Two months postpartum felt like living in a beautiful blur. Your world revolved around late-night feedings, soft cries, and the intoxicating newborn smell of your daughter. Charles had been a rock through it all , waking up at 3 a.m. without complaint, cradling her tiny body against his bare chest, singing lullabies in French while swaying back and forth in the dim nursery light.
You were still adjusting, your body healing and your emotions unpredictable. Which was why, when you stared at the two pink lines on the bathroom counter that morning, you felt your knees buckle.
You weren’t supposed to be able to get pregnant this soon. At least, that’s what everyone said.
By the time Charles padded into the kitchen later, hair messy, still wearing his Ferrari hoodie, you were sitting stiffly at the table with the baby monitor beside you. He placed your daughter’s empty bottle in the sink and immediately noticed your expression.
“Mon amour?” His brows furrowed as he approached. “Why do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost?”
Your hand trembled as you slid the test toward him.
He blinked down at it. Then blinked again.
“…Is this what I think it is?”
You nodded, lips pressing together nervously. “Positive.”
Silence stretched for a heartbeat. Charles’ eyes darted from the test to you, then to the baby monitor where soft coos crackled through the speaker.
“…But… we just had one,” he whispered, voice laced with shock and awe.
“I know,” you breathed out, tears pricking your eyes. “I didn’t even think it was possible this soon, but—”
A sudden laugh cut you off. You stared at him, bewildered. Charles was laughing so hard he had to cover his face with both hands.
“Charles! Why are you laughing?” you asked, half-offended.
He crouched in front of you, grin splitting his face. “Because we are insane! Two babies under one year old!” His hands cradled your face gently, thumbs brushing your cheeks. “Mon Dieu, YN… I’m so happy.”
Your lip trembled. “Really?”
“Really,” he promised softly, kissing your forehead. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll figure it out. Even if I never sleep again.”
A tiny cry came from the monitor. Charles glanced at it, grinning. “Guess I should start training for double duty now, no?”
You laughed, wiping your eyes. For the first time that day, it didn’t feel scary. It felt like love — chaotic, exhausting, perfect love.
The Monaco paddock was always chaotic, but today felt different. You could feel the tension in the air as you walked past the Ferrari garage, hearing snippets of whispered conversations and catching sideways glances from the media personnel.
The familiar scent of rubber and fuel that usually brought you comfort now seemed to mix with something more toxic – speculation and judgment.
"...just a distraction..."
"...PR stunt..."
"...affecting his performance..."
"...can't focus with her around..."
Your stomach twisted. The headlines had started appearing after Charles' podium in Barcelona last weekend. What should have been a moment of celebration had turned into a big thing of speculation, with certain journalists suggesting your relationship was the reason he hadn't secured pole position instead of just a podium.
The fact that the Ferrari's pace genuinely hadn't been there for pole seemed irrelevant to them. You'd seen the social media posts, the opinion pieces, the "expert" analyses of how Charles' racing line had changed since you entered his life – as if your presence somehow affected the physics of his car.
You adjusted your Ferrari team pass, a movement that had become almost nervous lately. Eight months into your relationship with Charles, and this was the first time you'd faced such intense scrutiny. Sure, there had always been paparazzi photos and social media speculation, but this felt different – more personal, more accusatory.
You thought back to the previous night, how Charles had held you close in his apartment, promising that it would all blow over soon.
"They're just looking for stories," he'd said, his fingers tracing patterns on your back. "They do this every season. Remember when they said Fernando was too old? Or when they claimed Max had lost his edge after settling down? It's all nonsense."
But standing here now, under the weight of dozens of judgmental stares, his words felt distant. You clutched your coffee cup tighter, the warmth seeping into your palms providing little comfort.
The same coffee shop where you and Charles had first met – where he'd literally crashed into your life, sending your original drink flying all over your favorite shirt. The memory usually made you smile, but today it felt like ammunition for those claiming your relationship was somehow created by PR teams.
You were about to duck into the Ferrari hospitality area when a microphone was thrust in your face. The reporter – one you recognized from a particularly nasty article last week – wore an expression of barely concealed hostility. Behind her, several other journalists gathered like sharks sensing blood in the water.
"Is it true that Ferrari PR orchestrated your relationship with Charles Leclerc to improve his public image after his difficult 2024 season?" The reporter's voice was sharp, accusatory. "Sources suggest the timing was very convenient. And what do you say to fans who believe you're compromising his focus on the championship?"
Your heart pounded. The memory of your first real meeting with Charles flashed through your mind – how he'd accidentally spilled coffee on you in that little Monaco café, how he'd insisted on buying you a new shirt, how you'd ended up talking for hours about everything except Formula 1.
How he'd been so nervous asking for your number that he'd nearly knocked over a second coffee. How your first date had been at a tiny restaurant far from the glamorous spots he usually frequented, because he wanted somewhere quiet where you could really talk. Nothing about it had been orchestrated or planned.
Before you could respond, a familiar voice cut through the air like a knife.
"That's enough." Charles' tone was ice-cold, nothing like the warm, playful voice you were used to. He stepped between you and the reporter, his usually gentle features set in hard lines. "You can question my driving. You can criticize my strategy calls. But you do not get to fabricate stories about my personal life or harass the woman I love."
The reporter stumbled back, but pressed on. "But Mr. Leclerc, your qualifying performances since beginning this relationship—"
"Have nothing to do with his relationship," Max Verstappen's Dutch accent interrupted as he appeared beside Charles. The Red Bull driver crossed his arms, looking thoroughly annoyed. "Maybe focus on the actual racing instead of making up stories? Charles has been driving better than ever – or did you miss the battle we had in Barcelona? Because I certainly haven't forgotten how hard he made me work for that win."
"The media's treatment of partners in this paddock has always been disgraceful," Lewis Hamilton added, joining the growing circle of drivers. His voice carried the weight of experience, of having seen this pattern repeat too many times. "We're here to race, but we're also human beings with real relationships. This needs to stop. The constant scrutiny of our personal lives, the baseless accusations – it's not journalism, it's harassment. I've seen too many relationships strained or broken because of this kind of pressure, and it's unacceptable."
Charles' hand found yours, squeezing gently. The gesture said everything words couldn't – I'm here, I've got you, we're in this together. You squeezed back, drawing strength from his presence, from the familiar calluses on his palm, from the subtle way his thumb stroked your skin.
"For the record," Charles addressed the now-silent group of journalists, his voice carrying the quiet authority he rarely showed outside of the cockpit, "my relationship is not up for discussion. My performance this season? Six podiums, two wins. If that's what you call being 'distracted,' then maybe I should have been distracted years ago."
His accent grew slightly stronger with emotion, something that only happened when he was truly passionate about what he was saying. "And since you're so interested in timing, let me tell you about timing. The timing of meeting someone who makes you want to be better, who supports you through the hard days, who understands the pressure and still loves you anyway – that's not something any PR team could orchestrate."
A few chuckles rippled through the crowd. Even Lando Norris, who was passing by, couldn't help but grin.
"Mate, if anything, she's made you faster," Lando called out. "Remember when you were single and finished P4 in Saudi? Dark times, dark times indeed. Besides, have you seen them together? If that's PR, then I need to fire my entire media team."
You couldn't help but smile as the tension broke. Charles turned to you, his green eyes soft again, the protective anger melting into that familiar warmth that made your heart skip. A strand of his dark hair had fallen across his forehead, and this time, you didn't resist the urge to brush it back. His eyes darkened slightly at your touch, and before you could process what was happening, he pulled you close.
The kiss wasn't planned or polished for the cameras. It was real and a little messy and perfect – the kind of kiss that said everything words couldn't. His hands cradled your face with the same precision he used on the steering wheel, but so much more tender.
You could feel his heart racing against your palm where it rested on his chest, could taste the mint from his morning coffee, could hear the surprised murmurs and camera clicks around you. But none of it mattered, because Charles was kissing you like you were the finish line he'd been racing toward all his life.
When you finally pulled apart, his forehead rested against yours. "Je t'aime," he murmured, just for you. "Let's get some coffee before practice? There's that little place around the corner... unless you're worried I'll spill it on you again?" His playful smile was back, the one that had made you fall for him in the first place.
As you walked away, his arm protectively around your waist, you could hear Carlos Sainz expertly deflecting the remaining reporters with his characteristic charm. "My teammate's relationship? Why don't we talk about the new upgrades instead? They're much more interesting, I promise you. Or we could discuss how Charles has actually improved his tire management this year – which, by the way, happened after he met her, so maybe we should be thanking her?"
The paddock might be a pressure cooker of speculation and drama, but in moments like these, it felt more like a family – one that protected its own. Even Pierre Gasly, passing by with his race engineer, gave you a supportive nod. "They're just jealous," he said loud enough for the lingering journalists to hear. "Charles is driving better than ever, and they can't stand that their narrative doesn't fit."
Later that afternoon, you watched from the Ferrari garage as Charles attacked the Monaco streets with precision and passion. Each sector time flashed green, then purple. The garage held its collective breath as he crossed the line for his final qualifying lap.
"Pole position, pole position!" his race engineer's voice crackled over the radio. "P1, Charles, P1! Absolutely magnificent lap!"
In parc fermé, he pulled you into another kiss, this one full of adrenaline and joy and full of love. His race suit was damp with champagne from the celebrations, but you didn't care. This was your Charles – not the media's version, not the speculation's target, but the man who had stolen your heart in that coffee shop and continued to amaze you every day.
"See?" he whispered in your ear, still holding you close. "You're not a distraction. You're my strength. My lucky charm. My everything."
The next day's headlines would focus on his blistering lap time, his masterful sector three, his perfect strategy. The negative articles seemed to vanish in the face of his success, though you knew they might return. But it didn't matter anymore – not when you had Charles, not when you had the support of the entire paddock family.
And if anyone still thought you were a distraction, well, the trophy sitting in Charles' Monaco apartment would beg to differ.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: After an intense weekend at the Chinese Grand Prix, Athena boards Charles’ jet on the way to Monaco. Far from the cameras, Ferrari, and the constant pressure of the paddock, the flight becomes the place where long-kept secrets finally begin to crack. Between teasing, confessions, and chemistry impossible to ignore, Charles makes it clear he is tired of hiding what he feels. In Monaco, passion and vulnerability collide, forcing them both to face a decision that could change everything on — and off — the track.
Words: 7.9K
Themes: engineer!reader x driver!charles leclerc, secret lovers, coworkers to lovers, forbidden romance, paddock dynamics, formula 1 setting, rich boyfriend energy, touch-starved, jealousy-free relationship, emotionally constipated man in love, power couple energy, private jet to monaco trope, “we should stop hiding”.
The private jet is already there, waiting for us with the door open and the stairs lit up against the private runway. Away from the cameras, the paparazzi, and the non-stop chaos of the paddock, the silence of the night feels almost weird after an entire weekend surrounded by engines, radios, and crowds.
Charles heads in first, like he always does when he wants to make sure I’m right behind him.
And I am.
The second I step into the cabin, I let out one of those long sighs you don’t even realize you’ve been holding in all day.
The cabin is huge and sleek, glowing with low, warm lights. Everything is spotless. Light leather seats, a small table set with water and fruit, the bar discreetly stocked. It’s quiet luxury. The kind of place that seems to exist only for people who are used to never actually resting.
Charles takes off his watch before he even sits down.
A simple move.
But I know that move well.
It’s his way of saying the day is over.
That Charles Leclerc, Ferrari driver, can disappear for a few hours.
He drops his shoulders, undoes the top button of his shirt, and flops into the wide window seat, closing his eyes for a second like he’s finally back in his own skin.
I just watch it all in silence.
Then, I kick off my sneakers without a second thought and shove them into the corner with my toe, crashing into the seat next to him like I’ve just survived a war.
Charles opens his eyes instantly.
And he gives me that lopsided grin he always gets when I effortlessly tear down all the elegance around us.
“Finally, no cameras.”
His voice is low and playful, heavy with relief.
I lean my head back and cross my legs.
“No radios. No team principals. No journalists.”
I hold up a finger, adding:
“No Frédéric spawning out of thin air.”
Charles lets out a real laugh.
The short, warm kind you almost never hear in the paddock.
“He does have a talent for that.”
“He literally materializes,” I reply. “I swear, one time I heard his name and he appeared behind me in less than five seconds.”
Charles laughs again, shaking his head.
“That is terrifyingly possible.”
The plane starts taxiing down the runway, and for a few seconds, neither of us says a word.
Not because we have nothing to say.
But because that silence is just too comfortable.
I sink deeper into the seat, feeling for the first time all weekend like I can actually breathe without thinking about telemetry, tires, radio, or headlines.
Charles watches me with this quiet, focused look.
No public mask.
No "press-trained" eyes.
Just him.
“You’re exhausted,” he says.
“I’m just over it.”
“At least you’re still beautiful.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Careful. Too many compliments might ruin your 'tough driver' image.”
“My image takes a huge hit whenever I’m around you.”
He says it lightly, but his eyes linger on mine a second too long.
And that always makes my heart skip a beat.
The plane speeds up for takeoff.
I instinctively grab the armrest.
Charles reaches out his hand, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I look at his hand.
Then at him.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“You’re welcome, mon amour.”
I slide my hand into his.
His fingers close slowly, firm and warm.
As the jet leaves the ground, I feel myself pushed back into the seat.
But what really throws me off is the subtle smile Charles gives me while he keeps holding my hand — as if, finally, in here, there’s nothing left to hide.
━━━ ✦ ━━━
The seatbelt sign turns off a few minutes after takeoff.
The plane is steady now, soaring above the city lights, and the cabin feels wrapped in this rare kind of peace. No radios, no voices in our ears, no people rushing in and out every minute.
Just us.
I’m still holding Charles’s hand when I remember the article I’d saved earlier.
