right, it was dark when the group of you had finally made it back to the parking lot. You’d separated yourself from him again, somewhere on the way down the trail, and had taken Chiara from Ricky. You carried her on your hip and talked with Marta the whole way back. 

“Is there something going on with you and Charles?” She asked, and your heart rate doubled instantaneously.  You focus on the baby in your arms instead of looking at your friend, know that one glance in her direction and she won’t wonder anymore, she’ll know every detail without a moment and a half of eye contact. 

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “You guys have just been weird all year.”

Your stomach drops. You’d thought the two of you had been so good at hiding it, and here you are finding out that what… everyone has known for eight months? For almost nine months, they’ve all been looking at you and Charles and knowing the two of you were fucking behind closed doors. “All year?”

“Yeah, I mean,” she laughs. “Ricky and I figured the two of you hooked up on New Year’s.”

Of course. Of course they knew. You weren’t exactly subtle about it that first time, the two of you drunkenly disappearing, just the two of you, walking hand in hand off into the night. Of course they knew, how couldn’t they when you’d made it so fucking obvious.

“We didn’t,” you still lie. If you can’t sort out your own feelings, rationalize anything internally, how are you supposed to attempt to explain the situation to anyone else, much less your best friend and his. Even if you could—maintain some sort of composure about any of it—you owe it to Charles to talk to him about it before anyone else.

Despite all of it, you owe it to him. 

“Yes you did!”

You get defensive quick, and Marta’s insistence that you did sleep with Charles (even though you definitely did, and she’s more right than she knows) gets under your skin and rubs you in the wrong way.  “And what if I did?”

Marta purses her lips, presses them into a thin line that reminds you of your sister, of your mother. “Nothing. If you did, it means nothing.”

“Right,” you sigh, nod, raise your voice half an octave and talk to Chiara more than Marta, squeezing her little leg. “It means nothing.”

She matches your tone. “Unless it means something.” You glare at her. “If there’s anything there, you can tell me.”

 “I know,” you nod. She continues to pry. 

“So?”

“I…” you sigh. It would be so much easier to just tell her she was right. That she couldn’t be more right and there are a million and one things going on between you and Charles. It would be so much easier to tell her, just like it would be so much easier to tell Charles, but. You can’t. No matter how much easier it would be, you can’t. “No. No, nothing is going on.”

“Okay,” she says, clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth to remind you just how much she doesn’t believe you. “I better not see you getting into his car tonight.”

You smile, weak, but a smile nonetheless. “You won’t.”

You managed to maintain your distance, somehow, against all the polarizing forces of the universe, but trying to stay away from Charles is like running against a rubber band. You can only go so far. 

He’s parked two spots over from you, in one of his more… under the radar cars. It’s why you didn’t blink when you’d parked by it, because it wasn’t the Monaco National Anthem on wheels, it was just a car. Anyways, you’d parked two spots over and now here you were, walking side by side to the back of the lot. 

“So,” he says, drags his feet against the blacktop, scuffs on the bottom of his sneakers with every step. 

You can feel Marta’s eyes on you, look over your shoulder to confirm her position on the other side of the parking lot, and drag your own feet. The faster you walk, the faster you get to the cars. “So…”

The silence is half-suffocating, the wavering dare to break it hanging in the air above you both. You never can start the conversation. You never know what to say. “You wanna come back to my place?” He offers, and you think that maybe the reason so much between you is said in silence is because he doesn’t know how to start the conversation, either. 

“Uh,” you’re at your car now, fingers moving over the shimmering paint. You glance at Marta, still watching your interaction while Ricky straps Chiara into her carseat. “I do, but,” you sigh, eyes finding their way back to his. “I can’t.”

“Okay, yeah,” he follows your former sightline. “You alright?”

You nod. “What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s good,” he says, and then, with a dumb look on his face, “Are we gonna fuck?”

You laugh. “Probably.”

“Are we gonna talk?”

“Probably not.”

He purses his lips into a smile, runs his hand through his hair once, twice, three times. “Saw that coming.”

You’ve slowly—slowly—been making your way to the car door, backing away from him at the back end. “It’s settled, then,” you say, unlock the car door and open it, lean against it while you continue your conversation. 

“Yeah, settled,” he nods, fidgeting with one of the bracelets tied around his wrist. “See you tomorrow.”

You smile, annoyingly endeared. “Goodnight, Charles.”

He smiles back, at his bracelet and then at his shoes and then finally at you, stepping backwards toward his own car.  “Goodnight.”

You watch him walk away, because anyone would, and just when he’s about to vanish from your eye line, you call after him. “Hey!”

His head shoots back to you, eyes wide and brows raised. “Yeah?”

“Fuck you!” You tell, stand on your tip-toes to make sure he can see your middle finger over the cars. He shakes his head and winks back at you before climbing into the car. 

[sainz-leclerc]

—the seasons of love

or: the enemies to lovers situationship fic charles leclerc x female reader summ. spring and the lovely silence of growing things. minors dni. nsfw warnings under the cut. 7.6k part one part two part three part four

18+ because: oral (m receiving, rough), spit, hair pulling, drunk drunk drunk get crunk

“Goodnight Arthur,” you said, lingering behind as your family started off down the road in the opposite direction that he and his were. 

Your dress, long and linen, blows in the evening breeze and draws goosebumps to your skin. Your hands clutch your phone and a small purse, the cross body strap wrapped around your hand three times. Your ponytail sways with your hips when you walk. Turning to Charles, you nod, purse a smile. “Charles.”

“Goodnight,” he replies curtly, perfectly polite. 

“The two of you are still talking after a whole day together? Did Hell freeze over while we were out there?” Arthur laughs.

A strange silence, one that only you and Charles are aware of, swallows the lull of the cicadas in the streetlights. It’s early in the year for them, typically holding out on their spring song until a bit further into the season. Charles drags his feet on the concrete, drawing out every step to be a beat too slow. “Stranger things have happened,” he remarks under his breath, his middle finger picking at the cuticle of his thumb before shoving his hands deep in his pockets. 

“Have they?” Arthur continues to poke fun at the two of you, at the unlikeliness of a quareless evening. You’re surprised, too. Never would have guessed a few hours earlier that the evening would end up the way it had. 

(Five hours earlier)

He’s sulking and it's becoming pathetic. Every single thing about his body moves around the yacht like a kicked puppy, all sullen and blue and hosting another private-pity party. His sighs grow more and more dramatic, less and less patient with each moment that passes without someone feeling as bad for him as he feels for himself. 

You knew, maybe better than anyone, how fiercely competitive he is, how much pressure he carries on his shoulders. You'd seen the highs and the lows of it all, and despite the underlying annoyance that was Charles, you still wanted what was best for him. It’s just human nature to hope. 

This season has been beating him up, you knew, even if you didn’t follow it the way some of your friends did. Strategy has been shit, you’ve heard, luck somehow shitter. He’d talked such a big game before the start of the season, quietly confident and subtly cocky in a way that almost makes you believe he can predict the future. 

Usually, you would relish in his annoyance, but today you’ve found yourself feeling oddly concerned. You refused to let him ruin the beautiful day, ruin the moods of your siblings and his. It’s the determination to save the day that leads you to the yacht railing, feet away from his brooding, lost in thought expression. 

“You seem a bit off today,” you remarked, voice lades with a teasing tone, a poor attempt to lighten the mood. 

He glances up at you, a hint of a smile tugging on his lips. “You always have such a way of pointing out the obvious, don’t you?” He retorted, but his annoyance is all bark, no bite, softened entirely by the playful glint in his eyes. 

“Well,” you shoot back, minorly annoyed, massively amused. “It’s not everyday you look like a sulking child.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “And always full of delightful compliments,” he replied, gaze lingering on your lips for a moment too long before he tears them away. 

You smirk, lean in a bit closer. “You love it,” you taunt.

He raises an eyebrow, a challenge gleaming in his eyes. “Oh, do I now?” He quips, leaning in just enough to make your stomach sink. You feign indifference to his words, but your body betrays you, leaning in a fraction closer. 

“I know you better than you think,” you said, your voice almost a whisper. 

He chuckled again, the sound of it sending shivers down your spine. There’s something so deflated about him. “Is that so?” He muses, breath grazing against your ear, making your pulse quicken. 

You take a step back, attempt to find some sort of composure. “Maybe,” you replied with a playful shrug, not daring to meet his gaze. 

He leans in, fills the space you’d just created, mischievous glint in his eyes. “You’re always under my skin,” he admits, a hue of vulnerability in his voice leaving you unsettled. 

You finally meet his gaze, your eyes locking with his. “You love the challenge, though, don’t you?” You countered, tone serious now, hinting at something more, something deeper. 

He hesitates, a flicker of emotion crossing his features before he masks it with a smirk. “Maybe I do,” he replied, voice low and suggestive. 

The conversation drolls on, seconds between your words filled with charged silence. The subtle dance of glances and touches only adds to the tension, and you found yourself unable to break away, to return to the rest of the family on the upper deck. No, no, you have a feeling you’ll be going lower, even, farther away from them and closer to some private silence. 

“Do you ever wonder?” he asks, voice soft and full of curiosity. You have no interest in entertaining his words. 

“I don’t,” you reply, trying to keep your tone guarded. 

His brows furrow, challenging you. “Really?” Charles questions, his skepticism evident. 

You shrug. “It’s just easier this way, isn’t it?” you retort, a hint of bitterness creeping into your voice. Bitter that he feels entitled to ruin something that’s working just fine. 

“Easier?” He echoes, curiosity evident as he leans in even closer. 

You take a deep breath, gathering your thoughts as you meet his intense gaze. “Yeah, easier,” you say, the words spewing out with a touch of frustration. “It’s just a game.”

He studies you for a moment, eyes searching for any sign of vulnerability. You hope you’re talented enough to conceal them, that your secondary school drama class teacher taught you well. “You think it’s that simple?” he challenges, voice just painfully soft. 

“It’s not simple at all,” you admit, guard slipping for only a moment. “But it’s just what we do. It’s comfortable, in its own way.”

He nods, seeming to understand your reluctance. “So, what?” He asks, a trace of bitterness in his tone. “We just keep using each other whenever we feel like it?”

A mess of emotions swirls inside you as you meet his gaze, refusing to back down. “Maybe,” you remark, defiant. “But it’s better than facing the alternative.”

He seems to consider your words, the wright of your unspoken history. “You’re afraid,” he observes. Charles has called you afraid a million and one times in your life; from a ponytailed scaredy-cat to a selfish coward, he’s checked the box on every synonym. This time, though, his voice isn’t teasing or raging red. No, it’s surprisingly gentle. 

Your ears burn red hot. “I’m not afraid of anything,” you snap, try to push down everything just begging to boil over inside of you. 

He reaches out, his fingers lightly brushing against yours. You ignore the jolt of electricity, the fact that a simple touch holds more meaning than any words the two of you could exchange. You’re annoyed, now. Annoyed with him and the longing you refuse to acknowledge. It’s a powerful cocktail that you don’t want to begin to comprehend. 

He leans in closer, his breath ghosting over your ear. “You don’t have to be afraid,” he whispers, his warm breath sending shivers down your spine. “Not with me.”

You heart pounds in your chest as you resist the urge to lean into him, to seek some fucked up sort of comfort in his arms. Instead, you push him away, maintain a safe distance. “I’m not afraid of you,” you say, voice horribly hushed. “I’m afraid of what this could become.”

He looks at you, some indistinguishable mix of emotions, of understanding and frustration and something else. “And what do you think this could become?” he asks, voice tinged with an edge of desire. 

You swallow hard, trying to ignore the way your body reacts to his proximity. “I don’t know,” you admit, feeling suddenly vulnerable and exposed. “But I don’t want to find out.”

He smiles like he knows something you don’t. It makes you crazy. “You’re always so stubborn,” he remarks, fingers moving from your hand to your jaw, brushing against your cheek. “Part of what drives me crazy about you.”

Your breath catches in your throat as you stare at him, unable to tear your eyes away. The tension is palpable, unspoken words hanging in the heavy air. 

“I could help take your mind off things,” you suggest, voice low and suggestive. “Just for a little while.” 

He raises a brow, surprise evident in his expression. “Oh?” he replies, voice a mix of intrigue and amusement. You give him a playful smirk, leaning in a bit closer. You can play games, too. 

“I can be pretty distracting,” you tease, fingers moving to his arm, tracing circles on the linen covering his arm. 

He hesitates, you’ve got him torn. He says your name, attempts to steer the conversation back to the emotions you’re so clearly dancing around. 

But you cut him off, not willing to back down. “Please,” you sigh, your voice full of longing and playfulness. “Let me take your stress.”

He puts his foot down. Protests weakly. “We can’t just ignore this.”

For a moment, you consider pushing the issue further. Deep down, somewhere unexplored, you know that this isn’t the right time. So, you take a step back, move to walk away. Before you can take another step, his hand is on your wrist, pulling you back to him. 

His lips crash against yours in a fierce and desperate kiss, and you lose yourself in the intensity of the moments. The motions that have been building under the surface finally finds an outlet, and you can’t resist the pull any longer. 

You both give in to the passion, into the physical connection and the muddled emotions. It’s a moment of surrender, of letting go. For now, it’s enough. For now, you can avoid the conversation. 

You’re no more than a few steps away from the stairs, make quick work of them, of the lock on the door to the master suite. You didn’t even know the doors had locks on them. You hope they’re half as soundproof as they are expensive, but you doubt it. 

You’re already pawing for his cock, palming the chilly, half-damp material of his swim trunks before slipping your hand under the waistband, taking the fabric out of the equation entirely. 

You look up at him, look for his reaction, check to make sure that his eyes aren’t harboring some sick softness to them. The whole point of this is to get the softy shit off his mind, to leave him so satisfied that he doesn’t remember wanting to have that conversation with you, that he doesn’t remember how shitty his season’s going and how he’s latched onto something that doesn’t exist. 

“Tell me what you want,” you whisper into his mouth. “Anything.”

He whinges at your words, mumbles something to himself, cupping your jaw with his hands. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear and you roll your eyes, but then his thumb is on your bottom lip, firm and heavy. “This fucking mouth,” he grumbles. 

Your fingers wrap around his cock, big and thick and warm. You run your thumb over his head, smile at the precum pooling there, spreading it around and watching the way his face twitches. You play coy, look at him with your biggest, most innocent doe eyes.  “What about it?”

He rocks on his feet, moves himself ever so slightly through your hand. He either thinks you’re oblivious to it, or he’s completely clueless to his own actions. Either way, it’s hot, and you stroke him that little bit faster. “Wanna feel it,” he says, thumb still on your lip, sinking into your mouth, onto your tongue, pushing you down, down, down onto your knees. 

The floor is cold, but you don’t care, so are his swim trunks. It’s hard, though, like most floors would be, and you’re sure you’ll have bruises by nightfall. You pull his shorts down, dick bouncing out of the waistband, twitching while he steps out of the fabric, kicks it to the side somewhere in the tiny room.

As you look up at him, a myriad of emotions wash over you. This dance is becoming so familiar, and yet, you’re surprised each time by the intensity of it. Even though you’d offered yourself, you find a way to be annoyed at how he uses you like this, turns you into a vessel to vent his stress and frustration. The other part of you, though, is so fucking turned on. Completely and utterly satisfied by the fact that you have this effect on him, that you can make him forget about his troubles, even if just temporarily. 

His eyes meet yours, that same vulnerability still there. It’s a regular sight for other people, to be looked at like this by him. It’s not your normal, though. It’s rare, something that tugs on you, makes you wonder what he’s thinking, desire a level of understanding that goes beyond the physical. 

You push those thoughts aside as quickly as you can, remind yourself that this is all casual. That you and he, this is nothing.

You spit into your hand, stroke it over his cock until it’s hard and wet and just crying for you. Your tongue trails a long stripe, from the base of his shaft to the head, swirling around his most sensitive spot. You’ve found yourself growing annoyingly fond of the noises you can pull from him. It’s a game within a game, pushing the limits to find just how pained you can make him sound. 

His hands run through your hair, slow and smooth, gathering your hair into a soft ponytail. You move a hand to his, push it against your head as if to tell him–fuck me, Charles. Use me. 

“Wait,” he says, and you pull off him with a pop. 

“What?” You probe, irritated that he’s already got something to say. 

“You have to tell me if I hurt you.”

You smirk, bite the inside of your cheek like you’re working through a real head-scratcher, putting on your best sarcastic tone. “And how do you suppose I do that?” 

“I’m serious.”

Your shoulders recoil into a shrug, a laugh helplessly falling from your lips. “So am I.”

