pairing: lando norris x fem!reader (no y/n, established rel.)
warnings: sweet and cliche, p in v, slight dumbification, sleepy soft sex, soft dom lando
wc: 2.7k
summary: lando comes home to his sleepy girlfriend after an exhausting triple-header
ale's note: RACE WEEEEK !!! i tried to write something soft and sweet but you know me i always have to add smut...
also, for everyone asking stalker!osc is coming soooon 🙂↕️
lando has his forehead against the cold taxi window, watching monaco slide past outside in a haze of orange light, thinking about nothing in particular except that he's nearly home.
three weeks. austin, then mexico city, then são paulo, back to back to back, a stretch of paddocks and airport lounges that wrung him dry. it’s been weeks since he’s had you in his arms. he’s had the curve of your spine and the smell of your hair on his mind for the entire length of the triple-header. he’d thought about calling last night, but hadn’t, worried you’d hear how sad he was and start crying too. he’d told the team he was flying back in the morning, but the idea of one more night on a starched hotel pillow, the silence of not-you, made him punch in a last-minute booking and wedge himself into a seat on the earliest possible plane.
it's not complicated. he just missed you.
theres a neurochemical whiplash to the change—from track adrenaline to the slurred, irritable exhaustion of a long haul, from the humidity and heat of brasil to the crispness of the monegasque night. he imagines you, tucking yourself into bed, sleepy. the way you’ll probably cry when you see him because you get emotional when you’re exhausted. the thing about loving someone who tires easily is that you start to get addicted to the way they sag into you. the trust in it, the vulnerbaility. lando is thinking about this as the taxi pulls up in front of the apartment building. he drags his duffel out, thanks the driver in mushy french,then keys himself into the lobby. the lift takes forever. he stands in it with his bag and the pervading stench of airplane and his bajillion unread messages from jon, watcing the floor numbers go up.
he opens the door with a metallic snick, careful and quiet in case you’re asleep. the first thing that hits him is the warmth, so different from the chill outside, and saturated with the scent of your perfume. you must have cooked something earlier, he thinks, something rich and garlicky. he kicks off his shoes, toeing them neatly by the door. he can hear sound from the tv in the living room, light from the screen flickering out into the dimly lit room. he leaves his bag by the door. he'll deal with it later.
and there you are, in the living room, curled on the couch. your cheek is smushed into the leather and your lips are parted, a tiny gloss of drool pooling at the edge of your mouth.
the blanket is half off, exposing your bare thigh. your hair is a wreck, mussed and waterfalling over your face. his throat tightens. he’s not sure what it is—maybe the picture you make, all sweet and oblivious, or maybe the memory of how empty the hotel beds felt these last weeks—but it does something to him.
there’s something in him—a failure of emotional maturity, probably, or maybe just a hole in his own childhood—that has always wanted to keep something soft alive, to have something that needs him. he thinks of you as a baby bird, or sometimes a puppy, all twitchy and sweet and trusting. it’s not meant to be an insult. you’re smarter than him, probably. but you’re still so easily tired by the world, so obviously in need of shelter. he sometimes has this weird need to build a house around you and stand outside all night, knife in hand, just in case.
he kneels by the sofa, reaching out to brush stray locks off your cheek. you don’t stir. he wonders if he can get away with watching you like this forever, but theres this greedy, selfish urge clawing at him. he missed you. he needs you to wake up. he drags his knuckles along your jaw, the softest nudge. you make a small noise, nose twitching, and your eyelids flutter. he strokes your face again, more deliberate. “hey, sleepyhead.”
your eyes flutter open, unfocused and bright. you blink slow, like your brain is still rebooting. it’s disgustingly cute.
“‘lando?” your voice is raspy, a little confused.
“hi, sweetheart,” he whispers back, smiling, “didn’t mean to wake you.” lie.
you stare at him, foggy, and your mouth curls into a half-smile, sleepy and dopey. “you’re not supposed to be home,” you say, like you’re accusing him of something horrible.
“missed you,” he says, and he doesn’t try to hide the way his voice breaks.
you try to sit up, but your limbs are noodles, and you just flop over sideways. he pulls you into his arms instead. you come down easy, melting against him like you want to crawl under his skin. you burrow your head into his armpit, so pliant and so warm that he feels like he could hold you forever.
“i missed you more,” you mumble into his skin. at least that’s what he thinks you say, your words are barely intelligible and slurred with sleep.
he lifts your chin with a finger and looks at you properly. your eyes are glazed, pupils blown wide, and your lips are parted, soft and lush. you look like you’ve just been fucked into oblivion, not like you’ve been napping. he grins, a little wolfish, and you catch it, your eyebrows lifting, “whuh?”.
“you’re just…” he shakes his head, can’t find the right word. “sweet.”
you roll your eyes, but it’s slow, like your brain is wading through syrup. he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, and tucks your head back against his shoulder. the clock on the wall ticks to 12.
“you should get to bed,” he whispers, but you only whine, a wordless sound that means you want to stay right here, in his lap.
“i’ll carry you,” he offers, only half-joking, because all he wants is you in his arms, but your answering noise is so eager, he can’t help but smile.
“‘kay,” you say, and he hooks an arm under your knees and another around your back and stands, lifting you like you weigh nothing. you just cling, face buried in his neck, hands tangled in the fabric of his shirt. he can feel your smile againt his skin.
he deposits you on the bed, pulling the duvet over you. your hand shoots out for him when he moves away.
“stay,” you whisper.
“i have to shower, sweetheart. i’m disgusting.”
“don’t care,” you slur. “wanna smell you.”
something in his chest squeezes. “5 minutes, yeah?”
you make a vague sound, somewhere between a yes and a snore.
he showers fast, rinsing the smell of recycled air off him. when he comes back, you’re still in exactly the same position, sweet, defencdeless, and completely his. he crawls into bed next to you, pulling your back against hsi chest. you make a pleased sound.
“i love you,” he breathes into your hair, and he’s never meant anything more in his life.
he wants to tell you more, everything. how lonely it is in those hotel rooms, how the world feels sharper and meaner when you’re not with him, how the thing he wants most isn’t the win or the champagne or the cameras but this: you, drooling on him, arms around him, so tired you can barely keep your eyes open but still greedy for his touch. how he could have all of the podiums and the trophies in the world, and how it’d still mean nothing without you.
but he knows you’re about to fall asleep again—he can feel your breath evening out, your muscles going slack—so instead he swallows the emotion down.
he kisses the crown of your head, then your temple, then your lips. you smile in your sleep, making a little blissed-out noise, and lando thinks: if this is what the rest of my life is, i’ll never need anything else.
꩜
lando wakes to sunlight spilling through the blinds. your arm is splayed over his chest, your hand has curled loose around his bicep. there’s a damp spot on his chest where you must have drooled, which makes him smile.
he’s always felt a little sick with how much he loves you. it gnaws at his insides, the affection. sometimes he thinks about you as a child—photos of you with fat cheeks and scraped knees, the stories you tell about getting locked out of the house by your older brother. he gets obsessed with the idea of having known you then. he wants to peel back the years and wrap his arms around every version of you, keep you safe and soft and protected, make sure nothing ever bruises you except the things he can kiss better.
he moves a fraction, and you grunt in protest, wiggling closer back into him. there’s something almost perverse about how easily you fold into him, no friction at all, only this puddling collapse. its like your bones have liquefied in the night. an hour ticks by and evebtually, you shift, eyelids fluttering.
“lando,” you mumble, and then, “lando, don’t let me go.”
he squeezes you and you nestle in. you’ve always been the coldest human alive, and in winter you use him like a hot water bottle. he lets you, likes it even, how you shove your iceblock feet between his legs.
eventually, you begin to stir. it starts with a hand at his waist, searching for him under the sheets. he rolls you to face him, and you blink up at him, dazed in the blue morning light. your hair’s a disaster, and your face is creased from the pillow. he wants to bite you, a little, just to see what you’d do.
you reach for him again, pulling his arm across your chest so his hand lands on your tits. you sigh, content, and it’s so obvious what you want that he has to laugh.
“missed me that much, huh?” he teases, but you don’t rise to the bait. you just push your tits into his palm and shiver, like you’re cold, like you can’t get enough of him. he obliges, thumb brushing over your nipple until it’s hard and you’re making those tiny whimpering sounds he loves.
“lando,” you whisper, drawn out and needy. he’s been waiting weeks to hear you like this.
he kisses you, slow and deep, licks into your mouth until you go slack. you melt, your body going boneless under his touch. he takes his time, kissing you like you’re oxygen. your tongue is lazy, letting him do what he wants, and he does—tilting your head, biting your lip, sucking your tongue until you moan into his mouth.
you whine when he pulls away, hands chasing him in effort to keep him close. he loves that—loves how you go floaty and dumb for him, how your only thought is how to get him closer.
he kisses your jaw, your throat, then slides down to lift your top, taking your nipple in his mouth. you arch, pulling him closer.
“greedy,” he laughs, low in his chest, and you only nod, lost to the sensation. he traces down your ribs, his hand spanning your waist, thumbs hooking into the band of your shorts. you buck up, hips chasing his touch, and he’s so hard it almost hurts, his cock pressed against your thigh.
“you want me?” he murmurs, and he’s a little mean about it because you always say yes, but this time you’re so gone you can’t even speak. you just nod, eyes wide and unfocused, mouth open, panting. he slides his hand down, cups your pussy over the fabric, and you whimper. he can feel the heat leaking through cotton.
“so wet, baby,” he coos, smug, and rubs slow circles through your shorts until you’re grinding desperate against his hand. he wants to see you, wants to fuck you until you can’t walk, but more than anything he wants you to just let go, let him do everything for you.
he slides his palms under the fabric and squeezes your ass. you grind down, making his cock twitch.
“jesus, you’re needy,” he murmurs, almost reverent.
you only make a broken, whimpery sound. he flips you, easy as tossing a pillow, and you let yourself be manhandled. he wants to laugh again, at how much you love being small, how much you love being handled, but it would ruin the spell. your eyes flutter shut, maybe with exhaustion, maybe with pleasure.
“you awake?” lando asks softly, leaning down to kiss the tip of your nose.
“’m awake,” you slur, your expression caught between bliss and confusion. “missed you so much.”
“did you now?” he traces the line of your jaw with his tongue, nipping at your earlobe.
“mm. missed you. missed your cock,” you mumble, almost too quiet to hear.
he freezes, then pulls back to look at you. you’re blushing, but smiling, all the same.
“greedy,” he tuts, but the word is thick with lust.
“please?” you manage, and the word is so pathetic, so honest, he has no choice but to oblige you.
he peels your shorts down, and you try to help, barely, lifting your hips just enough for him to slide them off. your cunt is glistening, wet and puffy. he touches you gently, running his fingers over your clit, and you choke out a moan, clutching at his arm.
he shushes you, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “i’ve got you, sweetheart. just relax.”
“inside?” you look up at him, eyes wide and trusting. “lando, inside, please?”
and fuck, that voice. what else can he do but give you what you are so sweetly begging him for?
he peels off his boxers and lines himself up, presing the head of his cock against you and pushing in slow, savouring every inch of it. you gasp, back arching, hands grabbing for his arms, his shoulders, anything to anchor yourself.
“okay?” he asks, even though you’re already nodding, already grinding back onto him.
“feel so good,” your voice is slow, like you can’t concentrate on all the sensations at once.
he pulls out, thrusts back in, slow and shallow, and watches you come apart under him. you keep making these soft, kittenish sounds, keep scratching shallow lines down his back. he wants to fuck you harder, wants to pin you down and make you scream, but he knows that’s not what you need.
“pretty girl,” he praises, “you’re so fucking pretty. my good girl.”
“please,” you breathe. you’re almost crying, you don’t even know what you’re begging for.
he leans down, mouth at your ear, “you can cum, sweetheart. want you to.”
you do, eyes screwed shut and panting, cunt fluttering around his cock. then you melt, arms falling away. you blink up at him, dazed and grateful, a tiny smile pulling at your lips.
“’s good,” you mumble, then yawn, already half-asleep again.
he’s hasn’t finished, but he doesn’t care. he stays inside, just holding you, more for you than to chase his own pleasure. he thinks about just thrusting back inside you so he can cum—it’d be so quick, so easy—but looking at you, sated and sleepy, he knows he can't ruin that.
you whimper when he tries to pull out, arms and legs locking around him, trapping him inside.
“okay,” he laughs, breathless, so full of love he could burst, “okay, baby. i’ll stay.”
you sigh, content, and in minutes you’re asleep again, still clutching him. he stays inside you, uncomfortably hard, the heat of your cunt making his head swim, but he’s never been so happy.
he’s stuck there, buried in you, and it feels like the only place in the world he’s supposed to be. the room is warm and light, and lando thinks he might die here, in this bed, in this moment, and be happy forever.