I let go of his fingers just to grab my phone and quickly pull up the post-race headline — the one talking about the intense podium battle, Ferrari’s strategy, and how perfectly Lewis and his engineer were synced up.
I smile to myself.
Then I forward it to Olivia with a quick text:
You’re gonna want to read this.
Charles leans back and watches me, looking relaxed but way too attentive to pretend he’s not interested.
“Still looking out for her?” he asks.
I look up.
“Always.”
I set the phone in my lap and add, totally chill:
“Especially since she finally hitched a ride on Lewis’s plane.”
Charles lets out a short laugh, shaking his head.
“Finally.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“Don’t even start.”
“I’m not starting anything,” he says, acting way too innocent to be true. “It just took you two months to get there.”
I laugh and sink deeper into my seat.
There’s no denying it.
Watching Olivia and Lewis throughout the season is like watching two people trying to ignore something the entire paddock has already figured out.
The lingering looks.
The way he always listens for her voice on the radio.
The way Olivia gets way too serious whenever his name comes up.
And how she acts like she couldn't care less right after.
“She’d deny it until she was eighty if no one gave her a little nudge,” I say.
Charles turns to me, looking amused.
“You literally poke and prod her to get her to accept it.”
“And I’d do it again.”
“I know.”
He gives me that lopsided grin he only uses when he’s genuinely entertained.
“But it was her call in the end.”
I nod.
“It was. And I like that.”
I stay quiet for a few seconds before adding,
“She deserves to stop treating everything like a logistics problem for five minutes.”
Charles lets out a low chuckle.
“Lewis Hamilton as an emotional fix. That’s a new one.”
“Don’t overdo it.”
“You think I didn’t see his face when she almost said no?”
I turn toward him.
“You saw that?”
“Athena, I’m standing right there.”
I start laughing.
Of course he saw.
Charles notices way too much when he wants to.
“He’s already made up his mind before he even asks,” he goes on. “He’s just waiting for her to say yes.”
“And she almost ruins it by trying to be polite.”
“She’s Spanish and complicated.”
“She’s Spanish and traumatized.”
“Even worse.”
I shake my head, smiling.
“But you agree with me, don’t you?”
Charles doesn’t even hesitate.
“Completely.”
He takes my hand again, interlacing his fingers with mine.
“It’s obvious they’re into each other.”
He says it simply.
Like it's a cold, hard fact.
“They just needed to stop acting like nobody noticed.”
I let out a satisfied breath.
“If it’s up to me, she’s gonna land in Monaco with all her guards down.”
“If it’s up to me,” Charles replies, pulling my hand toward his lips, “she’s gonna land happy.”
He kisses my knuckles, taking his time.
The move makes me smile instantly.
“You’re actually really sweet sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Charles pulls an eyebrow up.
“You’re the one who gets on my plane.”
“You’re the one who invites me.”
“You’re the one who comes.”
I pull my hand back just to mess with him.
He grabs it again immediately.
Outside, the night is still above the clouds.
In here, surrounded by comfort, chemistry, and the realization that two different stories are changing at the same time, I think that maybe some emotional nudges really are necessary.
The cabin gets even quieter as the plane gains altitude.
The lights are low, the city is a distant blur under the clouds, and that rare kind of calm starts to fill the space between us.
Charles is still holding my hand.
No rush. No need to even look at it.
As if touching me is so automatic now that it doesn't even require his attention.
His fingers play distractedly with mine, sliding slowly between my knuckles, tracing small, repetitive movements that seem way too simple to have the effect they do.
But they do.
Every single time.
He’s looking out the window when he speaks, his voice low—almost too casual for how heavy the sentence is.
“Love,” he says, eyes lost in the window.
“Yeah?” she answers, softly stroking his hand.
“We don’t have to hide forever, you know?”
I turn my head toward him instantly.
Charles keeps looking out the window.
But I know that tone.
He’s being serious.
It’s not a tease. It’s not charm. It’s not just something he’s throwing out there between jokes.
It’s an idea he’s been carrying around for a while.
“Charles...” My voice comes out more cautious than I meant it to.
“You’re a Ferrari driver.”
He finally turns to face me. “I know.”
“You don’t get it.”
“I get it perfectly.”
“No, you get it in parts,” I fire back. “You’re a walking headline.”
He lets out a little huff of a smile.
“That wasn't a compliment.”
“It wasn't supposed to be.”
I take a deep breath before going on.
“I’m a Ferrari engineer.”
I point to myself.
“And I love the peace we have.”
I really do.
I love the hidden hands in empty hallways. The low-key meetings in hotels. The stolen glances in the paddock.
The freedom that only exists because nobody knows.
I love having something that’s just ours in a world where everything turns into a headline.
But that’s not enough…
Charles watches me in silence for a few seconds.
No irony. No joking around. Just focused.
Then he gives my fingers a little squeeze.
“I love you.”
The words hit me in a way that’s annoyingly direct.
No fluff. No buildup. No escape route.
Silence falls between us.
Heavy.
Real.
The kind of silence that happens when someone says something too simple to be ignored.
My chest tightens a bit.
Charles leans in toward me, his eyes locked onto mine now.
“And I’m tired…” he goes on, his voice even lower, “of pretending you’re just someone else in the paddock.”
My heart skips a beat.
Because I know exactly what he means.
Every hidden touch.
Every conversation cut short when someone walks by.
Every smile held back in front of the cameras.
Every impulse to act like strangers when we want the exact opposite.
I try to hold his gaze like nothing in me has changed.
I fail completely.
“You picked a terrible time to be sweet,” I mutter.
Charles gives me that lopsided, devastating grin. “I disagree.”
He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles slowly.
“I think I picked the perfect time.”
My heart is pounding in a way that’s honestly ridiculous.
And, to make it worse, he notices.
I stay quiet for a few seconds, still sitting next to him, trying to claw back any bit of an upper hand in this conversation.
Useless.
Charles stays leaned back in his seat, looking annoyingly good with his collar slightly open and that calm expression of someone who knows exactly how he affects me.
He doesn't look away.
He just waits.
Like he’s got all the time in the world.
Like I’m inevitable.
I sigh.
And then I move.
I shift in my seat, turning fully toward him.
Way too close for any kind of neutrality to exist anymore.
My hands go to his collar, fixing the fabric he’d messed up earlier, just so I have something to focus on other than how close he is.
Charles doesn’t say a word.
Just watches me.
That focused silence always tears me down more than any sentence could.
“I think we’re better off keeping up the act,” I mutter, still messing with a button that doesn’t even need fixing.
He tilts his head slightly.
“Fine, but only until I decide I'm done with it.”
My fingers stop for a second.
I look up at him.
Arrogant.
Cocky.
Unbearably charming.
Before I can even fire back, his hand finds my waist and pulls me a few inches closer.
The move is firm.
Natural.
Like he already knows I’m not going anywhere.
“Bossy,” I whisper.
His smile grows slowly.
“Only with you.”
And then he kisses me.
No rush.
No show.
None of that urgency from someone trying to prove something.
It’s a calm, intimate kiss—the kind that only happens between two people who already know their way around each other.
The taste of my piercing metal mixes with the mint on his lips.
The kind of kiss that carries memories.
That recognizes.
That lingers just because it can.
My hands instinctively slide up to his shoulders, then to the back of his neck, while his stays firm on my waist, keeping me close like distance has stopped making sense.
There’s no desperation there.
But there is danger.
Because quiet kisses are usually the hardest ones to forget.
And because Charles Leclerc, when he chooses to be patient, is way more dangerous than when he’s speeding.
The plane stays steady above the clouds.
But inside that cabin, with his mouth on mine and his hand holding me like I’m something precious and inevitable all at once, nothing feels exactly steady.
━━━ ✦ ━━━
The landing is smooth, almost silent, as if the plane itself understood it didn’t need to interrupt whatever is going on between us.
By the time the jet stops at the private terminal, the vibe has already shifted.
No movement.
No flashes.
No press.
Just that controlled silence you get when everything around you was designed not to intrude.
I step out next to Charles, still feeling like my body is out of sync.
Not from the flight.
But from what happened during it.
The air on the runway is colder, more real, and for a second it feels weird to exist outside that closed cabin again.
Outside, the black Ferrari Purosangue is already waiting, perfectly parked under the terminal’s dim lights.
Charles walks ahead of me like he always does — not out of a rush, but out of habit — as if clearing the way is just automatic for him.
He opens the car door for me.
I hide a small smile.
“Very low-key,” I comment, running my hand over the spotless interior as I get in.
He walks around the car calmly, taking his time, as if the world has finally stopped demanding his attention.
He gets in and shuts the door.
“I’m humbly low-key,” he says, like he actually believes it.
I give a low laugh.
He does too.
This time it’s not that "paddock laugh."
It’s looser.
More tired.
More real.
The engine starts with a soft growl, and the car glides out of the terminal.
━━━ ✦ ━━━
The road to Monaco feels like a different reality.
Late afternoon.
The sky is slowly shifting colors, going from a pale blue to warm shades of orange and gold, like the day is taking its sweet time saying goodbye.
The French Riviera stretches out beside us, the sea reflecting the light like liquid glass.
It’s beautiful in a quiet way.
Almost unfair.
The window is down.
A light breeze drifts in, messing up my hair and bringing that coastal road scent that always makes me feel tiny compared to the world.
Music plays low on the car’s speakers.
Something instrumental — nothing important enough to compete with the silence between us.
Charles drives with one hand on the wheel.
Body relaxed, but still sharp.
And then, like it’s no big deal, his other hand leaves the wheel and drops onto my knee.
Without looking.
Without warning.
Without hesitation.
Just... natural.
The touch is firm and steady, as if he doesn't even realize it’s there — or as if he simply has no intention of moving it.
I look at him for a second.
He stays focused on the road, expression calm, eyes on the path ahead like this moment is just another part of his day.
But it’s not.
Nothing about this is just another part of the day.
“About that talk on the plane...” I sigh, already knowing his answer. “Do you still want to tell them?” I ask softly, breaking the silence.
Charles takes a few seconds to answer.
Long enough for the sound of the engine to fill the space.
Then he lets out a slow breath.
He turns his head just enough to catch my eye for a split second.
“Right now, I just want to get home.”
His voice is low.
No weight.
No guard up.
But full of meaning.
Okay, not exactly what I expected.
It’s not a full answer.
It’s a choice.
I look at him a second longer than I probably should.
And I get it.
It’s not about explaining anything to anyone.
Not about the paddock.
Not about Ferrari.
Not about the world outside.
It’s about not breaking the one thing that stays intact between us after everything else.
I lean my head back against the seat.
I let the silence keep going as Monaco starts to appear on the horizon, like it’s been waiting for us without any rush at all.
Entering Monaco has that vibe of a private end-of-the-world — narrow streets winding up in elegant curves, lights flickering on one by one while the sea peeks through the buildings, like it never really left.
His house appears after one last, quiet turn.
Modern.
Open.
Big enough to feel silent even before anyone steps inside.
Huge glass windows reflect the darkening sky, and the sea out front takes up half the horizon, still and deep.
The car pulls up smoothly at the entrance.
Charles kills the engine with a relaxed movement, like he’s finally reached the finish line of his day.
We get out.
The air here is different from everything before it — lighter, more intimate, almost as if this place doesn’t belong to the same world as the paddock, even though it’s literally his.
Charles is the first one in.
He unlocks the door without any hurry.
And as soon as he crosses the hall, he tosses his keys onto the light wood table.
The sound is sharp.
Simple.
Final.
Like he’s dropping everything the day threw at him right there with those keys.
I stand at the entrance for a few seconds, just watching.
The interior is effortlessly sleek.
Clean lines.
Natural light still bleeding through the windows.
And a silence that isn't empty — it’s a choice.
Charles doesn’t walk away.
He stays there, a few steps inside, and turns toward me.
And he just watches me.
No rush.
No distractions.
Just looking.
Like he finally doesn’t have to share his attention with anything else.
I feel it immediately.
The way he looks at me here is different from the paddock.
No audience.
No role to play.
No version of him that isn’t just him.
I look away across the room for a split second, just to catch my breath.
Then I look back at him.
“You’ve been looking at me weird since Nice,” I say softly.
My voice sounds steadier than I actually feel inside.
Charles doesn’t answer right away.
The silence between us isn't hesitation.
It’s a choice.
He takes a step toward me.
Then another.
Slow.
Without breaking eye contact for even a second.
“Since before that,” he says.
His voice is low and firm, without any need for extra explanation.
And that’s what shifts the vibe in the room.
There’s no doubt there.
No joking around.
No running away.
Just a statement of fact.
I stand still for a moment, feeling the simple weight of that sentence.
And for the first time since we stepped off the plane, I don’t look for an answer.
The stairs feel longer than they should, or maybe it’s just the way the silence between us has changed since we walked in.
I head up first.
Charles is right behind me — no rush, but no distance either.
The house is even quieter upstairs — low lights in the hallways, the distant sound of the sea drifting through the open windows, the kind of atmosphere that seems to slow down every thought.
I go straight to the bedroom.
He follows me without saying a word.
The room is huge, with an even wider view of the ocean outside. The city lights are starting to flicker on in the distance, but inside, everything stays soft — almost too intimate to just be a room.
I walk over to the mirror.
I catch myself giving a small smile as I reach for my earrings, starting to take them off slowly, like I’m finally leaving the whole day behind.
I hear his footsteps behind me.
I don’t turn around.
I just keep going.
One side.
Then the other.
And then I feel him stop right behind me.
Way too close.
Not touching me yet.
But close enough to change the air around us.
The mirror gives me his reflection first.
Charles, watching me.
No rush.
No distractions.
As if I’m the only thing in that room actually worth his attention.
Before I can say anything, I feel his lips lightly brush against the side of my neck.
