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theageoftheunderstatement · 2 years

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Spin: Arctic Monkeys Hit A New Gear

Written By Steve Appleford, 18/10/2022

It’s a warm, cloudless night in Los Angeles when the Arctic Monkeys step onto a festival stage at the far edge of Chinatown. They’re confident English dudes in windbreakers and leather jackets, picking up their instruments and arriving to the sound of Stan Kenton’s 1970 instrumental recording of the standard “Here Comes That Rainy Day,” a song both muted and deeply emotional, wounded and effervescent.

The sound is a clue to the state of a rock band caught at another moment of evolution, equally connected to their past, present and future, still rockers at their core after two decades, but aspiring to expand beyond that. The Monkeys are here headlining the final day of Primavera Sound, the international Barcelona-based festival making its U.S. debut in L.A., drawing 50,000 fans into the city.

The Arctic Monkeys have been at this since they were teenage mates bashing out modern guitar rock with emotion and bite, quickly growing into superstars in the UK, and festival headliners in the U.S. and everywhere else. The band’s core band members – singer Alex Turner, drummer Matt Helders, guitarist Jamie Cook and bassist Nick O’Malley – are augmented tonight by three other players. The sound is arch and sophisticated, like a next-generation Roxy Music, noisy and unruffled through clanging guitars, alluring piano melodies and lyrics wide open to interpretation.

The biggest international hits would come later in the set, but early on they share a song from the band’s new album, The Car, a shimmery funk tune called “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am.” The song is ready for the dancefloor or your nearest smoke-filled room, as Turner’s voice goes higher, if not quite falsetto, singing soulfully of a dystopian future (or dystopian present): “Freaky keypad by the retina scan…”

With a disco ball at his feet, Turner doesn’t say much between songs, but never comes off as distant, either leaning into the mic or strumming his guitar. When he does speak, the words are as opaque as his lyrics, ending one song with a teasing: “Yes, you like that? I understand loud and clear. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

Two weeks later, Turner is in the mostly deserted bar of a small boutique hotel on Hollywood Blvd., wearing an embroidered Guatemalan shirt over a faded black top. He sits at a table with a nearly empty bottle of sparkling water and a small paper coffee cup, a lick of dark hair dangling stylishly over his forehead.

As a host, Turner is perfectly relaxed and cordial, but chooses his words carefully during our interview, finding the messages he wants to convey slowly. Seeing his words in print since he was barely 20 no doubt brought him to this careful state, but he also looks pleased when you recognize one or another inspirational touchstone (Mick Ronson, Brian Wilson, etc.) in the new songs.

In town to talk up the album, the bar is a convenient meeting place. On the wall behind him is a collection of ancient class photographs, of strapping young men in school, on sports teams, all forgotten memories from the last century. “I hadn’t noticed that. Actually just been too busy making it all about me,” Turner says with a knowing laugh.

The whole band lived in L.A. for a time, but now only drummer Matt Helders remains, and between Monkeys projects is a member in good standing of Joshua Homme’s rotating crew of players and accomplices. (Which meant being recruited in 2015-16 for Iggy Pop’s Post Pop Depression.) While Turner still likes to squeeze in some quality time in the city, he now mostly bounces between London and Paris, usually accompanied by the French singer-songwriter Louise Verneuil.

A few days after Primavera, the band headed out to New York for a quick visit to premiere more songs from The Car on The Tonight Show and at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre. It’s an album The Guardian has already praised as a wide-ranging collection of “Portishead-stark noir, improbably catchy yacht-funk and … poppy bombast.”

Two decades after forming as a band of neighborhood teenagers in Sheffield, England, the Arctic Monkeys have maintained relevance as artists and hitmakers by following their own creative impulses rather than passing trends. They began as excitable rockers with flinty bad attitude and pop instincts, quickly hitting No. 1 in the UK with their anxious second and third singles, “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” and “When the Sun Goes Down.” Compare that with The Car, and the evolution to music of increasing sophistication is startling and undeniable, with Turner growing from sneering punk to multiple layers of feeling.

Historically, you might compare Turner and the Monkeys’ evolution to Bowie’s mid-’70s leap from edgy rocker Ziggy Stardust to the deeply emotional crooner of Station to Station and Heroes, and still always sounding like no one but himself. Helders began to notice a change in the vocals when Turner started working with his other project the Last Shadow Puppets, which then carried over into the Monkeys. “It was less shouty and fast and more like Walker Brothers singing. He’s leaned into that a lot more vocally. I’m like, ‘Oh wow. You’re actually a singer now,” Helders says later on the phone, laughing.

In 2022, as much as the sound has changed over time, Turner insists the core quartet is still “following our instincts, which is precisely what we were doing in the summer of 2002.” They were kids then, and songs were composed in that early stage around their abilities in the rehearsal space, designed to be played live in a small club. They now record music with no concerns about recreating the same sounds onstage, allowing their creative impulses to drive the recordings.

He’d grown up surrounded by music, his father, David Turner, a big band musician and educator who actually sat in with the Last Shadow Puppets during a 2016 set in Berlin, blowing sax on “The Dream Synopsis.” That early influence not only reached young Alex, but the friends who came over to the house, including future members of the Arctic Monkeys.

Long before he was a musician himself, Helders heard a lot of mysterious sounds from the distant past at the Turner home that most neighborhood kids were not, learning of an earlier generation’s iconic figures that definitely weren’t being written about in NME.

“When I went around to his house – which was often – big band and jazz and swing was on,” says Helders. “It has always been a powerful thing for Alex. And me too. When I first saw Buddy Rich playing drums on TV, it was before I played drums. I didn’t really understand what was happening. I was like, ‘Whoa, this is blowing my mind!’

“There’s just so much feeling when you listen to music like that,” he adds, noting their current use of Stan Kenton as intro music. “Musically it’s like a masterclass. We’re not quite there yet, but maybe it is enough to know what skill level we’d like to be at.”

The musical lessons kept coming, even as the Monkeys grew into a leading force in a new wave of British rock and pop music, with their every move documented and scrutinized.

The band experienced a career-altering revelation while working with Homme as co-producer on 2009’s Humbug, which in hindsight looms even larger in their story. Rolling out into the high desert to make that album with the Queens of the Stone Age leader opened their eyes to the freedom available to them as artists. Getting weird was something to be embraced, not avoided.

Helders says, “It was Josh who said, ‘Whatever you do in this room, it’s still you. No one can tell you it’s not you. You’re doing it.’ As simple as that sounds, it makes sense. It made us feel like, Oh, we can do whatever we want.”

They’d first met the tall, redheaded rocker backstage at a Belgium rock festival. “We heard him coming down the corridor shouting ‘Monkeys! Monkeys!’” Turner recalls with a smile. Arctic Monkeys had been open in the press about being fans of QOTSA, and now, “He’d come looking for us.”

After that encounter, Domino label co-founder Laurence Bell suggested they reach out to Homme to see if he would be interested in producing. He said yes, and guided the band through seven songs on Humbug. (Four other tracks were produced by longtime collaborator James Ford in New York City.) Looking back, Helders says their first trip with Homme to the Rancho de la Luna recording studio, way out on the edges of Joshua Tree, “felt like I was on another planet.”

“Had we not had that experience at that time, I’d question whether we would still be going now,” Turner says thoughtfully. “At that moment, it felt as if we were put in a bit of a dead end, and creatively it felt like we’d ran out of steam a little bit.”

The Monkeys eventually returned to Joshua Tree (minus Homme) and came back with the monster album of their career to that point, 2013’s AM, which reached platinum in both the UK and U.S. The songs mixed G-funk rhythms with their edgy guitar rock and Turner’s words of romance and ruin. Songs traveled from the crunchy riffs of “Arabella” to the swaggering, woozy funk of “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” Mojo called the album “exciting, audacious work,” and NME declared, “Smart, randy and touched by genius.”

The wildly enthusiastic public reaction that greeted AM didn’t lock the band into a sound, or pressure them to produce sound-alike albums. If anything, it only freed Arctic Monkeys to do as they pleased, to follow their meandering muse wherever it led them.