Pairing: Lando Norris x EX!Personal Assistant!Reader
Description: You're Lando Norris's former personal assistant—fired eighteen months ago after he told you he loved you in a Qatar hotel room, then panicked. Now he's a World Champion with a new girlfriend and a mess of an assistant, and he needs you back. Just for two weeks of training, he says. Except Lando's never been good at keeping things professional, and some feelings don't stay buried.
Genre: second chance romance, forced proximity, angst with a happy ending, workplace-adjacent tension, emotional groveling, he's down BAD
WC: 21k
Note: Firstly, I want to apologize for how long this took to put out. I really struggled with finding the ending that felt right. And the paragraphs may feel overwhelming in length—I hit the 1,000 block limit like 40 times and had to condense everything. I proofread, stopped, then proofread again because it didn't feel good enough, and the cycle continued. So, about half is proofread and half isn't, which means there could be errors. Thank you for your patience and your kind words. I want to wish you Happy Holidays if you celebrate, and I'll continue doing my best with this little hobby of mine.
Leaving your job is the best thing that's ever happened to you. That's what you tell yourself, anyway. That's what you've been telling yourself for a year and a half now, and if you say it enough times, eventually it might feel true. The severance package Lando gave you was obscene. Guilt money, obviously, even though you're not calling it that out loud, but that's what it is—guilty money, hush money, please don't sue me for firing you thirty seconds after I came inside you money. Enough that you don't need to work. Enough that you're free.
Free. You're so fucking free that you've tried pottery three times and hated it every single time. You're so free that you've reorganized your closet by color, then by season, then by color again because the first way was better. You're so free that last Tuesday you stood in the shower and counted to three hundred just to see if you could.
The clay fights you. That's what they don't tell you about pottery. Your hands cramp and the instructor keeps saying feel the clay's energy like the clay has energy, like the clay is anything other than wet dirt that collapses the second you think you're getting somewhere. You even tried running. Running is just you and your thoughts for however many miles you can stand. Not ideal. Not even close to ideal. Guitar's gathering dust in the corner. Duolingo sends you passive-aggressive notifications about your streak. You've considered learning Portuguese but that feels pointed, feels like something you shouldn't examine too closely.
Two weeks ago, Lando Norris won the World Championship. You watched it from your apartment because you're a masochist, apparently. You sat on your couch in Monaco and watched him spray champagne and cry and lift the trophy, and you thought, good for him. You thought, I'm happy for him. You thought those things and none of them were true.
Last Friday he went to the FIA Prize Giving ceremony in Rwanda with his beautiful girlfriend to collect his trophy. The photos were everywhere. Every sports website, every F1 account, probably on the fucking news in countries that don't even have racing. His girlfriend, Magui, wore a black dress that made her look like a goddess reincarnated. He wore a tuxedo. They looked like they were attending their own wedding. That's a thought you're not examining. That way lies madness.
You abandon your collapsing bowl. Scrub the clay off your hands—it gets under your fingernails, stays there for hours. The instructor asks if you're signing up for next week. "I'll think about it," you say.
You're not signing up. You already know you're not signing up. Outside, Monaco is cold for December. Your apartment is fifteen minutes away if you walk fast, twelve if you're really moving. You've timed it. You don't go home, and you tell yourself you're just walking. Just getting some air. Just clearing your head after an hour of fighting with clay that had no interest in becoming anything other than a lopsided mess. That's what you tell yourself, and maybe it's even true. Except you're walking toward the harbor instead of toward your apartment, which is the opposite direction, which means you're either lost in your own city or you're lying to yourself. Probably the second one.
And the wonderful thing about Monaco is that it's small. Stupidly small. You can walk from one end to the other in under an hour. Which means you can't really avoid anything, can't really escape anyone, can't really pretend you're not living in the same two square kilometers as—you stop that thought before it finishes.
There's a sports bar on the corner. The kind that has screens covering every available wall, the kind that shows every race, every match, every game that matters. You've walked past it a hundred times. You've never gone in.
Today, you're going in. Just for a drink, you tell yourself. Just for one drink because it's cold outside and your apartment is empty and you're allowed to get a drink at a sports bar without it meaning anything. The bartender is maybe twenty-five, definitely Australian, probably works here because Monaco is where F1 people end up when they're not important enough to actually work in F1. He looks up when you walk in.
"What can I get you?"
"Vodka tonic." He makes it. You don't drink it. Instead, you just hold it and look at the screens because that's what you do in sports bars, you look at the screens. There are eight screens total. Three of them are showing football. Two are showing tennis. One is showing some sport you don't recognize—maybe rugby, maybe something else entirely. And one is showing a replay of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The final lap. Lando crossing the line. The radio message. The celebration. You watch him climb out of the car. Watch him collapse into his team's arms. Watch the whole thing you already watched two weeks ago from your couch, except now you're watching it in a bar in Monaco while a drunk British guy three seats down yells "FUCKING LEGEND" at the screen.
The bartender notices you watching. "You follow F1?"
"Not really," you lie.
"Shame. That race was incredible. Norris finally did it, you know? After all these years."
"Yeah. I heard."
"Best season I've ever seen. Guy's a machine." He's polishing a glass, still talking. "And his girlfriend, mate. You seen her? Absolute smoke show."
You finish your vodka tonic in one go. It burns. "Another?" the bartender asks.
"No. Thanks." You pay and leave. Outside, the cold air hits you like a slap. You start walking. Not toward home. Just walking again. The thing about Lando firing you is that you still don't understand it. You've had a year and a half to make it make sense and it doesn't. It will never make sense.
He'd looked at you. Really looked at you, the way he used to in hotel rooms and empty conference rooms and all those in-between moments when it was just the two of you and nothing else in the world mattered. He'd touched your face. You'd touched his. For one perfect second, you'd thought maybe this is it, maybe this is where everything gets fixed. Then his expression changed and he'd pulled away and gotten dressed like he couldn't stand to be near you anymore.
I fucking love you, he'd said. In that hotel room in Qatar, buried inside your cunt, saying it like it was being torn out of him. Like he couldn't help it. Like he actually meant the fucking words. And then ten minutes later, boom, you're fired.
Just like that. You're fired. Two words that ended everything. You've spent eighteen months trying to figure out how someone tells you they love you and then removes you from their life entirely. How someone can look at you like you're the only person who matters and then just stop. Just move on. Just win a championship and fall in love with someone else and be happy, be so fucking happy that you can see it in every photo, every interview, every goddamn Instagram story.
He touches her differently than he touched you. He touches her casually. His hand on her waist, his fingers interlaced with hers, easy and comfortable and public. Like he's allowed to. Like it's simple. He never touched you like that. He touched you like he was desperate. Like he was trying to memorize the feeling. Like he was afraid—of what, you still don't know. Afraid you'd disappear, maybe? Afraid someone would see? Afraid it meant something.
It did mean something. It meant everything. At least it did to you. You miss him. That's the pathetic truth of it all. You miss him so much that sometimes you can't breathe. You miss his 3 AM phone calls. You miss fixing his disasters. You miss the way he'd look at you when he thought you weren't paying attention, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle he couldn't solve. You miss the feeling of him. His hands, his mouth, the weight of him, the way he'd say your name like it meant something.
You miss all of it and he's moved on and you're walking through Monaco at sunset thinking about someone who fired you eighteen months ago and probably hasn't thought about you since.
Your doorbell rings at 9:16 PM on December 19th. You're not expecting anyone. You consider ignoring it—consider pretending you're not home, consider going back to the book you're not reading. mBut, then, the doorbell rings again.
You should just pretend you're not home. Should pretend a lot of things that aren't walking to the door. You walk to the door anyway. Look through the peephole and your heart stops. Actually fucking stops in your chest. Lando Norris is standing in your hallway. He's wearing a cream Loewe sweatshirt and jeans, one hand shoved in his pocket while the other coddles his phone, and he's looking at it like he has all the time in the world. His hair is also shorter than it was in Qatar.
So, you do the only rational thing, the totally rational thing, and open the door. "Finally." He looks up from his phone. "I was about to use the spare key."
"You don't have a spare key."
"Don't I?" He walks past you into your apartment before you can stop him. "Nice place. Very clean and entirely very sad."
"Excuse me?"
"It looks like no one actually lives here." He's examining your bookshelf now, tilting his head to read the spines. "When did you become this person?"
"What are you doing here, Lando."
"Came to see you, obviously." He picks up a book, flips through it, puts it back in the wrong spot. "How've you been?"
"How have I been? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Yeah. How are you? What've you been up to? Pottery, I heard. That's cute."
Your stomach drops. "How did you know about pottery."
"I know things." He sits on your couch. Your couch. Like he belongs there. "You quit that too, I assume. Seems to be your pattern lately."
"My pattern."
"Quitting things. Pottery, yoga, that book club." He gestures at your apartment. "Living like a goddamn ghost."
"Get out."
"In a second. I need to talk to you about something first." He leans back, arms spread across the back of your couch. "The new assistant isn't working out."
You stare at him. "Emma. She's trying, I'll give her that. But she's not you. Doesn't think like you. Doesn't anticipate things like you did." He says it so casually. Like he's commenting on the weather. "She's kind of useless, actually."
"And?"
"And I need you to train her."
The audacity. The fucking audacity of Lando Norris. "Are you insane?"
"No. Why would I be insane?"
"You fired me."
"I know. I was there."
"You fired me eighteen months ago and now you're asking me to train your replacement."
"She's not your replacement. That would imply she's anywhere near as competent as you were. Which she's not." He examines his nails. "I'm asking you to train her so she can be at least seventy percent as useful as you were. That's all."
"Get out of my apartment."
"Why are you being so difficult about this? It's a simple request. A few weeks of your time. I'll pay you whatever you want. You're not exactly busy." His eyes flick around your apartment. "Are you."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
"The point is you fired me. The point is you told me I was done. The point is you haven't spoken to me in a year and a half and now you show up here like nothing happened."
"Something happened?"
You want to hit him. Want to actually punch the asshole in the face. "Qatar. Something happened in Qatar."
"Oh, that." He waves a hand. "Ancient history. We've both moved on."
"Have we."
"Haven't we? You have your pottery classes. I have my championship." He smiles. That smile. The one that used to make you feel like you were in on a joke and now just makes you want to scream. "We're both doing great."
"Lando."
"What?"
"Get the fuck out."
"I'm at the Fairmont. Room 412." He stands up, stretches. "Think about it. I need an answer by tomorrow morning."
"The answer is no."
"Sure it is." He's walking toward the door. Pauses with his hand on the doorknob. "You look good, by the way. Tired, but good."
He leaves before you can respond. You stand there in your apartment. Your very clean, very empty apartment. Your heart is doing something in your chest and your hands are shaking. Lando Norris showed up after eighteen months and asked you to train his assistant like it was the most reasonable request in the world. Made you feel crazy for being angry. Commented on your home and your pottery classes and the fact that you're living like a ghost. How does he know about the pottery classes. How does he know anything?
You walk to your couch. The cushion where he sat is still slightly compressed and you stare at it. He knows about pottery. About yoga. About the book club you got kicked out of. He's been watching. Or keeping track. Or something. For eighteen months you thought he'd forgotten about you entirely. That you'd been erased from his life as cleanly as you'd been erased from his Instagram captions. And now it turns out he's been aware of you this whole time. Aware enough to know about pottery classes in Monaco. Aware enough to know you quit.
The Fairmont is twelve minutes from here if you walk fast. You're not going to the Fairmont. You're not training Emma. You're not doing any of it. You lasted forty-seven minutes before you grabbed your keys.
When you enter Fairmont hotel, you walk past the front desk without making eye contact with anyone, past the bar where well-dressed people are having well-dressed conversations, past the elevator bank to the one marked for floors three through six.
You press the button. Wait. Watch the numbers descend. Four, three, two, one. The doors open and you step inside before you can change your mind. Fourth floor. Room 412. The elevator is playing jazz, soft and inoffensive, the kind of music designed to make you forget you're in a metal box suspended by cables. You watch the numbers climb. One, two, three, four. The doors open.
The hallway is long and carpeted in a pattern that's probably meant to be elegant but just makes you slightly dizzy if you look at it too long. Room 412 is at the end, past eleven other rooms, past the ice machine, past the window that overlooks the harbor. You stand there for a moment. The door is dark wood with a brass handle and a number plaque that's slightly crooked. You can hear voices from one of the other rooms, muffled by walls and distance. Someone's watching television. Someone else is laughing. You knock on Lando's door.
The door opens immediately, like he was standing right there, like he was waiting.