Calm.
Warm.
Way too intentional to be casual.
My body reacts before my brain does.
His fingers find my waist easily, holding me there like they already know the way.
“I thought you were tired from the trip,” I mutter, still looking into the mirror, trying to keep some kind of control over my voice.
He stays quiet for a few seconds.
The kind of silence that isn't empty—it’s a choice.
Then he answers softly, right against my skin:
“Now the best part of my day starts.”
I turn around slowly.
Just enough to face him.
The mirror stays behind us, reflecting only half the scene, like it’s not allowed to see the whole thing.
Charles doesn't wait anymore.
The kiss is different from the last one.
More direct.
More present.
More impossible to ignore.
My hands find his chest without thinking, gripping his shirt like it’s the only steady thing in the entire room, while he pulls me a little closer — no rush, but no room for doubt.
When we pull apart for a split second, he stays close enough to speak against my lips.
“Come with me.”
It isn't an order.
But it isn't a request, either.
He takes my hand and leads me through the room to the bathroom without letting go.
The light in there is low.
Almost golden.
He turns on the shower, and the sound of the water filling the space completely shifts the vibe, drowning out the world outside.
The steam starts to rise slowly, fogging up the mirror in seconds, erasing reflections and making everything soft and blurred.
Charles doesn’t let go of my hand.
His other hand finds my face for a moment, as if he wants to make sure I’m still there before moving on.
And then the room, the hallway, the entire house start to fall away — a detail too distant to matter anymore.
The water keeps falling.
The air gets hotter.
And everything that’s been building between us since the plane finally finds a place to exist without interruption.
We get undressed slowly.
He takes care of stripping us both.
When the shower door shuts, all of Monaco stops existing.
The water hits our shoulders, but the heat I feel doesn't come from the shower jets. Charles keeps his hands flat against the marble wall, pinning me in, while his light eyes sweep over me with a hunger he’s trying, and failing, to control. The silence is filled only by the sound of the water and our ragged breathing.
“You have no idea how much I hold back,” he mutters, his voice vibrating deeper than usual, muffled by the rising steam.
Without a word, I close the distance. My hands slide up his chest, feeling the thermal shock between the warm water and his skin, which feels like it’s on fire. I don’t want polite conversation or sideways glances anymore. With a slow tug, I pull his face to mine, but before our lips touch, he stops millimeters away, just to feel my breath.
“Athena...” my name comes out like a broken prayer.
He breaks the last trace of space. The kiss isn't calm; it’s intense, loaded with everything that’s been bottled up for too long. Charles presses me against the cold marble, and the contrast of the ice on my back with the heat of his body in front of me makes me let out a low sound that gets lost in his mouth. His hands move down with urgency, squeezing my waist and lifting me up, while my legs wrap around his hips by instinct.
Water runs between us, but all I can feel is the pressure of his hands and the hardness of his desire against me — a clear promise through the wet touch that still separates us.
“I want every part of you,” he whispers against my neck, between lingering kisses that make me shiver. “Here, now. With no one in the world to interrupt us.”
My nails find the back of his neck, pulling him closer, as I feel his intensity pressing into me, already throbbing in response. Charles lets out a low sound, pure instinct, and I know that inside this shower, the “Prince of Monaco” gives way to something much rawer.
The kiss becomes a battlefield of built-up longing. Charles kisses me as if he’s trying to reclaim every second we spent acting like professionals in front of the cameras. It’s a deep kiss, tasting of urgency and everything that was repressed. His hands leave the wall and bury themselves in my hair, tilting my head back slightly so he can completely dominate my mouth.
“I hate having to hear you on the radio and not being able to say what I’m feeling,” he confesses between short, hungry kisses, his voice breaking while the water soaks our forgotten clothes on the floor. “I hate every time you give me a technical instruction and I have to pretend I’m just focused on telemetry, when all I want is to pull you aside and do exactly this.”
I feel the vibration of his voice in my chest. Being his engineer means I spend all day listening to his breathing through the headset, feeling his heart rate through the data, but nothing compares to the real heat of his skin against mine.
“Charles, we agreed it was best for the team...” I try to say, but he cuts me off, pressing his hips against mine with a force that leaves me breathless.
“I’m done with what’s best for the team, Athena. I want what’s best for us,” he murmurs, trailing kisses down my jaw until he finds the sensitive spot below my ear. “I want to walk off that track holding your hand. I want the world to know that the woman who guides me through the turns is the same one who owns every part of me.”
My hands slide down his back, feeling the tense muscles. I pull him closer, feeling his urgency claiming space between my legs.
“Are you serious?” I ask, my voice coming out raspy while my nails lightly scratch the back of his neck.
“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” he answers, looking back into my eyes, that emerald-green depth shining under the water. “But right now... right now I just want you to be mine, with no one listening on the radio.”
He doesn't wait for a verbal answer; he silences me with an even more intense kiss, while his hands move to my waist, ready to eliminate any distance left between the engineer and her driver.
My piercing plays against his lips like a little secret of ours.
The kiss intensifies until there’s no oxygen left between us, becoming a hungry, desperate collision. Charles’s hands navigate my body like fire, leaving a trail of heat that burns as hot as our team's red cars under the Sunday sun. I feel my skin boiling, reaching the same unbearable temperature as the air radiating from the engines in the garage — a heat that consumes me from the inside out.
I, who am trained to stay cool under pressure, feel every one of my control gears failing. An irrational urge to do something crazy takes over; I want to press myself against him, to fuse my skin to his until we don’t know where one ends and the other begins. I feel every rigid muscle of Charles's body under the water, every detail of his anatomy pressing into mine with an urgency that no telemetry could have ever predicted.
He pins me against the cold marble of the shower, and the contrast makes me let out a raspy sound. My nails scratch his shoulders as I reach for more, wanting to feel the raw force he usually hides behind that prince-like posture. In here, in the steam, I’m not the calculating engineer and he’s not the disciplined driver; we’re just two bodies in combustion, about to cross every limit we’ve ever known.
Charles trails kisses down my neck, biting my skin with a possessiveness that makes me arch my back, while his hand slides down and grips my thigh, lifting me so I can feel the intensity of his desire against me. Control stays on the track; here, the only rule is absolute surrender.
The steam in the shower is already so thick we can barely see the marble walls, but I don’t need my eyes; every one of my senses is locked onto Charles’s touch. With a strength that blends urgency and the technical precision he usually only shows behind the wheel, he grabs my thigh and hoists my leg, hooking it around his waist.
The move leaves me completely open to him, and the contact of his wet skin against mine is like a short circuit. Charles takes advantage of every touch, every wild sensation our contact creates, moving his hips in a slow, agonizing way against mine. I feel every detail: the hardness of his abs, the insane heat radiating off him, and the way his heavy breath hits my neck, alternating between sighs and stifled sounds.
He runs his tongue along my collarbone while his free hand grips the back of my neck, forcing me to feel the full intensity of the moment. I’m melting, my tough engineer persona completely pulverized by this physical surrender.
But, in a rush of adrenaline, I claw back a trace of command.
I press my hands against his chest and, with one firm move, I shove him to the opposite side of the shower. Charles stumbles back, hitting the marble, surprised, his eyes darkened with desire and his chest heaving. I don’t give him time to process. I move in like someone retaking control of a lost race, pinning my body against his and starting a voracious, dominating kiss.
Now I’m the one setting the pace, my nails scratching his chest while my legs surround him, making him feel that even though he’s the driver, in that tiny space between the water and the marble, I’m the one in charge of the pressure.
The control I prize so much seems to evaporate along with the shower steam, turning into a boldness I rarely allow myself outside of this bubble. With Charles pinned against the wall, I back off just enough to see the effect I’m having on him. His green eyes are fixed on me, pupils blown, and his chest is rising and falling at a frequency I’d recognize on any telemetry graph as the absolute limit.
I don’t stop. I start to move down, my lips never losing contact with his skin. I kiss the trail of water running down his chest, feeling every heartbeat hammering against my mouth. Charles lets out a shaky sigh, his hands grabbing the metal wall support so hard his knuckles turn white.
I go down further, deliberate, feeling the texture of his abdominal muscles against my face. Water hits my back, but I only feel the heat coming off him. My kisses map the way, moving down his waistline, while my hands contour his hips, locking him there.
Finally, I drop to my knees on the wet floor.
I stay there, kneeling in front of him, under the constant sound of water hitting the marble. I look up for a split second, seeing Charles with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, the expression of someone completely losing the fight against his senses. Without looking away, I let my kisses trace the curve of his inner thigh before focusing all my attention on him, with an urgency I’m more than ready to satisfy.
In that moment, there is no engineering, no strategy, and the Chinese GP is just a distant memory. There’s only us and the absolute silence of someone who finally has total control of the situation.
Kneeling under the water that falls like a warm storm, I’m in no rush. Charles lets out a deep sound that vibrates in the humid air as soon as I wrap him in my attention. My eyes drift up for a moment, just to see the tension in his jaw; he looks like he’s struggling not to collapse right then and there.
My mouth explores him with a hunger I’ve been holding onto all weekend in the pits in China, and now, in the quiet of his home, every move I make is designed to push him to the edge, to make him forget every trace of discipline.
The difference is the cold metal of my hoop piercing right in the middle of my bottom lip. With every move, the ring brushes against his sensitive skin, creating an electric contrast between the heat of my mouth and the coldness of the jewelry. It’s an extra stimulus, a variable he can’t predict that leaves him breathless with every touch.
“Athena... mon dieu...” he gasps, his voice vanishing into the thick steam, his hands reaching for support against the marble walls as his knees seem to give out.
I feel his hands move down, fumbling and trembling, until they find my head. His fingers tangle tightly in my wet hair — not to pull me away, but to hold me there, dictating a rhythm that starts to get frantic. He’s no longer the composed driver from the interviews or Ferrari’s diplomatic “Prince”; he’s just a man being driven to madness by me.
I feel his pulse racing against my tongue, and the sound of his low moans, mixed with French curses, is the only feedback I need. I’m in total control of this sensory telemetry, moving with a boldness that leaves him completely unarmed. Charles pulls my hair a bit tighter, letting out a long breath when my piercing scrapes exactly where he feels it most, proving that between the two of us, precision engineering now serves only one purpose: our complete combustion.
His grip on my hair tightens as I intensify the touch, using my hands to squeeze his thighs as I work to give him everything he wants — and everything he didn't even know he needed. I feel his muscles twitch, his pulse pounding against my tongue. Charles throws his head back, hitting the marble lightly, totally at my mercy.
I relish the sound of his broken breathing, the sound of someone losing control of every turn, every sensor. Here, on the shower floor, I’m not the one giving orders over the radio; I’m the one driving him crazy, and I have no intention of stopping until he’s completely undone under my command.
His climax hits like an electric shock. Charles’s body locks up, his fingers burying into my hair with possessive strength while a long, raspy moan escapes his throat, getting lost in the noise of the water. I feel every throb, the total surrender of a man who just reached his absolute limit.
But the quiet only lasts a few seconds.
The adrenaline channeled from the last race seems to have transformed into an even more potent fuel. Before I can even catch my breath, Charles grabs my shoulders and hauls me off the floor with a raw agility. In one quick, fluid motion, he spins me around, pinning me face-first against the opposite wall. The icy marble against my chest contrasts violently with the heat of his body pressed against my back.
“I’m not done with you yet, Athena,” he whispers in my ear, his voice heavy with a dangerous urgency.
He doesn't give me time to process. His hand moves firmly down my thigh, lifting my leg and bending my knee, bracing it against the marble wall, forcing me to stand on only one foot while he tilts me forward. With his other hand, he grips my neck, keeping me pinned, vulnerable, and completely exposed.
I feel his touch, more impatient now. Without any warning, he slides two fingers inside me at once, a deep and steady thrust that makes me let out a sharp cry, the sound echoing off the glass walls. The fullness is immediate and intense, hitting the exact spot that makes the strength drain from my hands.
I’m arched, hands glued to the wet marble, while he moves his fingers inside me with an implacable cadence, setting a rhythm that makes me see stars. Charles is in total command now, using the same precision he uses to attack a curb on the track, but with a hunger that’s purely personal. I’m no longer the controlled engineer; I’m just the target of all the passion and pent-up frustration he’s been keeping secret for months.
The speed of Charles’s fingers is insane — a technical, fierce rhythm that mimics a motor at redline. He has zero hesitation left; the movements are fast, precise, and deep, creating a friction that sends my whole body into a short circuit. I feel every nerve respond to that relentless beat, a pressure rising up my spine like an electrical discharge.
“Charles... σε παρακαλώ...” I gasp, hands searching for any grip on the slick marble as my hips move involuntarily, trying to keep up with how fast he’s dominating me. (Charles… please…)
The pleasure comes like an explosion, a violent orgasm that makes me shake in his arms while his fingers maintain that frantic pace inside me, making sure I feel every wave of the peak. Before the trembling even passes, I turn to him, face flushed and eyes clouded by a desire that, instead of fading, seems to have caught more oxygen.
Our eyes meet for a split second — his challenge against my surrender.
Charles grabs me by the waist and lifts me off the floor with raw power, suspending me as if I weigh nothing. Instinctively, I wrap my legs around his hips, locking him against me. He pins me to the wall, the marble now warm from the steam, and silences me with a devastating kiss. It isn’t just a kiss; it’s a claim of ownership — hot, wet, and loaded with everything we hide in paddocks around the world.
As our tongues tangle with the same urgency as a fight for position, he gets into place. I feel the tip of him pressing against my entrance, hot and insistent. He breaks the kiss for a fraction of a second, but doesn't pull away; instead, he uses his teeth to catch the small metal hoop in my bottom lip. He gives it a light tug, barely there, but enough to send a shock of adrenaline straight to my core, making me arch toward him.