The band’s last album, 2018’s sci-fi conceptual Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, threw things for a loop. The Car is another step forward, unimaginable in their early days as a stripped-down rock act. Back then, the quartet were on a mission to be as new and original as they could. Helders made a point on the early records to create new beats that were flashy and technically difficult, looking to always “make this new weird thing,” he says.

“That was great for then and it matched what we were doing with the riffs and maybe the aggressiveness of the singing,” he adds. “Now I appreciate restraint and being able to play a groove in a really good way. It’s not any less fun for me, contrary to what it might look like. Even though the drumming is calm and more laid back, it’s as much fun as it is to play more showy.”

The new album’s gently urgent closing track, “Perfect Sense,” came together quickly, with strings mingling with drum beats to create a swirling Brian Wilson flavor. The Beach Boys maestro “has always had a place in my heart,” Turner says. “That’s been in the back of my mind since I was a five-year-old kid.”

The lyrics paint a murky, playful picture: “Having some fun with the warmup act/If that’s what it takes to say goodnight then that’s what it takes. … four figure sum on a hotel notepad … A revelation or your money back.”

“I suppose overall none of it makes a great deal of sense in the traditional sense,” Turner acknowledges happily. “It’s like when you’re trying to leave a party and this is like the fifth attempt. Okay, now I’m really going. That’s what it sounds like to me.”

On the album cover is a photograph shot by Helders in downtown Los Angeles, looking down at a lone car parked on a rooftop lot amid other tall buildings in 2019. The drummer is serious about photography, has published a book of pictures from the Tranquility Base sessions and shown in galleries. For that photograph, he was simply trying out a new lens on his Leica, walking around the city or shooting out his bedroom window, inspired by vivid color work of master photographer William Eggleston.

Helders liked the picture and included it with some others he shared with Turner. “He was like, Oh, wow. He kept coming back to it, like, ‘There’s something about that photo. It tells a story somehow.’” The singer eventually wrote a song inspired by it, and began thinking of the album as The Car, with that image as the cover.

On the title track, as Helders plays brushes on record for the first time, Turner sings his evocative, mysterious, disjointed lyrics: “Your grandfather’s guitar, thinking about how funny I must look trying to adjust to what’s been there all along ... But it ain’t a holiday until you go to fetch something from the car.”

Ahead of the sessions with the band, Turner wrote and recorded preliminary demo versions of the songs, written half on acoustic guitar, half on piano. He sensed where the album was headed when he landed on the instrumental section that begins the opening track “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball.” “That felt right,” he says, “and of course the words have to get on board with that.”

They recorded basic tracks for The Car in an ancient, 700-year-old house called Butley Priory in the English countryside of Suffolk. With arched windows and walls made of stone, the two-story building has recently been refurbished as an elegant venue for weddings and other events. With producer Ford, the Monkeys rented it out and transformed it into a studio.

Says Helders, “We managed to make it feel like a place you wanted to make a record.”

The idea was to somehow replicate scenes Turner had read about, of Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones camping out at a large country home, and parking a mobile recording truck outside. In the ‘70s, a truck had to be packed with recording gear: tape machine, mixing board, speakers, plus engineers and the producer, with cables running into the house.

Loren Humphrey, a frequent Monkeys engineer in recent years, had given Turner a copy of the book The Great British Recording Studios, and the singer became fascinated with its pictures of the famous Stones Mobile Studio unit, with its linoleum floor and history of recording multiple classic rock albums. Modern digital equipment has made the need for a mobile unit mostly obsolete, but the idea of recording at a home in the country stuck in his mind.

“That was kind of the dream idea, but we didn’t quite make it all the way to the linoleum floor in the truck,” he says with a grin. Band and crew instead loaded in their gear and computers and got to work. The band also lived on-site during the recording, and between sessions would gather in front of broadcasts of the 2021 UEFA European Football Championship, where England got to the final.

“That was a pretty exciting time in England then, and we were all watching the games and hanging out,” says Turner. “We hadn’t seen each other for a while and I think that got that kind of the energy of the band back together again.” Helders recalls sessions being structured around soccer viewing. “It really dictated the mood,” the drummer says. “If England had a bad game, it wasn’t going to be a good day in the studio.”

For the band, now looking back at 20 years of history, the sessions were a throwback to the Monkeys’ debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, recorded in 2005 at Chapel Studio in the countryside of South Thoresby. That album might not have happened any other way.

“If we were in a city, we would’ve never finished that record,” Helders says with a laugh. “We needed the discipline of like, ‘Okay, we need to do a song every day. We don’t want any distractions.’ We were just teenagers.”

Sessions for The Car were delayed for a year because of COVID-19 restrictions. It took time for Helders to get back to England from L.A., and he was required to arrive first so he could quarantine ahead of the rest of the band and crew. But Turner used the year to refine his songs, to experiment and explore “a few blind alleys” without concerns about time.

Later, vocals and overdubs were recorded in another house in France, where Turner picked up a 16mm movie camera and captured footage of the band at work, handing it off during his vocals. Some of those grainy color and black-and-white moments turn up in the music video for “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball.”

“I found that having the camera kind of removed me a bit from the situation and hopefully allowed a bit more space for the band to fill,” he says now of his foray into filmmaking. “It gradually transformed itself into a promotional music video, so it all happened pretty naturally.”

In London, strings were recorded at RAK Studios, not to add “sweetness” but evoke complex emotions. That final ingredient is essential to the sound of The Car, contributing to its 10 tracks a consistent personality, a bit like an old Sinatra record as arranged by Nelson Riddle.

“Those arrangements of Sinatra were definitely on when I was in the passenger seat as a kid,” says Turner, whose songwriting usually begins on piano, where he sometimes drifts towards the kind of chord structures his father played at home. “But obviously it’s not swinging quite in the way that stuff is.”

For all the willingness to slow down and use understatement along with noisy guitars, the Monkeys remain at their core a rock band. So Turner embraced the idea of using each piece only as needed, with the strings rising at one moment, then disappearing as the rock instruments roar back. With Tranquility Base, the band looked to create a consistent sound and mood from song to song, and The Car takes that a step further, sounding like a larger work rather than a collection of songs.

“I think we’ve done a better job this time with the dynamics of the whole thing, like allowing each element to have its space and come into focus and disappear when the time is right,” he says. “I felt like there had to be some caution, like the alarms going off: Don’t just go throwing the strings on top of the rock band sort of thing. Let’s try and find a way that it can sort of take turns. There was an idea before the record about splicing two things together from a totally different time and space.”

“Body Paint” captures that balance, starting gently with strings before leading to an explosive guitar piece played by guest Tom Rowley. Turner hadn’t imagined that particular crescendo when laboring over the song alone in a room, before reinterpreting it with the full band. “Having everybody there, it gives you that energy of the band you can’t really replicate,” he says, adding he welcomes the surprises.

There is also an undeniable strain of funk across the songs, which marks a different kind of blast from their past. “It did probably start with opening the drawer and finding the old wah-wah pedal again from 15 years ago,” says Turner. “I’m thinking, ‘Wow, let’s audition that again in this creative juncture.’ When we played it in rehearsal in the first place, it was exciting to sort of blow the dust off the wah-wah pedal.”

That makes The Car a record they could only have made now. The original sound and energy of the Arctic Monkeys wasn’t ready for it. They weren’t self-aware enough to have such aspirations.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do this 10 years ago, or 15 years ago,” confirms Helders. “Everyone sort of learned their instruments at the same time, at the same pace and got better. We’ve got to a place where we can make music like this.

"I think everything happened at the right time.”