"Took you long enough," Lando says. He's changed. Different sweatshirt, this one grey, same jeans. His hair is still damp like he showered after leaving your apartment, and you can smell his soap from here—clean and you don't recognize it but that fits him anyway, fits this version of him that exists in hotel rooms and galas and Instagram posts with his girlfriend.
"Can I come in or are you going to make me stand in the hallway?"
He steps aside and you walk in. The room is bigger than you expected, bigger than it needs to be for one person. There's a king bed with white sheets, a sitting area with a couch and two chairs, a desk by the window with a view of the harbor that's probably spectacular in daylight but right now just shows darkness and distant lights. His suitcase is open on the floor, clothes spilling out in a way that's chaotic and familiar and makes your fingers itch to organize it. There's a bottle of champagne on the desk. Two glasses next to it.
"You knew I'd come," you say.
"Of course I knew." He closes the door behind you. "You always come." The certainty in his voice makes you want to scream.
"Don't flatter yourself."
"I'm not flattering myself. I'm stating facts." He walks past you to the desk, picks up the champagne bottle, examines the label like it matters. "You lasted, what, an hour?"
"Forty-seven minutes."
"Forty-seven minutes." He looks at you now, really looks at you, and there's something in his expression that you can't read, something that might be satisfaction or might be something else entirely. Either way, you don't entertain the thought. "You counted."
"I count everything now."
"I know you do." He says it so casually, like it's obvious, like of course he knows. And maybe he does know. Maybe he knows about the counting and the pottery and the book club and every other pathetic thing you've been doing for the past eighteen months while he's been winning championships and falling in love.
"How do you know about the pottery classes?" you ask.
"I told you. I know things."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer you're getting." He pours champagne into both glasses even though you haven't said you want any. "Emma will be there on Monday. I need you there by nine."
"I didn't say yes."
"You're here, aren't you?"
He hands you a glass and you take it. You're not sure as to why you take it but you do, and now you're standing in his hotel room holding champagne and trying to remember how you got here, trying to remember the exact sequence of decisions that led from your apartment to this moment. "This is insane," you say.
"Probably."
"You fired me."
"I remember."
"You told me you loved me and then you fired me."
Something flickers across his face. Fast, there and gone before you can identify it. "That was a while ago."
"So?"
"So we've both moved on." He takes a sip of his champagne, watching you over the rim of the glass. "Haven't we?"
"I don't know, have we?"
"You tell me." He sets his glass down on the desk, leans back against it. "You're the one who showed up at my hotel room at ten PM."
"You literally asked me to."
"I asked you to think about training Emma. I didn't ask you to come here." He tilts his head, studying you in that way he used to. "But here you are anyway."
You hate that he's right. Hate that he knew exactly what would happen when he showed up at your apartment. Hate that after eighteen months of nothing, he can still make you do exactly what he wants with barely any effort at all. "Why me?" you ask. "Why not hire someone else to train her? Someone who doesn't have a history with you?"
"Because no one else knows how I work."
"That's not a good enough reason."
"It's the only reason." He crosses his arms. "You know my schedule better than I do. You know what I need before I need it. You know how to fix problems before they become problems. No one else can do that."
"Emma could learn."
"Emma is twenty-three years old and terrified of me. Every time I ask her a question she looks like she's going to cry." He says it without sympathy, just a simple observation, a simple fact. "She's not you."
Your stomach lurches, "Good. She shouldn't be me."
"Why not?"
"Because being me got me fired."
"No." He pushes off from the desk, takes a step closer. "Being you got you promoted from assistant to whatever we were. Getting fired came after."
"After you decided you were done with me."
"I never said I was done with you."
"You fired me. That's pretty definitive."
"Is it?" He's close enough now that you can see the exact color of his eyes in the hotel room lighting—that blue-green that changes depending on what he's wearing, what the weather is, what mood he's in. Right now they're darker, more blue than green, and fixed on you with an intensity that makes your stomach twist. "Because here you are. In my hotel room. Eighteen months later. Doesn't seem very definitive to me."
You should leave. Should put down the champagne glass you're still holding, should walk out of this hotel room, should tell him to train Emma himself or hire someone else or figure it the fuck out on his own. You don't leave.
"Monday," he says. "Nine AM. MTC. I'll have everything ready for you—schedules, systems, all of it. Two weeks. That's all I need."
"And after two weeks?"
"After two weeks you go back to your life. Pottery classes or whatever else you're doing to pass the time." The dismissiveness in his tone makes you want to throw your champagne in his face.
"I want double your normal consulting rate," you say instead.
"Done."
"And I'm not working with you directly. Just Emma."
"Fine."
"And if she's actually incompetent, if she can't learn this, I'm out. I'm not babysitting someone who can't do the job."
"She can learn. She's not stupid, she's just not you." He picks up his champagne glass again. "Anything else?"
"Yeah. What does your girlfriend think about this?" The question comes out before you can stop it. You watch his expression carefully, looking for any sign that it bothers him, that the mention of Magui does something to him the way the thought of her does something to you.
Nothing. His expression doesn't change at all. "Magui doesn't care about my work arrangements," he says.
"You told her you're hiring your ex-assistant as a consultant?"
"I told her I'm getting help training the new hire. She said that's great." He takes another sip. "She's very supportive." Of course Magui is supportive and understanding and completely unthreatened by the fact that her boyfriend is hiring the woman he fired after sleeping with her. Of course she's goddamn utterly perfect.
"Monday," you say. "Nine AM. Two weeks. Then I'm done."
"Deal." He sets his glass down, extends his hand like this is a business transaction, like you're colleagues making an agreement and not two people who destroyed each other eighteen months ago.
You shake his hand. His palm is warm, rough with calluses from the steering wheel, and the touch of it against your skin makes something in your chest crack open. He doesn't let go immediately. Just holds your hand for a beat too long, his thumb brushing once against your knuckles in a gesture that might be accidental or might be completely intentional.
"It's good to see you," he says quietly.
You pull your hand back. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't do that. Don't make this into something it's not."
"What am I making it into?"
"You know what."
He smiles. That smile. The one that used to make you feel like you were the only person who mattered and now just makes you feel like you're losing a game you didn't know you were playing. "Monday," he says again.
You leave before you can do something stupid like stay. The hallway is the same length it was before—forty-three steps from his door to the elevator. You count them again anyway. Count them and try not to think about the way his hand felt against yours, the way his eyes looked in the hotel lighting, the way he said it's good to see you like he meant it.
The elevator arrives. You step inside and watch the numbers descend. Four, three, two, one. The doors open to the lobby and you walk out past the bar, past the front desk, past all the well-dressed people living their well-dressed lives. The night air hits you when you step outside and it's cold, colder than it was before, or maybe that's just you.
Monday. Nine AM. Two weeks. You just agreed to spend two weeks training Lando Norris's new assistant, in the same building as him, probably seeing him multiple times a day, pretending that Qatar never happened and that the past eighteen months of pottery classes and counting ceiling tiles were a completely normal and healthy way to process getting fired by someone who said they loved you.
This is fine. You're fine. Everything is completely fine. You walk the twelve minutes home and try to convince yourself that you haven't just made a catastrophic mistake.
Monday arrives with the kind of crystalline Monaco morning that makes you hate how beautiful everything surrounding you is. The sky is aggressively blue. You stand outside the MTC building at 8:47 AM because you're not going to be late, not going to give Lando the satisfaction of waiting for you.
The severance money means you don't technically need this. Could've said no. Should've said no. But here you are anyway, in black trousers and a cream cashmere sweater, your hair pulled back, looking professional and composed and like someone who definitely didn't spend three hours last night googling "how to train someone when you're emotionally compromised."
The building looks the same. Glass and steel and McLaren orange accents, you've been here a thousand times. Walked these halls, sat in these conference rooms, fixed Lando's disasters in every possible corner of this building. You take the elevator to the third floor. Lando's offices are on the fourth, but you're meeting Emma in the conference room, neutral territory. The elevator doors open and she's already there.
Emma is standing outside Conference Room B, clutching a tablet to her chest like it's a life preserver. She's twenty-three, with dark hair in a neat ponytail and wide brown eyes that get wider when she sees you. "Oh my god," she says, and her voice is high and nervous and sweet. "You're here. You're actually here. I'm Emma. Obviously. You know that. Lando said you'd be here at nine but I got here at eight-thirty because I didn't want to be late and I've been standing here for—sorry, I'm talking too much. I do that when I'm nervous. I'm Emma."
"You said that already," you say, but you're smiling despite yourself because she's like a puppy, earnest and eager and probably thirty seconds away from peeing on the floor from excitement.
"Right. Yes. Sorry." She clutches the tablet tighter. "Thank you for doing this. Lando said you were the best and he wasn't exaggerating, I've read all your notes, like all of them, the system you set up is incredible and I've been trying to follow it but I keep messing things up and last week I accidentally booked him on a flight to Barcelona instead of Budapest and he didn't even yell, he just looked at me like I'd kicked a puppy and that was somehow worse—"
"Emma."
She stops mid-sentence. "Yeah?"
"Breathe." She takes a breath. Then another one. "Sorry. I'm nervous. You're kind of a legend around here."
"I'm really not."
"You are, though. Everyone talks about how you could predict what Lando needed before he even asked, how you saved the Singapore weekend when his passport got stolen, how you once fixed a PR disaster with seventeen minutes' notice—"
"That was fifteen minutes."
"See?" Emma's face lights up. "That makes it even more impressive."
You can't help it. You laugh. It's been eighteen months since you laughed in this building, maybe longer. "Come on. Let's get started."
Conference Room B hasn't changed. Same long table, same uncomfortable chairs, same view of the parking lot where you can see Lando's cars if you crane your neck. You don't crane your neck. You spend the first hour going through systems. Calendar management, how Lando color-codes everything but never looks at the color-coding so you have to verbally remind him anyway. The specific way he likes his schedule printed—landscape, not portrait, because he's a psychopath. His coffee order, which changes based on what country he's in but follows a pattern if you pay attention.
Emma takes notes on everything. Actual notes, handwritten in a neat script, asking questions that are surprisingly intelligent. "What about when he's being difficult?" she asks around 10:15. "Like when he just doesn't want to do something?"
"Give me an example."
"Last month he had a sponsor call with Tag Heuer and he just didn't show up. Turned his phone off, then I found him at the gym."
You nod. "That's a Marcus problem."
"Marcus?"
"The Tag Heuer exec. Lando hates him. Too corporate, talks in buzzwords, makes Lando feel like he's in a business school presentation." You pull up the calendar on your tablet. "Did you reschedule?"
"I tried. Marcus was pissed."
"Marcus is always pissed. Did Lando at least send him something? Gift basket, signed merch, something to smooth it over?"
Emma's face falls. "I... uhhhhhh, no?"
"Rule one," you say, and you sound exactly like you used to, competent and certain and completely in control. "When Lando fucks up with a sponsor, you fix it before it becomes a problem. Send Marcus a bottle of something expensive with a handwritten note from Lando. I'll show you where we keep the stationary. Lando won't remember doing it but that's fine. That's the point."
"That feels like lying."
"It's not lying. It's managing expectations. Lando's job is to drive fast and look good in photos. Your job is to make sure he can do both without accidentally destroying his entire career." You look at her. "Can you do that?"
She straightens up. "Yes."
"Good." You're explaining the intricacies of Lando's travel preferences—aisle seat but only on long-haul flights, hates flying commercial but won't admit it's because he's claustrophobic, needs noise-canceling headphones or he gets migraines—when the door opens.
You don't have to look up to know it's him. You can feel it, the way the air in the room shifts, the way Emma's posture goes rigid. "Morning," Lando says, and his voice is casual, easy, like this is completely normal. Like he didn't show up at your apartment four days ago asking you to do exactly this.
You look up. He's in McLaren team gear, black joggers and a papaya polo, his hair still damp from a shower. He looks good. He always looks good. You hate that you still notice. "We're in the middle of something," you say.
"I know. Just wanted to check in. See how it's going." He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, and his eyes are on you. Just on you. Not on Emma, not on the conference room, just you. "How's she doing?"
"She's sitting right here," Emma says, and there's a tiny bit of spine in it that makes you like her more.
"Right. Sorry." But he doesn't look at Emma. Still looking at you. "How's she doing?"
"Fine. We're going through travel protocols."
"Riveting." He pushes off the doorframe, walks into the room like he owns it. Which, technically, he does. He owns this whole building, or at least McLaren does and he's their golden boy so it's basically the same thing. He stops at the head of the table, one hand braced on the back of a chair. "Mind if I sit in?"
"Yes," you say, at the same time Emma says "No, of course not."