The sensation of the metal being tugged by his teeth, while his hot breath hits my face, is the final blow to my sanity. As our tongues entwine again with that same frantic urgency, he readies himself. I feel him pressing, hot and insistent, claiming the space that already belongs to him.
Charles keeps his face millimeters from mine. His green eyes, now dark and heavy with a dangerous promise, lock onto mine. He brushes his lips against my piercing again, whispering against my mouth in a voice that is pure desire and authority:
“My engineer. Only mine.”
And then, he sinks into me all at once.
The thrust is so deep and decisive that I lose my breath. The fullness is absolute, a connection that goes far beyond the physical. He keeps me suspended, the weight of my body anchored in his, as he begins to move with a rhythmic force that sends the shower water splashing in every direction. Every one of his lunges is a reminder that, even though we’re far from the Shanghai track, the real race — the most dangerous and addictive one — is happening right here, between the two of us.
The pressure of Charles’s body against mine is crushing, and the impact of that first deep drive still echoes in every nerve of my body. He keeps me pinned against the wall, his large hands squeezing my thighs with a grip that will definitely leave marks, but I only find myself wanting him to squeeze even harder.
His pace is insane, a physical translation of the speed he lives for on the track. He moves inside me with a frantic cadence, each thrust sending my back rhythmically against the marble. The sound of water hitting the floor mixes with the sound of our bodies colliding—a constant, wet snap that only feeds the fire.
“Putain, Athena... tu es incroyable,” he growls against my neck, the French escaping in a voice I barely recognize, loaded with raw, unfiltered desire.
He starts alternating between stray kisses and hungry bites on my shoulder and the curve of my ear. These aren’t calculated kisses; they’re desperate attacks, as if he’s trying to devour me. My sounds come out high-pitched, lost in the steam, as I bury my nails into his broad shoulders, trying to anchor the hurricane he’s causing inside me.
“Charles, faster... don’t stop,” I beg, my voice vanishing into a sigh when he hits the exact spot.
“Tu me rends fou,” he answers with a low curse, eyes fixed on mine, now almost black with want.
He accelerates. The speed is relentless, a sequence of short, intense movements that make me lose any trace of sanity. My moans become disconnected, a mix of pleasure and a delicious agony. I feel the heat of his abdomen against mine, the sweat and water making everything slippery and even more intense.
Charles is completely out of his mind. The “Prince” gives way to something raw and starving. He lets out French words every time I tighten my legs around his waist, egging him to go deeper. Control — something we both prize so much in our careers — is now a dead concept.
My head falls back, hitting the wall lightly, as I feel the peak coming like a giant wave. He gives me no quarter; his hands move up from my thighs to my body, squeezing me while maintaining that overwhelming rhythm. We’re in freefall, ten thousand RPMs deep, on a track where the only flag allowed is total surrender.
The tension in the shower hits critical mass, that moment where the telemetry indicates everything is about to explode. I feel Charles’s muscles tighten to the extreme, the veins in his neck bulging as he guns for that last drop of speed. My nails are dug into his back, marking his wet skin, as I feel every one of his pulses echoing inside my chest.
“Je vais... Athena, maintenant!” he gasps, his voice breaking in a French heavy with urgency.
He presses me against the wall with one final, almost crushing force, and starts a sequence so fast and deep that the world around us simply vanishes. The internal heat becomes unbearable, a voltage running through my body from my hips to my fingertips.
And then, the impact.
We both collapse at the same time. It’s a chain-reaction crash, a violent orgasm that hits us with the force of a high-speed collision. I let out a muffled scream against his shoulder as I feel the rhythmic contractions take over, and Charles lets out a low roar, burying his face in my neck as he unloads everything into me.
Our legs shake uncontrollably. He loses all his strength, the arms that kept me suspended falter, and we’re anchored by the wall, still joined, still trembling.
The silence that follows is filled only by the sound of the water still falling over us and our staggered, heavy, shared breathing. Charles wraps me in an exhausted hug, his head resting on my shoulder, while his body still shivers slightly against mine. In that little bubble of marble and steam in Monaco, the engineer and the driver no longer exist; we’re just two survivors of a storm we caused in each other.
As the steam begins to clear in his Monaco penthouse bathroom, the sound of the water hitting the floor seems calmer, matching the rhythm of our hearts finally slowing down. Charles keeps me held close, but suddenly lets out a low laugh — a vibration I feel against my chest.
I pull back a little, wiping the water from my face and looking into those green eyes that are now shining with genuine amusement.
“What? Why are you laughing?” I ask, curious about the sudden shift in mood.
“It’s just that none of this went how I planned it in my head,” he confesses, shaking his head and running a hand through his soaked hair. “Love, I had a whole script. I was going to get here, take you to dinner at that restaurant you love, make the official 'boyfriend' request so the whole world would know once and for all... and only then would we celebrate.”
He lets out another short laugh, cupping my face with his damp hands.
“Just so you know, there’s a diamond ring lost somewhere inside my suitcase. But we barely get through the door and I already lose all control.”
I smile, feeling my heart warm up. The "planning" Charles, the man who wants everything to be perfect, is just as captivating as the bold driver.
“I can’t take the secrets anymore, Athena. I want to tell the world how much I love you and screw the rest. The paddock, the newspapers, the theories... screw them all,” he says, his voice rising with a determination I rarely see outside the car. “I want to be able to hold your hand in front of everyone.”
He takes a deep breath, turning suddenly serious, the shower water still running between us.
“So, let’s skip the dinner for now. Athenas, will you be my girlfriend? For real now—no secrets, no hiding from anyone, from here to wherever we decide to go?”
I stop for a second. As an engineer, my mind travels through all the possibilities: the headlines, the team pressure, the gossip in the pits of every GP. It would be a logistical and professional mess. But looking at him there, vulnerable and certain in the middle of our shower, all the technical variables seem irrelevant compared to what we feel.
“I’m already your girlfriend, you idiot. But yes,” I say, feeling a huge weight lift off my shoulders. “Yes, Charles. A thousand times yes.”
He flashes a radiant smile — the kind he saves for the hardest-fought victories — and pulls me into a kiss that, this time, doesn't have the urgency of a secret, but the promise of a future the whole world is about to meet.
summary; when one evening you keep getting airdrops of someone’s dog at the restaurant
pairing; charles leclerc x student!reader
fc; nourejfl on ig
warnings; english isn't my first language + not proofread yet
an; taking requests if you guys ever have an idea :) + likes and reblog are appreciated ;)
navigation / masterlist
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▮ charles_leclerc i'm waiting too
maxverstappen looks fun !
▮ yourusername i am indeed having fun ;)
charles_leclerc
liked by yourusername, maxverstappen and 2.1M others
charles_leclerc love from portofino 🩵
username close to the hard launch but not yet
username oh to have a bf posting me like the last pic
username WE WANT A HARD LAUNCH HARD LAUNCH HARD LAUNCH HARD LAUNCH !!!
username i ship them so bad
yourusername that's a cute dog
▮ charles_leclerc only cute thing here ?
▮ yourusername i think so yeah !
▮ charles_leclerc ok i'm blocking you
username ik he's down down for her
username mama y papa
username they were so made for each other
alex_albon send me your recs from portofino lily and i are going there next week
▮ yourusername can i come with lily
▮ charles_leclerc why would you go back ?
▮ yourusername cause i want to see my girl lily duh
▮ lilymhe YES YES YES PLS YN COME
▮ alex_albon no
charles_leclerc
liked by yourusername, yourbestfriend and 3.6M others !
charles_leclerc one year with you mon cœur
username OH THEY WERE DATING BEFORE THE AIRDROPS AT THE RESTAURANT EPISODE ?????
username omg i feel so betrayed
username ONE YEAR ???
username no way this was their strategy to hard launch
yourusername love you ❤️
▮ charles_leclerc love you more ❤️❤️
username crazy mind play
username DAMN
username how could they damn ??
username pls she was here at monza
username this means everything to me
username mama y papa
yourusername
liked by yourbestfriend, charles_leclerc and 234k others !
yourusername one year with you, my heart, my bestfriend ! thank you to the cutest dog ever 🩷
username omg they really started dating because of leo
username i feel reassured lmaoo
yourbestfriend i could be a better bf than him you know
▮ yourusername i never doubted that
▮ username NOT YOU STEALING MY BRAND
username god i see what you have for others
lilymhe caption talks about bff but i'm not seing myself in those pictures ??
▮ yourusername you're right my fault, let me change that real quick
▮ charles_leclerc no you're not ?
▮ alex_albon charles pls tell your girl that i need my gf and bff back
summary: moments before a race, you're standing in the pit lane when charles pass by, stops, and, not caring about the cameras, gives you a quick kiss for luck.
a/n: alright, i know i’ve been gone for so long that i can't even defend myself. sorry, okay, i’ll try to be more active. 🥳
It was race day, and Ferrari was performing well in free practice. You were a journalist for a prominent sports website, one of the best-known and most visited.
You had been dating Charles Leclerc, the young Monaco-born Ferrari driver, for five months now. The two of you didn't want to reveal your relationship so soon, as you both wanted privacy.
But it was about time, wasn't it?
You were in the paddock, along with other journalists and reporters. And that's when you saw him.
There were only a few minutes left until the race started, but he hadn't said hello to you all day, mainly because he hadn't see you. As soon as you turned to look at him, it was as if by magic or telepathically you had called each other, when he looked at you again.
His eyes softened when he saw you, and a faint smile appeared on his face, as if he wanted to hide it. He immediately looked away from you when a reporter began interviewing him.
—What are your expectations for this race, Leclerc?—the journalist asked, approaching him desperately, hoping for at least a reaction from the driver.
—Um...—he abruptly stepped aside, carefully searching for you in the crowd. —To win, I guess.
He had to go, and yet he was still here, crawling toward you. And when he finally arrived, it was as if time had stopped.
And he kissed you.
A tender, soft kiss.
As if he was worried about making you feel comfortable.
When you felt flashes in their faces and desperate cries for the scoop.
"Charles Leclerc has a girlfriend!"
"Charles Leclerc's girlfriend is the NC Sports journalist!"
"Charles Leclerc's new gold digger is a journalist from a renowned sports website!"
Yes, you would heard the notes. And about all the problems you'd have with your boss.
You didn't care because you kissed your boyfriend back, holding his face with both hands. His hands slowly rested on your waist, prolonging the kiss a little longer than expected.
When you both broke away from each other, that's when he spoke.
—Wish me luck? —His eyes remained fixed on yours, as in love as ever.
—You don't need luck, Charles. You've got this. —You were still trying to remain professional, even though you could already hear your boss yelling about this incident.
—Still. I'd rather have your luck.
And before you can respond, he gives you a quick kiss, barely a touch, but full of everything neither of you had dared to say in weeks.
The cameras capture it again. And the people around you are shocked.
But he doesn't seem to care, as he gets into the car with a slight smile, and you freeze, touching your lips, feeling like your world has just changed in three seconds.
Throughout the race, you can't concentrate.
Every time you hear his name on the radio, your heart beats faster.
And when he wins, when he crosses the finish line excitedly thanking the team, you know that kiss wasn't a coincidence.
Later, when the whole team is celebrating, he gets out of the car, still sweaty, and looks for you in the crowd.
When he finds you, he smiles to himself and walks straight toward you, ignoring the flashing lights.
—Looks like I'll have to make that a pre-race tradition —he whispered, the corner of his lips forming a small smile.
—You almost gave me a heart attack, Leclerc. —you murmured, rolling your eyes playfully.
—Then I'll make it up to you after the podium.
And he walks away with that smile that you know is going to haunt you all night.
✎ — summary: You have been showing up at Grand Prix as a guest of the Ferrari team and people are starting to wonder why you are suddenly present at every Grand Prix and spending your weekends in Monaco. Little do they know...
✎ — radio: based on a request that was submitted. had a bit of a rough time coming up with things but I love a little WAG au and i love SMAUs in general soooo... hope you like this one!