He bites the inside of his cheek, visibly apprehensive. This never would have been an issue in January, back when the only thing he did was be openly annoyed by you. No, it’s all different now. He’s got feelings, now, wants to fucking worry about you and care about you. It makes your stomach twist and turn and knot. 

You roll your eyes. This is ridiculous, how many guys out here are stopping a woman from letting them do whatever they fucking want. It can’t be more than him, it can’t. “For fucks… you’ll know if you’re hurting me.”

He nods. “But how… will I know?”

“I don’t know… I’ll punch you in the dick or something.”

He laughs, a direct juxtaposition to his words. “You are not funny.”

You shrug, scowl. “I think I’m pretty funny.”

“I don’t know why you would think this.”

You purse your lips, puff a breath of air out of them, and hold up a single finger, pointing to him. “Fuck you,” you laugh. “I’ll tap the back of your leg,” you explain, demonstrating the gesture. “Is that good enough?”

His hands move through your hair again, fix his carefully crafted ponytail you’d messed up. “Yes. Thank you.”

You roll your eyes, take his dick in your hand again and start stroking. “Can I…?”

He nods. “I’m not stopping you.”

“I mean… “ you mumble against his skin, “you just did but…” and then you take him again, hollowed cheeks and flat tongue. 

“Jesus, you are insufferable,” he remarks, and you laugh around his dick. It makes him shudder. 

You try to focus on the moment, on his fingers gently grazing over your skin, hands guiding your head with a mixture of need and  urgency. You gag around his dick, choking on the thick shaft as it fills your mouth so perfectly. “Putain, fuck, so good,” he groans. You’d smile up at him if you could. 

The ponytail he’d been so proud of was nothing but a knotted mess now, his fingers tangling in search of grip. You hope he forgets it’s you, that it’s anyone. That he fucks into your throat until your couching and gagging and spit drips down your face, tears prick at your eyes. You hope your throat hurts tomorrow, that you lose your voice and gargle salt water and he’s the only person in the world who knows why. You hope you have to tap out on the back of his thigh. 

You come pretty close, the way he uses you like a filthy toy. Everytime you think you’re about to break, he pulls off your mouth, leaves you heaving for air, wiping spit off your face with the back of your hand. He leans down to kiss you once, hand under your chin, tilting your head up to meet his lips. You hope he tastes himself, knows just how good it is, how content you are with your life’s purpose. 

“Pretty girl,” he says, and you hum against his dick. It’s not often you’re on the receiving end of praise from him. “Take me so good.”

You’ve learned to know when he’s close, exactly how his body reacts when it’s lost all sight of anything but finishing. His pace gets silly, all kinds of unsynchronized and messy. He gets really quiet for a minute, spends all of it fighting with himself before he finally accepts it, and then he’s loud. A mix of nonsensical languages and curses, of groans and hums and remnants of what sounds like it wants to be your name. 

He’s a mess, and then he’s holding your head as close as he can, your nose pressed against the muscles of his abdomen as he bottoms out, drains himself into the back of your throat with a breathy, pained groan. 

You swallow around him greedily, want everything he has to give, all his cum and all his whimpers. He thrusts in and out of your mouth a few more times, and then he’s pulling out completely, hands cupping your face, pulling you up to stand. He kisses you, hard, and you still haven’t caught your breath–neither of you have–but you kiss until you can’t anymore, until your lungs burn to be filled with something that isn’t him. 

His thumbs wipe your face, the spit from your lips and the tears from the corners of your eyes. “I’m sorry,” he tells you, back arching to lower himself to your height. 

You want to swat his hands away. Clearly, though, this is something he feels he needs to do. “Why?” you chuckle. “That was hot.”

He matches your laugh, but his is laced with uneasy concern as he continues to try to clean up your face, fixing your hair and kissing you again, this time all soft and sure. “You’re crazy.”

“Yeah,” you pant. “You’re into it, though.”

You wonder if he regrets this, if he’s known all along the same way you have that this won’t end well, that it never would. His face mirrors yours, open mouth breathing and heaving chests and a mix of half a dozen emotions. You both know this is how it has to be, that anything more would be too complicated to manage. It stops you from the wonder. You hope it stops him. 

He sticks his head out of the door a few minutes later, after you’d ducked into the stall-sized bathroom and properly fixed yourself, untangled your hair and tied it back securely into a ponytail with the tie from your wrist. 

You laugh at him for it, push him out from behind and tell him to drop the high-schooler act. “Wait here,” he tells you, tries to close the door on you. He doesn’t hear you catch it, doesn’t turn back to see you following him up the stairs from a few steps behind. 

You’d wonder why he doesn’t hear your feet, but, if he’d just done to you what you did to him, your ears would probably still be ringing, all full and overwhelmed. 

“Charles!” Your Mom’s voice carries down the stairs just as his head appears on the second level. “You haven’t seen–” his ears blush bright red, head snapping back to you. Jesus, can we have some subtlety? “Oh,” your Mom laughs when she spots you a couple steps behind him. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Yeah,” you laugh. Charles can’t look at you, he stares right past. “We were fighting, isn’t that right, Charles?”

“Oh?” She chuckles. 

Charles’ eyes snap to you. He nods. “First rule of fight club, you know.”

Your tongue clicks against the roof of your mouth before you look back to your Mom. “What did you need, Mama?”

“Just wondering if you want a drink,” she says. 

“Only if you mix it strong,” you say, and your Mom is already setting off back towards the rest of the group on the top level. With silent understanding, you and he both fall back into your respective roles; the arrogant, fearless prick and the spoiled, bratty princess. It’s better this way. It’s better this way. 

“Well,” you chuckle, pat him on the shoulder as you move past him on the stairs. “Aren’t you just a blushing bride?”

The anticipation in the air is palpable, all of you here in Ricky’s parents’ apartment–an added guest this year in sweet little Chiara. You’ve all watched the race here since before Charles could imagine this being his reality, the balcony providing a perfect overlook onto the iconic circuit. The sun bathes the track in golden rays, like even Mother Nature knows that it’s going to be a historic day. 

Excitement crackles like electricity, sparking from person to person, igniting contagious grins and animated chattering. Your heart flutters with a unique blend of nerves and exhilaration, Charles’ undying Monaco optimism seeking into even your most pessimistic veins. 

Antoine sets up his camera on the balcony, is interviewing half of you for Charles’ next YouTube video. You steal glances of your friends the entire time, feeling strangely sentimental about all the love in the room. On the sofa, Marta bounces Chiara on her knee, absentmindedly shakes a rattle in front of the infant, eyes watching the pre-race coverage on the television. Ricky, on the balcony, the first interviewee, beams with pride watching them. The guys all buzz with excitement, half of them glued to the TV, the other half carefully pulling tight the zip-ties on the now infamous banner, anxiously awaiting the start of the race. 

You watch from beside Marta as the national anthem plays. She tickles Chiara’s feet, pulls little giggles from the baby’s lips. Your focus remains on Charles, though, his face on the screen. You don’t know how many laps you’ve seen him drive around this country, how many ups and downs he navigated in this sport, but you know that today feels different. You can see it etched into his features, the fire in his eyes and the resurgence in his confidence since Baku. It’s like he knows today is his day, that nothing can stand in the way, that the sun will shine on him and the champagne will spray. 

The engines roar to life, sending a shiver of anticipation down your spine. You move to the balcony, can’t bear to watch the start from a screen, knowing that it’s one of the most crucial parts of the next seventy-eight laps. Your heart pounds in sync with the rhythmic revving of the cars, and the world around you falls away as you focus on the starting grid. The lights illuminate, they're out, and the race is on. 

Charles makes a picture perfect start, no. It’s better than that, better, because the crowd roars louder than you think you’ve ever heard as he catapults himself past Max and into the lead, and your breath catches in your throat.

He’s in control, navigating every corner and chicane with precision, never once giving into the pressure of the bullet behind him. Max tries, he tries and tries, to close in on Charles, but he holds him, defends his position with skill and tenacity that makes you attracted to a helmet, to the mind it protects. 

With each passing lap, you expect the crowd to die down, but they don’t. You find yourself rallying with your friends, joining into the country-wide chorus of voices and cheers. Every maneuver, ever inch he gains on Max, fills you with excitement and awe. He’s like a force of nature, a breathtaking sight. 

The laps wind down, and his lead over Max grows. You can’t help but let out a joyful whoop. He’s doing it. This is the day he shuts everyone up about the curse. Yesterday is the last day you get to tease him about it. The realization washes over you that he’s going to win at home, and your heart swells with pride.

The final lap approaches, and you hold your breath, moving inside, to watch the screen, to stare like your glare could will him to find an extra tenth. As he takes the checkered flag, a deafening roar erupts, reverberating through the streets. 

Your friends join in a celebration, hugging and cheering as if you’re the ones standing on the podium. Antoine is giddy behind his camera, and you’re sure half the footage will be unusable with shaky hands. 

You found pause in the celebrations to watch him get out of the car, all arms swinging and firsts clenched. He stands on the halo of his car, pointing to the Ferrar emblem on his chest, over his heart. He jumps off and moves to congratulate Esteban, only to be met with a hug from the other driver. Max joins them quickly, strong handshakes and hard pats on the back before any of them are taking their helmets off. 

David Coulthard is waiting for him. Charles makes him wait, gets his bracelets and his watch from Andrea before picking up his microphone. “Charles, congratulations on your stunning victory! How are you feeling right now?” Your fingers find your lips, cover your smile and laugh. Charles has no idea how he feels. 

“Thank you!” He grins, all young and dimpled, purely pure. If you didn’t know better, you’d think a giddy first-grader had just won the biggest race in the world. “I don’t know,” he laughs. “It’s just… wow. I’m on top of the world right now, to be honest.”

He looks so tired and yet so, so full of life. Like the adrenaline is the only thing keeping him up, all sweaty hair and balaclava lines. You want to kiss him, to trail your fingers along every indent in his skin. “You led the race from start to finish, and it was quite a battle with Max. Tell us about your strategy and how you managed to hold that lead.”

“It was definitely not an easy race,” he says, still smiling. You’re shocked he hasn’t lost his English yet, he always does when he gets over excited. “Max is a great driver and I knew he would not make it easy for me. Our strategy was to be aggressive from the start. I tried to manage my tyres. I think it all paid off in the end.”

“Your victory today makes you the first Monegasque driver to win the Monaco Grand Prix since Louis Chiron in 1931. How does it feel to be a part of this historic moment?”

“It’s a tremendous honor. Louis is an inspiration to all Monegasque drivers, to follow his footsteps is truly special.”

“Fantastic, thank you, Charles. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, thank you!” He says, holds up a thumbs up as he walks away and winks. Well, he tried to wink. The inability to do so might be the least suave thing about him. 

The screen transitions to the cool-down room, to Max talking Esteban’s ear off, lighting up with a smile when Charles enters. The camera focuses on Charles in the corner, setting his helmet and his towel down on the table in front of his name, drinking an entire water bottle in two gulps, opening another and taking up a conversation with the others. 

Joris snaps a finger in front of your face. “Sorry, what?” You ask, eyes snapping to him.

“I asked if you want champagne?” he chuckles. 

“Oh,” you smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”

When you look back, they’ve already cut to the empty podium, announcing Esteban’s third place finish to a loud applause. He celebrates like he won the thing, which you admire. Next is Max, who is met with applause, but it's noticeably less than the roar that follows when Charles’ name is announced. 

The room around you is half as loud as the rest of the country, laughing and screaming wild for Charles. Jo and Ricky pop open Champagne bottles on the balcony, send the corks flying to God only knows where, hastily filling up the glasses beside them and passing them out. 

Even from blocks away, where he is just a red dot, where your friends arms are over your shoulder sipping champagne and humming along with the national anthem, you feel a strange connection to him, something beyond the bickering and annoyance. Something beyond the sex, maybe. Something just… something happy, or proud, or just plain soft, maybe. Soft like his smile while he gets drenched in Champagne by the two others on the podium. 

(six hours later) 

Joris’ knowing glances didn’t escape your notice, and it made you uneasy. You wondered if Charles was crass enough, if he has been sharing secrets about your little arrangement. The thought of it sends a shiver down your spin. The idea of anyone glimpsing into the tangled web that is you and Charles now made you feel vulnerable and exposed. 

You sipped your drink, trying to focus on the chatter around you, but your mind just keeps looping back to him. His laughter, his smile. His very presence seems to pull on you, and it doesn’t help that you know he feels the same way, that he has for weeks now. You quickly brush away the thought each time, unwilling to entertain the idea of anything beyond the surface of your friendship. 

“You seem a bit distant tonight,” Jo remarked, voice pulling you back to the present. 

You force a smile, hope he won’t detect the unease that drenches your demeanor. “Just a bit tired, I suppose,” you replied casually, averting his gaze, staring into the bottom of your glass as you spun the clear liquor around. 

He didn’t push further, but the look on his face tells you he sees right through you, makes you feel that much more exposed. You take a deep breath, attempt to steady yourself, but the questions linger like shadows in the back of your mind. 

The night wears on, and Charles wears your eyes, a near constant sightline from you to him. It was easy to steal glances when he looks like that, when his easy charm and infectious laughter draws everyone in. 

You don’t dare confront the truth, not here, not now. It was easier to stay in the safe confines of what you knew, what you’d established, emotions locked away in a heart-shaped locket hung round your neck. 

The party shows no signs of winding down, and you need air. You slip away from the group, out the back door to the curb where all the smokers hide. You found yourself drawn to the quiet of it, where it was just you, your thoughts, and the smell of tobacco. 

With the distant laughter and celebrations faded into the night, you allow yourself to be candid, to admit the truth, if only to yourself. There was a part of you that yearned for something more, a part of you that longed to explore what might be with him. 

But he was right. You are afraid, you are. Afraid of what it means to let your guard down, to open up to the unknown. The vulnerability that comes with the admission is daunting, shit straight from a horror movie, like a trap. You were standing on a cliff, a dangerous precipice that threatened to unravel everything you’d sloppily built. This life is held together with bubblegum and toothpicks, it can’t stand the shake. 

So, as you stood there on the back step, you made a silent promise to yourself. A promise to stay safe, to guard your heart and keep your feelings hidden from him, from everyone. 

You returned to the party, unable to fully shake the weight of what gnawed on you. The cocktail of emotions was overwhelming, and you found solace in the bottom of a glass. Joris egged you on, kept the shots coming, and Marta made it more fun. 

However, as the alcohol flowed freely, your tipsiness quickly spiraled into something more intense. With each drink, your inhibitions crumbled into a reckless pursuit of distraction. Each shot pushed the turmoil down further. 

Marta slowed down first, opting to be cautious on her first “big night out” since having the baby. She could focus on the company and the laughter you feared. Joris started sober, too, tried to keep an eye on you the best he could, but you were determined to lose yourself to the moment. 

The music thumped loudly, and the energy of the party was infectious. You danced with wild abandon, uncaring of the curious glances and amused whispers that followed. The alcohol had stripped back any reservations, leaving behind a version of yourself you barely recognize, all carefree and daring and reckless. 

Jo tried to reason with you, to suggest you call it an early night, but you were having none of it. “I’m fine, really,” you insisted, slurring your words slightly. “Let’s do another shot!”

He reluctantly agreed, but the more you drank, the more erratic your behavior became. You danced with strangers, laughed loud and flirted shamelessly, trying to fill the void with temporary connections. Amidst the sea of bodies, you caught the eye of a handsome stranger. He was tall, with dark brown hair and a mischievous glint in his eye that instantly intrigued you. He moved with confident grace, and you were like a moth to a flame. 

He made his way toward you, playful smirk on his lips. “I couldn’t help but notice you across the room,” he said, voice low and alluring. 

You laughed, feeling the effects of alcohol emboldening you. “Oh, really? And what is it that caught your attention?”

He leaned in, his breath brushing against your ear as he mumbled, “Your smile. It’s as captivating as the stars.”

You blushed at his compliment, feeling a rush of warmth spread through you. “Smooth talker, huh?” you teased, trying to keep up the playful banter. 

He chuckled, his finger lightly grazing the small of your back. “Only when I’m in the presence of someone this beautiful.”

You grinned, enjoying the flirtatious exchange. “You know how to flatter a girl,” you replied, heart racing at his touch. 

He leaned in even closer, the proximity between you sending sparks flying. “I can be even more convincing,” he said, voice low and seductive. 

You raised an eyebrow, playfully challenging him. “Is that so?”

He smirked, gaze never leaving yours. “Oh, absolutely,” he replied. “But you’ll have to let me prove it.”