Lando smiles. That smile. "Majority rules." He sits down across from you. Emma looks between you like she's watching a tennis match and can't figure out who's winning.
"Continue," Lando says, gesturing at you like a professor encouraging a student. "Don't let me interrupt."
"You're already interrupting."
"Am I?" He leans back in his chair, arms behind his head. "I'm just sitting here. Very quietly. Being super helpful."
You want to throw your tablet at his head. "Emma, where were we?"
"Um." Emma's looking at her notes but you can see her hands are shaking slightly. "Travel preferences?"
"Right. So Lando needs—"
"I need a lot of things," Lando interrupts. "Very high maintenance. Must be exhausting to keep track of."
You ignore him. "Lando needs at least seven hours of sleep before a race. Which means you're coordinating with his trainer and his PR team to make sure he's not scheduled for anything after nine PM on Saturday nights."
"Unless it's important," Lando adds.
"Nothing is more important than you not crashing the car because you're tired."
"I would never crash because I'm tired. I'd crash because someone else did something stupid."
"Abu Dhabi 2023."
He sits up straighter. "That was different."
"You were exhausted. You'd done press until eleven the night before and you missed the apex on lap forty-three because you were too tired to focus."
"I missed the apex because Ocon was being a dick."
"Lando." You level him with a look. "Are you going to let me train Emma or are you going to argue with me about things that happened two years ago?" Something flickers across his face. Something that might be hurt or might be anger or might be something else entirely. "Fine. Continue."
You continue. Emma asks about race weekend protocols. You explain the specific way Lando likes his debriefs, bullet points, not paragraphs, because he won't read paragraphs. The way he gets quiet before qualifying, needs space, don't try to cheer him up or pump him up just let him be.
"He's a headphone person," you explain. "If he's wearing them, don't bother him unless the building is on fire."
"What if it's actually important?" Emma asks.
"Then text me first— sorry, text whoever his performance coach is and they'll handle it."
"You mean text you," Lando says quietly.
You don't look at him. "Text whoever is listed as his primary contact."
"That's you."
"I'm not his primary contact anymore."
"Yes, you are." He says it with complete certainty. "Never changed it. It's still you."
The room goes very quiet. Emma is looking at her tablet very intently, like she's trying to disappear into it. "We should take a break," you say, standing up. "Emma, fifteen minutes?"
"Yeah. Yes. Absolutely." She practically bolts from the room.
You start gathering your things. Lando stays seated. "You're still my primary contact," he says again.
"Change it."
"Why?"
"Because I don't work for you anymore."
"You're working for me right now."
"I'm consulting. It's temporary."
"Right." He stands up, walks around the table. He's too close now, close enough that you can smell his cologne and your head spins. "Two weeks."
"That's what we agreed."
"Then what?"
"Then I go back to my life and you figure out how to not destroy Emma's will to live."
"C'monnnn, I'm not that bad." You finally look at him. Really look at him. There's a small scar on his left eyebrow that wasn't there before—probably from a crash you didn't see, didn't hear about, weren't there for. He's broader in the shoulders. More defined. Like he's been training harder, pushing himself harder.
"You called her useless," you say quietly. "Emma. You told me she was useless."
"I said she wasn't you."
"Same thing."
"It's really not." He takes another step closer. "You were terrifying. Efficient and cold and you knew exactly what I needed before I needed it. Emma's trying but she's not—"
"She's twenty-three years old and you make her cry."
"I don't make her cry."
"You make her feel like she's failing even when she's doing everything right. That's worse than making her cry."
His jaw tightens. "That's not what I'm doing."
"Isn't it?" You cross your arms. "She accidentally booked you to Barcelona instead of Budapest and you looked at her like she'd killed your dog."
"It was a stupid mistake."
"It was an honest mistake. A mistake I made three times in my first six months working for you and you just laughed and fixed it."
"That was different."
"Why? Because you were fucking me?"
The words hang in the air between you. Lando's expression shutters closed, that thing he does when he doesn't want you to know what he's thinking. "That's not fair," he says finally.
"Nothing about this is fair." You grab your tablet. "I need air."
"Wait—" But you're already leaving, walking out of Conference Room B, past Emma who's hovering in the hallway pretending to look at her phone, toward the elevator. You hit the button. Wait. The doors open.
Lando catches them before they close.
"Move," you say.
"No."
"Lando, I swear to fucking god."
He steps into the elevator. The doors close behind him. It's just the two of you in this small space, and he's looking at you with an intensity that makes your stomach flip. "You're right," he says.
"About what?"
"About Emma. About me being too hard on her." The elevator starts moving down. "I don't mean to. I just—"
"You're comparing her to me."
"Yeah."
"Then stop."
"I can't." His voice is quiet now, raw. "You set an impossible standard and now everyone else just feels wrong."
"That's not my problem."
"Isn't it?" He moves closer. "You're here, aren't you? Training her. Which means some part of you still cares."
"I care about her. Not about you."
"Liar." The elevator dings. Ground floor. The doors open to the lobby and you walk out without looking back. You can feel him following you, his presence like a heat at your back. Outside, the Monaco sun is aggressive and bright. You walk toward the parking lot, no destination in mind, just moving because if you stop moving you might do something stupid like turn around.
"Where are you going?" Lando calls after you.
"Away from you."
"Your car's the other direction." You stop and turn around. He's standing there in the middle of the parking lot, hands in his pockets, looking at you like this is all some game and he's already won.
"What do you want from me?" you ask.
"I want," he stops. Runs a hand through his hair. "I don't know."
"Yes, you do."
"Fine. I want you to stop looking at me like I'm the villain in your story."
"Then stop acting like one."
"I fired you because," He stops again, and this time he looks genuinely frustrated, like the words won't come. "It was getting complicated."
"You said you loved me and then you fired me. That's not complicated. That's just fucking cruel, Lando."
"It wasn't— I wasn't trying to be cruel."
"Then what were you trying to be?" He doesn't answer. Just stands there in the parking lot while people walk past, employees and engineers and team members who definitely recognize both of you and are definitely going to talk about this later.
"Two weeks," you say finally. "I'm going to train Emma for two weeks and then I'm done. I don't want to have this conversation again. I don't want to analyze what happened in Qatar. I don't want closure or explanations or whatever it is you think you need to give me."
"What if I want those things?"
"Then you should've thought about that eighteen months ago." You walk back to the building, back to Conference Room B where Emma is probably still trying to make herself invisible. Lando doesn't follow you this time.
When you get back upstairs, Emma looks up nervously. "Everything okay?"
"Fine," you lie. "Let's talk about how to handle media obligations." You make it through the rest of the morning. Make it through lunch—salads in the cafeteria, Emma chattering nervously about her girlfriend and her apartment in Nice and how she got this job. Make it through the afternoon session on crisis management.
At 4:47 PM, your phone buzzes.
You stare at the messages. Emma is explaining something about how she organized his sponsor contacts but you're not listening anymore. "I need to take care of something," you tell her. "Can you review the crisis management protocols we just covered? I'll quiz you when I get back."
"Yeah, of course." She's already pulling up the documents, eager and focused.
You take the elevator to the fourth floor. Lando's office is at the end of the hall, corner office with windows overlooking the harbor. The door is half-open. You knock anyway.
"Come in," he says. His office is exactly how you remember it. Sleek brown desk, nice chair, shelves lined with trophies and helmets and racing memorabilia. There's a new addition—a photo from Abu Dhabi, him holding the championship trophy, surrounded by his team. You're not in it. Obviously.
Lando is standing by the window, back to you, still in his team gear. "Close the door," he says without turning around.
You close the door. Stay by it. Keep your hand on the handle. "What."
"I owe you an explanation." He turns around finally. His face is serious, none of that cocky confidence from this morning. "About Qatar."
"I don't want a fucking explanation."
"I know you don't want to hear it. I'm telling you anyway." He leans back against the window ledge. "I fired you because I was in love with you and I didn't know what the fuck to do about it."
You stare at him. At Lando Norris standing in his corner office with the nice windows and a championship trophy on his shelf, telling you he fired you because he loved you like that makes any fucking sense at all.
"No," you say.
"No?"
"No. You don't get to do this." You take a step forward, then another, until you're in the middle of his office and your hands are clenched into fists at your sides. "You don't get to rewrite this to make yourself feel better."
"I'm not rewriting anything. I'm telling you what happened."
"What happened is you fucked me and then you panicked and then you got rid of me. Don't dress it up as some grand romantic gesture."
"It wasn't—" He pushes off from the window, agitated now. "I wasn't trying to get rid of you. I was trying to protect you."
"From what?"
"From me. From this." He gestures around the office, at the trophies, at everything. "From being the person everyone whispers about. 'Oh, she's only here because she's sleeping with Lando Norris.' From having everything you accomplished reduced to who you were fucking."
You laugh. It comes out sharp and bitter. "How noble of you. Firing me to protect my reputation."
"It wasn't just about reputation."
"Then what was it about, Lando? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you got scared. You said something you didn't mean in the heat of the moment and then you couldn't take it back so you just removed the problem entirely."
"I meant it." He takes a step closer. "I meant every fucking word."
"Then why—"
"Because I couldn't keep you and race at the same time!" His voice rises, echoing off the glass walls. "Because every time I got in the car I was thinking about you instead of the track. Because in Suzuka I nearly crashed in turn seven because I was wondering if you were watching. Because I was so gone for you that it was making me dangerous."
You open your mouth. Close it and try to find words that make sense. "You don't get to blame me for your driving," you say finally.
"I'm not blaming you. I'm explaining."
"You're making excuses."
"Jesus Christ." He runs both hands through his hair, messing it up completely. "Why are you being so difficult about this?"
"Difficult?" Your voice is rising now too. "You fired me, Lando. You looked me in the eye and told me I was done and then you disappeared from my life for months. You moved on for fucks sake! You found someone else. You won a fucking championship. And now you want me to what? Thank you for protecting me?"
"No, I want you to understand!"
"I understand perfectly. You wanted me gone so you could focus on your career. Mission accomplished. You got everything you wanted. Congratu-fucking-lations!"
"Everything except you."
The words hit you like a physical blow and you take a step back. Lando closes the distance. He's too close now, close enough that you can see the flecks of gold in his blue-green eyes, close enough that you're breathing the same air.
"You think I moved on?" His voice is lower now, dangerous. "You think I just forgot about you?"
"You're with Magui—"
"Magui is—" He stops. His jaw works. "Magui is uncomplicated. Easy. She doesn't make me feel like I'm losing my fucking mind."
"How nice for you both."
"You're not listening to what I'm saying."
"I'm listening. I just don't believe you."
"Why not?"
"Because if you actually loved me, you would've fought for it. You would've figured it out. You wouldn't have just thrown me away like I was—like I was disposable."
"You were never disposable." His hands come up like he's going to touch you, then drop. "You were the opposite. You were so important it fucking terrified me."
"Past tense."
"What?"
"Were. You keep saying were." You're shaking now, with anger or something else you refuse to name. "Past tense, Lando. Because whatever you felt, it's over now. You made sure of that."
"Is it?" He moves even closer, so close now that his chest is almost touching yours. "Because you came to my hotel room. You agreed to train Emma. You're standing in my office right now when you could've said no to all of it."
"I came because you manipulated me—"
"I asked. You chose."
"Fuck you."
"Yeah?" His voice drops even lower, rough and intimate and infuriating. "Is that what you want?"
Your breath catches. "Don't."
"Don't what? Don't point out that you're still here? That you haven't left even though you could? That you're looking at me right now like you want to hit me or kiss me and you can't decide which?"
"I want to hit you."
"Liar." He reaches up slowly, giving you time to move away. You don't. His fingers brush your jaw, the same way they did in that hotel room in Qatar, and your traitorous body remembers. Remembers everything. "You're still the worst liar I've ever met."
"And you're still an asshole."
"Yeah." His thumb traces along your bottom lip. "But you liked that about me."
"Past tense."
"Sure." He's smiling now, that devastating smile that means he thinks he's winning. "Keep telling yourself that."
You should leave. Should push him away, walk out of this office, text Emma that she's on her own, block Lando's number, and get on the first flight to literally anywhere else. You don't leave. "You're with someone else," you say, but your voice comes out breathy, unconvincing.
"Am I?"
"Magui—"
"Isn't here." His other hand comes up to cup your face, tilting it up toward him. "Hasn't been here. Not in any way that matters."
"That's not—you can't just—"
"I know." His forehead drops to yours. "I know it's fucked up. I know I have no right to any of this. I know I'm the villain in your story and I probably deserve it. But I can't," His voice cracks slightly. "I can't keep pretending I don't still feel it. Can't keep watching you in that conference room teaching Emma things you used to do for me and act like it doesn't make me want to flip the fucking table."