✎ — warnings: age gap, SMAU, use of [Y/N][Y/LN], rumors
masterlist
yourusername posted a story
📍Monaco, Monte Carlo
liked by scuderiaferrari, mickschumacher and 1.935.681 others
yourusername Monaco, mon amour ❤️ thanks for having me @/scuderiaferrari 🥂
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scuderiaferrari Grazie for joining us this weekend! 🏁❤️ #MonacoGP
username1 literally what i imagine when i picture “soft life”
username2 wait you like F1??? i just fell in love again 😭
username3 this is the most elite photo dump I’ve seen all season, the yacht to pit lane pipeline is lethal I fear🔥
username4 YOU ATE also red is so your colour
username 5 ferrari hospitality suits you babe 😌👠
username6 new wag unlocked??? 👀
username7 no bc how do i become you
username 8 she said: I’m a motorsport girl now and wiped the floor with everyone else there
username9 Ferrari posted you… my girl is officially IT
username10 rich, gorgeous, and a paddock pass?? i’m so jealous it hurts
📍Barcelona, Spain
liked by scuderriaferrari, charles_leclerc and 2.359.356 others
yourusername and that's two in a row 🏎 thanks barcelona x 🍷💋
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scuderiaferrari Always a pleasure to have you in the paddock ❤️🐎
charles_leclerc 🔥
username1two races back to back?? you’re not just visiting as a celeb guest anymore 😭
username2 charles AND lewis in the likes and one of them has to say something cause we’re spiraling
username4 this account is slowly becoming a very well-dressed paddock diary
username5 how do i get your life. like genuinely.
username6 y’all i’m not saying she’s dating one of the ferrari drivers but… okay i am saying that
username7 everyone saying she seeing lewis but this feels so not-his-style… unless ferrari pr made him 👀
username8 honestly i thought it was carlos but now he’s not even on the team anymore??? WHAT’S GOING ON
username9 the soft launch of something is reaching levels of sophistication previously unimagined
username10 her stylist deserves a raise and a constructors' trophy
📍Monaco, Monte Carlo
liked by mickschumacher, lewishamilton and 2.935.356 others
yourusername love to spend the weekends like this ☀️💋
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username1 girl, that’s not a rental yacht.
mickschumacher ☀️🍒
liked by yourusername
lewishamilton 👀
username2 you know you’ve made it when your soft launches involve luxury vehicles and yacht decks
username3 you don’t just accidentally end up back in monaco between races unless someone very rich and very involved in f1 wants you there
username4 lewis doesn’t date. charles is taken. carlos ain’t at Ferrari no more. who she with?? 😭😭
username5 my theory: she’s dating someone at ferrari but it’s not a driver. maybe like a team exec or idk… charles’ brother??
username6 just a reminder: she had dinner with the schumachers after monaco GP 👀
username7 soft-launching your sugar daddy with a luxury weekend in monaco is a move tbh
username8 one of you said “what if she’s dating michael schumacher” and i haven’t slept since
📍Maranello, Italy
liked by scuderiaferrari, lewishamilton and 3.752.461 others
yourusername it was "bring your girlfriend to work day" at Ferrari last week 💋❤️
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scuderiaferrari 🐎❤️🏎
username1 NO TAGS. NO DENIAL. SHE SAID YES AND???
username2 the soft launch is now a hard launch and i’m not emotionally ready
username4 everyone crying in the comments like she’s not just living your dream
username5 “bring your girlfriend to work day” is so NASTY when the work is being michael schumacher 😭😭😭
username6 you know what? they’re two grown adults. i’m just mad it’s not me
username7 just a reminder that michael schumacher is trending in 2025 because of this woman HER POWER
username8 the age gap is insane
username9 everyone’s spiraling and she’s just out here playing ferrari dress-up with a bf who owns the damn team
username10 okay but imagine this being your villain origin story if you’re the ferrari comms intern
summary: a sultry, aching summer entanglement unfolds between two people tangled in history, habit, and hurt.
content: 18+!! smut, nsfw, angst, emotionally unavailable!charles, p in v, protected and unprotected sex, dry humping, more angst, emotional vulnerability, toxic intimacy, unresolved tension, messy feelings, blood/injury mention, longing, self-loathing, summer heartbreak, EVEN MORE ANGST, my personal vendetta against the cicadas in this story turning into a stylised thing lol
word count: 10k
pairing: charles leclerc x fem!reader
a thought: soooo 10k words huh 😭 I swear this wasn’t on purpose… or maybe it was, who knows at this point. I’m not even sure if this turned out how I originally imagined it, but I really hope you enjoy it!! i uploaded a bit eralier then usual bc of the race today
a´s masterlist
You arrive right at golden hour, when everything looks like it’s been dipped in honey, too soft, too golden, too damn familiar.
The light slants through the cypress trees lining the gravel driveway, casting long, flickering shadows across the hood of the car like fingers you don’t want to name.
The air smells like rosemary and sunscreen residue, like heat baked into old stones and that same vanilla-sweet cigarette someone always smokes down the hill, burning slow, never gone.
The wheels of your suitcase stutter against the gravel in a rhythm your body remembers even if your brain tries not to. It’s the same sound every summer since you were eight: uneven, jarring, too loud in the stillness. It sounds like memory. It sounds like a warning you never listen to.
Laughter rises from behind the house, bright, breathless, edged with wine and the kind of joy that makes you feel at home before you’ve even walked in. You stop at the gate. Not ready to see everyone. Not him. Not yet or not again. You breathe in sharp, like maybe oxygen will smooth out the tremor in your hands. It doesn’t.
The house is exactly the same. Of course it is. That’s the part that knocks you off balance. The terracotta tiles still dip unevenly toward the front steps, like they might collapse if you step too hard. The shutters still creak, lazy with age. The olive trees are overgrown, thick with shadows that look too much like last year. You already know the cicadas will start screaming right before dusk like they always do. You already know the kitchen door sticks unless you lift it gently. You already know this place too well. You already know how the next weeks will go.
Inside, the floor is cool beneath your sandals, a sudden relief against skin too warm from the drive. You don’t call out. Don’t let anyone know you’ve arrived. Instead, you slip up the stairs without a sound, like the house might swallow you whole if you move gently enough.
The door to your usual room opens with the same soft resistance. It still smells faintly of the linen detergent his mother always used, dried lavender and something older, something dustier. Nostalgia, maybe. Or the ache of something that never was.
The closet door creaks like it remembers you. You shove your suitcase inside without even pretending you’ll unpack it tonight. The zip catches on the edge of the frame and you yank harder than you mean to. The thud echoes. Too loud for a room this quiet.
It smells the same in here. Wood polish and sun-warmed fabric, the ghost of old perfume clinging to the curtains. You feel it settle around you, this too-familiar hush. As if the walls remember every version of you that’s ever stood here. Eight, twelve, seventeen. Laughing, crying, pretending. There are layers of you folded into the linens. Some you’ve outgrown. Some that still fit a little too well. You don't look in the mirror.
You pull off your shoes and cross to the balcony, bare feet whispering across cool tile. The small iron door sticks before it gives, then opens wide to the same view you’ve looked at a hundred times before, maybe more. And still, it stuns.
The hills roll out in ribbons of gold and green, draped over each other like sleep-warmed limbs. Light bleeds across them in waves, hazy with heat and distance. It’s a landscape built for remembering: soft-edged, sun-split, too beautiful to feel safe. Below, the pool lies still, catching the last of the sun like it’s trying to bottle the moment. Its surface trembles in the breeze, glinting and nervous. Like a mirror about to crack. Like it knows things. Like it sees you.
And then—just like that—the silence breaks.
Laughter rides the wind, faint at first, then clearer. Voices carry up from the patio, sun-drenched and wine-loose. You recognize them even before you parse the words: your mother’s high, bright tone; Charles’ mother, always elegant even when she’s too loud; the boys, deep-voiced and jostling each other as they pass around olives or wine or stories no one’s finished telling. It’s a soundscape of summer, unchanged and unbothered by time.
Your mother sees you first. Of course she does. She stands and waves both arms overhead, graceless and joyful, like a child who’s been given a second dessert. “There you are!” she calls, as if you’ve been lost for days, not delayed for hours. “You’re so late! Come down—we’ve started without you!”
They act like nothing’s changed. Like you’ve never left. Like you’re not bracing yourself in a doorway two floors above them, body gone still.
You scan the crowd, breath held tight. He’s not there.
For a flicker of a moment—so quick you almost miss it—you let yourself hope. Maybe he’s not here this year. Maybe he’s in Monaco, like he would usually be. Or Spain, or Italy, or anywhere other than this sliver of hillside where everything feels one second away from breaking open. The thought slides in cold and fast: maybe you won’t see him at all.
Relief blooms. Clean. Bright. A burst of something dangerously close to joy. You hold onto it like a secret. You let yourself believe it.
But then you open your bedroom door again.
And the house, ancient and alive in the ways that matter most, seems to punish you for the thought.
Because he’s right there.
You don’t hear him until he’s too close, until it’s too late to step aside, too late to pull the door shut and breathe. You turn and collide, your chest hitting bare skin, solid and warm and real in a way that steals your breath more than the impact. You gasp. His hands are already on your arms, firm but unhurried, grounding you before you stumble.
His grip is confident, muscle and memory and the cruel exactness of someone who still remembers the shape of you. It’s the way he always used to touch you: like you were his, like you’d never been anything else.
And of course he’s not wearing a shirt.
The hallway is narrow and the air between you shrinks until it feels nonexistent. You can smell him: salt and sun, a trace of cologne he never wears in the city and something else, maybe the ghost of last summer or the one before. He leans in just slightly, not enough to threaten, just enough to take up all your space.
“Bonjour, chérie,” he says, voice wrapped in silk and sunshine, rough at the edges from sleep or wine or both. The words slip out like they belong here, like you still belong to each other. His smile is slow and sharp, all teeth and nostalgia. “Seems like you missed me.”
The sound of him is a whole summer unto itself. Familiar in a way that hurts. The vowels curl lazy in his throat, lower than you remember, but not strange. Never strange.
Then his face tilts, just slightly, and he presses a kiss to your cheek.
It’s too soft. Too slow. Like the kind of thing that should come after everything else, not before it. It lingers longer than it should, like punctuation that doesn’t quite fit the sentence.
You don’t move. You don’t return it. You just pull back a fraction, barely enough to register, and meet his gaze without offering much of anything. “Yeah. Hi.”
The moment breaks like glass underfoot.
You walk down toward the backyard together. Side by side. Not touching, but too close not to feel it. The air has thickened, the late heat curling under your collar, sweat at the nape of your neck now tinged with the weight of memory. You can feel it building around you, this ache you didn’t plan to carry.
You step through the open patio doors just as someone uncorks another bottle of wine. The pop cuts through the twilight like a held breath finally let go.
Your mother sees you first—again—and claps her hands together like she’s been waiting days instead of hours. “There she is!” she says, already half out of her chair. “I thought we’d have to send Charles up with a search party.”
Someone laughs, Arthur, that same easy snort he’s had since he was thirteen. His mother is already pouring you a glass of white, humming something tuneless as she gestures you toward the table.
The scent of grilled peaches and rosemary chicken curls through the warm air. The citronella candles flicker. There’s a stack of mismatched plates on the table, a bowl of cherries passed around like currency, laughter rising in messy waves between bites.
They pull you into it easily, like you never left, like nothing cracked or shifted or nearly unraveled. Your father ruffles your hair like you're still the same girl who wore bandaids on her knees and sulked through dinners. One of the Leclercs tells you you look different, then immediately backpedals with a compliment that feels rehearsed but sweet.
You smile at all the right moments. Sip your wine. Let the warmth of their welcome soak through your skin.
But even as you laugh, even as you settle into your old seat and pass the salad bowl like muscle memory, you feel him across the table, his gaze, the orbit of his presence, quiet and magnetic.
You don’t look at him again. At least you try.
Later, the sun is long gone. The last streaks of lavender have faded from the sky. The pool lights blink on one by one, casting the water in a pale blue glow that ripples against the stone like soft electricity. It looks otherworldly now, like a portal instead of a pool.
You sit at the deep end, feet in the water, your drink sweating onto the flagstone beside you. The chill of the pool creeps up your calves, grounding, but it’s not enough to cool the fire crawling under your skin.
Then Charles is there.
He doesn’t speak. Just slides down beside you, as easy as anything, his thigh brushing yours in a way that feels accidental and entirely intentional. You don’t move away. You don’t lean in. The closeness settles, thick and quiet.
“I missed this,” he murmurs, gaze out over the water. The words land soft, but they burn anyway.
You don’t ask him what he means. You already know. You’ve always known. He means this, this moment, this version of you, this curated slice of late summer nostalgia. Not you in your real life. Not you with complications and context. Just here. Just now. Just like this.
You turn toward him. His face is turned slightly down, lit from beneath by the water’s shimmer. Half-shadow, half-memory. His mouth is parted. His expression open, soft. That look he only ever wears after too much wine and too little caution.
He leans in.
Of course he does. It’s written in his bones, the way he moves toward you. Like there’s only one ending this scene has ever had.
His mouth hovers, inches from yours. The space between you hums.
But you don’t close it.
You turn your head, slow and deliberate. His breath skims your cheek instead of your lips.
You look ahead, toward the water, and say, quiet but steady, “Yeah. You missed this.”
Silence folds around you like thick night air, humid, clinging, full of everything unsaid. It presses in where words should go, settling between your collarbones, behind your ribs, in the hollows of your throat.
He doesn’t speak. Just lingers there, breath still shallow from the space you didn’t close. His face is close enough that you can see the shift in his eyes, the flicker of something wounded, or worse, surprised. As if he’d forgotten you had the power to say no. The will to say no.
He pulls back, slowly, like he doesn’t want to spook the moment entirely. Like he’s still hoping it might rewind if he moves carefully enough. But you’re already somewhere else.
You slide your feet out of the pool, water dripping off your calves, leaving small dark prints across the stone. You don’t glance back. You just rise, smooth your dress down with damp fingers, and walk away—deliberate, quiet, unhurried. The echo of what almost happened follows you. It stays with him, hovering in the charged space where your lips didn’t meet, suspended between the low hum of the pool filter and the ache curling just under the sound of summer.
You didn’t always hate the sound of the cicadas.
But now, you hear them for what they are: a warning, not a song.
Every July, someone herded you into this house like clockwork, since you were seven. Like tradition was a story you could rehearse. “Let the kids bond,” the adults always said, raising glasses full of ice and wine. As if summer could be assigned. As if affection could be grown like tomatoes in clay pots.
But it worked. At least in the way those things sometimes do. Not because anyone forced it, but because the days were long and the rules were soft and kids will always find each other in the absence of supervision.
Within hours of arrival, all kids would be side-by-side again, running barefoot through the dusty village streets, staging makeshift pool parties with chipped speakers and melting popsicles, choreographing elaborate games that never needed to be explained, only remembered.
They’d pile into one bedroom for sleepovers that turned into late-night whisper wars, the kind that made your cheeks ache from laughing. They shared bikes and towels and secrets that only made sense under July skies. Together they discovered the hidden parts of the town, abandoned stone barns at the edge of the vineyard, an old cemetery you all swore was haunted, a bakery that gave free pastries if Charles asked in his charming Monegasque way.
No one really missed their parents. The adults were background noise: clinking glasses, sun hats, lazy arguments about where to buy the best olives. They lived on the terrace, in the wine-soaked air of adult summers, while you lived in the dirt and chlorine and wonder of your own little kingdom.