A thrill coursed through you as the chemistry between the two of you intensified. You were well aware it was just a fleeting moment, a casual flirtation in the middle of a wild night out. But something about this stranger has ignited a spark in you, and you found yourself tempted to play along. 

The two of you danced together, the electric energy between you creating an intoxicating allure. His hands traced patterns along your waist. You get lost in the moment, in the music, in the touch of a stranger. 

“You wanna get out of here?” He asked, and you laughed. 

“No,” you replied, and abandoned your spot with him before he could protest any further. 

At some point, you stumbled outside for fresh air, feeling the world spin around you. The cool night air did little to sober you up, and instead, it only dueled your recklessness. You leaned against the railing, teetering on the edge between exhilaration and oblivion. 

Joris found you there, concern etched on his face. He calls your name, “Maybe we should call it a night. You’ve had enough.”

But you shook your head defiantly, a stubborn gleam in your eyes. “I’m not done yet,” you slurred. “I want more.”

He sighed like he knew it was pointless to attempt to reason with you like this, made you promise to stay put, told you he was off to get you another drink and he would be right back. 

As he left for your promised drink, you found yourself swaying in your shoes, the world around you still spinning. You closed your eyes for a moment, trying to gain some composure, but the liquor is taking it’s toll. When the door opened, you opened your eyes again, met with Joris–no drink, but with Charles in tow. 

You laughed. “Hey, Charles,” you slurred, grabbing onto his arm for support. 

He looked down at you, a mix of surprise and annoyance crossing his features. “Are you alright?” he asked, glancing around as if someone would magically appear to care for you. 

You ignored his question. “I want you to dance with me,” you demanded, tugging on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. 

He frowned, clearly not thrilled by the idea. “You’re drunk. Maybe you should sit down and take it easy,” he suggested, trying to lead you back inside, no doubt in the direction of a chair. 

“No,” you pouted. “I want to dance.” You didn’t care that you looked like a mess, or that your coordination was shot. All you wanted was to forget, to lose yourself in the music and the movement. 

Charles sighed, clearly exasperated, but let you tug him all the way back inside to dance. He keeps a cautious distance, as if he was worried you might fall over at any moment, which, granted. You very well might. You swayed and you twirled, laughing without regard for how ridiculous you looked. 

As the music pulsed through you, you were suddenly stuck with severe guilt. You were angry at yourself for getting so drunk, for losing control like this. You were mad at him, too, annoyed by his incessant need to attempt to care for you, for never just letting you be. And yet, at the same time, you were so drawn to him and his soft eyes, to the concern and frustration and the way he cared about you even when you pushed him away. 

The song changed. Something slower, more sensual. You dance closer to him and he hesitates, clearly unsure of what to do. You laugh, wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer. You could feel his heart racing, his body tense with restraint. 

“We shouldn’t…” he started to protest, but you silenced him with a kiss. It was messy and desperate, per usual, fueled by alcohol and unspoken emotions. He hesitates for just a moment before giving in, his hands finding their way to your waist. 

You pulled away breathless, looked up at him all defiant and bratty. “I don’t need you to take care of me,” you whisper, and it comes out far more vulnerable than you intended, all squeaky and cracked. “I can handle myself.”

He looked torn, his usual composure slipping momentarily, before reverting to his usual ways.  “Someone fucking has to,” he finally spoke. 

You wanted to protest, to push him away, but the words all get stuck in your throat. Instead, you lean in to kiss him again, fingers tanging into his hair. In this moment, you wanted nothing more than to forget it all, to lose yourself in him and the way he made you feel. “Thank you for dancing with me.”

“Can’t believe I got your sloppy seconds,” he quips.

“What?”

“The guy who tried to take you home earlier,” he laughed. “Looked like a prick.”

“Oh,” you laughed. “Him.”

“Yeah, you really hit it off with him, didn’t you?” Charles said with a hint of sarcasm. You struggled to read if he was joking or if he was just barely keeping his irritation in check. 

You grinned, words still slurring. “Oh, you’re just jealous.” you shot back at him, leaning closer. 

“Please,” he scoffed. “Like I could ever be jealous of that guy.”

“You’re right,” you laughed, your body pressing against his as you stumbled slightly. “You just won the Monaco Grand Prix.”

The rest of the evening continues in much of the same way, with Charles having to play babysitter to a very drunk–and very handsy–you. He tried to keep his distance, to maintain some semblance of composure, but you made it hard constantly pulling him into your orbit. 

At some point, you find yourselves alone on a sofa, the noise around you fading somewhere far off. You were giggling about something, leaning your head on his shoulder. “You know,” you said, “this is all your fault.”

He quirked a brow. “My fault? How do you figure?”

You Smirked, reaching up to play with a strand of his hair. “You’re the one who got me all worked up with that kiss earlier,” you said, voice low and teasing. 

His cheeks burnt bright pink. “I didn’t do anything,” he said, a poor attempt at sounding casual. 

“Oh please, Charles. You know exactly what you’re doing,” you said, voice taking on a more serious tone. “You’re always doing this, pulling me in and then pushing me away.”

“You’re fucking with me, right?” He scoffs, turning his head to face you, knocking your head off his shoulder in the process. “You’re the one doing that.”

You feel a pang of guilt at his words. You know he’s right, that tonight is just the next night of you sending him mixed signals. It’s been going on like this for months, but you don’t know how to stop, how to untangle the mess. “I don’t mean to,” you say softly, defenses dropping for a moment. “It’s just… complicated.”

He nodded. “I know,” he speaks quietly. “It’s just hard. Trying to figure out where we stand.”

You sigh, running your hand through your hair. “I know. I do.” You sit in silence for a moment, the weight of your unspoken feelings hanging in the air. You wished you could say something, anything, to tell him how you feel, but all the words are stuck. Instead, you reach for his hand, intertwine your fingers and look up at him, big pupils in the dimly lit room. “I don’t want to ruin what we have,” you said softly, voice hardly above a whisper. 

“I don’t either,” he said, his thumb stoking your hand gently. 

The moment is interrupted by Joris, who appears from around the corner out of nowhere, looking half as annoyed as the two of you must. “There you two are,” he said, relief and irritation clouding his words. “It’s time to go,” he says, pointing directly to you. “You’ve had enough.”

You groaned, but you didn’t protest. You lean on Charles the whole walk to Joris’ car. 

As you arrived back at your apartment, he helped you inside and settled you into bed. He tucked you in, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. “Sleep well,” he whispered, voice soft and tender. 

You smile sleepily, reaching up to touch his cheek. “You too,” you murmured. He turns to leave, but before he could go, you grab his wrist, holding it tightly. “Stay,” you said, voice barely audible. 

He hesitates for a moment, you can feel it in the air even with your eyes closed, can feel his heart beating in his wrist. Eventually, though, he gives in, slides into bed beside you. He wraps his arms around you, holding you close, and you nuzzle into his chest, feeling the warmth of his body against yours. 

“You’re so warm,” you mumbled, words still pathetically sloshed. 

He chuckles softly, the annoyance in his eyes starting to fade. “Well, I am always warm,” he teased, trying to lighten the mood, to ease the awkwardness. 

You giggled, snuggling even closer to him. “You’re my human heater,” you said, voice filled with affection. 

As the minutes passed, you started to drift off to sleep, your breathing becoming slow and steady. You could see the struggle in his eyes as your lids grew heavier, the depth of care for you he tried so hard to hide. 

When you wake up in the middle of the night, hints of a sunrise beginning to push through the curtains, you find him still awake. He looked lost in thought, afraid, almost. Desperately, you wanted to reach out, to ask him what was wrong, but feared pushing him away more than anything. 

You settle against his chest, listen to the sound of his heart beating against your ear, feel yours match it. Finally, exhaustion catches up to him, his body relaxing as he drifts off to sleep. As you lay there, you can’t help your tired mind and it’s delusions of a future where you don’t have to hide your feelings, where you can be together openly and honestly, and then you’re falling back asleep yourself.

[sainz-leclerc]

—the seasons of love

or: the enemies to lovers situationship fic charles leclerc x female reader summ. winter, the first time. the start of the year, the start of it all. minors dni, nsfw warnings under the cut. 7k words part two part three

18+ because: brat taming, fingering, oral (f receiving), name calling, spit, unprotected sex, overstimulation, booty call!, masturbation (f receiving), voyeurism, mad sass, fucking porn without plot basically.

There’s nothing special about the club scene in Monte Carlo. If you’ve been to a club in any major city, anywhere in the world, you’ve been to a club in Monaco. It’s all neon lights and kaleidoscope colors and poorly lit dance floors and mid-tier DJs who think they’re the next coming of Jesus. 

Tonight is no exception. The air is thick and heavy with the scent of floral perfume and alcohol, the entire room shaking with the pulsating beat of the bass, reverberating off every single corner and shaking the liquor in your glass. Bodies move—yours included—half in sync with the music, half in step with their drunken stupor. Perched in the safety of Charles’s section, away from the swaying forms of laughter and shouting and screaming, your entire body thumps alone to the beat from the DJ booth a couple meters away. 

Across the section, Charles sits stoic on a couch, taking up a seat and a half and frozen like some magnetic force. His eyes are stuck on you in a way that pulls goosebumps from your skin, makes you irrational angry at him. You’re feeling particularly bratty today, egged on by the tequila and his visible annoyance. 

You’re on your way to interject into his pity party when your sister catches your arm, pulls you by your bicep to dance with her. Her palms are sweaty and cold and you hope that it’s the condensation from her cold glass that’s got her all clammy. The two of you have always been quite a sight after a few drinks. You get your tolerance from your mother, are both disastrous lightweights, feel the need to give any and everyone around you a show. 

The two of you twirl to the music with little effort, laughing like you’re seven and the hazard littered floor under your feet is the old brown carpet from the family room you grew up hosting dance parties in. It’s all hair and giggles and hands in the air like you just don’t care. Everytime your glance catches his, he’s staring back, nursing his drink and half participating in a conversation with your brother-in-law and Jo. 

“What’s his fucking problem?” you ask, leaning over to shout into your sister’s ear.

“He can’t dance,” she slurs. You snort. He can dance.

You whistle, loud and commanding and cat-call-ish even though he’s already watching you. “Charles! Get out here and dance, you fucking buzzkill!”

Your sister joins in on the fun, playfully swaying her hips to the music, tossing out an imaginary fishing line to her husband and reeling him over, calling along teasingly to Charles. “Yeah, show us what you’ve got, Il Predestinato!”

Charles rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly. “I don’t dance,” he calls back with a soft chuckle. He tries to play it cool, like always, but everyone in the room knows you’re pushing his buttons. You always are. The reason he keeps you around is the same reason you stay around; your families’ relationship predates any animosity between the two of you. That, and the friend group was founded before you loathed each other and it would be too much work to try and split it up now. You’d probably never see Joris again. 

You dance closer to him, putting on a dramatic show and a poor fight against the urge to continue challenging him. “Come on,” you tug on his arm, just out your bottom lip into a pretty little pout. “Live a little.”

He’s never been able to turn down one of your challenges, however thinly veiled they might be. It’s his own personal sore spot, the one that you poke and prod as often as you can. Competition has always been the foundation of your mutual annoyance, it’s not going to suddenly change after some eighteen years of consistency. Finally, he relents, lets you think you’re pulling him to his feet, dragging him to dance with you and your sister. 

His moves are stiff and awkward, almost hard to watch. You laugh, because he’s wound up so fucking tight in two weeks you’d have a diamond. “See!?” your sister laughs, the contagion of it spreading to even the brunt of the joke. “I told you!” she continues, slinking her arm around her husband’s neck sloppily. His arm grips her side to hold her steady. It makes you feel sick. 

A smirk tugs on his lips, and for a brief moment, there’s a hint of something more in his eyes. Not annoyance or frustration. Something seven, something innocent and childish. It’s fleeting, and you take a deep breath because the music feels quieter now. You down what’s left of  your cocktail to clear your head, to calm the sudden flutter of nerves. 

The more he drinks and the longer he’s forced to dance, the lighter and more magnetic he becomes. “You know, Charles, I never thought I’d see the day,” you tease. He’s been in a near constant state of pity-party for weeks now, ever since his dumb ass got dumped by another girl wildly out of his league. 

He rolls his eyes, but his tone is as amused as it is drunk. “Don’t get too excited. It’s the liquor,” he retorts, a piss poor attempt at downplaying how much fun he’s having. He wouldn’t dare to give you the satisfaction. You lean in closer, brush your body against his, fueled by the noise and the alcohol. 

“The liquor doing the touching, too?” you ask. 

He’s always been a touchy drunk. Since before you and your friends were allowed to drink, he’s been hands-on. And maybe it’s because this is the first time he’s grabbing your hips, the first time his broad hand is flat over your stomach, but you’d never noticed him as this touchy with his girlfriends or his girls that appear when he’s around. Whatever it is, the more he drinks, the more comfortable he is with his hands on you, and the less you find the nerve to care. 

It doesn’t matter how many times he does it, though. Every touch burns your skin. It’s a sick little game you two play. Sick and twisted and so, so unlike the two of you. 

Watch yourself—he warns, hand on the small of your back. You play with fire. Well established and well documented, though; you never back down either. No, the thrill of annoying him is enough to dive head-first, to push his buttons until they stick. “Am I?” you ask, as innocently as the tequila can muster, taking hold of his wrist and moving it so his arm is wrapped around your midsection, fighting to settle in the space between your waistband and shirt hem. 

You respond to every one of his careful touches, ever lingering finger on your arm and your waist and your back. When you close your eyes, you imagine the nonsense patterns he draws on your skin like it’s on canvas in a museum, hung front and center just for you. Your inhibitions are slipping too, and you let yourself trail wandering fingertips over his body, too.

This isn’t the Charles you’re used to, the one you go head-to-head with every fifteen minutes. This is something entirely new, so far into uncharted territory you’re not even sure which way is north. There’s something particularly intriguing about the nerves bouncing around your gut. 

Everything fades away into the dark and crowded club. You don’t know if your sister and brother-in-law are still standing there, if any of your friends are. All you know if the electric charge of this, of every teasing remark and touch that draws you closer, forces you to test the waters of the newfound layer of tension. 

Everything is building, it feels like, to some grand crescendo of emotion and desire. Before there’s room to explore it, though, to dive deeper into the unspoken shift, the moment is interrupted by the return of the friends you didn’t notice leaving. 

The night drags on, the lines between annoyance and attraction blurring into some chaotic muddle of intoxication. Nothing is clear, nothing except the sobering and unignorable pull. It lingers in the air above you, in the space between like a secret just begging to be unraveled. 

You’ve got another drink now, because you can only think of one decision that would be worse than more tequila. In due time, you’re worried you’re a lost cause when it comes to that choice as well. His eyes stay on you, even from a distance, and you revel in the glory of his attention. Embolden by it all, you continue fucking with him. “Having fun yet, Charles?” you ask, knowing smile, voice dripping in subtle suggestion. 

He raises a brow, the corners of his lips quirking up. You don’t think you’ve ever spent much time looking at them, the soft shade of pink and the softer skin. “I suppose I can tolerate it,” he replies with teasing eyes. He’s irritated by your laugh, by your proximity, by your lips brushing against his ear when you whisper; you’re not the only one here trying to have fun. His jaw tightens but he doesn’t take your bait. Instead, he pulls you closer, sways in rhythm with you and replies, “I’m here to enjoy myself, not entertain you.”

He sends your brattiness running full-tilt. Forces you to carefully consider every movement, every ounce of playfulness that you allow to seep into your demeanor and the proactive sway of your hips. You grin at him every chance you get, sly and calculated, daring him to resist.  

You lean in close, brush against his ear and can blame it on practicality, on the bass and the music and the DJ if anyone were to question your actions. You rest a hand on his chest. “I know you love my attention.”

His breath hitches at your audacity, heart racing so quick you can feel it in your palm. He pulls you closer, dangerously close to your lips and says, “you talk too much. Maybe it’s time someone shuts you up.”

You scoff, low and teasing. “I’d like to see you try.”

[18 minutes later]

You step into the well-lit lobby less than a pace behind him. Your hands are interlocked, have been for every block of the darkened streets—since he grabbed yours and pulled you out of the club. “Admit it,” you giggle. “You love having me push your buttons.”

He remains stoic, jaw set as he pushes the button on the elevator. The tension is at a boiling point. You’re either about to kill each other, to be on the news for some grand double murder, or something so, so much worse is going to unfold. 