"Lando."
"Tell me you don't feel it too." His eyes search yours. "Tell me Qatar meant nothing. Tell me you don't think about it. Tell me you're over it and I'll back off. I'll let you train Emma and I'll stay away and I'll never bring this up again."
It would be so easy to lie. To say the words he's asking for and walk out and go back to your empty apartment and your pottery classes and your carefully constructed life without him. "I can't," you whisper.
"Can't what?"
"Can't tell you that."
His grip on your face tightens. "Why not?"
"Because it's not true." The admission feels like it's being torn out of you. "I think about it every day. I think about you every day. And I hate it. I hate that you still have this much power over me. I hate that you fired me and moved on and I'm still—I'm still stuck in that hotel room in Qatar waiting for you to explain why you ruined everything."
"I'm explaining now."
"It's too late."
"Is it?" He's so close now his lips are almost touching yours. "Tell me it's too late. Mean it. Make me believe it."
"Lando, don't."
"Don't what? Don't tell you I haven't stopped thinking about you? Don't admit that Magui was supposed to help me move on and it didn't work? Don't say that I've been keeping track of every pottery class and yoga session and book club meeting because I couldn't stop myself?"
"That's creepy."
"I know." He laughs, but it sounds broken. "I know it is. I know I'm fucked up about this. About you. But I can't."
You kiss him before you can talk yourself out of it. It's not soft. It's not sweet. It's eighteen months of anger and hurt and want colliding all at once. Your hands fist in his shirt, pulling him closer, and he makes a sound low in his throat that you remember, that you've heard in dreams and hated yourself for missing. His hands slide from your face to your hair, tilting your head to deepen the kiss, and it's exactly like Qatar and nothing like Qatar at all. In Qatar, it was desperate and finite, both of you knowing it was ending even as it was happening. This feels different. More dangerous.
This feels like a beginning. He walks you backward until your back hits his desk, and his hands are on your waist, lifting you onto it like you weigh nothing. Your legs wrap around him automatically, muscle memory from all those times before, and he's between your thighs and you're both breathing hard. "Fuck," he mutters against your mouth. "Fuck, I missed this."
"Shut up." You pull him back in, kissing him harder, meaner, putting all your anger into it. He takes it, gives it back, his teeth catching your bottom lip hard enough to sting.
His hands slide under your sweater, palms hot against your ribs, and you arch into the touch. You've been so cold for eighteen months and now you're burning up. "We can't," you gasp when he moves to your neck, biting down on that spot below your ear that makes you see stars. "Lando, we can't."
"Why not?" His voice is muffled against your skin, and his hands are still moving, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts through your bra.
"Because—because Emma is downstairs, because this is your office, because you have a girlfriend."
"I'll break up with her." He says it so casually, like it's already decided. "I'll call her right now."
"Don't be stupid."
"I'm not being stupid. I'm being honest." He pulls back to look at you, and his eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. "I don't want her. I want you. I've always wanted you."
"You fired me."
"Worst decision I've ever made." His hands frame your face again, forcing you to look at him. "And I've made a lot of bad decisions, so that's saying something."
You want to laugh. Want to cry. Want to pull him back in and forget everything that happened between Qatar and now. "This is insane," you say.
"Probably."
"We'll ruin everything. Again."
"Maybe." His thumb brushes across your cheekbone. "Or maybe we'll figure it out this time."
"You don't know that."
"No." He leans in, presses a soft kiss to your forehead, then your nose, then the corner of your mouth. "But I'm willing to risk it if you are."
Your phone buzzes in your pocket. You both freeze. "Don't," Lando says.
"It might be Emma—"
"It can wait." But the spell is broken. Reality is seeping back in through the cracks—the fact that you're sitting on his desk with your sweater rucked up and your lipstick definitely smeared. The fact that Emma is downstairs waiting for you. The fact that Magui exists, whether Lando wants to acknowledge it or not. You slide off the desk, putting distance between you. Your hands are shaking as you pull your sweater back down, try to smooth your hair.
"This was a mistake," you say.
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Pretend it didn't mean anything. You're shit at it." He's watching you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. "Always have been."
"It meant something in Qatar too. Look how that turned out."
"This is different."
"Is it?" You find your tablet where you dropped it on the floor, clutch it to your chest like Emma did this morning. "Or are you going to fire me again in two weeks when you remember why this is a bad idea?"
"That's not going to happen."
"You don't know that."
"I do, actually." He takes a step toward you. You take a step back. His jaw tightens. "Don't run."
"I'm not running. I'm leaving. There's a difference."
"Is there?" You open the door. Emma is definitely going to know something happened—your face is probably flushed, your lips probably swollen. But you can't stay here. Can't keep looking at him without wanting to touch him again. "Two weeks," you say without turning around. "I'm training Emma for two weeks. That's all this is."
"If that's what you need to tell yourself."
You walk out. Down the hallway, into the elevator, down to the third floor. Emma looks up when you walk in, takes one look at your face, and wisely says nothing. "Sorry," you manage. "That took longer than expected."
"It's fine." She's studying you though, those wide brown eyes taking in everything. "Everything okay?"
"Fine. Let's go over crisis management one more time." You make it through the rest of the day. Make it through Emma's questions and the review session and the walk to your car. Make it all the way home before you finally let yourself fall apart. Your apartment is exactly as empty as you left it. Clean and sad and full of the ghost of pottery classes and yoga sessions you quit.
Your phone buzzes and you brace yourself.
You throw your phone onto the couch. Pour yourself a glass of wine you don't drink. Stand in your living room and touch your lips where they're still tender from his teeth. This is going to end badly. You can see the car crash coming from a mile away and you're walking toward it anyway. Monday down. Thirteen days to go, and you are so undeniably fucked.
Tuesday passes in a blur of Emma and schedules and carefully avoiding the fourth floor. You arrive at 8:45 AM, earlier than necessary, because if you're early then you're in control. Emma is already there—of course she is, eager puppy that she is—with coffee for both of you and questions written neatly in her notebook.
"I was thinking about what you said yesterday," she starts, and you're grateful she doesn't mention the fact that you came back from Lando's office looking like you'd been thoroughly kissed. "About anticipating his needs before he asks?"
"Yeah?"
"How do you do that? Like, how do you know what he's going to want before he knows?" You think about all the times you just knew. Knew he needed silence before quali. Knew he needed distraction after a bad race. Knew he was spiraling before he even realized it himself. "You pay attention," you say finally. "To patterns. To mood shifts. To the things he doesn't say."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is."
You spend the morning going through his sponsorship portfolio. Emma takes notes on everything—which sponsors require more hand-holding, which ones Lando actually likes, which ones are just obligatory. "Tag Heuer," she says, reading from her tablet. "You mentioned Marcus yesterday. What's the deal there?"
"Marcus is—" You stop, because Lando's walking past the conference room. You can see him through the glass wall, talking to someone from engineering. He doesn't look at you. Doesn't even glance in your direction.
Good. That's good. "Marcus is old-school corporate," you continue, dragging your attention back to Emma. "Thinks racing should be serious and professional. Doesn't understand that half of Lando's appeal is that he's not those things."
"So Lando hates him."
"Lando tolerates him because Tag Heuer pays extremely well."
Emma makes a note. "Got it. Tolerate with expensive gifts."
"Exactly."
Lando walks past again twenty minutes later. Still doesn't look. Wednesday is worse because Lando isn't there at all. "He had to fly to London," Emma explains when you arrive at 9 AM to an empty building. "McLaren board meeting. Won't be back until late."
"Oh." You hate the disappointment that floods through you. Hate that some part of you was expecting him to show up, to push, to do something. "Okay. Good. We can focus without distractions."
Emma gives you a look that suggests she's not as oblivious as you thought. You spend Wednesday going through worst-case scenarios. PR disasters, contract disputes, the time Lando accidentally liked a tweet criticizing the team principal and you had to do damage control for six hours straight.
"The key," you tell Emma, "is to fix it before it becomes a story. Lando's going to fuck up. That's not the question. The question is whether you can contain it before it explodes."
"That's kind of dark."
"Welcome to Formula 1." Your phone stays silent all day. No texts from Lando. No calls. Nothing. Which is fine. Which is what you wanted. You definitely don't check it seventeen times. Wednesday evening you're back in your apartment, staring at your laptop without seeing it, when Charlotte, your close friend finally calls.
"You're avoiding me," she says without preamble.
"I'm not avoiding you. I'm busy."
"Busy doing what? I thought you were living your best unemployed life."
"I'm consulting."
There's a pause. "Consulting for who?"
"It's temporary."
"Babe. Consulting for who?"
You close your eyes. "Lando."
Charlotte makes a noise that's somewhere between a laugh and a groan. "You're kidding."
"I'm training his new assistant. Two weeks. That's it."
"Two weeks of seeing your ex-boss who you were definitely in love with and who fired you after fucking you? That Lando?"
"I wasn't in love with him."
"You counted ceiling tiles for four months after he fired you."
"That's not—that's different."
"Babe." Charlotte's voice goes soft. "What are you doing?"
"I'm helping someone who needs help. Emma's sweet and she's trying and Lando's going to destroy her confidence if someone doesn't teach her how to handle him."
"Very altruistic."
"It is altruistic."
"So nothing's happened?" You think about Monday. About his office and his hands and the way he kissed you like he was drowning.
"Nothing's happened," you lie.
"You're such a bad liar." But Charlotte doesn't push. "Just be careful, okay? I don't want to watch you fall apart again."
"I'm not going to fall apart."
"Promise me."
"I promise." You hang up and immediately check your phone. Still nothing from Lando, which is good. Which is what you need. Right? Right? You make it to 11 PM before you break and text him.
You stare at that last message for longer than you should. Beautiful. He used to call you that, in hotel rooms and early mornings and moments when he thought you weren't paying attention. You plug your phone in across the room so you won't be tempted to respond. It doesn't help. You lie awake until 2 AM thinking about his hands and his mouth and the way he said I'll break up with her like it was simple.
Thursday morning Emma is vibrating with excitement when you arrive. "Okay so I have a question about the simulator sessions," she says before you've even sat down. "How often does he do them and do I need to coordinate with the engineers or does that happen automatically and—"
"Emma. Breathe."
"Right. Sorry. I'm just," She pauses. "He texted me last night."
Your stomach drops. "Lando texted you?"
"Yeah. Just to say I'm doing a good job and he appreciates me being patient while I learn." She's beaming. "That was nice, right? That he took the time to do that?"
"Very nice." Your voice sounds strange even to your own ears.
"He's not as scary as I thought he'd be. I mean, he's still intense, but you can tell he cares about getting things right."
You think about Monday, about the way he looked at you in his office, the way his voice cracked when he said I can't keep pretending. "Yeah," you manage. "He cares about getting things right."
You're midway through explaining the intricacies of coordinating with his performance coach when the door opens. Lando walks in with two coffees and that fucking smile. "Morning," he says, like this is casual, like he didn't disappear for two days. He sets one coffee in front of Emma. "Vanilla latte, right?"
Emma lights up. "You remembered!"
"Course." Then he turns to you and sets the second coffee down. "Oat milk cappuccino. Extra shot."
You stare at the cup. It's from the specific café three blocks away that you used to make him stop at every morning when you worked for him. The one with the good oat milk, not the shit oat milk. "I didn't ask for this," you say.
"I know." He sits down at the table, directly across from you. "But it's 9:30 AM and you've been here since 8:45 and you haven't had your second coffee yet. You get mean after 9:15 if you don't have caffeine."
"I'm not mean," you say.
"You're terrifying." But he says it like it's a compliment. "So. What are we covering today?"
"We?"
"I'm sitting in again. Making sure Emma's getting the full picture." He leans back in his chair, arms crossed. He's in team gear again—black joggers, papaya polo. His hair is messy like he didn't bother styling it. "That okay?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really."
You want to throw the coffee at him. You take a sip instead. It's perfect. Exactly how you like it. The bastard remembers everything. "Fine. We're covering travel coordination. Emma, pull up Lando's schedule for Japan."
The next hour is torture. Lando sits there asking questions, making comments, watching you explain things to Emma with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. Every time you look at him he's already looking at you. "So when we're coordinating flights," you say, pulling up a calendar, "you need to account for jet lag. Lando needs at least two days in-country before a race weekend if it's long-haul."
"What if there's not two days?" Emma asks.
"Then you make it work. But he'll be pissy about it."
"I don't get pissy," Lando interjects.
You level him with a look. "Singapore 2024. You had one day in-country and you snapped at everyone for three days straight."
"That was different."
"How?"
"I had food poisoning."
"You were jet-lagged."
"I was dyyyyying."