#interview #arctic monkeys #alex turner #matt helders #the car era #spin 2022

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internetgremlin-writes · 2 years

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Flat Spin [Chapter Five]

Summary/Prompt: 1. A spin in which an aircraft descends in tight circles whilst remaining almost horizontal

2. A state of agitation or panic [informal]

As the only female driver on the grid, you’re fighting a constant need to prove yourself, however sometimes the line between accepting help and hand-outs is more blurred than you think

Pairing: Carlos Sainz x Female Reader

Word Count: 10,900 i sincerely hope this makes up for the wait

Warnings: smut (deep breath kids, its finally happening)

Previous Chapters: one || two || three || four

“So… when are you coming?” His voice was rich even through the crackle of the phone line. It made your insides warm and if you were in an ’80s movie, you’d have been twiddling the coiled cord of the landline phone around your fingers as you giggled down the receiver.

“What?” You couldn’t keep the laugh out of your voice.

“To Barcelona? To see me?” You liked the way he said ‘Barcelona’.

“Wait, were you being serious? I thought you were just drunk!” He laughed then, properly. It felt like he was right next to you, not thousands of miles away, already in Spain.

“Oh, Cariño, I was very drunk,” You could imagine him, lounging out somewhere in the heat, a dogged grin on his face as he thought back to a couple of nights ago in Miami. You couldn’t help yourself from shifting in your spot on your bed as you thought of it too; of the way he’d whispered in your ear and the warm weight of him on top of you. “But I meant it. Come to Barcelona early, let me be your - eh - tour guide,” you heard him snicker.

“I’ll see what I can do,”

As it turned out, you didn’t have to do very much at all. Your request to fly out to Barcelona four days early was suspiciously accepted with no complaints or questioning from Mike, but it wasn’t until you were back at headquarters after Miami that you found out why.

The week at Silverstone was strange. There was a flurry of activity and meetings around you, all of which you seemed to be blocked from. You spent most of the time there in the sim, getting the Spanish track down to perfection and setting some impressive times if you did say so yourself. At one point Max was online, and you beat him in an iRacing round, something virtually unheard of. Even the mechanics, who you usually got on well with were being surprisingly cagey around you. You figured it must be because everyone was on edge, with Barcelona being one of the tracks you tested at before the season officially started it was a popular choice for many teams to bring updates to their cars and several of your midfield rivals had announced just that. You were finally called in for a meeting, only two days before you were due to fly out to Spain.

Seb was there and you were happy to collapse into a spot beside him. A quick glance around the room told you this was not going to be fun; not a person in that room wasn’t a highly important member of the team, including all the team heads and Mike in the flesh to top it off. Any meeting led by a team principal was never fun, you thought. There was a large platter of sandwiches cut into triangles, an attempted offering of fruit and a big urn with hot water for tea and coffee.

Seb looked at you through one eye, reminding you very much of a cat who'd just had his sunny afternoon nap interrupted.

“Hello,”

“Hi Seb,” He gestured to the sandwiches that were already looking a little sad in front of him.

“I love working lunch,” you snorted, but still leant forward for a slightly stale sandwich as he wrinkled his nose.

The meeting was, unsurprisingly, boring. As you suspected, it was about the new updates being brought to the cars. Now, you liked to think of yourself as pretty smart - you’d managed to finish school with good grades alongside your early racing career, but you had nothing on the engineers who dedicated whole swathes of their lives to mastering the inner workings of formula one cars. Either way, you tried not to drift off too much and managed to gather that the updates looked good, and could give you a serious shot at the Championship.

“Now, one more thing before we go,” Mike was wrapping up and you could feel your pulse picking up as your body decided it, too, was ready to go home and snap out of the carbed-up, warm-room dormant state it had been put in. Your mind drifting to the open suitcase on your bed and if you were going to need a new bikini when you vaguely realised your name was being mentioned alongside a string of other words that when put together sounded an awful lot like missing out on upgrades.

“What the fuck?”

Mike was looking at you, a strange appeasing smile on his face which did nothing to quell your outburst - in fact, it only spurred you on. “What do you mean I’m not getting the updates I’ve just sat and listened to you talk about for two hours?”

“Y/N, you have to understand with the budget cap we can’t do everything at once-”

“But I’m in fourth, I could still get the championship this year,” you couldn’t quite keep the whine out of your tone. You didn’t understand why you'd just been told all about the car that could get you precious podiums and points for the rest of the season if it wasn't for your championship campaign.

“So Seb needs it more,” His tone reminded you of being scolded by a teacher, very clearly telling you to shut up and stop arguing, now. But I could win, you wanted to argue. You’d not been on a podium since Australia and the last two disastrous races were fresh in your mind.

“Is that why you let me take holiday next week? I’m not needed for testing because there’s nothing for me.”

“We need to adjust the sim for Seb to get a feel for the updates,” you snorted. You wanted to lash out at anyone near you, but Seb was arguing too, claiming he wanted you to have the updates over him. Clearly, it was the first he'd heard of it too.

“You know what? It’s fine. See you in Barcelona,” you snapped at Mike and walked out of the meeting.

*****

“I still don’t understand why you need to fly out so early,”

Your mum’s voice broke through your drifting mind. You were sat in the front seat with your forehead pressed against the cool glass window, halfheartedly watching a couple of raindrops chase their way down. She was driving you up to the airport and you felt a small rush of guilt when she questioned your early trip once more.

“I don’t know,” you lied, ignoring the small twinge of guilt in your chest. “Something about training in the hot weather, apparently it’s due a heatwave,” she sighed and tapped her hands on the steering wheel as you joined the back of the M25 traffic.

“How can it possibly be busy at this hour?” She mumbled to herself. Like most people in England, between complaining about the weather and the traffic, there was nothing your mum loved more. You just laughed quietly, made a lazy joke and handed her some sweets from the snack bag perched on your knees. After a brief, but teary, goodbye you were finally at the bag check-in desk with lots of promises that Monaco, where your family always flew out for the weekend, was only two weeks away.

You wondered idly through the duty-free shopping. You didn’t really need anything but it was always fun to waste time there, between buying a shitty romance book for the flight to the strangest gifts you could find or pretending you were a millionaire as you sampled the overpriced perfumes. You supposed you didn’t have to pretend about that part anymore, but you still didn’t care for a £500 bottle that didn’t even smell good.

The plane ride was only a couple of hours, so by the time you’d settled into the perfect playlist and read most of the dodgy sex scenes in your book that almost made you think about taking up yoga, you were coming into land. Luckily, it was a fairly quiet time, and you were only stopped a couple of times between the bag collection area and the taxi ranks outside. You were in surprisingly good spirits, especially considering the power of the heatwave already settling over the country had you feeling simultaneously damp and crusty by the time you’d been deposited at your hotel in desperate need of a shower.

Carlos had initially been adamant that you were to stay with him at his family’s apartment in Barcelona. There was a big part of you that desperately wanted to play house with him, but you couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t the smartest idea. Between going from seeing him now and then at race weekends to virtually living together for a week and the sheer number of fans that would be going crazy for him at his home race and itching for a glimpse of him anywhere in the city - well, you didn’t feel guilty in admitting that it all sounded a bit much. You were lucky that Katie didn’t question it when you asked her to book you into the hotel you’d be using for the race early.

You’d agreed on a meeting point with Carlos that wasn’t in the lobby of a fully booked hotel. Instead, he’d sent you the address of a street corner nearby that had a big restaurant with sweeping bay windows and a waterfall of flowers decorating the doorway. He was already asking you when you’d be ready, so you found yourself naturally hurrying along your routine whilst still spending a little more time than normal fussing around your outfit and makeup before deeming yourself ready.

You decided to keep it relatively simple for the first night, with a pretty co-ord set a stylist had given you after a photo shoot you’d done for some women’s magazine or another. You had never been bothered about the non-racing side of fame, but the free clothes that were chosen to look great on you were a nice little bonus.

Carlos was waiting on the corner for you, leaning casually against a lamp post. You felt your heart flutter in your chest as you caught sight of him and allowed yourself a moment to drink in his appearance in the golden evening sun. He looked completely at home, in white jeans and a loose-fitting blue shirt to help combat the heat that was not fading any time soon. He was looking at something on his phone, leaning back against the post with one leg crossed in front of the other and a hand resting in his pocket with comfortable ease. As you made your way towards him his head snapped up, an easy smile spreading across his face as his eyes lit up.