He leads you to the apartment without a word, but as soon as the door closes behind him, all is lost. Your head is bumping into the drywall before you even realize what’s happening, his lips harsh against yours, the pent up frustration and desire snapping like a dried twig. 

It’s fierce and passionate and while you never, not for a single moment in your life, imagined what he would taste like, you somehow knew it would be like this, cool and fresh and drunk. He licks into your mouth, messy and intense, teeth clacking and both of you fighting for some nonexistent upper hand. 

Fireworks are going off outside. They shake the windows with explosive gravitas as you’re blindly led by his backwards steps down the hallway. You realize that in an entire lifetime of knowing each other, this is the first time you’ve been in his place. It’s not what you expected, from what you can gather—all clutter and red cars and a boy who never had to drop his dream. “They’re going to look for us,” you say between sloppy, open mouthed kisses. 

He mumbles against your skin, strong hands on either side of your jaw. “Let them look.”

You walk through a doorway, into a bedroom clad with clutter and blue sheets. He would have blue sheets. There’s another firework, loud and booming, it makes you jump. You check your watch over his shoulder, pretend your hand doesn’t shake. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Okay.” Your knees bump into his and he sits on the edge of the bed.

You laugh, climb onto his lap, your arms strewn around his shoulders, broad and strong and you laugh again–this time into his mouth. What the fuck is going on. Seriously, what the fuck is this? “Happy New Year.”

He sighs, pulls his mouth from yours long enough to roll his eyes, to speak annoyedly into the hot air between your lips. “Yeah, whatever. Happy New Year.”

“Charles,” you mutter, hand on his chest. You think he’s going to regret this more than you will. People have always told you he’s the best kind of person. You’re not held in the same regard, and you know it. Some people are made to regret and others are made to be the regret. 

“Jesus Christ,” he laughs, but it’s curt and passive. Annoyed, as always, even when he palms at your ass, traces his hands along the bottom of your hiked up dress and pulls you down against him with a bruising grip. “Shut the fuck up.” You tug at the hem of his shirt, pull it off over his head in a swift movement. 

“You’re doing a piss-poor job at making me.”

He moves you like you’re a fucking doll, like it’s lightwork, tossing you down against the mattress and swapping your positions in a swift movement. The strength and agility of it makes your head spin. He’s not supposed to make your head spin, he’s supposed to make it ache. 

But no, no. You do ache for him. All of you aches for him, for his calloused hands and the roughness of his jeans against your thighs and the soft contrast of his lips against everything else. It’s embarrassing. You can’t believe he’s got you like this, hands pinned above your head while he buries his tongue in your mouth, grinds his hips against yours. The coarse denim is almost painful on your sensitive skin, but the growing bulge pulling the fabric tight is more intoxicating than any cocktail. 

“You’re such a fucking brat,” he says, bites a bruise against the skin just above your clavicle. “Spoiled little shit.”

He sinks to his knees, big blue or green or whatever fucking color his eyes are today watching you intently, boring into you with blown, hungry pupils.  His fingers trail along your underwear, pulling the thin, lacey fabric to the side, and then removes them all together. He gloats when he runs his thumb through your folds. “So fucking wet.”

“It’s not for you,” you goad. 

“Oh?” He nods slowly, spreading your slick with the steady digit, watching you carefully for reaction. “For who then?”

Your eyes flutter shut when the pad of his thumb presses against your clit, circles it slowly, teases you. He’s unfocused, his mind lapsing and giving you a much needed in, a clear shot to piss him off. “Your teammate.”

“Fuck off.” You first. 

“You’re right, Charles,” you speak slowly, careful to control your breathing, to hide every tell you might have. “Someone should shut me up. Do you know anyone?” Without warning, he thrusts two fingers inside you, curls them like someone had given him a diagram of your body. You gasp at the suddenness of it all. Yeah, he mutters, utterly delighted with himself. Yeah, I think I know someone.

You roll your eyes, push his head down, down, mouth onto your core. There, in the midst of licking a long stripe through your cunt, he fucking laughs, shakes his head with a subtlety you’d never perceive if it wasn’t for the tip of his nose bumping your clit when he does it. At least he can follow basic fucking instructions. 

His dick must hurt pretty damn bad, all hard and swollen in his pants, because he’s unbuttoning his jeans and freeing himself from the constraints of the fabric while lapping at you, the other hand still fucking into you with steady pace and hazy curl. You can’t see it, view obstructed by the mattress and limbs and hair, but you can tell by the way his shoulders move that he’s trying to get himself off at the same time he works on you. 

You’re not going to make his job that easy. You require all of his attention, pure and undivided and hopefully just as infuriated as you are. You reach down to the apex of your legs, pull his head up by his chin. “Just fuck me, already, you prick.”

He rises to his feet, shakes his head, “you’re a needy little thing,” he remarks. Needy? You haven’t fucking seen needy. 

He guides the head of his cock through your folds, spreading slick and spit and smacking himself against your cunt. 

Your lips purse into a sharp line. “Don’t tease me.”

“Why not?” He taunts, “you’ve been teasing for hours.”

“It’s different,” you grumble. 

“How?” You could strangle him, him and all his questions. What’s a person have to do to get fucked properly around here? You already sacrified your morals by pulling tight against the navy blue sheets.  A woman can only make so many sacrifices. 

You groan, heavy and exasperated. He’s such a pest. “It just–oh, fuck you–” without warning, he plunges into you, buries himself in your cunt until he bottoms out, skin on skin and the sore sting of him stretching you. Your fingers bruise into his arms, nails scraping over his shoulder blades with a gasp. He gives you no time to adjust to him, rutting into you with deep, measured thrusts. What was that, he prodes. Somehow, you find the poise to stabilize yourself, to reply smugly. “it just is.”

His objective isn’t your pleasure, no. That would be his prerogative, a side privilege, a requirement in his quest to get you to close your mouth and stop pestering for once. Making you come is just another box to check. 

You don’t fuck someone if you’re not going to finish, though. Sleeping with Charles might be a lapse in judgment, but being someone’s play toy, letting him reap without sowing, that’s a complete disregard of your dignity

Your fingers find your clit, circle it in just the right sequence, combining with the curve of his cock to push you closer, closer, closer to the edge of the fucking world. Your entire body burns, everywhere, all over, all at once you sweat. Tell me–he insists, voice short and breathy. Tell me when you’re going to come. “I thought you were trying to shut me up?”

“Just, fuck, just tell me.” He palms over your breasts, still covered by your bra and the fabric of your dress, however thin. “So many fucking clothes,” he grumbled, stalling inside you, hands slipping under your back, between you at the mattress to pull you off the bed. You hastily pull the dress over your head, toss it somewhere onto the clothing cluttered floor. Better? You ask. “Better,” he nods, bites your bottom lip roughly, licking against your teeth. One of the hands that explore the skin of your back make quick work of the clasp on your bra, dropping the straps from your shoulders and your back is against the sheets again, his hands groping at you, pinching your nipple between his middle and ring finger, working over it until you’re humming profanities and huffing into his mouth. 

Hate and desire is such a fine, blurry line. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar. 

“M’gonna,” you choke on your words. “I’m–shit–I’m coming.”

“Yeah,” He picks up his pace, maintains a steady, toe-curling rhythm. “Come for me,” his voice heavy and growled. “Come on my dick.”

You do. You come for him, hard and long, wrapping a leg around his hip in a failed attempt to still him, to just be full of him and nothing more. He’s stronger, though, and fucks you through the whole thing, faster, harder, big hands braced on your hips for leverage. You explore the idea that a person really could be fucked in half, forced right open. 

“Good try,” you sputter, shaky and broken words leaving your lips before you’ve found a gravity that isn’t him. You lean up to kiss him, wrap your hand around the back of his neck and pull him to meet you halfway. Your fingers tickle the short hair at the nape of his neck, raise goosebumps to his skin. “Maybe next time,” you hum into his open mouth. 

He spits a long string of saliva into your mouth when you move to close the gap. You laugh around it, down it in a single gulp and lick your lips, sticking out your tongue to showcase your empty mouth, big innocent doe-eyes watching his reaction, his eye roll and devilish smirk.

“Like I said–” you start, but he’s flipping you over, tossing you around like a ragdoll.  You giggle, high on the teasing and the taunting and then he’s fucking your face into the mattress. He’s got your hair gathered up into a ratty ponytail, uses it like a handle, forcing your back into an arch, your ass to perk up into the air. 

God, he’s so fucking deep, turning you into a mess of bruises and sweat stricken skin. Your hips bounce back against him, angle in any imaginable way in an attempt to feel him deeper, to feel him in your stomach and your chest and your head. To feel him everywhere that counts. 

“Putain, taking me so good, baby” he groans, lets the praise and the pet name slipping past his lips in a moment that goes unnoticed by neither of you. He smacks your ass with a firm hand, trying to mask his words after they’ve already been spoken. Your eyes roll back into your head and you come again, without warning. You decide before you get to think about it that it was the stinging imprint of his hand that pushed you tumbling over the edge. Whatever the real reason, you’re up two-nothing, or, depending how you look at it, he’s the one winning. 

That’s all any of this is, one big game. A power struggle. You’re always fighting to win, and this is not different. If there’s a way to lose at a game where everyone is supposed to win, one of you is going to fucking find it and force it on the other. 

You’re the one doing the flipping, now. The pushing and the shoving so he’s on his back. You straddle him and he gives you this look like he’s fully pussy-drunk, sick and euphoric and floating somewhere far from here. You’re so winning at this. “Jesus Christ,” you poke, “wipe your fucking drool.”

His entire face contorts when you sink down onto him. Everytime you think you’ve reached a limit, he finds a way to hit a spot impossibly deeper than the last. His hips lift up off the bed to meet you halfway, rutting into pleasure spots you didn’t even know you had, hand moving to your cunt, thumbing lazily at your clit, leaving you fuzzy and drunk in a mess of mumbled moans above him. 

When you come for the third time, messy and sweaty, nothing that leaves your lips is distinguishable, a mess of French and English and curses and nonsensical mewls. “Fuck you,” he moans, breath shaky when he pulls himself out of you. Your body clenches around air, aches for him to return. 

He does, after he moves you back into the position it all started in. “So close,” he tells you, sinking slowly into you, his sigh hot and alcoholic on your shoulder. His pace is slow, then fast, then slow again. He’s as rapid as his breath is irregular. You better pull out–you groan, every muscle in your body strung out and exhausted and you’re coming again. It’s blinding white behind your closed lids, ears ringing and muscles flexing involuntarily. He’s wrecked you, finally, left you a mumbling mess. 

He pulls out almost in sync with your orgasm, jerks himself no more than twice between your legs before he’s coating your stomach in hot stripes of cum, loud, guttural moans leaving his lips in a way that looks and sounds practically pained. “Christ,” he heaves, watches on as your fingers dance through his orgasm, spreading it over your skin and coating your fingers. You don’t break eye contact when you stick two of them into your mouth, swirl your tongue around them tauntingly, sucking them clean and pulling them from your mouth with a pop. You hold the clean hand up for him to see, palm facing him. When you turn it, you pull down all but your middle finger, flip him off cockily. 

He swats you hand away, “Never fucking again,” he tells you. 

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me,” you scoff. “I never want to see the inside of this apartment again.”

“Why are you here, then?” He remarks, turning the corner into what you assume is the bathroom, tossing a towel to you from across the room. You clean yourself up before anything dries, before coming up with a quick rebuttal. 

You don’t come up with one, mind as tired as the rest of you. This game has been exhausting. “We’re never talking about this,” you say, pulling your dress over your head, stuffing your bra into your handbag because you aren’t sure you have the strength to clasp it closed. “Ever.”

“No shit,” he says, tosses your underwear in the general direction of you. 

You bend over to pick them up, step into them with the snap of the elastic. “Promise me.” You have no idea where your shoes are, but he’s already ushering you out of the room, herding you down the long hall with wide, swooping waves of his arms. 

“I promise.”

“Pinky,” you say, spot your shoes haphazardly stepped out of in the entryway. You don’t have any memory of them ever being on.

“Absolutely not.”

“Charles,” you lean against the wall to slip your heels on, hook up at him with a sober glare. He closes his eyes like you won’t be able to see them roll behind his lids, pinches the bridge of his nose and squints before dropping a heavy breath, holding out a pinky to you. You interlock it with yours. “Thank you.”

He pulls his hand from yours, turns the lock on his front door and swings it open, fingers wrapped around the edge, other hand gesturing out into the hallway. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

“With pleasure,” you say, stepping past him and into the well-lit hallway of sprawling marble floors. You stop in front of the elevator, press the button and wait for his inevitable comment. 

“The whole brat-schtick you’ve got going on isn’t as believable when your leg shakes underneath you,” he calls down the hall. You don’t turn your head to face him, just extend your arm in his direction and flip him off. You hear his chuckle as he latches the door shut behind you. 

Everything about today has been dreary–from the near constant mist that falls over the city, to the chilly temperatures, to the poor excuses for men that grace the screen of your dating app. This is not how Fridays in your twenties are meant to be spent, sulking in the dark of your bedroom after a miserable day at work. 

You’re supposed to be out, partying with friends and making drunken decisions that have you waking up in a stranger’s bed after a good night you hardly remember. 

God, you need to get fucked. It’s been months. Two months and ten days–not that you’re counting. Because you’re not. Counting. You aren’t. 

You’re just restless, basking in the loneliness of the night, unable to shake the weight of your thoughts, of two months and ten days ago. Of Charles and how infuriatingly good he’d made you feel. The complexities of your relationship, the shift in the very DNA of what you know, it makes your heart race–a messy muddle of annoyance and desire that yearns to be untangled. 

You give up on the dating apps, know that even if you do match with someone, there’s nothing that can be done to solve your problem tonight. You opt instead to scroll through social media aimlessly, searching for any distraction from the ache in your gut. Your hand unconsciously slips under the hem of your shirt, cups your breast while you scroll and scroll and scroll. It does little to quell your struggles. In fact, the game is over the moment you become conscious of your hand’s placement, the moment you start to massage your breast, to run your fingers over your nipple until it’s hard and perky. 

You switch to the other breast, fingers gently tracing over the skin, sending chills up your arms, pinpointing the ache in your core. Your hand slides down your stomach, dips below the waistband of your shorts, into your underwear. You’re so worked up–pent up, reaching a boiling point. 

Your middle finger glides through your folds, grazes over your clit, teases the slick at your entrance before dipping in, collecting enough to spread it around. Your clit is swollen, needy like the rest of you, and the pad of your fingers do little to relieve the pressure. Your fingers move clockwise, then counter. Vertical and horizontal and every combination of every direction and even though you can’t remember the last time you were this horny, this desperate to come, you can’t. 

You slip in a finger, and then another, try to find the right curl and the right spot–to no avail. Now, you’re thinking about his fingers, about how much bigger his hands are, how his nimble fingers pumped in and out of you with sheet-gripping, whimper-inducing pace. 

Your phone taunts you, his contact behind the locked screen just waiting to be messaged. 

You try to resist. You hate him. He hates you. God, he knows how to fuck you, though; veiny hands and thick cock leaving you a writhing mess. Fuck. Fuck, why can’t your fingers move the way his did?

You cave, reaching over to grab your phone and text him. Hey. What are you up to tonight? It’s a mistake, you know that it is. He’s so damn annoying, there’s nothing about him that doesn’t drive you up a wall. Frustration makes the heart go fonder, you suppose, or maybe the cunt ache harder. 

Within moments, your phone is buzzing against your palm with his reply. Chilling at home. You coming over?

You roll your eyes. No.

Ok.

You bite your bottom lip so hard you think you might accidentally draw blood. It’s phantom, almost, the way you can so perfectly imagine the sting of him stretching you out, the soreness of his bruising kisses, the swollen, wet head of his dick slapping against your clit. Come over.

You couldn’t pay me.

Door’s unlocked.

Give me 20.

You’re in the bedroom when he knocks. Three times, you wonder why he isn’t just walking in. You ignore the banging, let the universe decide for you if he’s meant to turn back and walk his happy ass out of your building. The universe decides he won’t be doing that, though, because he knocks again. Louder this time. 

You pull yourself out of bed, feet creaking on the hardwood floors as you move to pull the door open. “I told you it was unlocked,” you grumble. 

“Eh,” he shrugs, dumb fucking grin on his face. “Wasn’t up for your games.”

You internally debate just how bad you need him here, if it’s worth all the trouble that is him. It’s not, almost certainly it isn’t. You invite him in anyway. 