"You had a very mild stomachache." Emma is trying very hard not to laugh. Lando is glaring at you, but there's something else in his expression. Something that looks almost like fondness.
"Anyway," you continue, turning back to Emma. "Two days minimum. Schedule accordingly."
At 11 AM, Lando's phone rings. He glances at the screen and his expression shutters. You make it through another twenty minutes before Lando comes back. His expression is carefully neutral, but you can see the tension in his jaw.
"All good?" Emma asks brightly.
"Fine." He sits back down. "Where were we?"
"Simulator sessions," you say. "Emma needs to know how to coordinate."
"Actually," Lando interrupts, "I need to talk to you about something. Work thing. Won't take long."
Emma looks between you. "I can step out—"
"No need." Lando is already standing. "Conference room down the hall. Five minutes."
He walks out. You have no choice but to follow. The conference room is smaller than the one you've been using, no windows, just a table and six chairs and fluorescent lighting that makes everything look slightly sickly. Lando closes the door behind you.
"What's the work thing?" you ask.
"There is no work thing."
"Then why—"
"I needed to see you alone." He's standing too close again, crowding into your space. "Needed to know if Monday was real or if I imagined the whole thing."
"Lando—"
"Did you think about it?" His voice is low, urgent. "The past two days. Did you think about it?"
"That's not, we can't do this here."
"I texted Emma. Told her she's doing a good job. Did she tell you?"
"Yes."
"I did it so you wouldn't think I was only here for you. So you wouldn't accuse me of using this as an excuse." He takes another step closer. "But I am here for you. I'm always here for you."
"You were in London."
"McLaren board meeting. Had to present the championship review. Couldn't get out of it." His hand comes up to your face but doesn't quite touch. "Thought about you the entire time. Especially during the part where they asked about my personal life."
Your breath catches. "What did you say?"
"Said it was complicated." His thumb brushes your cheekbone, so light you might be imagining it. "Said I was working on fixing something I broke."
"Did they ask about Magui?"
Something flickers across his face. "Yeah."
"And?"
"And I told them we were taking a break."
The world tilts. "You what?"
"Called her last night. Told her I needed space to figure some things out." His eyes search yours. "She was surprisingly understanding about it."
"Lando, you can't just do this."
"Can't what? Can't be honest? Can't admit that I've been in a relationship with someone I don't love because I was too fucked up over you to be alone?"
"That's not fair to her."
"I know. Which is why I ended it." His hand is fully cupping your face now. "I'm not doing this halfway. I'm not sneaking around or lying. If we're doing this, I'm all in."
"We're not doing anything—"
"Liar." He's so close now you can count his eyelashes. "You're still the worst liar I've ever met."
"You're being crazy."
"Probably." His lips brush against yours, barely a kiss, more a promise. "But I'm done pretending I don't want this. Want you."
You should push him away. Should remind him that Emma is down the hall, that this is insane, that he broke your heart eighteen months ago and you're not giving him the chance to do it again. You kiss him instead. It's different from Monday. Slower, deeper, less angry and more inevitable. Like you're both finally admitting something you've been avoiding. His hands slide into your hair and you press closer, your back hitting the wall, and he makes that sound again, the one that's half-groan and half-surrender.
"We have to stop," you gasp against his mouth.
"Why?"
"Because Emma is waiting. Because we're in an office building. Because—"
"Because you're scared."
"I'm not scared."
"You're terrified." His forehead rests against yours. "But that's okay. So am I."
"Then why are you pushing this?"
"Because eighteen months without you was worse than being scared." His eyes meet yours. "Because I'd rather risk everything than spend another year and a half counting how long it's been since I touched you." You're saved from responding by your phone buzzing in your pocket. You pull it out, grateful for the interruption.
"Shit." You step back, putting distance between you. "We need to go back."
"In a second." He catches your hand. "Tonight. Come over."
"Lando."
"Not to my place. Neutral ground. There's that restaurant you like on Avenue Princess Grace. The one with the good risotto."
"I know the one."
"Seven PM. Just dinner. Just talking."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I'll respect it." His thumb traces circles on your palm. "But you won't say no."
"You're very sure of yourself."
"I'm sure of you." He lifts your hand to his lips, presses a kiss to your knuckles. "Seven PM."
He leaves before you can argue. You stand there in the conference room, heart racing, lips tingling, completely and utterly fucked. When you get back to the main conference room, Emma takes one look at your face and mercifully says nothing. You make it through the rest of the day. Make it through explaining simulator protocols and race weekend logistics and all the things Emma needs to know.
Lando doesn't come back. At 6 PM, Emma starts packing up. "Same time tomorrow?"
"Yeah. Tomorrow's our last day of basics, then we'll start shadowing some actual events."
"Sounds good." She hesitates. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"You and Lando. You have history, right?"
You should lie. Should definitely keep it professional. "Yeah," you say instead. "We have history."
"I figured." Emma adjusts her bag. "For what it's worth, I think he's different around you. Lighter. Like he can actually breathe."
She leaves before you can respond. You sit in the empty conference room staring at your phone. At the time. 6:03 PM. You could go home. Pour wine. Pretend tonight isn't happening. Instead, at 6:47 PM, you're standing outside La Maison du Caviar in a black dress you haven't worn in two years, watching Lando get out of his car.
He's in dark jeans and a white button-down, no tie, sleeves rolled up. He looks unfairly good. "You came," he says, and he sounds surprised.
"Don't gloat."
"Wouldn't dream of it." He offers his arm. "Shall we?" Day three. Tension officially at breaking point. This is going to end in flames.
"Wine?" Lando asks once you're seated.
"I can order my own wine."
"I know you can. I'm asking if you want wine."
You do. You desperately do. "Red."
He orders a bottle of something French and expensive without looking at the menu. The sommelier practically bows before walking away. "So," Lando says, leaning back in his chair. "How am I doing?"
"At what?"
"At this. Dinner. Normal human interaction."
"It's been five minutes."
"And?"
"And you're doing fine. Very restrained."
He smiles. That dangerous smile that means trouble. "Just wait."
The wine arrives. It's good. Too good. The kind of good that makes you forget you're supposed to be maintaining boundaries. "Emma's doing well," you say, because work is safe. Work is neutral territory.
"She is. Thanks to you."
"She's a fast learner. She actually listens."
"Unlike me?"
"You listen. You just choose to ignore half of what people tell you."
"Not true. I listened when you told me I needed to be nicer to Emma."
"You texted her once."
"And I brought her coffee this morning. And I'm letting her leave at reasonable hours instead of texting her at midnight about random shit." He takes a sip of wine. "See? Growth."
"Impressive. Want a gold star?"
"I want you to admit I'm trying."
"You're trying," you concede. "Doesn't mean it's working."
"Ouch." The waiter comes to take your order. You get the risotto because Lando was right, it is good here. He gets something with fish that you know he'll eat half of before getting distracted. Once the waiter leaves, Lando leans forward. "So. Eighteen months."
"We're not doing this."
"Doing what?"
"The post-mortem. The 'where did we go wrong' conversation."
"Why not?"
"Because I already know where we went wrong. You fired me."
"Before that. You're skipping the part where we were in love."
Your grip tightens on your wine glass. "We weren't in love."
"I was."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Don't tell you the truth?" He stops, frustrated. "Why are you being so difficult about this?"
"Difficult?" Your voice rises slightly. An older couple two tables over glances your way. You lower it. "You think I'm being difficult?"
"I think you're refusing to have an actual conversation because you're scared of what might happen if you do."
"I'm not scared of anything."
"Bullshit. You're terrified. You've been terrified since Monday when I kissed you and you kissed me back and realized that maybe you're not as over this as you want to be."
"You're so fucking arrogant."
"And you're deflecting."
"I'm being realistic. You broke my heart, Lando. You don't get to just decide we're doing this again because you're bored of your girlfriend."
His jaw tightens. "That's not what this is."
"Then what is it?"
"It's me finally having the balls to fix the worst mistake I ever made."
"By taking me to dinner? By kissing me in conference rooms? That's your plan?"
"My plan is to show you that I'm serious. That this isn't just—" He gestures vaguely. "—nostalgia or whatever you think it is."
"It's been two days."
"It's been eighteen months. Two days is just how long it took me to get you in the same room as me." He refills your wine glass even though you haven't asked. "And before you say it—yes, I know I'm the one who caused those eighteen months. I know I fucked up. I know I hurt you. But I'm here now and I'm trying and you won't even give me a chance to explain. I've had eighteen months to figure out exactly how miserable I am without you." His voice drops. "Because I've tried to move on and I can't. Because every time I get in that fucking car I still think about you in Qatar watching me in FP2 and smiling like you were proud of me."
Your chest aches. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't say things like that."
"Why not? It's true."
"Because it's not fair." You set your wine glass down too hard. "You don't get to fire me and disappear and show up eighteen months later with pretty words and expect me to just—"
"Just what?"
"Just forget. Just forgive. Just let you back in like you didn't completely destroy me."
The silence that follows is sharp enough to cut. "I know," Lando says finally, quietly. "I know I destroyed you. You think I don't know that? You think I didn't see what I did to you?"
"Clearly not, since you still did it."
"I did it because I was fucking terrified. Because I'd never felt that way about anyone and it was making me insane. Because every time I looked at you I wanted things I didn't know how to want." His hands are clenched on the table. "And I know that's not an excuse. I know it doesn't make it better. But I'm trying to explain—"
"I don't want an explanation. I want you to leave me alone."
"Liar."
"Stop calling me that."
"Then stop lying." He leans forward. "You want me to leave you alone? Fine. Tell me Monday meant nothing. Tell me you felt nothing when I kissed you. Tell me you're not sitting here right now wishing we were anywhere else so you could do it again."
"You're delusional."
"Am I? Because your pupils are dilated and your breathing is uneven and you've been staring at my mouth for the past thirty seconds." Fuck. He's right. You have been.
"That's—I'm not—"
"You're a terrible liar," he says again, and there's something almost gentle in it now. "Always have been. It's one of my favorite things about you."
"I need to use the bathroom." You stand up before he can respond. Navigate through the restaurant on unsteady legs—from the wine or from him, you're not sure. The bathroom is in the back, single-stall, the kind with a heavy wooden door and a lock that actually works.
You close yourself inside and immediately brace your hands on the sink. Your reflection looks back at you—flushed cheeks, bright eyes, lips slightly parted. You look like someone who's losing an argument. Worse, you look like someone who wants to lose. Deep breath. You can do this. You can go back out there, finish dinner like a professional, go home, and forget this ever—
The door opens and Lando steps inside and locks it behind him. "What are you doing?" Your voice comes out breathy, unconvincing.
"What do you think I'm doing?" He's crossing the space between you in two strides, and then his hands are on your waist and he's lifting you onto the sink.
"Someone could—"
"Let them." His mouth finds your neck, that spot below your ear that makes you gasp. "I'm done pretending. Done watching you try to convince yourself you don't want this."
"Lando."
"Tell me to stop." His hands slide up your thighs, pushing your dress higher. "Tell me you don't want this and I'll walk out right now. I'll finish dinner, take you home, never bring it up again."
You should. You should absolutely tell him to stop. "I hate you," you say instead.
"I know." His mouth moves to yours, kissing you hard enough to bruise. "Hate me louder."
Your hands fist in his shirt, pulling him closer even as you're trying to push him away. It's all contradiction—your mouth saying one thing while your body says another, and he can read every single signal.
"This is insane," you gasp when he bites down on your lower lip.
"Probably." His hands are everywhere now—in your hair, on your waist, sliding up your ribs. "Don't care."
"We're in a restaurant bathroom."
"I know." He pulls back just enough to look at you, and his eyes are dark, dangerous. "You want me to stop?"
"Yes."
"Liar." His hand slides higher, fingers tracing the edge of your underwear. "Try again."
"I—fuck—" Your head drops back against the mirror as his fingers slip beneath the fabric, teasing. "This doesn't change anything."
"Doesn't it?" He's watching your face, cataloging every reaction. "Because you're shaking. And your breathing's gone all uneven. And you're so wet I can feel it through your underwear."
"That's not—" You gasp as he presses exactly where you need him. "—not fair."
"Nothing about this is fair." His mouth is on your neck again, biting, sucking, definitely leaving marks. "Been thinking about this for eighteen months. Eighteen months of wondering if you tasted the same, if you'd make those same sounds, if you'd still fall apart the same way."
His fingers slide inside you and you bite your lip to keep from making noise. "Don't." He uses his free hand to pull your lip from between your teeth. "Want to hear you. Want everyone in this fucking restaurant to know what I'm doing to you."
"You're insane."
"And you love it." He adds another finger, curling them just right, and your hips buck against his hand. "There she is. There's my girl."
"Not your girl."