He greeted you with a warm hug, placing a deliberate kiss on both cheeks. It made warmth bloom throughout your body as you melted instinctively into his touch.

“I missed you,”

“You literally saw me a week ago,” you pointed out. It felt good, the way he made you feel. The way now you just seemed to click back into place when you were with him like you’d never been separated. He shrugged at your comment, grinning good-naturedly as his hand found the small of your back and applied gentle pressure to guide you forward. This time you weren't going far, as Carlos held the door into the restaurant behind you.

“I still missed you,” he told you as he sat down, an almost shy smile and a sense of finality in his tone.

“Missed you too,” the words felt a little bulky and awkward on your tongue. Admitting your feelings was something you’d never been strong at, but something about Carlos had him pulling confessions from you before you could catch yourself.

“So," you grinned at him, a sense of deja vu hitting you as you held up a menu in a language that you didn't speak. "Talk me through this," Carlos didn't even touch his menu.

“Paella. It’s not the best,” he admitted with a bashful smile, “My mother’s is the best. But for restaurants? Here is the best,” The conversation flowed easily, Carlos filling you in on his week at home as hoards of his family had arrived from across several countries for his home race.

“How are you feeling though?” Carlos had shrugged, placing the order for the pair of you as if it was second nature. You found yourself remembering your last date, and how every little thing had felt supercharged compared to now, only a few weeks later and you felt like you'd been going out to dinner with him all your life.

"Hm, it's a lot of pressure," you nodded, catching the fleeting look of something other than total confidence in his eyes. "But you know, the car is good, I'm feeling good in it. I know the circuit so well. Home races are always special,"

The restaurant was pretty quiet, and you'd been given a slightly secluded table so you figured you could afford to reach over for a moment to squeeze his hand. Carlos' skin was warm against yours, in a way you'd never really experienced before. You didn't know how someone could ignite such a comforting warmth and electric excitement at the same time. It was addicting.

He walked you back to the hotel after, your arms brushing as you fell into step with each other, a comfortable silence settle between you as you soaked up being in his company once again. The paella you'd had was perfect, leaving a satisfying fullness in your belly and you didn't care what your fitness coach would have to say about it. When it came to paying, it took a short battle and a very disgruntled Carlos for you to settle up as you'd promised back in Imola.

He walked back to the hotel with you, the warm night air charged as the city came to life before your eyes. Carlos pointed out the odd place or building, but the only thing you were aware of was the way your fingers would collide every now and then. He dropped you off at the back entrance to your hotel, standing impossibly close.

“You brought trainers?” His question took you back a little bit and you raised an eyebrow at him.

“I am not going on a run as a date,” you warned immediately. Your hatred of running was deeper than hot Spanish men with doe eyes and a wicked smile. Carlos laughed freely, running a hand through his hair.

“No running, Cariño,” he confirmed. “Wear them tomorrow, okay? I'm picking you up at eight and lots of walking,” he sent you a Charles-esque wink that had you wondering what on earth he had planned for you. You were about to ask when he swept you into a quick hug and turned to walk away.

“Okay,” you called after him. “Bye then!” Almost as if he was waiting for you to have said something, he turned. Making his way back to you in a couple of short strides and grasping your face in the palm of his hand as he pulled you into a kiss that had your stomach somersaulting.

“Until tomorrow,” he murmured against your lips, before leaving you stood dumb-struck outside of the hotel.

The next three days were quite possibly the best of your life.

Carlos collected you as early as promised the next morning with a compliment to your trainers that you'd spent 40 minutes desperately trying to find a non-paddock outfit that would match them. He informed you that you were going to be making the most of the city itself before it was infiltrated with F1 fans and you wouldn’t be able to move without a camera shoved in your face. He presented you with a breakfast pastry and a cup of coffee to have whilst you walked. He had a quiet smile as he chatted with you, but every time you asked him what he was planning for the day he would just point out something on the street ahead of you, adjust your sunglasses and completely ignore your question.

You started the morning in the Sagrada Familia which between its dramatic gothic exterior and open, high-ceilinged interior thrown into stark contrast by soft rainbows of light from the stained glass windows was the most stunning piece of architecture you'd ever seen.

“It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” you'd murmured, gazing around in awe as the multicoloured lights illuminated the spot of the marbled floor where you were. Carlos hummed in agreement, but he didn't seem to be looking at the building.

After you'd explored every crevice of the unfinished church, he took you through a food market. You loved a good market, but this was a far cry from the farmer's markets you were used to back home - these were full of bright colours and loud music and more exotic food than you could name. Carlos was beside you the whole time, explaining and translating as you idled through the various stalls, making recommendations as you went. After he helped you pick out lunch he bought you a pretty braided bracelet that reminded you of seaside holidays as a child. It was a thin strip of black with three delicate beads; two red with a yellow one sandwiched between. You could have sworn your entire body was filled with static as he gently lifted your wrist and fastened it for you, eyes burning into yours as he did.

The afternoon was much more relaxed, with a stroll through the old town where Carlos could have been a qualified history guide with the amount he knew about the city and ending the day in an impressive art museum. You’d never really had an interest in art, in truth you found the Mona Lisa media trip incredibly dull, but with Carlos standing so close, whispering beside you as he pointed out his favourite pieces you found yourself transfixed. It turned out he’d visited many areas of Spain during his childhood, his parents engraving a solid belief in an understanding of the culture within him.

When you returned back to the hotel that night you had to push down the twinge of regret at not accepting the offer to stay at his flat and the urge to pull him into your hotel room. What you did notice, however, was that already the hotel was significantly more full. You entered the lift to your room with four people in Mercedes caps that immediately asked you for photos, and the dining hall was alive with team polos.

You were on the verge of falling asleep when your phone chimed, almost making you jump. It was a text from your best friend, with bleary eyes you realised it was a photo and a smirking face emoji. You opened the photo to realise it wasn’t a photo at all, it was a screenshot.

It was a screenshot of Carlos’ Instagram story. The picture he’d posted was of the back of a girl, unidentifiable, her body bathed in the rainbow castings of the Sagrada Familia.

The following morning you found yourself having to make more of an effort to disguise yourself; wearing your hair down with a floppy sunhat, oversized sunglasses and a dress that was deliberately floaty to disguise your figure. Carlos had clearly planned ahead to avoid the crowded streets because he collected you in a VW Golf you didn’t recognise and the pair of you drove out into the beautiful countryside. Carlos handed you his phone demanding you play him some of your music. He pulled up to a quiet single-track lane that had you raise an eyebrow in question as he forced the small car up the track.

You were met by an old man who greeted Carlos in rapid-fire Spanish with a hug and a handshake as if they were old friends. He was introduced to you as Pablo, turned to you, and hugged you whilst babbling in Spanish. Carlos said something that must have explained you were English because after that he managed a broken ‘hello’ and spent the rest of the day looking at Carlos and waiting for him to translate for you. As Carlos told you, the pair of you were treated to a private tour around the extensive vineyard Pablo and his wife owned. They were an old family friend who moved to the countryside to start their own wine business. In the quiet of the gardens, Carlos’ hand slid down your wrist and tangled his fingers in yours. Your stomach bloomed with warmth as you bumped your hip against his in appreciation of the gesture.

After the tour, the pair of you were seated in a sunny spot of the garden at an iron table, where Pablo presented you with glass after glass of the best wine you’d ever had. Carlos sat opposite you, relaxed back in his seat in yet another loose linen shirt and shorts combo, sunglasses pushed up into his hair as he carefully explained each glass's tasting notes and region. Pablo’s wife also made a brief appearance as she shakily presented a platter of food paired with each glass on the table for the both of you.

On the way back you found yourself full and sleepy on spectacular wine, your head lolling to the side as you watched Carlos drive back into the city. If it wasn’t for the sun setting against his features and the gentle rock of the car maybe you’d have demanded to follow your buzz and get him to take you out. Instead, you found yourself being gently awoken by Carlos shaking your shoulder.

“We’re home, Cariño, come on,” still in your sleepy haze you happily let him lead you into the building and up the steps with little question.