“So, what’s the deal? Can’t get yourself off, so you call me?” He teases. Your frustrated blush gives you away before a witty comeback can slap the smirk off his face. “Oh my god,” he chuckles. “I was fucking around, but really?”

There’s no point in trying to lie now, not when your face has already betrayed your trust and revealed the truth. “Calm down,” you groused. “The last thing this world needs if your head to get any fucking bigger.”

He continues laughing like this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to him. You want to smack the smile off his face, dimples and all. “The last thing this world needs is for this–” he gestures between the two of you, “–to become a thing.”

You mock his movements, the dumb look on his face. “This is not a thing. It’s just two friends–”

“–We aren’t friends.”

You sigh through gritted teeth. “Two not friends helping each other out.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, chews on the inside of his cheek while his eyes trace your finger, head to toe and back to head again. “You do know how ridiculous you sound, right?”

You breathe out in resignation, heading down the hall towards your room. “Can we just get on with it?”

“No.”

You stop in your tracks, turn on your heels. What the fuck is he here for, then? “No?” You close the gap between the two of you, plant your hands firmly on either side of his jaw and kiss him, all tongue and spit and rough lips. You knock him off balance, falling out of step when he kisses you back with a matching intensity, hands hovering over your hips. He doesn’t rest them there, you can feel the warmth in the space between your skin and his, the force that pulls you together. 

When he does settle his hands, it’s not to deepen the kiss, to swallow any more frustration. It’s to put distance between your mouths. “I want you to–”

You nibble on his earlobe, cut him off with your hushed words. “I don’t give a fuck what you want, I want–”

“Show me how you touch yourself,” he commands, voice failing to waiver to your hushed level, an air of snugness to him.

“Charles,” your voice cracks with his name, a hint of your under the surface insecurity peeking through, putting themselves on display for him. Here! Here! Look at me! 

“Show me, or I’m leaving,” he says, and it’s all throaty and husky. 

(Eleven minutes later)

Legs spread for him, two fingers moving busily against your core, circling your clit, teasing your hole. 

He stares at you like he can see your fucking soul, watches from his spot across the room, leant against the old wooden dresser, arms folded and ankles crossed. You stare back–harder, maybe–like if you win the little contest your cheeks won’t burn so bright, you won’t feel so exposed, so vulnerable, so embarrassed. 

Those feelings fade, they do, with each flick of your wrist. With every glance of his hungry eyes to your fingers, to your cunt, tracing their way up and down your body, you feel calmer and calmer. And when he runs his hand over his mouth, along the stubble of his jaw and off his chin, you’re closer and closer. 

It pulls whimpers, soft and slow and sweet, from your lips. There’s a sick thrill to it, to him seeing her like this, all needy and open and sensitive. It’s empowering, almost. 

He breaks no more than twice, watches every brow quirk, lid flutter, and lip twitch with raw, intimate eyes. He’s less interested in what you do to yourself, the curve of your fingers or the noises they create, than he is in the way you react to the movements. 

“You’re not even fucking watching,” you say, the letter sounds falling to your breath, hitching as your fingers angle just right. 

“Watching what matters.”

“Oh? And, uh–” you huff. “What’s that?”

He laughs, dimples digging deep into his cheeks. You’ve always thought they made his smile so childish, like you can’t take anything seriously when it comes from someone with primary-school dimples and giddy eyes. You don’t struggle to take it seriously, now. “You’re thinking about me.”

Your eyes flutter shut, a soft sigh parting your lips. “Says who?”

He pushes himself off the dresser, saunters over with heavy feet, stopping at the foot of the bed. “What are you thinking about?” He humors. 

Your eyes roll. You’re thinking about a lot of things. Half a dozen, atleast. About your fingers, the way they move against your swollen cunt, sticky with creamy slick, and how his fingers are that much longer than yours. About how loud he walks, how his heavy feet stand at the end of your bed, crossed arms that pull his t-shirt tight across his chest. About the fact that you’re not sure you locked the door behind him because you were so distracted by the way his sweatpants hung from his waist. About how he doesn’t bother to adjust or hide the protruding bulge under the fabric right now. About the curve of his cock, about how pathetic and full it makes you, utterly unable to spend time thinking about anything but how well he stretches you out. About his hair, flat and straight and wholly unstyled, how your hands would mess it up so nicely, tug and twist until he has something smart to say. Beyond frustratingly, he’s right. As you quickly approach a high, breath quickened and movements desperate, all you’re thinking about is him. “Things.”

“Mmhmm,” he hums, ever the rake, unsatisfied with your response. 

You add a third finger, steady pace and a held stare. The muscles in your leg twitch. You’re so fucking close. “What are you thinking about?”

He sways, rocks his weight from his left foot to the right, runs his tongue over his teeth. “Things.”

A coy smile upturns the corner of your lips. “Mmhmm,” you mock. 

He moves around the bed, trails his fingers over your skin; from your ankle, along the bone of your shin, a bruise on your knee. They stall on your thigh, trace small, soft circles on the inside of your leg. “You really want to know?” 

He’s such a tease, keeps moving up, up, up, over your stomach and through the valley of your breast. “I–ah– I,” you stutter through your words, fingers working tirelessly to push you over the edge. Restless, further irritated by his delicate touch, his fingers up to your jaw now, slotting themselves there, you nod. “Yes.” 

He leans over you, your lips inches apart, open and hot breathed. “Too bad,” he whispers into the space between, closing the gap and kissing you with an insatiable kind of fervor. Your fingers still, your other hand reaching to grip the back of his neck, to pull him deeper into the kiss. It’s a kiss that’s half as good as the sex, the breaking of the unbearable tension that’s filled the room while he’s watched, the promise of what’s to come. A lustful implication. His hand leaves your jaw when you pull apart for air, moving over your stilled hand. “Let me?” He asks, and it doesn’t feel like much of a question, the way he’s already slipping his fingers under yours before you can even squeak out an answer. 

There’s something entirely different about his fingers, like the way that you can’t tickle yourself. You can’t predict his moves, every movement of every ridge of his fingerprints is something entirely surprising. “Yeah, fuck, you make, ah, make yourself…” You give up on the sentence, your body failing your mind in its ability to spit out a comeback. Yeah, you wish you could tell him. Yeah, make yourself fucking useful.  

He laughs, slides his long middle finger inside you, pumps it twice and slips in another. You gasp at his sudden movement. “You’re embarrassing yourself, baby.”

Your back arches off the sheets. “Don’t call me that,” you seethe. 

“But,” he curls his fingers against the spot you’ve been trying to reach all night. A moan tumbles from your mouth and he smirks. “It makes my job so easy.”

“Fuck you.”

“I was going to let you come first, but,” he chuckles. He’s so proud of himself it makes you ill. “If you insist.” 

His hand stills, threatens to pull out of you entirely, but you’re covering it with your own, holding him there when you look up, hips instinctively grinding against him. “I’ll kill you. I will.” 

You’re pushing him out of your apartment by the end of night, locking the door behind him. Your leg shakes when you slide down the door onto the floor. This is the last time, it has to be. Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence. Thrice. Thrice would be a pattern. You won’t let it become a pattern. 

You wake up at seven-thirty and your hair is still in knots, your body still aching from him. You find a new bruise every time you look in the mirror. You can’t shake the image of his messy hair, of the feeling of the brown locks between your fingers and the sound he’d make when you’d tug on them. 

It won’t be happening again.

[sainz-leclerc]

[sainz-leclerc]

you'll always be my girl - t. nott

summary: theodore nott was your brother's best friend, and had been the boy of your dreams since you first lay eyes on him. everyone knew that. so it's a surprise when you suddenly get a boyfriend, and theodore is determined to show you why he's the better choice. always has been and always will be.

warnings: all characters are of age. smut, cheating. all that fun stuff. theo is reader's brother's best friend. reader pined for YEARS but it faded away when she got with her boyfriend. she's a bit of a pushover. virgin!reader. dom!theo. sub!reader. modern au. lots of swearing. arguing. praise kink. overstimulation. dirty talk.

note: this prob isn't great, i don't write smut often idk

"Mate move! Move! He's behind that wall." Theodore shouted, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he tapped the keys on his controller trying to be revived faster.

"Fuck! I can't find him," Lorenzo had replied, a similar tone to Theodore's as their eyes were both glued to the screen in front of them.

It was only the two of them at Lorenzo's tonight, something that wasn't overly uncommon for the two of them to do. Despite being close with the rest of their group, Theodore and Lorenzo spent the most time together just the two of them. Theodore practically lived at the Berkshire's house half the time nowadays, finding it much warmer than his own.

Honestly, it was more shocking if he wasn't at the Berkshires.

"Over there! Shit!" Lorenzo cursed, the loud, violent tapping of buttons ensuing at a more alarming rate from the two of them.

"Where's his-"

"Theo! Theo! The-" A red alert came over the screen, letting the two boys know that they had lost the game. They both put their controllers down, Lorenzo using the palms of his hands to rub his eyes in frustration, and Theodore throwing his head back with a groan.

"We really ought to get better at this mode, or we need to just stick to doubles," Theodore said, looking over at his friend who chuckled with a nod.

Mr and Mrs Berkshire were both out for the night, away on holiday, or business or whatever, Lorenzo didn't tell Theodore all the details. Theodore didn't particularly care anyway, it didn't make a big difference to him.

Lorenzo's parents were lovely to him, always greeting him pleasantly, always happy to see him, and telling him he was welcome at any time. They had even unofficially allocated one of the spare bedrooms in their house to Theo, who was eternally grateful for the escape it gave him.

"Enzo, I'm home!" Theo's attention was directed towards the door, where he heard someone kicking off their shoes by the door before walking towards the living room.

Y/n Berkshire. Lorenzo's younger sister. He was honestly surprised he hadn't noticed earlier that you weren't there. Even though you normally tucked yourself in the small library in the house, he had been here for hours and hadn't heard a peep from you.

Sure, you were normally quiet, but normally you at least said hello.

While growing up with Lorenzo, Y/n was never normally far behind. You had adored your brother when you were younger, and even as you both got older you remained close. Theodore on the other hand, had elicited a different sort of adoration from the younger girl. One that brought a blush to your face every time he spoke to you, or even looked in your direction.

It had been that way for years, and honestly, Theodore couldn't remember a time when you had been able to look him in the eye for longer than five seconds before getting too shy and looking away.

Footsteps echoed towards the living room, and the second you came into view, Theodore's eyebrows furrowed. Your body was covered in a silk dress, your hair styled perfectly and makeup on your face. You looked fancy, and Theodore could not imagine what you possibly could have been doing to require such an appearance.

There certainly weren't any parties on, if there had been, Lorenzo and Theodore would have been the first ones to know.

"How was your date?" Lorenzo didn't even look back at his sister as you sat down on the other couch, a sigh of relief as you sunk back into the comfortable material.

A date? The question had Theodore baffled. You had been on a date? With who? It certainly made the appearance seem more logical, you looked pretty. You had made that effort for a boy.

"It was good," You nodded your head, not looking over at your brother either as you grabbed the book that sat on the coffee table, flipping it open to the page you had dogeared earlier on that day so you could continue reading.

"You were on a date? With who?" Theodore asked.

"Oh, hi Teddy," You looked up from your book, sending a small smile to your brother's best friend, only just noticing him, "Adrian Pucey, he's in your year."

Teddy. The name you had called him since you started to talk. Everyone had called him Teddy when he was growing up, including Enzo, his parents and yours, but you were the only one that didn't grow out of it.

"It's Theo, y/n/n," Lorenzo had corrected you, as he always did, knowing how much Theodore despised the nickname now that he was older. What he'd never tell your brother though, was that he didn't mind it when you did it. It felt natural coming from your lips. He couldn't ever imagine you calling him Theo, or, god forbid, Theodore.

"Yeah, sorry," You mumbled, picking at the edge of your dress as you looked down at your lap, the book held in your other hand, a finger on the page you stopped reading on so you could keep your place now that you had straightened out the fold.

"Why are you going on a date with Adrian Pucey, he's…"

Theodore wasn't sure what to call him. Annoying? Arrogant? Not good enough for you?

"My boyfriend?"

"Your boyfriend?" Theodore echoed, his eyes almost bulging out of his head and jaw almost falling onto the floor. His tone was incredulous as if you having a boyfriend was completely out of the question.

"Well, that's new," Lorenzo murmured under his breath, not loud enough for you to hear, but loud enough for Theodore.

His tone let Theodore know that he, too, was not too happy about the arrangement. Adrian wasn't 'boyfriend material' and certainly not good enough for you. He was sleazy, and an average quidditch player at best.

"Yeah, is it so unbelievable that I could get a boyfriend?" Your tone -despite your word choice seeming a little sassy- was soft. Your eyes battered between the two boys, eyebrows furrowed as you sat forward.

Silence ensued between the three of you, your eyes still battering between the two boys, both of which didn't know what to say. It wasn't surprising that you could get a boyfriend, but your choice was certainly questionable. Frankly, they were too astonished to speak.

While Lorenzo had known you were spending more time with Adrian, he was hoping that it would fizzle away before labels got attached. He barely gave it any thought, thinking you wouldn't take a boy like Pucey so seriously. Oh, how he was wrong.

"I'm gonna head upstairs," You said quietly, sulking off the couch and quietly walking away, feeling a little ashamed that they seemed so surprised that you had managed to get your first boyfriend.

Theodore's eyes followed you, staying stuck to where you disappeared upstairs as Lorenzo broke the silence, breathing out some air, "Never expected that. Well, at least we know she's not pining over you anymore."

"Yeah, I guess."

…

It was less than a week later when Theodore was heading to quidditch practice, his bag slung over his shoulder, broom in his hand. He ruffled his hair with his free hand, breathing out some air as he prepared himself for what he could guess was going to be a pretty gruelling practice.

Granted, he could give himself some leeway, being the captain and all, but that didn't set a good example. They had a big game coming up in a few days and they needed to do well. There was little space for error, and Theo would make sure everyone was ready.

Hearing faint talking as he walked up to the locker room was odd, considering he was normally the first or second one there. He must've been running a few minutes late.

"-how you managed it, mate, I mean, between her being Berkshire's untouchable little sister and everyone thinking she liked Nott, you can understand why everyone's a bit surprised."

Theodore's hand halted its movement, not pushing the door open just yet as he listened in. They were talking about you.

"She just needed to know who the better boy was, didn't she?" He heard a muffled Pucey reply, "I certainly showed her."

The familiar feeling of anger began to bubble in Theodore's chest as he registered the words that came out of Pucey's words, and the laughter that followed them. Walking in, his hardened blue eyes immediately caught onto Pucey's, a silent warning.

Yet, all the smug cunt did in reply was smirk. That certainly didn't help the feeling of red, hot, anger that exploded in Theo's chest. Quidditch practice was going to be hell for him, Theo would make sure.

"Wait up!" An hour and a half later, the anger still hadn't faded from Theodore's system. His shoulders were uptight, his hand holding onto his broom with a deathly amount of force. It was a surprise the wood hadn't snapped yet.

Your light footsteps struggled to catch up with the thundering pace that Theodore kept. His eyes cast over to you beside him as you finally caught up, his hair still wet from his shower after quidditch practice.

"Can I talk to you?" You asked, looking at Theodore awkwardly. You never normally felt awkward around him, but from the way he was looking right now, you could tell he was mad, but that didn't mean you could let what happened slide.

"Mhm," He hummed in response, his eyes staying straight forward as he waited for you to speak.

"So Adrian was speaking to me and he said that you were going extra hard on him at practice. I understand that you and my brother aren't happy that we're dating but-"

"You came here to stick up for your little boyfriend?" Suddenly, Theodore had stopped walking, turning around so he was facing you. His eyes stared into yours, the anger in his voice rising.

He towered over you, making you crane your neck up to look at him, a drip of water from his wet hair falling onto your forehead. You cleared your throat lightly, not used to Theodore being in such a mood. Even if he was annoyed, he didn't normally talk to you like that.

"I- uh, yeah, kind of. I just don't think it's fair that you're punishing him. It was my choice to date him, he didn't make me."

"Listen, y/n/n, if Pucey had a problem with me, then he can come to talk to me, not send his girlfriend to sort out his issues like a fucking pussy," Theodore spat out Adrian's name like it was a disease on his tongue, his jaw clenching at the mere thought of you taking Pucey's side over his.

If you had any sense, you'd know to mind your own business. You had grown up with Theodore, you had known him for your whole life. Adrian had been your boyfriend for all of a few weeks and you were already choosing him over Theo? That was what wasn't fair, not a few more laps at training.