"No?" He slows his movements, teasing. "Then whose girl are you?"
"I'm not—I don't belong to—fuck, don't stop—"
"Say it." His thumb finds your clit and you actually whimper. "Say you're mine."
"Go to hell."
He laughs, and it's dark and possessive and makes you clench around his fingers. "We're already there, beautiful. Might as well enjoy it." He works you with devastating precision—eighteen months and he still remembers exactly what you need. The pressure, the angle, the rhythm that makes your thighs shake. You're gripping his shoulders, nails digging in through his shirt, and he's muttering against your neck in a voice gone rough and desperate.
"So fucking perfect. Missed this. Missed you. Missed making you fall apart on my fingers like you're mine, like you've always been mine—"
"Lando—" You're close, embarrassingly close, everything building sharp and inevitable.
"I know. I can feel it. Can feel you getting tighter." His mouth finds yours, kissing you through it. "Come on, beautiful. Show me. Show me you still want this as much as I do."
You come with his name on your lips and your hands fisted in his hair, and he works you through it, drawing it out until you're shaking and oversensitive and pushing his hand away. "Fuck," you breathe.
"Yeah." He's breathing hard too, forehead pressed against yours, and you can feel how hard he is against your thigh. "So that happened."
Reality comes crashing back. You're in a restaurant bathroom with your dress rucked up and Lando's fingers still inside you and at least twenty people on the other side of the door who definitely heard something. "Oh my god." You push at his chest. "Oh my god, we just—in a public bathroom—"
"Technically a private bathroom." But he's pulling back, giving you space. "No one's going to say anything."
"Everyone's going to say something." You slide off the sink on shaky legs, trying to pull your dress down with trembling hands. "They're going to see us walk out and they're going to know—"
"So what if they know?" He's watching you in the mirror, his reflection overlapping with yours. "I told you. I'm done pretending."
"That's easy for you to say. You're Lando Norris. You can do whatever you want."
"And what are you?"
"I'm the girl who got fired for sleeping with her boss and now everyone's going to think I'm pathetic for coming back."
"No." He steps behind you, hands on your hips, meeting your eyes in the mirror. "You're the girl I've been in love with for two years who I was too much of a coward to keep. And if anyone says anything about you being pathetic, I'll personally destroy them."
You want to argue. Want to list all the reasons this is a terrible idea. Want to protect yourself before he has the chance to hurt you again. Instead you turn around and kiss him. Slower this time, softer, and when you pull back his eyes are closed like he's savoring it.
"This doesn't mean I forgive you," you whisper.
"I know."
"And it doesn't mean we're back together."
"Okay."
"And I still think you're an asshole."
"Fair." He opens his eyes. "But you're here. You came to dinner. You let me—" He gestures vaguely at the sink. "—do that. So maybe we're not as hopeless as you think."
"We're absolutely hopeless."
"Probably." He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. "But I'm willing to risk it if you are."
You should say no. Should walk out, go home, block his number, and never look back.
"One chance," you hear yourself say. "You get one chance, Lando. You fuck this up, I'm gone. For real this time."
"I won't fuck it up."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do." He kisses you again, quick and sure. "Because I'm not losing you twice."
You fix your makeup as best you can. Lando runs his fingers through his hair, trying to make it look less like you've had your hands in it. You both look thoroughly fucked and there's nothing to be done about it.
"Ready?" he asks.
"No."
"Me neither." He unlocks the door. "Let's go anyway."
The meal continues in a strange sort of limbo. Lando orders dessert—some chocolate thing that's probably obscenely expensive—and insists you try it even though you say you're not hungry. He feeds you a bite from his fork and you let him, and somewhere in the back of your mind you're aware that this is a turning point, that you're crossing a line you swore you wouldn't cross.
"Good?" he asks.
"It's fine."
"Just fine?" He takes another bite, considering. "I think it's better than fine."
"You think everything here is better than fine. You probably have stock in this place."
"I don't have stock in this place." He pauses. "I know the owner, though. Nice guy. Makes excellent risotto."
"Of course you do." By the time the check comes, it's nearly 10 PM. The restaurant has thinned out—just a few tables left, couples lingering over wine, the staff starting their closing routines. Lando pays without looking at the total, leaves a tip that's probably more than your entire meal cost.
"Ready?" he asks, standing and offering his hand. You look at it for a moment. At his palm, open and waiting. At the decision you're about to make. You take his hand. Outside, Monaco is cold and beautiful. The kind of night where the Mediterranean is dark glass reflecting city lights, where everything feels suspended and possible. Lando's car is waiting where the valet brought it around—matte black Porsche,
"I can walk," you say, even though you're not letting go of his hand.
"It's cold."
"It's twelve minutes."
"It's twelve minutes in heels." He opens the passenger door. "Let me drive you. Please." There's something in the please that gets you. Something vulnerable and honest that wasn't there before. You get in the car. Lando slides into the driver's seat and the engine purrs to life. He doesn't immediately drive. Just sits there with his hands on the steering wheel, staring out at the street.
"You okay?" you ask.
"Yeah." He glances at you. "Just thinking."
"About?"
"About how I'm going to convince you to let me come upstairs."
Your stomach flips. "Lando."
"I know, I know. You said one chance. I'm not fucking it up." He pulls out into traffic, smooth and controlled. "But I also know that if I drop you off and drive away, you're going to spend the entire night convincing yourself this was a mistake."
"It might be a mistake."
"Or it might not be." He takes the turn toward your apartment, like he's made this drive a thousand times. Maybe he has, in his head. "Either way, I'd rather find out tonight than spend another eighteen months wondering."
You don't respond. Just watch the city slide past through the window, trying to organize your thoughts into something coherent. Trying to figure out when exactly you decided to let this happen. Your apartment building appears too quickly. Lando pulls into a spot on the street—not in front, not obvious, but close enough. He kills the engine and the sudden silence is deafening.
"So," he says.
"So."
"This is the part where you invite me up for coffee that we both know we're not going to drink."
"Is it?"
"Or—" He shifts to face you properly. "—this is the part where you tell me to leave and I respect that and go home alone and hate myself for approximately six hours before texting you something stupid at 4 AM."
"Those are my only two options?"
"Probably not. But they're the most likely ones." His hand finds yours in the dark. "For what it's worth, I'm hoping for the coffee."
You should tell him to leave. Should protect yourself, keep the boundary you've barely managed to maintain. Should remember that this is Lando Norris, who broke your heart eighteen months ago and has given you no real proof that he won't do it again.
"Do you actually want coffee?" you ask instead.
His smile is slow and dangerous. "Not even a little bit."
"Then why did you offer?"
"Because you need the plausible deniability. Need to tell yourself we're just having coffee, just talking, just two adults having a completely professional and appropriate conversation at 10 PM in your apartment." He brings your hand to his lips, kisses your knuckles. "And I'll play along. I'll make coffee and sit on your couch and keep my hands to myself until you give me permission to do otherwise."
"You're very confident I'm going to give you permission."
"I'm not confident about anything right now except that I want you. Have wanted you for two years. Will probably want you for the rest of my life." His eyes meet yours in the dim light. "But I can wait. I'm good at waiting now. Eighteen months taught me patience."
Your heart is doing something complicated in your chest. "One coffee."
"One coffee," he agrees.
You get out of the car before you can change your mind. Lando follows, keeping a careful distance as you walk to your building's entrance. You're aware of his presence behind you—not crowding, not pushing, just there. Patient in a way he never was before. The elevator ride is silent. You're both watching the numbers climb—three, four, five, six, seven. Your floor. The doors open and you lead him down the hallway to your apartment.
Your hands shake slightly as you unlock the door. Lando notices but doesn't comment. Inside, your apartment looks exactly the same as it did when he was here four days ago. Clean and empty and sad. You see it through his eyes again—the bookshelf organized by color, the lack of personal photos, the overall sense that no one actually lives here.
"Coffee," you say, moving toward the kitchen. "How do you take it?"
"However you're making it." He's still standing by the door, hands in his pockets. Not moving. Not presuming. "Nice place."
"You said it was sad last time you were here."
"I said it looked like no one lives here. Different thing." He finally moves, but only to the living room, sitting on the edge of your couch like he's not sure he's allowed. "Do you actually live here or do you just exist in it?"
"That's a very philosophical question for 10 PM."
"I'm a very philosophical guy."
"Since when?"
"Since I spent eighteen months thinking about what I did wrong." He watches you move around the kitchen, getting mugs and grounds and trying to remember how your coffee maker works. "Lots of time to think when you're alone."
"You weren't alone. You had Magui."
"I told you. That was—"
"Uncomplicated. I remember." You measure out coffee with more precision than necessary. "How is she taking the break?"
"She said she saw it coming."
You turn to look at him. "She did?"
"Yeah." He runs a hand through his hair. "Apparently I talk about you. A lot. Even when I'm trying not to."
"That's—" You don't know how to finish that sentence. "—unfortunate for her."
"She's already seeing someone else. Some photographer. They've been friends for a while." He says it casually, like it doesn't bother him at all. "She's happy."
"And you're here."
"I'm here," he confirms.
The coffee maker gurgles to life. You lean against the counter, arms crossed, watching him watch you.
"Why did you really come to Monaco?" you ask. "Not the story about Emma being useless. The real reason."
He's quiet for a moment. "You want the truth?"
"That would be nice."
"I came because I couldn't stay away anymore. Because I won the championship and the first person I wanted to tell was you and you weren't there. Because I went to the Prize Giving with Magui and spent the entire night wishing it was you in that dress." He stands up, finally, moving toward the kitchen. Not quite entering it, just leaning in the doorway. "Because I've been tracking your pottery classes and your yoga sessions and every other thing you've tried to distract yourself with, and I realized I was being a creepy stalker instead of just coming here and saying what I should've said eighteen months ago."
"Which is?"
"That I love you. That firing you was the worst decision I've ever made. That I'm sorry." His voice cracks slightly on the sorry. "That I don't expect you to forgive me but I'm asking anyway."
The coffee maker beeps. You don't move.
"How were you tracking my pottery classes?"
"Really? That's your question?"
"It's a relevant question."
He sighs. "Charlotte."
"Charlotte?" Your voice rises. "Charlotte's been spying on me for you?"
"Not spying. Updating. She thought I should know you were okay."
"I'm going to kill her."
"She was trying to help."
"By reporting my activities to my ex-boss like I'm under surveillance?"
"When you put it that way it sounds bad—"
"It is bad, Lando!" You're fully yelling now, and some part of you knows you're not actually angry about Charlotte, you're angry about everything else—the eighteen months and the pottery classes and the fact that he's standing in your kitchen looking unfairly good and you want him so badly you can barely breathe. "You can't just—you can't track me and show up and expect me to just—"
"To just what?" He moves into the kitchen properly now, crowding into your space. "To just admit you still feel it too? To just let yourself want something instead of punishing yourself for wanting it?"
"I'm not punishing myself—"
"You're living like a ghost. Like you're waiting for permission to actually be alive again." His hands find your waist, not pulling, just holding. "Let me give you permission."
"I don't need your permission."
"Then take it anyway." His forehead drops to yours. "Take what you want. For once, just take it."
You're gripping his shirt. You don't remember reaching for him but you're holding on like he's the only solid thing in the room.
"This is going to end badly," you whisper.
"Probably."
"You're going to break my heart again."
"I'm going to try really hard not to."
"That's not good enough."
"I know." His lips brush yours, barely a kiss. "But it's all I've got."
You kiss him properly this time. Slower than in the restaurant bathroom, less desperate, more like you're both admitting something you've been avoiding. His hands slide up your back and you press closer, and the coffee sits forgotten on the counter, getting cold.
"Bedroom," you breathe against his mouth.
"You sure?"
"If you ask me one more time if I'm sure, I'm changing my mind."
He lifts you like you weigh nothing, your legs wrapping around his waist automatically. He carries you down the hallway, kissing you the whole way, only fumbling slightly when he has to navigate your bedroom door. Your bed is exactly where beds go, and he sets you down on it with a gentleness that makes your chest ache.
"Hi," he says, hovering over you.
"Hi yourself."
"Just so we're clear—this isn't just sex."
"Lando."
"I need you to know that. This isn't me trying to get laid. This is me trying to—" He stops, searching for words. "—to show you I'm serious. That I'm all in."
"You're going to show me you're serious by sleeping with me?"
"I'm going to show you I'm serious by staying." His hand cups your face. "By waking up here tomorrow. By making you actual coffee in the morning. By not running away when it gets complicated."
"It's already complicated."
"Then I guess I'm not going anywhere." He kisses you again, and this time there's a promise in it. A commitment you're not sure either of you are ready for but are making anyway. Your hands find the buttons of his shirt. Start working them open one by one. He watches your face the whole time, like he's memorizing this, like he's afraid if he blinks you'll disappear.