It wasn’t until you awoke the next morning, still in your dress, with your head under a pillow and a blanket placed over your body that you realised you were on a sofa you didn’t recognise. The smell of coffee was wafting through, as you slowly sat up and gauged your surroundings. The lounge area was small but elegant with white walls and a terracotta tiled floor. The sofa, a matching blue armchair and a low coffee table the only pieces of furniture in the room. There was a television mounted on one wall and art that reminded you a little of a hotel room across the others. You stretched and rose to your feet, noticing that your sandals had been neatly placed at the bottom of the sofa.

You padded quietly across to the kitchen, where the site that greeted you made your breath catch in your throat. The kitchen was beautiful, white and open like the lounge with that holiday home feel you loved. There was a bot of coffee brewing to the side, and the stove was alive with activity. Two plates were set out at the island and in the middle of it all was Carlos. Correction, was a very shirtless Carlos, wearing only a pair of gym shorts and a tea towel that was thrown over his shoulder. There was a speaker playing soft jazz and he was humming along under his breath as he worked.

Your breath caught in your throat and something in your chest tightened because oh god, whatever the hell this was - it was the only thing you wanted. Carlos turned, from where you realised he was cooking bacon and eggs on the stove and caught you. His face broke into a wide smile as he called you forward to take a seat at the island.

“Good morning!”

“Hi Carlos,” he poured a cup of coffee, pushing it towards you with expectant eyes. You murmured a thanks and took a sip, your body immediately relaxing as the familiar richness of the coffee hit you. He’d turned back to his food, telling you that you had perfect timing as he began plating up the food. He presented you with a plate of bacon and eggs with a kiss on your temple, before seating himself beside you at the island.

“I thought it was time for some English,” he gestured at the plate. As much as you loved all the rich foods you got to try when travelling for races, part of you always missed the comforts of home and you found yourself more grateful than explainable for his little gesture.

“Care to tell me where I am, by the way?” You interrupted as he was explaining his newfound appreciation for morning jazz.

“My family’s flat, where I am staying,” he looked at you as if you were a little stupid.

“Hm, I figured. I meant more why,” you didn’t miss the way Carlos’ cheeks flushed with a little pink and he played with the remaining bacon on his plate.

“You fell asleep in my car,”

“You woke me up to come in here, could have done that at the hotel,” you were pushing, but you had a feeling he knew you were being goodnatured and that you wanted him to crack. He shrugged, but the small smirk creeping across his features gave him away.

“You are pushy,” he whined, but immediately gave in. “I wanted to carry you. Make sure you were safe,”

“Prince charming,” you joked, but you were blushing and there was a not-so-secret part of you that was entirely thrilled. “I promise I’m not usually that boring,” you broke the odd tension between you, pulling a surprised bark of a laugh from Carlos.

“I don’t think you could ever be boring,” he cleared your plates, stacking them neatly in the dishwasher and allowing you to admire the way the muscles in his back rippled and moved as he did so. You swallowed hard, finishing your coffee in two more sips and making your way over to him. Your hand landed on his hip, just above his waistband. Carlos was still bent over the dishwasher, but you felt him still beneath for a split second. The way his skin felt under your fingers was heavenly as you leant past him to add your cup to the top drawer. You went to move away, pleased with the small reaction your touch had, but Carlos was quicker.

He moved like lightning; before you had time to blink, he had you trapped. You were backed up against the kitchen counter, Carlos standing directly in front of you. He had one hand on your hip, putting just enough pressure on to hold you in place, not that you needed to be because there was no way you’d move. He was leaning down, his face level with yours as he watched your reaction. You averted your gaze, with little success as your view was entirely obstructed by tan skin whichever way you turned your head. Instead, you traced a soft line across his bare shoulder and down his arm, your hand coming to rest in the crook of his elbow. Carlos shuddered under your touch, reacting by gently cupping your chin and licking his lips as he dipped down for a kiss.

You decided he deserved payback for stealing you back to his flat, so right at the last second, you ducked away from him, using your strength and his distractedness to break free to the side. Carlos made a frustrated groan that melted into a laugh as he reached for you childishly.

“Come on, Cariño, no kiss for me?” He was pouting but his eyes were shining and you realised that he too was enjoying whatever this new, flirty dynamic was between you. You shook your head with a quip about stealing women away in the night. He grumbled again, but you let him catch you and leaned against his solid body as he told you the plan for your final day before the race weekend.

Carlos drove, again, despite you claiming you were more than comfortable sharing the job. He shut you down, saying, “My mother raised a gentleman,” and “I grew up on these roads,” but you didn’t really mind. Watching Carlos drive was fast becoming one of your favourite hobbies. He deposited you at the hotel with instructions of what you needed to fetch.

You didn’t question it as you grabbed the fastest shower and shave of your life, changing into your favourite little bikini and pulling yet another sundress over the top, before stuffing a bag with a towel and change of clothes. Carlos drove out of the city again, which by now was entirely swamped with Formula One fans. You had a message from Katie that the rest of the team had just landed. You turned your phone off.

Your heart rate picked up as the sea came into view, and then even more as Carlos drove you along the seafront, the beaches positively golden and the sea glittering turquoise in the bright sunshine. He pulled up in the marina car park, which had your interest piqued. And it wasn’t until he was leading you along the jetty explaining that his uncle had a boat here you realised that one of the yachts to rival Monaco was about to be your ride.

The boat was beautiful, not a massive yacht at all but you didn’t mind. It had a large wooden deck with white benches and sunbeds at one end and a large traditional wheel at the other. There was a small hatch leading to a below-deck area, but Carlos didn’t show you that immediately. He took the boat out to a fairly secluded bay, a little further up the coast from Barcelona and dropped the anchor far enough offshore that the two of you had complete privacy.

You spent the morning diving off the boat, swimming and snorkelling in the crystalline waters. The heat of the day meant that by the time you’d play wrestled-slash-made-out in the deep water enough to be starving that you didn’t even need to towel off, the water evaporating off your skin in no time. Carlos didn’t bother to pull a shirt on with his bathing trunks, not that you minded in the slightest.

You couldn’t help but be entirely touched as he carefully laid out a picnic blanket, complete with non-alcoholic wine and personal trainer-approved foods that he’d somehow still managed to make appetising.

After lunch, you spread out side-by-side on the loungers, soaking up every fraction of the warm weather you could. You were reading a book and looked up to see Carlos sitting playing chess with himself. You’d never really had someone like that in your life, where you could just do your own thing in the comfort of each other’s company. It made you feel special.

An idea jumped into your mind that made you smirk as you undid the strings of your bikini and lay on your front, leaving your whole back exposed.

“Can you get my back?” You asked innocently, gesturing to the suncream beside you. You caught Carlos’ eyes rake over your figure before you turned around, dropping your head back against the soft cushioned seat. You could feel him as he moved closer to you until you heard him pick up the bottle and settle himself beside you. Carlos understood the assignment exactly, warming the cream into his hands before gently spreading it across your shoulders and working his way down with firm but gentle movements. He leant down, pressing a kiss against the point of your shoulder.

“Done,” his voice was low in your ear, the hair tickling your cheek combined with his accent making you shiver. You hummed in appreciation, feeling Carlos’ hand which was still spread across your back move with you. He started adding to the kiss, working his way across your shoulders and then gently sweeping the hair to the side to give him access to your neck and jaw. You found it hard to keep up your act, you could feel yourself reacting to him.

When Carlos pawed at you gently you turned without hesitation, allowing him to find your lips and settle himself between your legs like he belonged there. You sighed automatically into the kiss, your hands twisting in his hair as he licked into your mouth.

“This is all I have been thinking about since that nightclub,” his voice was heavy, laced with something you weren’t used to as he kissed you between words, one hand making its way under the loosened fabric of your bikini top with a groan. “I wanted to rip that dress off you,”

Your hips bucked up helplessly in response. You didn’t even have it in you to be embarrassed at how desperate he made you, how he could have you squirming under him in a matter of minutes. Carlos seemed aware of the effect he had as he continued to kiss you at a painfully languid pace until you found his hips, gripping to the bone there and pulling him down against you. It did little to help, but feeling that he was as turned on as you felt provided some relief. He grunted into your mouth at the momentary friction.