He saw the frown that made its way onto your face, and if he wasn't so angry at you and Adrian, then he would've crumbled. He knew you were sensitive, much more than most people, and the last thing he wanted to do normally was make you upset. Yet, if you wanted comfort then you could go to Adrian, especially after you tried to stick up for him.

Turning on his heels, Theodore began to walk away again, but it seemed you were a little more determined than normal.

"Come on Theo, you know it's not fair!"

That just about tips him over the edge. This was so unlike you, and it was all because of Adrian. You always went by what Lorenzo and Theodore said, but today you chose to stand up to Theo. You chose Adrian over Theodore and refused to let it go and now you were calling him Theo?

You had been reprimanded for over a year about still using the nickname, and a few weeks into having a boyfriend you suddenly dropped the name of endearment? That was enough.

"What was that?" Theodore stopped in his tracks the second the words had come out of your mouth, barely managing to get the words out between his gritted teeth. He looked over his shoulder at you, watching as you crossed your arms over your chest.

"You know it's unfair."

"You have no idea what's unfair, y/n."

"I know making Adri do double the number of laps as everyone else is unfair! I know knocking into him with double the power as everyone else is unfair, Theo! You're his captain, you need to be fair!"

"Stop that." His tone was reprimanding, like telling you off for doing something unspeakable. He didn't like this one bit, you talking back to him. It felt like something had been shifted and he wanted it all to go back to the way it was.

It was your turn to let out clipped, sarcastic words. Something you would have never dreamed of doing to him; the boy you had pined over for years. Yet, all you could see was an immature, childish boy, not the guy you had liked for as long as you could remember, "Stop what, Theodore?"

"Stop calling me that."

You knew exactly what he was getting at. You always had an inkling that he enjoyed the nickname you refused to drop, given that he, himself, never told you off for it. You also knew he didn't like change, and that the idea of him and Lorenzo not being your number-one priority anymore bugged him. He hated that you had a new boy in your life.

"What? Stop calling you your name?" You replied, raising an eyebrow at him as he clenched his jaw again, letting out a dark chuckle as he started to walk away.

"Just fuck off, y/n."

You didn't bother to follow him.

…

You and the girls were bustling about in your room, doing all sorts of things. Some were getting changed, some were doing their makeup and some, along with you, were doing their hair. It was a Halloween party that practically half of Hogwarts was going to, and luckily for you, the house was only a few minutes walk away from yours.

Lorenzo and his friends were getting ready too, but you had chosen to keep your girls in your room, completely separated from them. Frankly, it was too much tension, and drama, and you didn't want that to stomp on your excitement for the party.

"Hey, y/n, do you have any snacks? I'm starving," One of the girls piped up, stopping doing her makeup to look at you in the mirror. You nodded your head with a smile, telling her you'd be right back as you headed down to the kitchen.

There was noise coming from the tv as you walked by the living room, letting you know that some of Lorenzo's friends were probably in there, taking a mental note to avoid. You wished that he had gotten the vibe to keep his friends in his room, but your brother was clueless sometimes.

He even seemed to be clueless about the fact that you and Theodore had been ignoring one another for the last three weeks, acting as if the other didn't even exist. With your arms full of all types of snacks, you left the kitchen, making your way back up the stairs.

Your eyes are on the snacks in your hand, making sure that none of them are going to fall as you walk, only to be halted by something being in your way. You had walked into someone.

"Oh, sor-" You cut yourself off as you looked up, making eye contact with intense blue eyes staring down at you. You narrowed your eyes.

"Y/n," He had acknowledged you for the first time, but not being nearly happy about it, his mouth in a thin, straight line, and his voice apathetic.

You mirrored his tone and body language, "Theodore."

He remained looking down at you, your pretty eyes looked up at him in disdain, a constant reminder of how you guys had last interacted with one another. He was still slightly mad, more irritated than anything, about the situation, and it was clear you weren't over it either.

It was so unlike you, and he hated that. While he wanted you to stick up for yourself more regularly, he hated that it only seemed to be him that you were being resistant to. It frustrated him to no end, that your relationship after so many years had changed so much in the blink of an eye.

He missed the way you looked at him with your doe-like eyes, so hopeful and kind and soft. Now, they were narrowed, almost as if a threat for him to say something. He hated that it was like you were trying to test his patience.

His mouth opened slightly, just about to speak to you, only to not get the chance, your bedroom door opening, "Y/n, c'mon! I'm hungry!"

In an instant, your eyes are no longer looking at him, but down towards the snacks that lay in a disorganised bundle in your arms, brushing by the taller boy towards your room. You spare no attention towards him, not a word nor a glance, leaving him alone in the hallway as you continue getting ready in your room.

It doesn't feel too long after that when you are all ready, all of you bundling down the stairs ready to go to the party. You know all the boys are now in the living room, and you would have happily walked by without entertaining him, but you knew you couldn't.

"Enzo, can I have some of the money mum and dad left?" You say, coming into the room. The boys are all ready too, but you know they won't leave until the party had already started for forty-five minutes at least, too busy playing video games and not wanting to be around for the awkward start most parties have.

You adjust the wings that are on your back as you walk towards your brother, white boot heels hitting off the wooden floor, the girls falling shortly behind you.

Theodore's eyes flicker up to you casually, but when he catches sight of you his jaw almost falls off, the modest girl you are, with the shortest skirt on he's ever seen. If you turn around, he knows he's almost guaranteed to see the curve of your ass, driving his mind haywire.

You adjust your bright-coloured corset and wings once more. It's obvious that you're supposed to be a fairy, but Theodore knows you're no Tinkerbell. You're perhaps the sluttiest, most tempting fairy he's ever seen. His mind races.

Lorenzo scratched the back of his neck, "Kitchen."

You nodded your head, heading off to the kitchen as all the boys quiet down. Lorenzo looked down at his phone, as the girls all follow you out of the room, "Mate…"

"What?" Lorenzo replied as Theodore sat beside him, all the other boys engaging in small talk again.

"Are you letting your sister go wearing that? Surely you can't," Theodore's trying to keep calm, but his mind is practically begging Lorenzo to make you change. The thought of someone else seeing the curves of your naked thighs and the curve of your arse makes Theo want to die.

"Nah mate, it's not ideal, to be honest, but her mates are just…they call you all sorts and start screaming if you say anything," Lorenzo finally looked up at his best friend, and Theodore can tell that Lorenzo isn't very happy with the predicament either, "and y/n/n just doesn't listen anymore, so there's no point."

There was a point though, to Theodore anyway. He didn't care what your friends thought, or about this new attitude you had adopted since you started dating Adrian.

You're back in the living room soon enough, coming to say bye, but Theodore is quick to walk over to you, not looking very impressed. He speaks lowly, "You should go change."

"What? Why? Do I look bad?" You smooth down your skirt a little, looking up at him with your usual wide eyes, a crack in this new attitude you've been showing lately.

"No," He's quick to shut down any doubt you have about your appearance, "It's just a bit inappropriate."

"Oh, don't be a prude, Theodore," One of your friends overhears, piping up in your support.

"Go change," He paid little mind to your friends, looking down at your eyes and repeating his previous order.

"Girl, you look so hot, don't let him cramp your style," Another one of your friends joins in to support you, a hand on your shoulder as she began to steer you out, "now let's go before he has anything else to say."

The second he saw you being steered out the door and towards the party, he just knows that this night is going to be one of frustration.

His prediction was correct. Only an hour and a half later he was ready to get out of there, the strongest alcohol he could find in a glass with his hand wrapped around it. Purple strobe lights, people laughing, and loud music all seem to fade into the background as his eyes focus on you. He could tell Pucey was trying to rile him up, and it was working.

His hands have been all over your body: while dancing, while sitting down, just every second of this party, and Theodore loathed it. He hated that Pucey's dirty, sleazy hands were on your soft skin, exactly where they didn't belong.

He tried to ignore it, his eyes closing as he downed the rest of his drink, slamming it down on the table. He didn't know where any of his friends were, and honestly, didn't care. He didn't want to talk to anyone or be with anyone but you right now.

He hated that he was thinking about you like this. Lorenzo's baby sister. It was supposed to be the other way around, you were supposed to be the one obsessing over him, so why couldn't he get you out of his head? Why have you been the only thing consuming his thoughts for weeks?

"Hey there, love," A girl sat down beside Theodore, a thing he loved at parties normally. The attention was something that had him feeling smug, but he couldn't even bring himself to look at her. His eyes focused on you as he hears your giggle echo through the room as Pucey whispered something in your ear.

Nothing Pucey could say would ever be funny enough to elicit such a beautiful sound. It felt illegal that he was allowed to hear your laugh, never mind be the reason for it.

"You seem tense, Theo," The girl puts her lips slowly closer and closer to Theodore's neck, her voice quieter and slower as she teased her lips against his neck, lightly grazing it, "Let me help you."

The song that blasts through the speakers had Pucey pulling you up to dance, twirling you around in his arms until his hands thread through to hold your waist. You're facing away from Theodore, completely naive to the blue eyes that follow your every move.

Your boyfriend, on the other hand, couldn't have been happier to meet Theodore's cold gaze, a smirk coming to his lips as he looked down at you, then moving away slightly, only to bring a hand down on your arse.

That has Theodore on his feet immediately, hearing the yelp that you let out as he stormed towards Pucey, ripping him away from you and getting right in his face. He was taller than Adrian, towering over him too as he gets right up in his face, "Don't fucking lay a hand on her again!"

"Theo!"

"She's my girlfriend mate, I'll do what I want." Pucey only fuelled the fire of rage that burned in Theodore's chest. You seem frozen, unsure of what to do as you try and catch the attention of either boy, wanting this nightmare to end.

"Yeah, we'll fucking see about that," Before you could even react, Theodore's fist is making contact with Adrian's nose, and Adrian stumbled back for a few steps before his legs gave way underneath him and he was on the floor.

A gasp emitted from your throat in shock and horror, looking at Adrian as he groaned, holding his nose, red staining the skin. A hand grabbed your wrist, much softer than you had expected from the same fist that had just floored your boyfriend, and dragged you away.

"Theo-"

"We're going home, y/n."

The next thing you know is that you're at the front steps of your home, wanting to say something, anything. Yet, any time you took a breath of air before speaking, Theodore was sending you a look that had you shutting your mouth straight away. Something was daring in his eyes, something a lot more threatening than normal.

His grip gave you little opportunity to wriggle free, his other hand banging open the door, his foot harshly hitting it shut behind you before you are trailing after him up the stairs. He barely gave your feet any chance to keep up with him before you were in his room.

He only let go once you were in the middle of his room, the door shut behind you both. The room is dark, and you both are heaving out a breath. You can just about see Theodore's shoulders sag a little, his voice quieter as he spoke, "I don't like what the boy is doing to you."

"What are you talking about?"

"Dressing like this," He stepped towards you, his fingertips grabbing the edge of your skirt as he continued, "acting like a slut, that's not you baby, you're normally so good."

Your stomach is filled with butterflies as he looked down at your eyes, soft for the first time in weeks, "I am good, I-"

"You think tempting me like this is good, baby? Wearing this outfit and dancing with another man's hands all over your body," Your stomach flipped at the pet name once more, your heart feeling as if it's going to race out of your chest.

Your throat feels blocked up as you watch every slight move he takes, feeling as if this moment is surreal; as if you're dreaming. His voice turned soft as he spoke again, "Where'd my good girl go?"

His hand caressed the side of your face softly, the pad of his thumb swiping over your soft skin and guiding your somewhat messy hair away from your face so he can see you more clearly. You had dreamed of this moment for so long, hoping that one day Theodore would reciprocate your feelings.

The feeling of his hands on you was so euphoric that no amount of dreaming could have ever made you feel like this. This was real.

"I-" You couldn't speak, your brain feeling as if it was going to overload.

You knew this was wrong. Theodore was your brother's best friend, you had grown up with him. He was off limits. You had a boyfriend. So why couldn't you find it in yourself to pull away from his grasp?

You felt as if you were getting pulled closer to his body. The temptation is so bad that no amount of self-control could save you now. You were a goner, you had always been when it came to Theodore.

Since you had been young, you knew that you would do anything for him. Anything so that he could give you this sort of attention, and make you feel like a princess. Your rational thoughts and morals should be pulling you away, but your heart aches for him, it always has.

"You gonna show me how much of a good girl you can be, angel?" He asked, almost as if he was trying to aid you in finding your words. You could only nod your head.

Suddenly, the familiar scent of cologne and cigarette smoke overtook your senses, his lips crashing against yours in a soft, but desperate kiss. His hands reached around you to pick you up, your hands going into his soft hair, grabbing onto the strands with your fingers as you wrapped your legs around his waist.

Swiping his tongue across your lips, you opened your mouth, letting him deepen the kiss as he took steps towards the bed, lowering you down onto the bed. His lips are still connected to you, and you can feel your lungs begging for oxygen, but you don't want to pull away.

Theodore does first, his blue eyes meeting yours as you slowly manage to open your eyes, your lips parted as you breathe in, trying to fill your lungs with the oxygen they had been deprived of. You follow his eyes as he slowly kisses down your neck, then down the valley of your breasts, his hands pulling down the corset, and you're quick to aid him in pulling it off.

The feeling of his lips grazing over your stomach has you hitching in a breath, watching as his head slowly lowers down your body. Then, his head is nestled between your thighs, kissing the soft skin that isn't hidden by your skirt. The hair on his head tickles them, the skin so sensitive, so unused to being given this much attention feeling so good.

With a racing heart, you watch as Theodore pulled up slightly, wanting desperately for him to touch you where you needed him the most. You ached, a feeling in you that you had never experienced before. You knew that Theodore often evoked feelings in you that you never experienced with anyone else, but this was new.

"You sure about this, baby?" You nodded your head in immediate response, but that didn't please Theo. With a light swat to the inside of your thighs, he looked at your eyes with a slightly more serious expression, "Use your words."

"Yes," The word spilt from your lips breathily, "Please."

Theodore, with a satisfied smile, came up to your face, leaning over you and softly attaching your lips to his. It feels just as surreal as the first time, and it makes your heart race just the same.

With his mouth still attached to yours, you feel his fingers brush against the fabric of your panties, just over your clit, making you hitch a breath. His fingers move the light fabric to the side, his fingers teasing against your hole.

"So wet for me, baby," The praise isn't taken lightly by you, soaking up every inch of approval he gives you.

Slowly, he adds a second finger, his thumb pressing down on your clit as his fingers curl into you, making you let out a breathy moan into the kiss that he eagerly swallows.

Your back arches off of the mattress, and as good as it feels you need more. You need him, "Theo…"

The blue of his eyes meets your gaze as you whine. You can't help it, you're desperate for more, to feel him inside of you. To take care of you and this pressure you can feel building in your stomach.

You mumble something out, a feeble attempt at getting him to speed up the process without verbally admitting that you're desperate for him. He doesn't take the hint though, not that you ever expected him to. He was torturous, tempting you and teetering towards what you wanted, but keeping you on the edge.

"Please."

It's a whisper as you let out another moan, your fist clenching his hair in your hand, grabbing onto any part of him that you can keep from pulling away.

A ghost of a smirk came across his mouth as he raised an eyebrow, "Please what, baby?"

You could tell from the familiar look in his eyes that he knew exactly what you wanted, his fingers curling up once more as they stretched lightly, stretching you out. Your eyes screwed shut as you felt slight tears pricking at your eyes. It just felt so good.

"Please," A broken whisper escaped your lips once more as you let out another moan, his thumb roughly coming down on your clit as you tried to bring your hips up, feeling a knot form in your stomach. It was so unfamiliar and had you heaving for a breath as you grabbed fistfuls of Theo's sheets.

With a final thrust of his fingers and a pinch against your clit, you came undone with a strangled moan. Your face was tilted back, mouth open and eyes closed, your hips bucking up to chase your high. You looked unreal, and Theo couldn't get enough.

When he removed his hands from you, he was coated in your bliss, your eyes softly opening, half-lidded, looking as Theodore brought his fingers up to his lips, his tongue transferring the taste of you, sweet and blissful, into his mouth. Your cheeks were tainted red when you realised what he had done, shifting about on the mattress and casting your eyes down.

Yet, you don't get much of a chance when a strong hand reaches for under your jaw, pulling him back up to meet his eyes, "Don't go all shy on me now, angel."

He could see the slight fuzz in your eyes as you stare at him, and he loved it. He liked how, simply with his fingers, he already had you dazed. His hands were soon pulling down his trousers with ease, and lifting his shirt off with one hand, leaving him in only his boxers.

You could see the outline of his bulge, and it had you gulping. You didn't know how the hell you were going to be able to fit that. He was so much bigger than you had imagined, or expected.