The friendships were real in the way summer friendships are. Bright. Uncomplicated. Built on nothing but shared time.
Every year, you slipped into it like a costume that still fit. Every year, you tried not to notice how it didn’t quite feel the same as it did the year before.
Every year, you and Charles always found your way back to each other, too—but that was a different kind of bond.
That night, the grown-ups were inside, already drunk on rosé and charred sea bass and the weightlessness of the season. Laughter leaked out through the open windows, mingling with the too loud cicadas and the low hum of the pool filter. Someone had lit the fire pit too early. It sputtered in the wind, more smoke than flame.
You were sitting cross-legged near the edge of the glow, arms wrapped around your knees, half-listening to the night. And then he sat beside you.
He smelled like chlorine and something expensive. A trace of bonfire clung to him, warm and sharp.
He leaned in close, eyes gleaming with something just on the edge of mischief.
“T’as encore peur de moi, hein?” he asked, teasing.
Still scared of me, huh?
You shook your head, but the word no barely made it out, more breath than voice.
He watched your face like it was something he could easily figure out how to read. His thumb brushed your cheek, a slow, deliberate touch, like he was waiting for permission you didn’t know how to give.
Then: “Have you ever kissed someone?”
You didn’t answer. He didn’t wait.
The kiss was soft. Clumsy. Your teeth knocked once. He laughed, low, unbothered and leaned in again. This time it was smoother, warmer, his hand slipping behind your neck. You felt it all the way down your spine.
Behind you, the fire cracked like punctuation.
That was the first kiss. But not the last.
That summer unfolded in stolen moments and shared towels, too-long glances and too-short goodnights. Kisses in the shade. Fingers brushed beneath the table. A closeness that grew like ivy—tender, quiet, climbing fast.
Then it was the next summer and the same house. The same pool, shimmering. The same voices floated from the kitchen, wine-loose and full of soft arguments about apricot jam and whether anyone remembered to buy more cheese.
But the quiet between you had changed.
You were older. Not by much, but enough. Enough to know what you wanted, or at least to want wanting. And enough to notice that he looked at you differently now, less like a childhood friend, more like a secret.
You were by the pool again. Of course you were. That’s where it always started.
You sat beside him, legs dangling in the warm water, the tiles still hot against your palms. The sun had just slipped behind the hills, leaving the sky dusted with gold. Your skin buzzed with heat and the residual hum of too many hours in the sun.
He leaned back on his elbows, shirt tossed somewhere behind him, hair still wet from the pool. He didn’t say much. Neither did you. The silence between you was thick with memory and something newer, something heavier.
Eventually, you ended up stretched out on one of the lounge chairs, side by side, barely touching.
You turned onto your side to face him, chin propped on your hand. He was watching the stars begin to appear, like he could read something in their flicker. You watched him instead. The lines of his jaw. The soft rise and fall of his chest. The curve of his mouth, parted like he was about to speak but hadn’t yet decided how.
His fingers found your stomach—light at first. A single brush. Then again, slower. He was tracing the edge of your bikini bottoms like he was learning it.
“Tu veux que je continue?”
You want me to keep going?
You didn’t know what yes looked like yet. But you didn’t say no.
He pulled you into his lap, tentative at first, but then firmer, like he knew what he was doing and wanted you to know it too. His hands settled on your hips, guiding. Grounding.
You were grinding into him in soft, uncertain rolls, your breath catching every time you felt the friction hit just right. His mouth dropped open. A low groan escaped him, half-swallowed by the night.
You didn’t stop. You couldn’t. The pressure built, slowly at first, then all at once. And even though you were both still dressed—your bikini clinging wetly to you, his swim trunks low on his hips—it didn’t matter.
You came like that. Both of you. Quietly. Urgently. In the dark, with the stars blinking overhead and the pool lights flickering like underwater fireflies.
It wasn’t the last time that summer.
You did it again. And again. In the shallow end, half-hidden behind the pool float. In your bed with the shutters open. In his, early in the morning when no one else was awake. On the sun-warmed couch the afternoon the parents went grocery shopping and left you behind “just to relax.”
That summer was a secret, pressed between kisses and the hush of wet skin, held like breath, never spoken aloud. You never talked about what it meant.
You just kept doing it.
Another year passed. And again, it was the same house, the same pool, the same slant of light across the water like time didn’t matter at all. But this time, it did. This time, you noticed how the air felt heavier, slower, like it was dragging you toward something inevitable.
He was already in the water when you came out, doing lazy laps in the deep end. The surface broke around his shoulders as he swam, broad now, stronger. You could see it immediately. The difference. His chest was fuller. His jaw more carved. There was a shadow of stubble across his cheek and it caught the late light like it was meant to be there.
He’d changed. Not in a way that made you uncertain, no, in a way that made your stomach flip. Grown into himself. Grown into the way he watched you now, more direct, more aware of the way your body had changed too. It wasn’t subtle. Nothing about it was.
The others were inside again, predictably tipsy—someone had made sangria this evening and you could hear the sound of glass clinking, soft laughter echoing through the windows.
And again, it was just the two of you.
You sat at the edge of the pool, again, feet in the water, again, arms wrapped loosely around your knees, again. You didn’t say much. You didn’t have to.
He pulled himself out of the pool, water dripping off him in steady rivulets. He didn’t towel off. Just came over and stood behind you for a second, close enough to make you shiver even in the heat.
When he leaned down, his voice was rough in your ear. “Come with me.”
You didn’t ask where.
You followed him to the pool house, one hand brushing against his, pretending it was an accident.
Inside, the air was thick. He kissed you against the door. No buildup. No hesitation. His mouth was hungry and open and wet with want.
You let him push your swimsuit straps down slowly, almost reverently, like he was unwrapping something delicate. Like he knew exactly what he was doing and wanted you to believe he cared. His fingers brushed your shoulder, then lower, tracing your skin in a line so feather-light it made you hold your breath.
He kissed you again, this time slower, deeper, like he was trying to anchor the moment in your chest. Like it meant something.
You wanted to believe it did.
You didn’t say anything when he lay you down on the old chaise lounge in the pool house. It groaned under your weight, too narrow and too soft in all the wrong places, but it didn’t matter. Nothing did except the way he looked at you—eyes half-lidded, lips parted, gaze dragging down your body like it held some secret he wanted to memorize. Like you were something rare.
And maybe you were. For a second, you let yourself believe you were.
His hand traced the edge of your ribs, slow and deliberate, before slipping down to your waist. He stopped there—fingers hovering at the dip of your skin like a question. Not forceful, not impatient. Just waiting. For breath. For permission. Or maybe just to make the moment stretch—so it would feel like more than it was.
“Cha—Charles, I’ve never…”
“Je sais,” I know he said softly, then, switching to English, “I’ll show you.”
He didn’t smile. But there was a quiet curve to his mouth, something settled and self-assured, like he already knew you’d say yes. Like he’d been waiting for this moment—not because it meant something, but because he wanted to feel it. To feel you.
He kissed you again, slower this time. Not rushed. Not greedy. His lips dragged over your cheek, your jaw, your neck, like he was mapping you for his own satisfaction. He whispered something into your skin—your name maybe, or just breath. You nodded anyway, body already giving in.
He slipped your swimsuit bottoms down, inch by inch, his knuckles brushing your thighs. You tried not to squirm, not to notice how awkward it felt—your skin damp and sticky, your legs trembling. But his touch didn’t waver. He wasn’t embarrassed. If anything, he liked it. The unraveling of you. The way you softened under him.
The condom came out of his pocket with practiced ease. He tore the wrapper open with his teeth, grinning faintly like it was a joke he’d told before. His hands were steady, his breath even. When he rolled it on, you could feel the heat of him against your leg—solid, certain.
And then he looked at you. Just for a second.
“Ready?” he murmured, more serious now. Almost soft.
You nodded.
When he pushed in, it hurt—a sharp, blooming stretch that made you gasp. He paused, exhaled against your throat, one hand gripping your hip. Not possessive. Not protective. Just...grounding. Measured. His other hand skimmed your ribs, coaxing your body open like he wanted you to feel it, really feel it, and remember that it was him.
“Just breathe,” he said, low and calm. And you did. You let him move.
It wasn’t rushed. Every stroke was deliberate, built for tension, for pleasure. He was focused—not on himself, but on you. The way your back arched. The way your breath caught. He studied you like it mattered. Like your pleasure was the goal, not the side effect. And somehow, that made it worse. Because it was good. He was good. And you knew that’s all he ever intended to be.
It didn’t last long, but it felt long enough. He stayed with you the whole time, hands steady, pace unhurried. He kissed you through it—not your mouth, but everywhere else. The curve of your collarbone. The place just below your ear. Your shoulder.
And when it was over, he didn’t roll away immediately. He hovered, catching his breath, his palm resting flat on your stomach like he was claiming something. Or just appreciating it.
He kissed your shoulder again, soft and absentminded.
And still, you pretended it meant something. That maybe he felt something too.
But his body was already cooling. Sliding away from yours like tide pulling back from sand. And you were left aching, not from the stretch, not from the sex, but from the quiet understanding settling in your chest.
He was never going to stay.
That should’ve been your first or last lesson:
Summer isn’t about what you remember.
It’s about what you let yourself forget.
Every summer after that, it was just the same again.
It didn’t matter how much time passed, how many months crawled by in between. When you returned to the house, the pool, everything clicked back into place like muscle memory. Like a scene you both knew too well to forget.
It always started at the pool.
You’d be lying out on one of the sun-warmed loungers, a book forgotten on your lap, the heat humming under your skin. He’d appear like he always did, barefoot, tanned, hair longer or shorter depending on the year, but always smug with familiarity. He’d grin like no time had passed and sit beside you like he’d never left.
“Missed me?”
Always that. Or something like it. A joke. A flirt. An echo.
And just like that, the rhythm began again.
He knew your body by then. Where to touch. How to kiss you soft at first, then deeper, just rough enough to make you forget how temporary it all was. You always let him. You always wanted him to.
Each year, he found new ways to make you feel like you mattered, at least here, at least now. He’d rest his head on your stomach while you played with his hair. He’d trace shapes along your thigh with fingers gone lazy from sun and sex. He’d steal your sunglasses and lie in the shade with his head in your lap, talking nonsense while your heart thudded like it still didn’t know better.
Once, the summer you turned nineteen, you both swam out to the middle of the pool just before midnight. The water was warm, moonlit. He held your waist beneath the surface and whispered something soft and slurred into your ear. You didn’t catch it all, just the word “belle” and the breathy way he said your name like it hurt him to say it. He kissed your collarbone underwater. You held your breath until it ached.
That night, you fell asleep in his bed, tangled in sheets that smelled like summer and him. When you woke up, he was already outside, playing cards with your siblings like nothing had changed. He didn’t look at you until you passed behind his chair and even then it was just a wink. Like the night didn’t live inside you now. Like it wasn’t something you’d carry.
By your twenty-first summer, it was almost funny, how predictable it all was. The pool. The silence after. The space between what you hoped for and what he gave. You started to expect it: the way he’d vanish for whole afternoons without explanation, then reappear at sunset with wet hair and some joke about paddleboarding. The way he always kissed you like it was the last time, but never said goodbye.
Then months of nothing.
Until the next year. Until the next return. Until the next version of the same old story.
You learned to live for the moments and to let go of the rest.
You told yourself it was okay. That it didn’t mean anything if you didn’t let it. That summer was just summer, and he was just a boy you knew how to miss.
But some nights, back in your apartment, deep in the middle of winter, you’d dream of him. Of chlorine and starlight and the way he once held your wrist like it was something precious. You’d wake up breathless, your mouth still shaped around his name.
And every summer, you’d go back.
Back in the present, you lie awake in the same bed you’ve had him in almost every night. For years.
Different sheets now, soft hotel-cotton ones your mother picked up in some end-of-season sale, but the same creaky mattress, the same half-stuck window that never quite lets in enough air. The same fan above you, still clicking faintly with every lazy rotation like it’s keeping time for a memory you can’t outrun.
You stare at the ceiling and imagine him still outside. Poolside. Beer bottle sweating in his hand, gaze fixed on the horizon like it holds answers. Maybe he’s wondering why you didn’t let him kiss you. He propably isn’t. You never know how deep his thoughts go when you’re not in the room. And you’re not sure which version hurts more.
You close your eyes. Try not to think about the answer.
You wake up to too much light. The kind of light that doesn’t soften—it sharpens. It cuts. It pours through the shutters like judgment, golden and brutal. You hate how the sun here always feels like it’s watching you. Like it knows.
You make it downstairs still half-asleep, barefoot, wearing a too-big T-shirt that isn’t his but might as well be. Faded navy, soft with years of wash. You wore it in the summers before. He once said it made you look like summer personified. You pretended it didn’t make your stomach twist when he said things like that.
At the breakfast table, your mother presses a mug into your hand. “Drink, ma chérie. You look pale.”
You mumble a merci, too tired to fake much warmth. The smell of coffee is grounding, almost. Until someone laughs and makes a joke about the playlist. Something about how it's still full of the same French indie tracks from five years ago. Still Charles’s. Still yours in ways you try not to think about.
You chew your toast slowly. You laugh when you’re supposed to. You answer questions about work, about London, about whether or not you’re seeing anyone. You lie easily. You’ve had practice. Everyone’s too sun-drunk to notice the cracks.
But the weight of past summers clings to you like wet linen, heavy, clinging, impossible to shake. It’s in the way your skin prickles under his name, even when you don’t hear it. In the way you keep checking the patio door without meaning to.
And for a second, for just a blink, you let yourself wonder if maybe this year will be different. Maybe he won’t behave the same way. Maybe, just maybe, this is the summer where the pattern finally breaks.
But of course he does.