He was playing with the waistband of your underwear idly, as if he had all the time in the world to take with you and completely ignoring the way you were positively keening for him. You reached down instinctively, finding the bulge in his shorts with no effort. Carlos managed a stuttered moan at your action, but before you could move any further he was gently sitting you up and moving you away.

You’d have been more upset if he didn’t look so pained himself.

“We shouldn’t,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair and casting a look over your shoulder. You must have pulled a face because he circled his arms around your waist and pulled you close with a sweet kiss. “I want to, believe me, please. But not before a race weekend,”

You didn’t entirely see how having sex before a race weekend could be so detrimental, but something in the back of your mind was agreeing with him.

*****

You walked into the paddock the next day feeling the most relaxed you had in your whole career. Carlos had surprised you with a lovely dinner below the deck of the boat before you were deposited back at your hotel to face the rest of the world.

You had turned your phone back on after you’d washed the salt out of your hair and pulled on your loosest pyjamas to combat the heat that had only been mounting all afternoon. You had a multitude of texts and missed calls from a myriad of Aston Martin people, all of which were deleted rapidly, apart from Seb whom you informed that you were actually okay and had just been spending a little bit of time off-grid, which wasn’t entirely a lie.

In fact, the whole media day had been the smoothest you’d ever experienced. Perhaps it was because it was Carlos’ home race and with his recent results everyone was talking about his big maiden win opportunity, so naturally, he was the centre of attention. You smiled and answered the questions in the press conference, but without the pressure of Miami and film crews taking over the paddock, you found that you felt positively free. You even were a willing participant in the strategy meetings and actually volunteered information and took notes.

The rest of the team were casting nervous glances amongst each other as if they were just waiting for you to explode, but you genuinely felt like you didn’t have an explosive bone in your body. After the practice sessions, in which you pulled a top-five result for all three with Seb close but still behind you in the newer car, you found yourself forgetting all about the upgrade drama and settling into the race weekend with business as usual.

That was, at least, until qualifying. You had a rough start to Q1 with the high heat and equally high winds catching you in a tailwind that had you lose the back end on your first fast lap and spin into the gravel. You were able to recover and even without a pit stop you set a lap fast enough to get you into Q2, which was all that mattered. With a new set of soft tyres, you were back out for Q2 and starting to feel yourself, until you were told to give Seb a tow. There was enough time for each driver to set two laps and as Seb was pushing to reach Q3 with the new package you knew you had to oblige. You gave him the tow, resulting in having to abort your first attempt. Your second attempt felt good, the car snapping up into your hands the way you liked as you put your whole focus into setting the fastest lap you could.

There was no mistake that racing was your life, but there was something about qualifying, where it was just you and the road and your absolute best that you really loved. You had a little wobble as the wind caught you in one of the final corners of the lap, but you were ready for it and threw your entire body against the wind to pull the car through. The lap felt great, so you started your cooldowns and prepared to head back to the garage for Q3.

“Great drive, Y/N, lovely lap,” your race engineer crackled over the radio.

“Yep, felt good,” you agreed.

“Good. Unfortunately you came P11, so that’s us out,”

There was a sudden bitter taste in your mouth. You’d been in Q3 for every race of the season so far, in fact, you’d even have been bold enough to say you’d sailed through the first two rounds each time with little effort. So to have a lap you had tried so hard in and having given your first attempt up for the tow felt… pretty shit. You didn’t reply to the ranking because you didn’t think you could keep the edge out of your voice.

Instead, you let them pull you back into the garage and jumped out of the car in silence. You didn’t say a word until you had your helmet off and race suit pulled down and even then it was only to find out how Seb had done. He’d gotten P8, and qualified in P7. You didn’t see Carlos for the rest of the day; he’d qualified in third and was immediately swamped by the entire of Spain wanting to know how he planned on passing his teammate Charles and Max Verstappen himself.

It was probably a good thing you were so annoyed with the P11 start that you couldn’t bring yourself to care much about the race. Seb was older than you, he was a four-time world champion and you knew the day would come when he’d once again be better than you, but you still didn’t like it. You’d been the first driver since you came to the team, with Seb’s initial plan to be a gentle two years in the Aston before retirement as a way to wind down. Except with the results the pair of you had pulled in those two years, he decided it was worth staying on. But it still felt strange. You’d never been out-qualified by your teammate, you’d never been treated as the data-collecting, obliging second driver, and you’d never not received updates as soon as they were available. You didn’t like it one bit.

Katie was annoyed at you for missing her calls. You could tell because she kept sending you emails with annoying attachments that could have easily been discussed over a meal or a cup of coffee as was your usual custom. In fact, you were glad the weekend seemed to fly by and you were strapped into your car and off on the formation lap before you had to think too much about anything.

You had a strong start to the race. You reacted quickly at lights out and gained yourself two positions by the first turn, so there was just Daniel Ricciardo between yourself and Seb. As you’d told yourself aiming for points was enough this weekend, you were already quite pleased with yourself, but you could feel that you were gaining on the orange car in front of you and within a few laps and a little bit of DRS you’d probably have been able to take him.

You started to relax a little, as you always did once you made it through the first part of the lap, or ‘First Sector Splash Zone’ as you sometimes called it for all of the pile-ups that seemed to happen in the first lap. Just as you settled yourself into the car and started to pick up the pace to really push Ricciardo, you spotted a familiar red car reversing out of the gravel. You sent a silent prayer in hopes that it was Charles, not Carlos who’d spun, or even better that you’d mistaken the flash of red for an Alpha Romeo.

With DRS enabled the McLaren was easy pickings and you’d made the overtake by the end of the fifth lap. What made your heart sink, was that you were gaining fast on Seb.

“I think I’m quicker,” you muttered down the radio. You didn’t want to be seen to be asking for team orders, but if you were already pushing for P7 there was still a glimmer of hope for a podium for you.

“Hold position,” you felt yourself deflate, but you did as you were told. You wouldn’t have minded except you were actually braking to keep out of Seb’s way and you were fighting your DRS to keep behind him.

“Guys I’m really holding back here,” you pleaded again, your stomach clenching as you did.

“Okay,” your engineer replied, which was entirely unhelpful, but the line was still crackling. “Yep, permission to fight,”

It wasn’t team orders, but it was worse. You didn’t want to make this look like a rivalry and for the first time, you realised just how lucky you’d been so far that you and Sebastian never really crossed paths on the track. But with your DRS open once more you were on his tail and coming into the next bend you had him on the outside.

You were settling into the race, setting your sights on a minimum of P5 already when something changed. Your throttle was… well you weren’t sure but it was not throttling. You were stamping on it to try and kick it back into action but you could feel the speed dropping and the familiar tightening panic in your chest.

“Problem, problem,” you reported, hoping the desperation wasn’t too clear in your voice as the car dropped even slower and you guided it outside of the track limits and let it fall to a stop in the next gravel trap. You were far enough ahead in the pack that you thought you’d be able to have a go at the old turn-it-off-and-on-again trick, but the car wasn’t responding.

“Are you okay?” Was the only correspondence you got from your engineer. You watched the blue Williams marking the back of the pack streak past you and heaved a sigh.

“Yeah,” you mumbled before disconnecting your radio and hoisting yourself out of the car.

The ride back to the pit lane sucked. You hated all the cameras pointed at you, even through the shield of your helmet, you knew they were there. You hated the way that the second you walked into the Aston Martin garage you were patted on the back and pulled into hugs and apologised to as if they hadn’t been using you as a sacrificial lamb all week.

You pulled on a pair of headphones to watch the rest of the race, which was possibly the worst idea you could have had. Carlos was in 10th, he had spun and was struggling to make his way back through the pack. Meanwhile, Leclerc had also had to retire with an engine failure and Verstappen had a 15-second lead which was only extending. In other words, Maiden win hopes were looking bleak for Carlos and his family which the cameras kept cutting to in the Ferrari garage. The race wasn’t looking good for Seb either, who seemed to be suddenly struggling with the pace and had dropped just outside of the points.