"Don't worry baby, we'll take it slow," He was quick to reassure you, a smug smile on his lips as he brings his mouth down to your collarbone, lightly nipping the skin as he sucked. It was definitely going to leave a mark, but that's what he wanted. He wanted Pucey to see it the next time he saw you, trying to assert some dominance on the situation.

Once he pulled his boxers down, he was soon lining up his tip with your entrance, lightly brushing it against your walls. He couldn't help himself when he asked, "Has Adrian ever-"

He began, but you were quick to shake your head vigorously, giving him a sense of satisfaction. He watched as your eyes screwed shut, soft breaths falling from your lips as he asked, much softer, "Is this your first baby?"

Unwilling to admit it out loud, you hesitantly nod your head, confirming Theodore's suspicions. He only just managed to conceal his grunt of satisfaction at being the first one to see you this way. To be the one to ruin you.

"Don't worry," His head is just beside your ear, a hand coming to gently brush the hair away from your face so not a single change or twitch in your face could go unrecognised by him. He wanted to see everything, every reaction you had as he ruined you, as he made your face twist in a type of pleasure that was entirely unfamiliar to you.

Slowly, he began to push into your tight entrance, the feeling of your walls squeezing him making him want to release already, grunting. He can hear your breathy moans of pain and pleasure as he struggled to go slowly, watching as he disappeared inch by inch inside of you.

All he wanted to do was slam into you, to hear as you screamed in pleasure, but he controlled himself, gripping the sheets with his hands to remain his discipline. You feel tiny in comparison to him.

When he finally bottomed out inside of you, you let out a strangled breath, not used to this feeling of being penetrated like this.

"You feel like heaven, sweetheart," The praise fell from his lips as he grunted once more, one of his hands coming to hold the side of your neck.

"'m so full," You partially cried out, tears leaking from your eyes at the unfamiliar feeling. It felt so good, overwhelmingly so, that you couldn't help the water that leaked out of your eyes.

His mouth came to softly kiss the tears away, your hands coming up to wrap around his back to hold him close to you. You wanted him as close as humanely possible as you slowly became accustomed to the feeling of him inside you.

"You're doing so well, baby," The praise is murmured against your cheek, his eyes closed in pleasure, "Let me know when I can move."

It isn't long before you're giving him the green light and he rocks his hips back and then forward, going slower to start with and soaking up your moans and whimpers with his mouth. His thumb pressed against your clit as he began to go faster, making your moans get louder and you become more desperate.

His hips snapped against yours and you sob into his lips, your nails scratching down his back. His hands are everywhere, exploring every inch of your body and worshipping it all. He knew he could sit and caress each part of your skin and never get bored, feeling intoxicated by the softness of it.

You were like a drug, something he shouldn't touch, something that was supposed to be off-limits, but far too tempting to leave alone. He knew that from now on, he'd never be able to let go of you, never be able to keep his hands to himself.

Your moans were melodic to him, something that he could never get over hearing. He had never had sex like this with anyone before, always quick fucks to satisfy his needs, but this was different. He felt like the barrier was broken, that you guys were connecting on a different level. Something you could never go back from. He would never let you.

The look of your parted lips, mascara running down your cheeks with your tears and your hair messy was a sight that no man but him deserved to see. He could tell you were getting close, he was too, your walls clenching around him as your moans got higher in pitch and louder.

The tears roll down harder, pouring out of your eyes as you barely manage to get your words out, "Teddy- please."

The return of the nickname has him going harder, abusing your g-spot as he hit off it time and time again, igniting a flame in his stomach as he leaned down and pressed a kiss against your forehead.

"There she is," He whispered to you, his lips still against your forehead, "There's my good girl."

You came not long after that, walls convulsing as you came around his cock, moans loud as he found himself not far behind, quickly pulling out as he came over your skirt and bare chest, both of you panting and moaning, lost in the sound and feeling of one another.

[sainz-leclerc]

Our Boy

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Lando Norris x SingleMother!Reader

Rating: PG-17

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of smut, slight child abandonment, young parent, polyamorous relationship, fluff, angst, worries of sperm donor taking child, etc.

Requested: Yes/No

Words: 2.9K

Pt.2 The Hunt for Fruit

A/N: hehehehehehe

"Elijah! Don't run ahead of me!" Chasing after a 3-year-old in sandals was not ideal, especially when he's just gotten out of daycare and was hellbent on seeing his fathers. "Mama! Hurry up!" People move out of the way, smiling, seeing the familiar face of the little boy whose heart captivated them.

"Elijah, please. Stop right now, or I'll tell your Papa you're being bad." Elijah stops there, not wanting his Papa to know he's been bad for Mama. "No! Don't tell Papa, please." He cries; seeing his little face break, you almost give in but must stay strong.

If anyone didn't know your story, they'd say he was his Papa's little boy through and through. Same dimples, gorgeous hazel eyes, sadly those eyes he got from his useless sperm donor, you tried not to say ill words about the man. But, he rarely sees Elijah, only the occasional check or letter to him.

You had Elijah at a young age and were unsure what to do. Thankful for your family and family friends that supported you. At four months pregnant, you had met Elijah's Papa; you told him from the beginning you were pregnant, but he didn't care.

Taking Elijah was the best decision of his life. He always wanted a family, and the thought that this one was premade didn't bother him. "Mama, are Papa and Daddy home?" You stop staring at your son's eyes and smile, patting his hair. "Yes, baby. Daddy and Papa are both home."

Elijah takes off. This time he's stopped when he gets scooped up by a particular uncle with dark hair and a beard. "Uncle Enzie!" Elijah cries, seeing his Uncle Lorenzo. He still couldn't say his name entirely, so he was known as Enzie. Only Elijah could call him that, and after Arthur tried to one day and ended up with a bloody nose, no one dared call Lorenzo that.

"Running from Mama again, little troublemaker?" Lorenzo asks, tucking the boy close and running his fingers over Elijah's stomach, making him screech in joy. "No...Mama said she'd tell Papa if I was bad. But, just wanna see Papa and Daddy." He pouts as Lorenzo watches you sprint down the sidewalk carrying a bag of groceries.

"Need help?" Lorenzo doesn't allow you time to answer as he grabs the bag and carries Elijah the rest of the way. "Thank you, I mistakenly told him they'd be home." You groan, seeing Elijah grow restless seeing a certain Pista in the driveway.

"Rookie mistake." Lorenzo only sits the little boy down once he's in the driveway and watches Elijah bolt for the door and throws it open. "DADDY!" Your heart explodes hearing the mixture of Elijah and your 2nd partner. Lorenzo walks past them as you step in the door and close it, watching, and Elijah snuggles into his Daddy, who showers him with kisses and hugs.

When he joined the mix, Elijah was 10 months old. You didn't mean to fall in love with the man before you, but you did. His boyish charm and how carefree he is just drew me in. He backed off when he realized you had formed a family with one of his best friends.

You sat your first partner down and told them everything, how you felt, how he was with Elijah, that seeing him hold him was the most natural thing you've seen. They didn't care that you felt this way and welcomed him.

"PAPA!" You tear your eyes away to see the 1st real love of your life round the corner. He wore jeans with a plain white shirt and was barefoot, so he's been home for some time. "Hey, check him out later. Why not kiss me?" You giggle, seeing Lando come towards you, smirking.

"Lando." He wraps an arm around your waist and gently pulls you in, kissing your lips while Elijah is distracted.

Your little boy was going through a faze where no one else could kiss his Mama except him. "Lorenzo said he was running from you? That true?" Lando asks. The young Brit wasn't one for discipline. That was more Charles's department than his. But, he was raised with manners and ensures his son is raised similarly.

"Lando, Elijah is excited to see his Daddy and Papa. I can't blame the boy for running. Don't tell Charles till later. Let them have this." Motioning to the little boy running circles around Charles's feet. Lando nods, seeing that Charles has given Elijah a new toy. It was a copy of Pierre's new F1 car.

"Come on, Pascale and the others are in the kitchen cooking." Lando grabs your hands and drags you to the kitchen. Charles looks up and smiles, mouthing the words 'I love you' as you pass him.

"Papa? When do you and Daddy leave?" Elijah was getting old enough to notice when they were gone for long periods. Charles and Lando wished Elijah wasn't noticing, but leaving was getting harder and harder as he grew up. "Not for a while Mon étoile. Did you take care of your Mama for us?" Elijah nods, grabbing Charles's hand and walking to the sounds of his Mama's voice.

"Mama was sick. Grand-mère stayed with us." Elijah says. Charles couldn't help but frown. You were sick and didn't tell them? He didn't like that one bit. "But grand-mère is teaching me French now, Papa." Charles smiles and scoops Elijah up, happy he is learning his tongue. "I'm glad, my little star." Kissing his cheek, Elijah giggles, holds his car close to his chest, and lays his head on Charles's shoulder.

"Papa? Can I come with you and Daddy next?" Elijah loved watching the orange and red cars, but at his age couldn't understand it well. Just knew that Papa and Daddy drove them. "Who'll stay with Mama then?" Walking into the kitchen, Charles kisses his mother and you on the cheek.

Lando smirks and leans out, wanting one or two, but Charles smacks Lando on the back of his head. "Hey! Don't hit my Daddy!" Elijah screams, pulling your attention from the vegetables and glaring at the two. "Oh, buddy. I'm okay. Papa was just playing." Grabbing Elijah Lando soothes the boy, who glares at his Papa. Charles rolls his eyes and walks over to you, pulling you into his chest.

"Hey," Charles whispers, kissing your neck. "Hey to you too. Was the flight long?" Cutting the peppers carefully, trying not to get distracted by roaming hands. "It was okay. So, Elijah told me something." Charles hums, resting his chin between your neck and shoulder. "Really? Charles, he's 3. I'm sure he says many interesting things." Elijah was one to say crazy things and not really think them over; he spoke his mind. Too much sometimes.

"Okay... well. He said you were sick, and grand-mère had to come and stay with you?" You stop cutting and curse Elijah for telling Charles that. If one thing Charles hated the most about traveling was when you were sick by yourself. "Char, I had a cold. Elijah had daycare, then swim lessons, and I was knocked down. So your mother came to help. Really, it was nothing crazy." You explain, not wanting to worry him.

Looking up, you see Lando studying you. Elijah was entertained by Lorenzo, who was making funny faces with crackers. "Alright, look, I'm fine now, okay? Really." You soothe, kissing Charles and move, kissing Lando as well, only to feel two hands push you away. "Mama, your kisses mine," Elijah whines, making you sigh and pick him up.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my little prince. Are you feeling left out?" You whine, kissing his cheek as he giggles, squirming around. "Daddy? Can we play?" Elijah asks, giving puppy dog eyes to Lando, who caves instantly. "Of course. Come on, let's let the adults cook. What do you wanna play?" Lando grabs Elijah, their voices floating down the hall to the playroom.

"Oh, sweetie, before I forget. Here's the mail, a letter for you." Pascale smiles, handing the white envelope. It was heavy, but you noticed the scrawl of your name and knew who it was from.

"What's wrong?" Charles asks, getting worried seeing the look on your face. "It's....it's from him." You mumble. Everyone stops and looks at each other. They knew you didn't have a good relationship with your ex, Elijah's....sperm donor. It's not like the relationship ended badly. He wasn't ready for a child, coming from a wealthy family who saw the child as a smear on the family name.

"Well, what'd the bastard send now?" Charles growls as Pascale glares. "Language, my god Charles you have a son." Pascale scolds. "He's not in the room, Mama. Besides, I don't like that you told that..bastard our new home address." You stare at the envelope and then at Charles. "Charles, the man has a right to know where his son is." You hate saying it the moment it leaves your mouth.

"He's not his son. He's ours." You jump as Lando walks in, standing next to Charles. "I'm sorry to ask this, but Pascale, Lorenzo. Can you give us a moment to talk?" Lando asks them, giving off a tense smile. "Of course, dear. Where's Elijah?" Pascale asks softly. "I put him down for his nap," Lando replies, staring right at you.

They move quickly from the kitchen, leaving you with your two partners. "Lando..only meant," "No, I know what you meant, Y/n. But Elijah is our son. Not his." Lando was never one to get angry. When it came to Elijah and his birth father, it was a new person. "Lando, by law, he's still his son. I have to let him know where he is. That way, he doesn't take Elijah." It was never a worry of him taking Elijah.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't try. "Y/n, if that fucker comes anywhere near him-" Charles growls but takes a deep breath to remain calm for this conversation. "Maybe, we should revisit the adoption talk," Lando suggests. It was a talk brought up late one night when Elijah was lying in your shared bed.

He was lying on Charles's chest. Both of them were asleep, the same look on their face. Mouths opened, and cheeks chubby. Lando had brought it up while the two of you watched them sleep, how similar they looked.

"Lando, we can't. Besides, they only allow one name on the adoption papers. I couldn't possibly choose only one of you." Lando and Charles look between one another and shrug. "It should be Charles," Lando says in such a way that it's not up for discussion.

"Lando!" Both you and Charles shout, but he holds his hands up. "Charles was there before Elijah was born! He's always been there. Besides, Elijah knows we're both his fathers. It doesn't matter whose last name he has." Charles shakes his head no, not liking the idea at all. "Lando, he should have both our names, not just mine. He's your son too." You watch them both, seeing how much they've grown together in the past 2 years.

"Wait, wait! Why are we even panicking? We don't know know what he's even sent yet. Shouldn't we see that before we jump ahead?" Lando laughs as he walks over, grabbing the envelope. "I'm opening it." He rips it open. Moving to Charles's side, you hold his hand, squeezing it. Lando opens the papers and skims over them but stops when he flips the page.

"Love, you might want to see this." He holds the papers out, but you shake your head no. "No, Y/n. Baby, it's not anything bad. I promise." Lando grabs your other hand, pulls you into his side, and shows you the papers. Reading them over, you start to cry reading the words. "What? Will someone tell me what's going on?" Charles snaps, worried that his little boy wouldn't be his for much longer.

"Charles.....He...He's relinquishing his parental rights." Charles freezes but snaps back as he snatches the papers and reads them over. "Oh my god! Elijah!" He drops the papers and bolts through the living room, scaring Pascale and Lorenzo. Stomping up the stairs, he throws open the door. Elijah flinches being woken up so suddenly.

Charles moves and picks him up, holding him close to his chest. The poor boy crying, unsure of what is happening. "Shhhh, Mon étoile. It's okay, it's Papa. I didn't mean to scare you." Charles whispers in his ear as poor Elijah clings tight to Charles.

Walking back down, Elijah's cries turn to sniffles. "Jesus, Charles, did something happen?" Pascale whispers walking up to them and scanning over Elijah. "Mama, we'll talk later at dinner. He's okay." He whispers, arms tightening, causing Elijah to whine as Charles enters the kitchen.

"Dammit, Charles." Lando seethes, taking Elijah from him. "Daddy, Papa scared me." He whimpers, koala hugging Lando as you shake your head. "Oh, it's okay, buddy. Papa just missed you so much. He didn't mean to scare you." Lando whispers, soothing down his son's bed hair. Lando sits him on the counter, Charles right there, stuck to his son's side.

Charles never voiced it, but you knew why he was so scared. It was always a thought in his mind that you'd take Elijah and leave them. He was terrified, having woken up many times during the night to check on Elijah to make sure he was still there.

"Charles, he's not going anywhere." You whisper, pulling his attention away from Elijah as he stares at you. "I've always been scared. Every letter, I've been scared." He whispers, moving to you and hugging you, hiding his face in your neck.

"I know." Lando smiles at the two of you and reaches over, pulling the two of you into him and hugging the four of you together. "Papa, sleepy." Elijah whines, which has the 3 adults laugh. "Why don't you and Papa take a nap together, yeah?" Lando suggests. Charles nods and picks up his little boy, and walks out.

"Lando," But he shakes his head, leaning in his silents you with a kiss. "Don't. He's ours, always has been, and always will be. Besides, we should talk about that pregnancy test. Yeah?" Your eyes grow wide as Lando gets a cheeky look on his face and presses his hand to your stomach. "Cold? Please, you're lucky I got to the master bath before Charles. Hide it for you." You let go of the breath you're holding and giggle.

"I was planning to tell you both later this week. Surprise?" Lando shakes his head, laughing, as he kisses you again. "You know...I want a girl this time. Charles has got his little mini. I want my own." You roll your eyes, wrapping your arms around his neck, resting your foreheads together.