He shows up just past noon, towel slung low around his neck like it’s a movie prop, sunglasses in his hair, his skin bronzed from the early sun. His grin is all practiced ease, sun-warmed confidence. He walks like the lawn belongs to him. Like you do.
Your stomach twists. Not in hate. Not in longing. Something murkier. Something like resignation.
He looks right at you.
“What you looking at, chérie?” he says, the lilt of his voice just teasing enough to make it sting.
Your eyes meet. Just for a second too long.
Then he drops into the chair across from you, legs spread, posture loose and open like you’re already in his lap. He sips from a drink someone handed him and then slides his foot under the table. It nudges yours once. Then again. Then trails just a bit higher up your shin.
You shift your leg away like it burns.
He notices. His eyebrows pull in slightly, almost imperceptible, but you catch it. He doesn’t say anything.
Later, it’s just the two of you again. The house is quiet, naps and errands, people scattered. You’re in the kitchen refilling water bottles, sleeves rolled, hair still damp from a swim you took alone.
He walks in like he owns the walls. Leans back against the counter, arms crossed, watching you.
“Pourquoi tu m’évites?”
Why are you avoiding me?
You screw the cap on too tightly. You feel the twist in your wrist. “I’m not.”
His smile doesn’t falter, but there’s something colder beneath it now. “Didn’t say goodnight. Didn’t kiss me. Didn’t even look at me.”
You raise your gaze to the window. “You didn’t say anything worth replying to.”
He blinks, once. A slow reaction, like he’s recalibrating. You can feel the moment his confidence falters, but just slightly.
“You mad at me?” he asks, softer now.
You finally look at him, and it lands heavy. Your voice is steady. “No.”
He pushes off the counter. Takes a slow step forward. Then another. He’s close now. Closer than he should be.
You take a step back. Barely. Reflex.
And that’s when the smile falls.
“You didn’t used to do that,” he says. His voice is quieter. Not a whisper, but something near it.
You shrug. “I didn’t used to think about things too much.”
The silence between you feels electric. Not like desire, like static. Like the storm that builds just before something snaps.
He stares at you for a beat. Then two.
And for the first time, maybe ever, he doesn’t have something slick to say back.
You end up by the pool again that evening. Of course you do.
It’s muscle memory by now, the tug in your chest when the sun dips low and the damn cicadas start up again, loud and constant like they’ve never stopped screaming since the first time. The water shimmers in the half-light, dappled gold giving way to deeper blue. It smells like chlorine and dusk and the faint curl of someone’s forgotten cologne in the air.
The others are gone, upstairs, passed out in the humid lull of too much rosé, or maybe out driving to the village for dessert or cigarettes or something else that doesn’t matter. The point is: it’s just the two of you.
Like always.
You’re sitting on the edge of the pool, feet skimming the surface, arms wrapped loosely around your knees. Again. Just as always. Again and again and again. The concrete is still warm beneath your thighs, and the silence buzzes, close and thick and unspoken.
He joins you without asking. Drops into the space beside you like he belongs there, like there was never a version of this where he didn’t. His thigh brushes yours. He doesn’t move it.
You feel the tension gather in your chest like a fist. It wraps around your ribs, slow and quiet and cruel. You breathe carefully, like exhaling too loudly might shatter the delicate balance of pretending you’re unaffected.
For a while, he doesn’t say anything. Just lets the silence stretch, the way he always does when he wants you to come to him. When he’s too sure you will.
Then: “You remember that storm summer?”
His voice is soft, nostalgic. Easy. That tone he uses when he wants you to forget what he’s done, what he hasn’t said.
You nod. Slowly.
He smiles, crooked and fond. “You were so scared, you crawled into my bed in the middle of the night.”
You remember.
You weren’t scared. Not really. You just wanted an excuse. You needed a reason to cross the hallway. Something you could say later that made it sound innocent.
You say, “I wasn’t scared.”
He chuckles, low in his throat. “Sure you weren’t.”
And then he reaches for you.
It’s not rushed. Not aggressive. Just smooth, confident, the way it always is with him. Like he knows what your body wants even when your mouth says nothing. Like he’s done this before. Because he has.
His hand finds your jaw, thumb tracing the edge of your cheekbone. His mouth hovers, breath warm against your skin. He doesn’t kiss you yet. He doesn’t have to.
“You want this,” he murmurs, eyes on your mouth.
It´s not a question.
And maybe, maybe, a part of you does.
But not like this.
Not again. Not in this cycle of silence and sunburn and pretending. Not when you know how it ends. Not when he never stays.
Because what you want—really want—is for it to mean something. To be more than a summer reflex. More than a postcard memory you both abandon when September comes.
And this—his hand, his grin, his whisper—it isn’t more.
Not to him.
You pull back.
Just slightly. But enough.
His fingers fall away like he’s been burned. He blinks, slow, like the moment broke too fast for him to catch it.
“What?” he says, like it genuinely baffles him.
You swallow, throat dry. You keep your voice even. “I don´t want this. I don’t want to be your vacation habit anymore.”
His brows draw together. He leans back a little, his weight shifting. “It’s not like that.”
You laugh. But there’s no humor in it. Just sharpness. Just air escaping through something cracked.
“Of course it is,” you say. And then you stand.
You leave him there, pool lights flickering across his skin, hand still half-curled in the air like he doesn’t understand how this didn’t go the way it always does.
You don’t look back.
That night, even in sleep, it’s him.
Of course it is.
Your dreams pull you under like warm water, heavy, thick, familiar. And in them, it’s always Charles. Always that night, that specific summer, like your brain’s built a shrine to it in the back of your mind. A flickering reel of skin and salt and him, always him, undoing you in soft shadows.
You’d had sex before. Lots of it, if you’re being honest. Familiar, habitual, sometimes even fun. You knew each other’s rhythms, the little cues, a hand at the base of your spine meant he wanted it slow, a kiss to your jaw meant he wanted it now. You could read each other in darkness better than most people could in daylight.
But that night was different.
It was slower. Hungrier. Like you both knew the clock was ticking on the end of summer and neither of you could afford to waste what was left. He touched you like you were something rare. Something that might vanish if he moved too fast.
You remember the way he found you, on the balcony, legs tucked beneath you, curled in a sweatshirt that wasn’t yours. It was hisYou remember the feel of it: oversized, sun-warmed, smelling faintly of detergent.
He leaned against the balcony door, watching you for a long time before he said anything. Eyes heavy, hair a little damp, arms crossed casually like he didn’t know he was already in your bloodstream.
“Tu penses à moi?”
Are you thinking about me?
You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to.
Because then he crossed the space and kissed you like it was the first time all over again. Like he hadn’t already had you a dozen different ways in every spare corner of this house. His mouth was warm, coaxing, so slow it hurt. His hands gripped your thighs, tugged you closer, and you didn’t resist. You never did.
He didn’t say much. Charles never needed to. His hands said enough, sliding under his shirt on your body, over your ribs, up to your chest. He palmed you gently, thumbs grazing over skin until your breath hitched. You melted into him, easy, too easy.
Because that was the problem, wasn’t it?
You always wanted him. Even when you shouldn’t.
Inside, the house was empty. Or quiet enough to pretend it was. The others were gone, out late or asleep or too drunk to notice. The air buzzed with possibility. With risk. With heat.
He laid you down on the mattress like he was offering you to the night. Peeled your clothes off piece by piece. He looked at you like he wanted to memorize everything—every curve, every mark, the way your stomach fluttered when his fingers ghosted across your skin.
And then his mouth was on you.
You’d made a sound, sharp, startled, like something broken. He looked up at you, lips wet, hair falling into his eyes. Smirked like the devil himself.
“Tu l’aimes comme ça, hein?”
You like it like that, huh?
You nodded. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think.
He reached toward the nightstand, already moving for the drawer. But your hand caught his wrist.
You shook your head.
Soft. Certain.
His eyes flicked to yours, caught something there he hadn’t expected. Surprise bloomed into something darker, sharper.
He swore under his breath in French. “Putain…”
Then louder, brow furrowed: “You serious ?”
You nodded, just once, barely.
He swore again, rougher this time, almost frustrated, but not with you. With himself. With the weight of what this meant.
And when he finally pushed into you—bare, careful, deep—you gasped, and he stilled. For one suspended second, you both just breathed, your bodies locked together like an answer to a question neither of you had been ready to ask.
You wrapped your legs around him—not from reflex, but from want. From something deeper. Like if you could just hold him close enough, if you stayed joined like this long enough, maybe something would shift. Maybe he’d stay.
And for a moment, it felt like he might.
Because this time, it wasn’t rushed. Wasn’t distant. He moved slowly, deliberately, each thrust thick with heat and something that almost felt like care. He kissed you between breaths—your shoulder, your jaw, your mouth—and each one felt less like routine, more like instinct. More like he needed you.
He moaned your name, more than once. Said it like a truth he couldn’t swallow. Like it meant something now.
And you let yourself answer—soft noises, whispered pleas, arms wrapped tight around him as if to keep him from unraveling out of your life.
When it was over, he didn’t pull away right away. He stayed inside you, forehead resting against yours, breath tangled with yours. Then his hand slipped behind your neck, fingers warm and tender, and he kissed you.
Really kissed you.
Like it mattered.
And the worst part?
You let yourself believe it did.
Again.
You told yourself this time was different. That maybe all the years of almost could turn into something solid. That maybe the ache in your chest meant he felt it too.
But even as he held you, even as his mouth lingered on yours—your heart knew better.
Because even care, when it isn’t followed by clarity, still ends in confusion.
And when he fell asleep, arm wrapped around you, heavy and warm, like something that belonged, you didn’t move.
He was pressed so close you could feel the rise and fall of his chest against your back, his breath soft and steady on the curve of your neck. It should not have been comforting. Should not have made you feel wanted.
But the worst part? It was.
So you lay there, still and wide awake, your heart thudding against the silence, your body sore in places you wanted to pretend meant something. And all you could hear, through the window, through the ache, were the fucking cicadas.
You wake up drenched in sweat. The kind that feels cold even in the heat. Your shirt sticks to your back, your shorts twisted around your waist, limbs tangled in the sheets like you fought something in your sleep and lost.
Your heart pounds.
Hard. Too hard. Like he never left your body. Like he’s still in you, mouth on your skin, hands between your legs, voice in your ear. Your thighs clench involuntarily. You hate the way it makes your stomach twist.
It disgusts you.
Not the memory. Not exactly. It’s the clarity of it. The precision. The way your body betrays you with perfect recall. The way the ghost of him still clings, under your nails, behind your knees, at the hollow of your throat.
You roll over too fast, kicking the sheets away. The pillow slips, flops off the side of the bed and knocks over the half-empty glass of water. You hear it before you see it.
The shatter.
Loud in the quiet.
“Fuck,” you mutter, louder than you meant. The word sticks in the humid air like smoke.
You sit up too quickly, swing your legs over the edge and try to stand. A jagged sting slices through your heel. A hot, immediate pain.
You hiss, sharper this time, “Fuck—”
You freeze mid-step, breathing through your teeth. Blood pools beneath your arch, ruby-red on white tile. It drips from you steadily, and you don’t move. Just glare at the floor like it offended you.
Then: a knock at the door.
“Chérie?”
Of course.
Charles.
“You okay?”
His voice is soft, concerned, but not panicked. You know that tone. It’s his gentle act. His default charm. You almost say “go away,” but the words never make it out.
He steps in like it’s still his place to. Like this is still routine. Like he didn’t unravel you in your sleep and leave the seams exposed.
“I heard something brea—” He stops mid-sentence. Eyes drop to your foot. To the blood. “Oh. Did you hurt yourself?”
You don’t answer right away. Your jaw is too tight. “I stepped on glass,” you say finally. “Be careful—it’s everywhere.”
He glances down. “I’m wearing shoes,” he says with a small shrug. “Don’t worry.”
You want to snap at him for it, for the casualness, the ease. But then he’s moving. Crunching glass underfoot like it’s nothing. And then suddenly he’s close—too close—and before you can protest, he’s lifting you.
Strong arms under your knees, a hand steady at your back. He carries you a few steps and sets you down gently, away from the mess, onto the other side of the bed.
“Wait here,” he says, already turning away.
And for some reason, you do.
He disappears into the bathroom without another word. You hear the familiar creak of the cabinet door, the rattle of the first-aid kit as he digs through it, the splash of water in the sink. He moves like someone who’s done this before—like someone who’s been taught to fix what he breaks, but not to stop breaking it.
When he returns, his sleeves are rolled up, and he’s carrying a damp towel, the antiseptic, tweezers, and gauze. He kneels in front of you without asking. He doesn’t sit. He kneels. And it’s stupid, but something about that posture makes your throat catch. Like penance. Like prayer.
He sets everything carefully on the edge of the bed beside your thigh, glancing up once. His eyes are unreadable. Not soft, exactly, but focused. Present.
His fingers hover over your foot.
“Don’t move,” he says, barely above a whisper.
You try not to.
But when he touches the first shard, you jolt, sharp and involuntary. Pain flares, quick and bright. You suck in a breath through your teeth. Tears burn before you can stop them. One escapes, streaking hot down your cheek.
“Fuck,” you whisper, trembling.
His hands still. “Sorry,” he says, this time with real quiet behind it. “Just a little longer.”
You nod, eyes shut tight.
He goes back in, slow now, precise. The tweezers move delicately, and his other hand steadies your ankle. His thumb rubs absent circles on your skin, maybe without realizing it. Maybe on purpose. You don’t know which would be worse.
You need something to hold onto. Anything. Your hand finds his shoulder, fingers curling into the warm fabric of his shirt, gripping harder than you mean to. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t comment.
The last shard comes free, and you feel the pressure ease. He presses the towel to your foot, then tapes the gauze gently in place, wrapping it secure, snug—but not tight.