You had to leave to do your interviews, which was possibly the only good thing about a DNF. You got the media pen to yourself and were able to have a bit of a whine about the reliability issues on your car before you were allowed to head back. You stopped by an almost deserted food stall to treat yourself to ice cream in a weak attempt to lift your mood and combat the blistering heat in one go. By the time you made it back to the garage, there were only five laps left, in which you simultaneously watched Carlos fighting for his life against Hamilton for P4, and Seb with Ricciardo for one point in P10.

Carlos got P4, but Seb wasn’t so lucky. You could tell he was disappointed because he too was quiet when he came back to the garage and between the two of you the debrief was an awkward affair. The pair of you were a united front of grim faces against a panel of apologetic engineers. Seb refused to volunteer a word of information, and you just shrugged and insisted that your opinion didn’t matter if your car was going to throw itself off a bridge less than a quarter of the way into the race. The second it was over Seb was up and out, but that wasn’t your main concern.

For three days all you’d listened to was Carlos talk about how badly he wanted to win at his home race, about how special it would be for it to be his first win with all of his family and loved ones surrounding him. Your heart was aching for him, and when you spotted the back of his polo shirt heading towards the driver’s exit, you didn’t hesitate in following him. After all, you’d finished all your media duties well before the race had even finished.

You weren’t entirely sure that he would have gone back to the apartment, but he wasn’t the type to lose himself in some seedy bar to drown his sorrows after a bad race. In fact, you weren’t even sure if he would want you to be chasing after him like this, but you were already pulling into the apartment’s garage and you’d already seen a valet walking away from a Ferrari, so you figured he had to be there.

With your heart in your mouth and not so much as a fraction of a plan, you bounded the stairs to the third floor and rapped on the door, hard.

You’d barely stepped through the door when he pulled you into a crushing hug, his face buried in your neck. You could feel his hot breath on your shoulder and his hair brushing your cheek and you had to force yourself to clear your mind. He needed you, so you were going to be there for him.

He didn’t let go, and when you tried to pull away a fraction he made an uncharacteristic noise in the back of his throat and tightened his arms around your waist, pulling you so were flush against him once more.

“Okay,” you returned the squeeze and stood still, letting him take whatever he needed from you. You’d never really seen Carlos like this before. Frustrated yes, disappointed yes, irritated yes. But never like this; he seemed positively heartbroken, and had been since Saturday really. There was still a simmering in your stomach, you hadn’t forgotten about your own loss with no points at all, but when he was like this it was all too easy to forget yourself. You felt him finally step back, and prepared yourself to release him, but he kept his grip on you, moving the pair of you backwards.

He only let go of you to sit down on the sofa and even then the second your bum hit the material he was back, his body turned to you and pulling you close so you mirrored him. His arm draped across the back of the couch, fingers just running along the exposed skin of your neck. His other hand was on your thigh, making sure you were sat so close that the knees of your crossed legs were pressed against his, one of which was tucked underneath him and the other hanging down to the floor. He was watching you, a look in his eye you didn’t recognise.

The downside of Carlos’ Disney-cartoon eyes was that when they were sad, they were devastating. He looked like he’d just found out the world was ending, and not even the proud slope of his nose or the usual upturn of his lips could save him. You hoped you didn’t look like you were pitying him, because you weren’t. You felt his pain last year - you’d been tipped to take your first win at your home track of Silverstone, only to crash out in lap seven. And now he was looking at you like that and you could have sworn your heart was breaking for him. You sighed heavily, your mind grappling to find the right words. You didn’t know him like that yet, to know what he needed to hear or how he needed you to be in moments like this. It made your chest ache because knowing what to do for him was all you wanted.

“I’m so sorry-” he shook his head, unable to meet your eye for a second. Okay, so no apologies. You sat in the pause, should you try again? Or wait for him? He was still looking at the foot tucked under his thigh, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“It’s just another race, no?” The way he was looking at you gave him away, his eyes boring deep into yours, searching you for an answer you didn’t have.

“You don’t have to pretend-” you tried but he was shaking his head again, a humourless laugh escaping him.

“A personal best for the track,” you didn’t speak that time, just letting him lead you. “My car felt wrong, also, but I finished,” you hadn’t known that “I made all those places back, I fought Hamilton,”

“You drove incredibly,” he shrugged.

“I let everyone down still,” his words cut through the air.

“Don’t say that,” but you could see it in him, he’d been punishing himself all afternoon and he wasn’t going to stop now. His voice was thick when he spoke again, his accent coming through heavier than you’d ever heard it.

“I want to make everyone proud. Of me, yes, but also of Ferrari and Spain and to be a fan. But it’s not enough,” your hand came to rest on his cheek, and he leant into your touch. You released a silent breath you’d been holding because part of you was getting worried he’d not want you that close. He covered the hand on his cheek with his own, and his eyes met yours again, that look you couldn’t quite decipher back in them.

“I want to make you proud,”

Your heart skipped a beat, and then picked up its pace. That was - well, he’d never said something like that to you. You felt like you were on fire under his gaze, needing a second for the thoughts to come rushing back into your head and allowing your mouth to work again.

“Carlos, I am proud of you,” he looked up at you with disbelief, his hand still cupping yours on his cheek, where your thumb was gently stroking his five o’clock shadowed cheek. “All the time, no matter what you think of yourself,”

He sighed again, the intensity still burning in his eyes, but it was different.

“I didn’t imagine it to go like this,” he looked away again, mumbling the words to himself more than you. Before you had time to question it, he grabbed your face and pulled you into a searing kiss.

No one had ever kissed you the way that Carlos kissed you then, the desperation, the disappointment, the frustration all bleeding into it and setting you alight.

You reacted immediately, running your fingers through his hair and melting into his touch. Everything you’d been feeling for the past week, fuck it, for the past five weeks since he’d sat in your hotel room in Imola, suddenly came rushing back to you and settling as a weight in your lower stomach. He groaned against your lips, and you responded with ease, opening your mouth to let him lick inside. The feeling sent a shiver down your spine. Part of you couldn’t help but feel a little bit pleased, because maybe you weren’t good at comfort, but you were damn good at kissing and if that’s how he wanted to forget this mess, well, you were more than eager to be his partner.

You used his hair to stabilise yourself, earning a thick grunt from him as you tensed, hoisting yourself forward and into his lap, the need to feel him closer overwhelming. The kiss was growing feverish, breathing into each other’s mouths as both of you refused to move away. He found your hips and tightened his grip, shifting the pair of you with ease so he could sit properly on the couch, leaning back against the cushions with both feet firmly on the floor to ground himself. You took advantage of the new position, your chest pressed right against his and testing out a roll of your hips, enjoying the delicious way your crotch rubbed right over his. His groan was higher pitched than you expected, his neediness betraying him and you loved it. His hands tightened on your hips again, forcing you back down, guiding you as you rolled again, allowing you to feel the increased friction as he hardened beneath you.

Your heart was hammering in your chest as you moved your hips the same way, Carlos letting go when you established a steady rhythm, leaving you to work away as his hands roamed freely. The friction created, over no less than two pairs of jeans, was enough to already have you soaked; the familiar sensation growing between your legs as you became hungrier for more. He slipped under the material of your team polo with another sigh in your mouth as his fingers danced up and down the soft skin of your torso and then he pressed his palms flat against your bare skin as if he couldn’t quite believe there was more of you to feel. You moved, finally breaking the heated kiss as you found his stubbled jaw.

“No,” it was a plea more than a demand.