"Lando doesn't work like that." You tease, but he snorts, not listening. "Hey, I know damn well I knocked you up." Lando bites back. "Oh yeah? And how do you know that?" You ask cocking an eyebrow. "Because it was our anniversary 2 months ago, and if I remember correctly, I had dibs on your pussy, and Charles was-" You cover his mouth, skin burning at the memory as Lando lets a muffled laugh ring in the kitchen.

"Okay, okay. But, it could still be Charles's." You argue, not even caring who was the one who knocked you up, just playing along. He snorts and removes your hand as his hands squeeze your ass, placing kisses on your neck. "Nope, I was tracking your ovulation. Planned it." It dawns on you, then.

"Lando Norris, you didn't." You laugh in shock. "I asked if you were okay with it. You kept moaning, saying, yes, fuck yes." He mimics your moans from that night as you slap his chest. "Wait...are you okay with this? Fuck, I didn't even think this over. Are you okay with another baby?" Lando asks, worry taking over as you shush him.

"Of course, we have talked about it off and on. Lando, you didn't do anything wrong." You reassure him as the Brit takes a breath calming down. "Thank god." You jump, hearing a ringing, and see that a timer was set for the casserole that Pascale had fixed.

"Dinner is ready." You say, making Lando groan, leaving one last kiss on your cheek. "Damn, I was about to work on my dessert." He slaps your ass, moves to the oven, and pulls the dish out. "Pascale? Your casserole is ready!" Lando yells softly, knowing Charles was knocked out on the couch with Elijah.

Pascale comes in and shoos Lando away, Lorenzo walking in with Arthur, who had just arrived having been at SIM practice. He kisses your cheek and tells you your two boys are asleep on the couch. "I'll wake them, fix the salads, love." Lando wasn't allowed to cook food after burning one of Pascale's fish dishes one night.

He walks in there and stops. Elijah was on Charles's chest, moving up and down slowly due to Charles's breathing. Both their mouths are slightly open, cheeks puffy, and dimples showing. Lando smiles, tiptoeing closer. He crouches down, running a finger over Elijah's cheek.

"My sweet boy." Placing a gentle kiss on Elijah's chubby cheek, he cuts his eyes to Charles and smirks. "Oi, wake up." He stabs Charles deeply in the side, making Charles jerk and groan. "Ass." He curses. "Dick. Come on, dinner is ready." Lando rebuttals; Charles chuckles as he rubs the sleep away.

"Hey?" Charles calls softly, Lando looking at him. "He's our boy. Elijah will have both our names. Okay, no one's last name." Charles whispers, settling this talk once and for all. "Yeah, yeah. But the baby has my last name first." Lando sighs, standing. "Fine, I don't care if the baby does," Charles grumbles, standing slowly with Elijah in his arms.

"Wait? What baby?"

[sainz-leclerc]

The Hunt for Fruit

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Mom!Reader x Lando Norris

Words: 2.6K

Rating: PG

Warnings: pregnancy, sickness, fluff, Charles and Lando ovary bursting parenting, etc.

Requested: Yes/No

Request: How do you feel about writting a part 2 to Our boy? Maybe smth like she’s pregnant and Charles, Lando and Elijah are taking care of their girls?? Something fluffy and domestic

Pt.1 Our Boy

A/N: Ahhh wrote this one sitting, and couldn't stop hope you enjoy!!!

Being pregnant the first time was never easy; you had a rough pregnancy with Elijah, so it was understandable to be nervous with this one.

There was one clear difference between your pregnancy with Elijah and your little girl. Lando and Charles. They were ecstatic about your family growing up when they learned you were pregnant.

Elijah was thrilled to be an older brother and was by your side 24/7 refusing to leave you alone unless he had to go to preschool. Even though you had Lando and Charles, you still handled them like you were by yourself the first time, like now.

"Daddy." Lando groans, feeling a tiny hand poke his cheek. "Go back to be Elijah. We can play in the morning." Lando whispers, patting the small hand away. Elijah stomps his foot, running over to his Papa's bedside.

"Papa….wake up." The young boy was clearly getting frustrated, now trying to wake his sleeping fathers. "Elijah, you heard Daddy. Go back to sleep." Charles woke the moment their bedroom door was pushed open.

"It's Mama. She's sick." Elijah whimpers, having woken up to you throwing up in the bathroom downstairs. Two bodies shoot out of bed, one rushing out the bedroom door and the other grabbing Elijah.

Groaning, you flush the toilet, leaning into the cold bathroom wall. You knew Elijah had woken the boys when thunder fills the stairway and stops, a minor knock on the door. "Baby? Let me in." You open your mouth to let him know the door is open, but nausea hits you again.

Whimpering, you lean over the toilet, stomach cramping as you throw up. The handle of the door jingles and is soon pushed open; light fills the hallway. "Oh, love." You let the tears fall, hearing Charles's voice. His body moves around yours; sitting on your left, his fingers rub up and down.

"M sorry, didn't want to wake you." You groan; Charles just shushes you, flushing the toilet and getting back up to grab a hand towel. The water fills your ears and flinching at the warmth in your mouth. Charles cleans you up. "Elijah heard you, woke Lando and me." Kissing your cheek as you shake your head.

Body aching as the tightness of your muscles loosens. "Are you okay now?" His voice was soft, with a deep timber that comforts you. "I feel better, just not myself." He nods, having never been through this before, but you have, and he was following your lead in what you needed and wanted.

"He's back asleep. In our bed." Lando's voice floats down the hallway, and soon, those messy curls join you in the bathroom, despite hating when anyone throws up. "That's fine." Is all you say, rolling your head to lay on Charles's shoulder. "You should wake us when you're sick," Lando whispers, crouching beside you two.

"Leave her be, Lando. She's done this before." Charles glares at the Brit, who shrugs, not caring. "Yeah, alone because of her asshole ex." Lando snips; you raise your hand, touching his face.

"Charles was there at the end of my pregnancy, Lando. And he wasn't an asshole, okay. It's normal; even though I am showing, I can still get sick throughout my pregnancy." You soothe Lando.

He's always been protective of you, Elijah, and Charles. It's become worse after finding out you were pregnant, as he refused anyone to be close to you two. Lando grumbles something but kisses your forehead sighing. "Let's get back to bed." He helps Charles get you up as you want to be next to him.

Charles was the calm one during this, your rock. Charles was silent as he kept it all to himself and let you tell him what you needed, but that didn't mean Charles wasn't picking up the cues.

"Mama?" You look up seeing Elijah's head poking up from your large bed, which has you giggling. "Oh, my sweet star. I'm okay." You reassure him pulling yourself from Charles and crawling into bed. Elijah glues himself to your side, immediately falling asleep in your arms.

"Always steals my spot." Charles whisper, which has Lando snort taking his side of the bed, Elijah between you and him. Charles moves, lying at your back, and pulls you 3 into him, wrapping his arms around you.

Giggles wake you, eyes prying open, whine at the sunlight hitting you right in the face. "Sorry." The light dims, with you smiling softly, hand patting your body next to yours. "Elijah?" Soft lips stretch across your neck as the voice whispers in your ear.

"Currently getting a bath from Charles." Lando plants his nose back into your neck, loving how you smell. He swears up and down that you smell different being pregnant. Something Charles agreed to despite you being embarrassed by this. "Sorry."

Lando pulls away, rolling you onto your back, his large hand resting on your small bump. "Whatever for a cupcake?" Popping his p, you roll your eyes, hating that nickname, as you've been craving cupcakes in the beginning stages of your pregnancy.

"For not waking you two while I was sick." Avoiding eye contact with your 2nd partner, who watches you closely. "Y/n, it's okay. I wasn't mad last night, just….annoyed that you think you can't rely on me." Lando whispers, hearing splashes and more giggles from the 2 in the bathroom.

"Lando." You gasp, sitting up, which has him sitting up with you. "Look at me." Instructing him, he doesn't, which has you sitting on his lap and forcing him to look at you. "I do rely on you. Lando, you're the one I look to when I can't even voice my needs. You're the one I rely on when this gets too much and who has been reading every stupid pregnancy book to understand everything. You even created that stupid fruit chart for the size of our baby girl. Lando, you're everything to me and this baby." Lando blinks fast, not wanting to cry because if he cries, you'll follow.

He doesn't say anything as he wraps his arms around you, pulling you close, just listening to your heartbeat and his little boy laughing with his Papa.

"Papa, we should do something for Mama." Elijah giggles as Charles rinses out his hair. "Yeah? And what should we do for Mama?" Charles chuckles as his face scrunches up, just like Lando's when he thinks. "Mama has been craving fruit. Said so to Grand'Mere yesterday." Elijah nods his head which has Charles blinking.

They're going to have to put a bell on this boy. He was supposed to be taking a nap when that conversation took place. Instead, he was roaming around, listening to the adults.

"Can we go to the market and get her and the baby fruit?" Elijah shivers; Charles quickly covers him with his little ducky towel and puts the hood on his head. "Sure, but we're going to have to bring Daddy." Charles hums drying off the little duck.

"Okay, hurry, Papa." Charles sighs, dropping his head. God, he hopes the little girl in you will be patient. He can't continue with 3 impatient people in his life. With Elijah dressed, he darts out of the bathroom, making a face and seeing his Daddy and Mama kissing.

"Gross." You pull away from Lando, laughing as Charles nods in agreement. "You're right, ducky, that is gross. Get dressed. We're going out." Charles picks up Elijah, placing him on the bed and watching you get your morning snuggles.

"Where?" You ask. "Not you, Mama, just me with Papa and Daddy. You stay." Elijah nods his head firmly, like he just put his foot down. "Oh?" You ask cocking your head to the side as Elijah crosses his arms. "Yes, men only." Lando sputters out a laugh throwing on some jeans and a T-shirt.

"So you're a man now, hm? I thought you were my little star? Or are you too old for this?" You ask. Behind those hazel eyes, you watch the dilemma your son faces trying to stay strong. "NO! I'm still your little star!" Elijah breaks, throwing himself into your arms as you laugh, kissing all over his face.

"Alright, little star, let's go." Lando pulls Elijah out of your hold, throwing kisses your way, who shrieks with laughter when Lando blows a raspberry on his stomach. "Daddy!" He cries as you watch the two of them leave; Charles fluffs your pillows and helps you get comfortable. "Love you, and you." Kissing you and then your stomach.

"Papa!" Lando and Elijah yell, which has you giggling, petting Charles's head as he whispers to your stomach, something about them being patient and pleased before he greys.

It was early morning, so only a few people were at the market. Elijah carrying his own little basket to pick out fresh fruit for you. "Daddy, there's a lot," Elijah whispers, his small hand tightening on Lando's larger one, who nods.

"Want me or Papa to carry you?" Lando asks, bending down to his height and putting his hat on backward. "No, I told Mama m big boy, and I am." Elijah nods and starts to walk off, leaving Lando and Charles staring at him.

"Charles." Lando's voice catches as he watches his little boy talk to a vendor happily. "Oh, don't cry, Lando. He's 3, not 13." Charles chuckles, trying not to imagine a teenager before them. "He's growing up." Lando shakes his head and joins Elijah paying for the two apples and 3 bananas Elijah picked out.

Charles heads to another stand looking through it when he fills a tug on his sweater. He turns and looks down, seeing a boy around Elijah's age wearing a Ferrari cap. "Hi there." Charles kneels down and smiles as a woman much older comes running over.

"Oh, god! I'm so sorry, Mr. Leclerc. He's my grandson; he saw you come in with Mr. Norris and wanted to talk to you but told him to leave you be." Charles chuckles, seeing one of the vendors, Mrs. Monet.

She was an older woman who ran a fruit stand you've loved going to since moving to Monaco, but Charles had no idea she had a grandson. "It's fine, Mrs. Monet; he's no bother," Charles reassures as Mrs. Monet whispers in the little boy's ear.

"Still, you're here with your family; he shouldn't have done this anyways." She asks, but Charles laughs, taking the hat from the boy and signing it. "What's your name?" Charles asks, the boy getting the biggest smile.

"Basil." Charles stops, wanting to laugh, but Mrs. Monet stops him. "Basile. He has trouble saying his e's." Charles laughs, nodding. "yeah, Elijah has trouble with his s's right now." The two talk until they hear a familiar yell.

"Papa! Daddy said-hello." Elijah stops hiding behind Charles's leg seeing the new person. "Good morning, Elijah. This is my Grandson, Basile." Mrs. Monet introduces which has Elijah and nods, inching father behind Charles's leg.

"Can you say hello, Elijah?" Bending to his son's height, Elijah nods. "bonjour." Elijah lisps which have Charles gushing over his little French. The boy Basile brightens, repeating the word before returning to his own post.

"Dude, what's taking so lo- Oh bonjour, Mrs. Monet." Lando butchers the French, which has all 3 of them cringing, but Charles feels warmth at Lando's attempt. "Stick to English love." Charles kisses Lando's cheek, which has the Brit scuffing.

"We're getting fruit for Mama. Do you have fruit, Mrs. Monet?" Elijah ignores his two fathers bickering, with the older woman nodding, leading him to the stand. "And what have you 3 looking for fruit this morning?" She asks, lifting Elijah so he can see all his options.

"Mama has a baby. She like fruit." The little boy stares at all the different colors and shapes taking it all in. "A baby?" Mrs. Monet looks over her shoulder, smiling at the two older men, knowing how happy they are.

"Here, these are best for the baby." She puts Elijah down, packaging pears, pomegranates, oranges, mangos, and many berries. "Oh, boys! If you two are done arguing, your son is ready to pay!" Mrs. Monet calls, which has them come over to apologize to the older woman.

"The fruit I packaged is best for mother and baby." Charles's eyes grow wide, and Lando freezes, but she pats each of their cheeks. "Secret is safe with me." They smile, paying, and even Lando signs the hat for little Basile.

On the walk home, Elijah talks on and on about the baby, who can't wait for it to be a little girl wanting a sister this time. "Papa?" Charles picks up Elijah as they walk into their home, hearing the shower running.

"Yes, ducky?" Charles hums, laying out all the fruit. "Are you and Daddy going to leave when the baby is born?" Charles feels his chest tighten. "You have to drive fast, right? Even when the baby is here?" He sighs when he realizes that Elijah was talking about them driving, not…the other thing.

"No, the baby will be here when we have a break. So Papa and I will be here to annoy you." Lando teases, but Elijah doesn't smile. "No, Daddy. You have the protect Mama and baby." Charles chuckles, washing the new fruit.

"Yeah, he's your Charles." Lando frowns, looking at an exact copy of Charles. "Oh, shove it; he looks like you when he laughs." Charles grumbles, not even hearing you enter the kitchen. "yeah, well, he acts like the both of you when neither of you is here." Lando turns, seeing your little bump.

He loved seeing your bump and couldn't wait to tell everyone. "Do you ducky? You protect Mama and love her when we aren't here?" Charles asks, having never been prouder. "Yes, Papa." The boy smiled brightly. "Good job." Lando praises, eyes drinking into you as you wear a pair of Charles's boxers and Lando's button-up.

Charles slaps your hand, having seen you reach for a Mango. "Stop; Elijah has something planned. Take our needy Brit and love him while we fix this." Charles whispers, seeing the way Elijah is gathering the fruit.

Groaning, you pull Lando out of the kitchen and to the living room, letting Elijah give you his surprise. "So, went to the market?" You ask as Lando nods, pulling you on top of him, his hands rubbing into your skin. "Demanded we get your fruit? I think he might have made a friend." You gasp, so happy for your boy.

Elijah only likes being around you or your family or the other drivers. He had difficulty making friends, so hearing he might have made a new friend was thrilling.

"Kids name is Basile. He's a fan of Charles." You snort, hearing the slight rejection in Lando's voice. "Well, it's good that I'm your fan and a little lemon." He rolls his eyes, seeing you move the magnet to week 14, which means your baby was the size of a lemon.

"Surprise!" You see Elijah holding a massive bowl of different fruits with two forks. "Oh, little star! it looks so yummy!" You praise sitting up and helping your son onto the couch as he sits on Lando's lap.

"You and Papa can share; Daddy and I share one too!" Charles sits on the couch, giving you another bowl and pulling you into him. "He said he should get used to sharing since the baby will be ours too." You feel your eyes burn with tears.

Elijah was used to sharing you with Charles and Lando, but he wasn't used to sharing his Papa and Daddy; he hated when others would steal their attention. So, to hear he was working on it was music to your ears.

"Oh, my smart boy." Kissing the top of his head as he feeds Lando a piece of apple. Charles smiles, kissing your cheek; he couldn't wait to have mornings like this every day when little Lemon is born. He couldn't wait.