Then, just when you think it’s over, he does something unexpected.
He leans down.
And kisses your ankle.
Light. Warm. Unforgivable.
Your breath catches. You stare at him, but he doesn’t look up right away. He brushes his fingers once more along your calf, and finally speaks, voice low, coaxing:
“You’re good now.”
But he doesn’t move away.
He lingers, still holding your leg, thumb brushing slow arcs against your skin.
“I can make you forget the pain,” he murmurs, as his lips press higher, just a little. A kiss to the curve of your calf. Then another, slow, deliberate, just below your knee.
“Charles…” It’s barely a breath. A warning with no teeth.
But he keeps going.
His mouth moves up your leg with agonizing care, each kiss another spark in the dark. Your hand stays on his shoulder, palm flat now, a soft push. Not enough to stop him. Just enough to ask.
He pauses.
Lifts his head. His breath skims your thigh. His eyes find yours—dark, wide, a flicker of something earnest or maybe just expertly disguised want.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks.
The question is simple. The silence that follows is not.
You look at him. His hair is a mess, sticking out in soft, familiar directions. His expression is almost boyish. Expectant. You hate that you can’t tell if it’s real. If any of this is.
You should say yes.
You should scream it.
But you don’t.
You say nothing.
And he smirks—small, knowing. That same smirk from every summer before.
You lie there wondering how the hell you got here again.
Wondering when wanting stopped being a choice, and just became something your body did, on cue, on instinct, like muscle memory carved too deep to unlearn.
Because it isn’t supposed to feel like this.
Not like guilt twisted up in your gut. Not like shame blooming in your chest before he’s even touched you properly.
But he does. Touch you, that is. Slowly. With precision, with purpose. His mouth drags higher along the inside of your thigh, teasing you, coaxing you open. Your breath stutters. Your legs part like a reflex, and that’s when it happens, he slips a hand under your shorts and pushes your panties aside with a confidence that makes your stomach curl.
You should stop him. You’re thinking it, you know you are.
But then his mouth is on you.
Hot. Open. Patient.
He licks a slow, deliberate stripe up your center, and your hips twitch helplessly toward him. His hand presses gently to your stomach, grounding you like he knows what you need even before you do. You feel the press of his palm, firm and familiar, the faint scrape of his stubble against the inside of your thigh. It makes you shiver.
You squeeze your eyes shut.
What are you doing?
But then he moans softly into you, like the taste of you is something he's missed, like it's the only thing that matters. And your thoughts splinter, because the thing about Charles is, he doesn’t need much to undo you. One sound, one breath, one flick of his tongue, and you’re unraveling like you never learned how to hold yourself together.
His mouth moves with a purpose now—slow but relentless, teasing you open, licking you soft and wet and dizzy until your hands scramble for something—anything—to hold onto. The sheets. His shoulders. The edge of the mattress.
You feel yourself slipping under, pulled into the tide of him again. You gasp, his name breaks from your lips unbidden, and you hate how natural it feels, how familiar.
He doesn’t stop.
He never does.
He keeps going like he wants to wring every shiver from your bones, every gasp from your lungs. And when you come, sharp and loud and trembling, he hums like he’s satisfied, like he owns it.
When he finally pulls away, his mouth glistens and his eyes are blown wide, dark with want. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand and climbs over you without a word, sliding into the space between your thighs like it was carved out for him.
Your body reaches for him before you can stop it. Your fingers find his jaw, your mouth parts for his kiss. You want to push him away, but you’re already pulling him closer.
He kisses you slow, like he’s trying to make you forget the ache, the history, the truth. His hand finds your chest, warm and heavy, palm pressing into your skin until you gasp into his mouth. He drinks it down greedily.
“Want you,” he murmurs into your throat. “Right now.”
You close your eyes. It’s too late. You’re already here.
“You already have me,” you say. And it’s the most honest thing you’ve said all summer.
He exhales, shaky. You feel his body stutter for a second, like your words land somewhere deep in him, a hit he didn’t expect. You don’t know if it’s guilt or triumph that flashes across his face.
Then everything unravels.
He pushes his pants down, yours follow, and it happens in a blur, like your bodies are moving faster than your minds can keep up. You’re already wet, already open, and when he pushes into you, slow and full and unbearably deep, both of you make a sound like it hurts.
Maybe it does.
You wrap around him without thinking. Like instinct. Like gravity. He fucks you slow at first, deliberate, like he’s trying to savor it. And for a moment, it almost feels real.
Almost tender. But there's a wall there, always has been something unreachable behind his eyes.
Still, your hand finds his. Fingers lace tight. Foreheads press together.
Your name breaks from his lips again, softer this time—like a question, like a prayer. His pace falters. His jaw tightens. And then something in him gives. He pushes deeper, harder, with that desperate edge—like he’s trying to reach the parts of you he never could. Like he wants to leave something behind in you, something only he can claim.
You come again, your body wrung out, face turned into the pillow to muffle the sound. You bite down so hard you taste copper. This one is different. It burns. It's grief threaded through pleasure—like mourning disguised as release. A goodbye, dressed up in want.
He finishes seconds later, his face pressed into your neck, breath short and uneven. He doesn't say your name this time.
He just breathes, still buried in you.
Then, quietly, he says, “That’s what I missed.”
You feel it like a blade. The tears sting instantly, blurring the edges of the room. He kisses your shoulder—soft, almost reverent—and asks, “Do you want me to stay?”
You don’t answer right away. Can’t.
When you do, it’s a whisper: “No.”
He’s still for a second. Then he kisses your cheek, almost like a thank-you, and stands.
"See you tomorrow, chérie."
Just like that.
No apology. No fight. No closing of the space he just carved open.
You hear the rustle of fabric, the zipper. He doesn’t look back. He’s already halfway dressed before you even sit up.
Your skin is sticky with sweat, with him. The sheets twisted around your legs. The silence.
Except it isn’t silent.
The goddamn cicadas are screaming outside.
You wake with the taste of him still lingering on your tongue—salt and sweat and the bitter afterburn of regret. You haven’t even opened your eyes yet and already you feel it, clawing up your throat: the self-loathing, the ache, the heavy hush of shame that no shower can scrub away.
You feel hollow. Stupid. Bruised in places no one can see.
You don’t cry. You’re past crying. Past pleading. There’s nothing left in your chest but the slow, dull throb of disappointment.
Mostly at yourself.
By the time the sun finds its angle across the pool deck, you’ve already been sitting out there for hours. Skin hot, eyes dry, limbs leaden with the weight of what you’re about to say. You've gone over it a hundred times, every word, every beat, every possible way to get through it without shaking.
You hear him before you see him. Flip-flops against tile. A yawn, too casual. Then the creak of the lounge chair as he lowers himself beside you, like nothing’s changed. Like you didn't break open under him last night and wake up full of splinters.
He stretches, scratches the back of his neck. Glances at you sideways.
“Sleep okay?”
His voice is easy. Too easy. Like you’re strangers playing house. Like he didn’t kiss you with shaking hands. Like he didn’t leave without saying a word.
You don’t answer the question. You just say it.
“I meant what I said yesterday.”
He pauses. “What?”
“That I don’t want to be your summer vacation habit.”
“Didn’t feel like that last night.”
And there it is.
You turn to him, slow. Eyes burning. Voice steady.
“You only wanna kiss by the pool,” you say, the words landing heavier than you expected. “When you’re in the mood. When the sky’s pink and the water’s warm and no one else is looking.”
He shifts but doesn’t speak. The silence between you buzzes — thick with the motherfucking cicadas, thick with every version of you that said yes when she should’ve said nothing.
“You want me to talk like your maman in French,” you go on, “soft and sweet and half-wrapped in fantasy. Like I’m something you can visit, not someone you choose.”
His jaw clenches.
“And you just wanna vibe—sometimes. Not all the time. God forbid you actually have to keep me in your mind when I’m not right in front of you.”
The hurt flashes across his face this time. Brief, but real. But you’re already past it.
His voice comes soft, defensive: “C’est pas vrai…” It’s not true
But it is. God, it is.
“You were calling me to your room,” you say. “I always answered right away.”
You pause, then say it plain:
“But you never made me stay.”
He reaches for your name like it’s a solution. Like if he says it soft enough, it’ll stitch something back together.
But you shake your head.
“Don’t.”
And this time, he listens.
You stand. Not with hope. Not with heartbreak. But with the aching stillness of someone finally done romanticizing their own loneliness.
You leave him there.
In the blue-glow hush of a memory too fragile to carry.
In a summer you won’t write poems about anymore.
With the soft chirps of cicadas arround him.
#summary; Where a blog blows up about having a strange accuracy on race predictions, until a certain driver gets worried about it...
#word-count; 1K
#MASTERLIST
The accuracy was unsettling.
At first, it was just Y/Ns dumb blogs about F1 predictions. She'd post, get some basic likes (mostly her friends), giggle when she got something right.
Until it became serious, because everything she posted became true almost instantly. "Max will DNF in Australia" she wrote, and he did indeed.
Next race, "Red Bull will have a 1-2", sure not a SUPER prediction, but it became true.
Next one, "Nico Hulkenberg will come P10", and there he was in the chinese GP: In P10.
It was by the Miami GP that she blew up online when she correctly predicted Lando Norris would take his first win, that wasn't exactly a probability guess.
It gathered fans of course, if someone could be this accurate surely it meant something. Either her luck was huge or she was one damn good fortune teller. By mid season people were looking forward to her posts, they felt a pit in their stomach when she said their driver would DNF, others felt the sun shine brighter when she poster that their driver would make the podium that weekend.
To her really it was a streak of luck waiting to end, she wasn't going deep into research, wasn't observing mechanics or making money out of it. She just had a feeling, posted anything she thought was right, and giggled when it became true.
When race 8 of the calendar hit: Monaco, things took a shift though.
She had been posting more than normal, about updates, drivers, fp1, qualy. And eventually, she made a single take that sent her fans into overdrive:
"Charles Leclerc will DNF in Monaco, collision with Lewis Hamilton, lap 32."
If you were any slight fan of Formula 1 you'd know Leclerc had a huge bad streak on his home Grand Prix. With crashes, failed pit stops, rain, and general lack of luck. The comments were many on that single post.
"Girl, DELETE THISSS"
"don't let ferrari see this"
"FYM he'll DNF"
"Easy shot, he always does bad in monaco."
"NOOOOOO"
"If he does I fear he might retire"
"fearing lap 32 all time now wdym"
"if I catch you on the streets ur done"
Now listen, Charles didn't like to be supersticious. But when Carlos send him that post saying "Mate you're crashing.", he did feel a bit..panicked.
He already had every single factor against him, and now the (apparent) best predictions blog on the internet was making comments like these? He went up on the posts all night, comparing the results to the predictions, finding 90% of the time she was right or every nearly right. He tried not to think about it, tried to play it cool, sent back a "lmao" to Sainz, but sleep never came.
In a bout of anxiety, he opened tumblr, created a fake account, found her blog once again and sent her one very ominous message:
"Delete that."
Y/N stared at the notification, wouldn't be the first time a fan sent her something like that. People grew desperate, and some weirdos took it to heart. She replied, like she often did.
"Someone felt that, lol" She began, and sent a second one "Chill, sometimes I'm wrong."
"No you don't understand. Delete that right now and post that I'm gonna win."
"I'm?" Y/n thought with discomfort. It couldn't be, Leclerc didn't waste his time messaging people on the internet, did he?
She didn't reply then, figuring it was some creep with a god complex trying to scare her off, she just put her phone down and went to sleep.
Now imagine her shock when, watching Saturday's interviews, the following video popped up to her:
It was Charles being interview in the media pen.
"Charles, do you find yourself being superstitious about Monaco with your repeated bad results over the years?" The female interviwer asked, she was out of view, only her microphone appeared as she pointed it at Leclerc.
His eyebrows shot up and he nervously laughed. "I do, much more than I'd want to admit. In fact--" He continued "Yesterday I sent a message to a blog that said I was going to crash, I really need her to delete that by the way."
Her hands were frozen in position, he couldn't mean her-- well of course it was her! Who else could it be?! Her fingers moved at lightening speed and in seconds, the dumb post was out of the air, she quickly retyped something new:
"Charles Leclerc will win the Monaco Grand Prix." and hit post ASAP.
Her inbox was full of people laughing at her for changing her opinion, others were happy that she did. But she couldn't stop thinking about him: The way he had actually messaged her, the way he had demanded it, how much her comments affected a driver!
Her phone buzzed so much she picked it up to silence it-- she couldn't handle the incessant messages, texts, likes and comments coming trough. Just as she was about to put her device down, her eyes caught on a notification, the same account from yesterday that now she figured it was Charles'
"Thank you" He wrote "You don't know how much it helps me."
When the initial wave of "CHARLES LECLERC TEXTED ME" passed, she called all of her friends, printed the chat a million times, kicked her legs like a damn schoolgirl, twirled her hair and shrieked.
During the race on Sunday she clenched her fists harder than anyone else, everytime someone got too close to Charles (SPECIALLY Lewis) her heart would beat faster and she felt like fainting. Every lap, every second felt like hours to the end. And when the sky sports commentator began his final speech as Charles approached the finish line? Tears were mandatory. It was an absolute historical moment to witness, for all involved. She clapped, yelled, bawled, got a bit red when Leclerc mentioned "Even the people online who helped me" in his winning speech, thinking maybe he had spared a thought to her.
That was it though, wasn't it? She closed Monaco as "that one very weird and particular time a driver contacted me."
She kept working, chuckling whenever it sprung to mind, Leclerc was back at being a far away celebrity.
Until he texted again.
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#note; LOOK WHOSE BACK
AND THANK YOU @clarenciago for helping me choose someone, Charles is absolutly the sort of guy to not be able to sleep because of this stuff.