You didn’t know what he didn’t want, so you just pulled back and stared at him in confusion. He simply leant forward, capturing you in yet another kiss. Okay, you thought, I can get behind this and you kissed him back with equal vigour, pulling his full bottom lip between yours and gently dragging it back through your teeth, at the same time as you pressed your hips down. Carlos hissed, his fingers digging into your soft flesh for a second as he steadied himself. And then he was back at it, kissing you like you’d disappear if he didn’t, playing with the hem of your shirt as he did so. He was tugging at your shirt as the kiss became messier, all teeth and tongues and open mouths in the best way. He bunched the material in his hands, and then dragged them painfully slowly up your body so you felt his knuckles drag along the length of your torso. If that wasn’t enough to make you shiver, having to almost force him away from your mouth so you could pull back and pull the polo over your head was certainly enough to do it.

He watched in awe as you took over for him, stretching up as you finished the job and threw it into a corner of the room, and before he could move closer you followed suit with the sports bra. Carlos’ eyes were blown wide, his lips swollen and hair a perfect mess. He looked unreal beneath you as he was watching your breasts swing free in rapture. Your moment of appreciation was broken when in a blink of an eye he’d sat up, his own top yanked over his head and mouth catching yours in a cheeky kiss before you had time to see him. You could feel his smile against you, and for the first time you properly relaxed into him, so pleased you’d managed to draw one out of him when he was so upset moments before.

His skin was so warm against yours, the direct contact feeling like the most natural thing in the world. You could have stayed there, snuggled into his arms as you kissed him into oblivion forever. Carlos, however, had other plans. You’d stopped moving against him in your distraction, so he bucked his hips up against you, allowing you to feel how badly he was straining for more. You couldn’t stop the whine that slipped from your lips or the heat between your legs that was burning to the point of distraction in itself. Your hands ghosted across his shoulders, determined to commit his body to your memory, working your way down his arms and then back up, noting the way he shivered as you thumbed along his collarbones and then down. His chest was smooth, allowing you to easily slide your palms down his pecs, your fingers deliberately catching his nipples as you went past, just to see his reaction.

You’d seen his abs in many a picture, but to feel them beneath your touch was a different thing entirely, earning him a small moan as you finally got to appreciate him properly. And then you were back on the rough fabric of his jeans, your knuckles brushing against the small gathering of hair just above, toying with the button as if you were waiting for something. His hands mirrored yours, poised at the same place on your own jeans. He still didn’t break the kiss, instead, surging up to pull you deeper, attacking you with renewed energy as his fingers slipped beneath the button to pop it open. You jumped into action undoing his jeans and pushing them to the side, unable to stop yourself from pressing your hand flat against his underwear and enjoying the way he bucked into you with a heavy breath just graced with sound from a catch in his throat.

And then you really did have to pull away because you had to stand up to kick your jeans off. Nevertheless, Carlos complained about the loss of contact. You moved as quickly as possible, glad that he was distracted with removing his own, because taking jeans off has never, ever, been achieved in a sexy manner. When he was done he looked up, his breath catching in his throat as he saw you, standing naked in front of him except for the thin strip of soaked material that made up your underwear. He was a sight himself, his now bare thighs spread on the couch, his straining bulge on full display for you beneath tightly fitted boxers.

“Cielo,” you didn’t need to know what he said, because it was all in the way he was looking at you like you were simply heaven on earth. “Take it off,” he gestured to the last remaining garment on your body. You did as you were told, hooking your thumbs into the waistband and slowly dragging your underwear down your legs, not breaking a second of eye contact with him, enjoying the way he gulped when you playfully flicked the discarded item at him.

And then you were back on his lap, the friction ten times better as he held you in yet another bruising kiss, his hands mapping out every fraction of your new body as you rocked shamelessly against him, your desperation for him reaching a boiling point. In a moment of abandon you reached down and understanding your meaning Carlos lifted his hips, allowing you to shimmy his boxers away from his hips and then there you were, the pair of you totally exposed to each other. The tension building in you had you squirming. You knew you wouldn’t make it through any more teasing, your need for him entirely overwhelming. He pulled away from you, his eyes scanning your face in earnest, fighting the urge to drop his head back as he felt your small hand wrap around him.

“Do I need-”

“I’m on birth control,” he nodded, rewarding you with a sweet kiss, but before you could deepen it he backed off once more.

“You’re sure you want to..?” You moved the hand that was pressed between you, allowing him to feel the wetness that had been gathering glide across the head of his dick. He gritted his teeth, but held eye contact, determined to get an answer out of you. You rolled your eyes playfully at him.

“I really want to,”

With that, he nodded, his hands just resting on your hips as you lifted yourself up, and then sank down onto him.

He was bigger than you’d anticipated, needing to stop to collect your breath as you adjusted to the new feeling, the air felt like it had been punched out of your lungs. Carlos was panting, taking deep breaths that gave small sounds on the exhale as he did his best to collect his thoughts and sit still. Even his breathing was creating enough movement that you could feel it, every little brush sending tingles up your spine and before you could stop yourself you ground down onto him. That seemed to do it, Carlos throwing himself at you in a kiss that took your breath away as his hands began to gently guide you up, and then back down onto him. His arms came up to wrap around the small of your waist, his palms resting flat against your sides as he kissed you like you were his last breath.

You found yourself building rhythm quickly, grinding against him as you moved. There was already a tightening sensation building that you couldn’t help but chase and with Carlos unable to stop his hips from lighting up slightly to meet yours as they came down, allowing him to bury himself as deep within you as possible, you knew you weren’t far off. You were still kissing, technically, mouths opened against each other in ecstasy, you greedily swallowing every sound he made. He was cursing in Spanish and his breath hot on your face was working for you. When your hands came up to thread through his hair as you slightly changed your angle of movement you felt him shudder.

“Shit,” his voice was strained, the change in pitch going straight through you as you realised how hard he was working for you. “If you do that it’s not going to be much longer,” it was the hottest thing you’d ever heard. He couldn’t stop his hips from bucking up into you, picking up the speed and you let him, adapting to his pace as he grunted, his head falling against your shoulder as he tensed. The new angle was sending shockwaves up your spine with every thrust, and there was a white heat building that was stealing the breath from your lungs, leaving you gasping and desperate as his lips worked around your chest.

“I want to make you-”

“I’m close,” you were, in fact, too close to let him finish his sentence.

You felt like your body was splintering, the room suddenly stifling. The only thing you could focus on was the feeling of Carlos inside of you, and before you could stop yourself you grabbed his face, pulling him into a rough kiss. The second you felt him push back against your mouth you were gone, a high-pitched moan signalling the start of your orgasm as your hips stuttered, moving in a slower, harsher rhythm as you contracted around him, your vision whiting out as you let the explosion work through your body, making your toes curl as you came with a force you’d never experienced before. Carlos groaned against your mouth, his arms holding you fast as he rutted up into you, finally letting himself fall over the edge with you.

For some reason, it reminded you of the interior of the Sagrada Familia.

He didn’t loosen his hold on your body. When you’d started to return to a more normal breathing pattern he pressed a soft kiss to your lips, before pulling back to rest his forehead against yours with a satisfied smile. He was still inside of you, the sweat you were both coated in rapidly cooing but you didn’t care. You could have sat in his arms like that for hours. He kissed you again, soft and sweet and yet somehow still all-consuming. He had a small, dazed smile and his eyes were shining at you as he pulled away and shook his head as if he couldn't quite get his head around what had just happened.

"How long I've wanted this… you have no idea," he whispered with a gentle smile, his forehead pressed against yours as he held you close.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read Chapter Six Here

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Cielo = heaven

hello and welcome to iggy gets writers block and then provides a mammoth chapter because she feels bad. It's also 2am and i hit 2k followers yesterday, lost my mind and immediately got inspired to finish this chapter lmao

i might split this into two chapters further down if people feel like that would be a nicer read... let me know!

anyway this was pretty much done for ages but i was stuck on the three day date in Barcelona bc I've never been and i had no idea what was even there to do. i hope it's not too shabby and you guys liked that part of this chapter

as per usual feedback is always appreciated!!! and thank you guys so much for all of your patience and all of the love I've been getting in the gap between chapters, it seriously means the world <3

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#carlos sainz jr #carlos sainz smut #carlos sainz #carlos sainz x reader #carlos sainz imagine #flat spin #formula one #f1 #barcelona gp 2022 #spanish gp 2022

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