"Still with me?" you ask when his shirt is open, hands spread on his chest.
"Always." His hand slides into your hair. "Even when you don't want me to be."
"Annoyingly persistent."
"One of my best qualities." He pulls your dress over your head in one smooth motion, and then you're both just staring at each other in the dim light from the hallway. "Fuck. I forgot how beautiful you are."
"You saw me three days ago."
"Wasn't close enough." His hands map your body like he's relearning it—ribs, waist, hips, thighs. "Wasn't touching you like this."
You pull him down, tired of talking, tired of thinking, tired of all the reasons this is a terrible idea. His weight settles over you and everything else falls away—the eighteen months, the fear, the certainty that this will end in disaster. Right now, there's just this. Just him. Just the feeling of finally, finally being exactly where you want to be.
Even if it's temporary. Even if it's going to hurt later. Right now, though, it's enough.
Days four through fourteen pass in a blur of Emma and schedules and Lando showing up at your apartment every single night like he lives there. He doesn't live there. You've been very clear about that.
"I'm just here a lot," he says on day seven, making coffee in your kitchen at 6 AM like he belongs there. Like it's normal, like this is normal. "That's different from living here."
"You have a toothbrush in my bathroom."
"Emergency toothbrush."
"You have clothes in my closet."
"Just in case."
"Lando."
"What?" He's grinning now, that insufferable grin that makes you want to hit him and kiss him in equal measure. "I'm respecting boundaries. You said I couldn't move in. I'm not moving in. I'm just visiting. A lot."
"You stayed here six nights in a row."
"And I went home on the seventh. See? Not living here."
You throw a dish towel at his head. He catches it, still grinning. The thing is—it's good. Terrifyingly good. He makes you coffee in the morning and you pretend to be annoyed about it. He stays up too late watching old race footage and you fall asleep on his chest listening to his heartbeat. He fucks you against your kitchen counter on day nine and you return the favor in your shower on day eleven and somewhere in between all of that, you stop counting days.
Emma is thriving. That's the word everyone keeps using—thriving. She's confident now, anticipating Lando's needs before he asks, managing his schedule like she's been doing it for years instead of two weeks. "You're amazing," she tells you on day twelve, over coffee in the MTC cafeteria. "Seriously. I don't know how you did this job for so long."
"Practice. Lots of practice."
"And patience. God, so much patience." She stirs her latte. "He's different lately though, have you noticed?"
Your stomach flips. "Different how?"
"Happier? Less stressed? I don't know, he just seems lighter." She smiles. "Whatever you said to him about being nicer to me, it worked. He actually asked about my Christmas plans yesterday. Like, genuine interest. It was weird."
"Good weird?"
"The best weird." She leans forward. "Can I ask you something personal?"
"That depends on the question."
"You and Lando. Are you... I mean, it seems like—" She stops, cheeks flushing. "Sorry. That's none of my business."
"It's complicated."
"That's what everyone says when they're together but don't want to admit it." She's still smiling, not judging, just observing.
Day fourteen arrives with the weight of finality. Your last day training Emma. Your last day having an excuse to be at MTC every morning. Your last day before everything becomes real or falls apart or some combination of both. Emma brings you flowers. Actual flowers—a bouquet of peonies tied with a ribbon.
"Thank you," she says, and her eyes are suspiciously shiny. "For everything. For being patient with me. For not making me feel stupid when I messed up. For teaching me how to do this job without losing my mind."
"You're going to be great," you tell her, and you mean it. "Better than great. You're going to be exactly what he needs."
"I hope so." She hugs you, quick and tight. "Will you still answer if I text you with questions?"
"Of course."
"Even stupid questions?"
"Especially stupid questions."
Lando doesn't show up all day. You tell yourself it's fine, that he's busy, that he's giving you and Emma space to wrap things up properly. You tell yourself a lot of things that aren't quite true. At 5 PM, Emma leaves. You pack up your things—tablet, the notes you've accumulated, the coffee mug you've been using that technically belongs to McLaren. You're stalling. You know you're stalling when your phone buzzes.
You take the elevator to the fourth floor for what might be the last time. Lando's office door is open. He's standing by the window, still in team gear, and he turns when you walk in. "Hey," he says.
"Hey."
"So. Two weeks."
"Two weeks," you confirm.
"Emma's going to be fine."
"She is."
"Thanks to you." He moves toward you, hands in his pockets. "I, uh. I got you something. To say thank you. For the training."
"Lando, you don't have to—"
"I wanted to." He pulls an envelope from his desk drawer. "It's not much. Just a little something." You open it. It's a check. A very large check. More than double what you agreed on.
"This is too much."
"It's not enough." His voice is quiet. "You came back when I asked. You trained Emma. You gave me two weeks when you could've told me to fuck off."
"I did tell you to fuck off."
"And then you came anyway." He's smiling now, that soft smile that's just for you. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." You fold the check, tuck it into your bag. "So I guess this is it."
"Is it?"
"The two weeks are up. I'm done. You and Emma are set."
"What about us?"
There it is. The question you've been avoiding for fourteen days.
"I don't know," you admit. "What about us?"
"I don't want this to end." He says it simply, honestly. "The two weeks are up but I'm not ready to stop seeing you every day. Coming to your apartment. Waking up next to you. All of it."
"Lando."
"I know it's fast. I know we're still figuring things out. But I'm all in. I told you that. I meant it." He takes your hands. "Move in with me."
You stare at him. "What?"
"Move in with me. My place. I have space. A lot of space. You could—"
"No."
"No?"
"We've been doing this for two weeks. That's not enough time to—"
"It's been two years," he interrupts. "Two weeks is just how long it took us to stop being idiots about it."
"That's not how this works."
"Then how does it work?" He's frustrated now, you can see it in the set of his jaw. "Tell me. Tell me what I need to do to prove I'm serious."
"I don't know! I don't have a checklist of requirements. I just," You pull your hands back. "I need time. I need to know this isn't going to fall apart the second things get hard."
"Things are already hard. We're still here."
"Two weeks isn't hard, Lando. Two weeks is the easy part. The hard part is six months from now when you're traveling and I'm here and we haven't seen each other in weeks. The hard part is when I do something that pisses you off and you remember why you fired me in the first place."
"That's not going to happen."
"You don't know that."
He opens his mouth. Closes it. "You're right. I don't know that. But I know I want to try. I know that two weeks with you has been better than eighteen months without you. I know that I'm in love with you and I don't want to waste any more time pretending I'm not."
Your chest aches. "I need to go."
"Where?"
"Home. My home. I need space to think."
"Okay." He doesn't try to stop you. "Will I see you tonight?"
"I don't know."
"Tomorrow?"
"Lando."
"I'm just asking. I'm not pushing." But you can see it in his eyes—the fear that this is it, that you're walking out and not coming back.
"I'll text you," you say finally.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
You leave before you can change your mind. Drive home in a daze, your apartment appearing too quickly. Inside, it's exactly as you left it this morning—coffee mugs in the sink from breakfast with Lando, his shirt draped over your chair, evidence of him everywhere. You sink onto your couch and try to figure out what the fuck you're doing.
Christmas comes three days later and you spend it alone. Lando's in the UK—family obligations, his mum's house in Somerset, the kind of traditional British Christmas that involves too much food and badly wrapped presents and everyone arguing about charades. He invited you. Asked you three times, actually, each time more hopeful than the last.
You said no.
"I don't want to meet your family," you'd told him. "Not yet. It's too much."
"They'd love you."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
"The point is I need space. I need to figure out if this is real or if it's just us getting caught up in each other again."
He'd looked like you'd slapped him. "Right. Space. Okay."
He texted you on Christmas morning, then a hour later, and the hour after that. Charlotte called twice asking if you're spending Christmas alone, you lied, she definitely didn't believe you.
The day after Christmas, you're sitting in your apartment in pajamas and the same book you've been pretending to read for three days when your doorbell rings at 2:47 PM. Lando is standing in your hallway in a Christmas sweater—an actual, honest-to-god Christmas sweater with reindeer on it. He's holding a small gift bag, silver with white tissue paper, and he looks nervous.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi."
"Can I come in?"
You step aside. He walks in, setting the gift bag on your coffee table like it might explode. "You didn't have to get me anything," you say.
"I know. I wanted to." He shoves his hands in his pockets. "How was your Christmas?"
"Fine. Quiet."
"Mine was loud. Too loud. Kept thinking about how you'd hate it—all the noise and the people and my mum asking a million questions."
"She asked about me?"
"Yeah. She wanted to know why I invited someone and then showed up alone. Gave me a whole lecture about not screwing things up." He smiles, but it's strained. "She's very wise."
You gesture to the couch. He sits. You sit on the opposite end, keeping distance between you. "The training finished well," he says, like this is a business meeting. "Emma's doing great."
"I know. She texted me."
"Right. Of course." He's fidgeting now, picking at a loose thread on the couch. "I, uh. I missed you. At Christmas. Kept looking around like you might show up even though I knew you wouldn't."
"Lando."
"I know you need space. I'm trying to give you space. But it's been three days and I'm going insane." He looks at you finally. "I don't know how to do this. Don't know how to prove I'm serious without being overwhelming. Don't know how to give you time without feeling like I'm losing you."
"You're not losing me."
"Aren't I?" His voice cracks slightly. "You spent Christmas alone. You won't move in with me. You barely text me back. What am I supposed to think?"
"That I'm scared." The admission comes out quiet. "That I'm terrified this is going to fall apart and I don't know if I'll survive it a second time."
"So don't let it fall apart." He moves closer. "Stay. Fight for this. Give us an actual chance."
"I am giving us a chance."
"Are you? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're preparing for the end before we've even really started." His hand finds yours. "I'm not going anywhere. I don't know how many times I need to say it. I'm not firing you. I'm not leaving. I'm not changing my mind."
"You can't promise that."
"Yes, I can." He reaches for the gift bag, holds it out to you. "Open it."
"Lando."
"Please. Just open it."
You take the bag. Pull out the tissue paper. Inside is a small box, velvet, the kind that makes your heart stop. "It's not what you think," he says quickly. "I mean—just open it."
You open it and it's a key. A single key on a keyring, simple and silver.
You stare at it. "It's to my place," Lando says, words tumbling out fast now. "I know you said you won't move in. I heard you. But I want you to have it anyway. So you can come over whenever. So you know you're always welcome. So you can—" He stops. Takes a breath. "So you can stop thinking of my place as mine and start thinking of it as ours."
Your vision blurs. "Lando."
"I know it's not a grand gesture. I know it's just a key. But I don't know how else to show you I mean it. That I want you in my space, in my life, in everything." His thumb brushes your knuckles. "You said I needed to prove I'm serious. This is me proving it. Take the key. Use it or don't use it. But know it's there. Know you have a place with me whenever you're ready."
You're crying now. Properly crying. And Lando looks panicked.
"Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry. If it's too much—"
You kiss him. Hard and desperate and with your hands fisted in his ridiculous Christmas sweater. "It's perfect," you whisper against his mouth. "You're perfect."
"I'm really not."
"Shut up and let me have this."
He laughs, and it sounds like relief. "Okay."
You pull back, wiping your eyes. The key sits in the box, catching the light.
"I'm still scared," you admit.
"Me too."
"But I want this. I want us."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." You pick up the key, test its weight in your palm. "I'm not ready to move in yet. But maybe—maybe I could stay over more? Start keeping more things there?"
"Yes. Absolutely. Whatever you want." He's grinning now, that full devastating smile. "You can reorganize my entire closet if you want. Color-code my kitchen. Do that thing you do where you arrange everything by frequency of use."
"You make me sound like a psychopath."
"You are a psychopath. It's one of my favorite things about you." He pulls you into his lap, arms wrapping around you. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas." You press your face into his neck, breathing him in. "For the record, I missed you too."
"Yeah?"
"So much I almost got on a plane to Somerset."
"You should've."
"Your mum would've hated me. Strange woman showing up on Christmas."
"My mum would've loved you. She already does, actually. Based entirely on my descriptions." He pulls back to look at you. "Fair warning—she's going to want to meet you. Properly. Probably at Easter or something equally family-oriented and terrifying."
"Easter's months away."
"So we have time to prepare." His hand cups your face. "You'll be ready by then. I know you will."
"How are you so sure?"
"Because you're here. Because you're crying over a key. Because you're scared but you're doing it anyway." He kisses your forehead. "That's the bravest thing I know."
You stay like that for a long time—curled up on your couch with Lando, the key in your hand, the future stretching out uncertain and terrifying and full of possibility. It's not perfect. You're still scared. He's still Lando Norris with all the complications that entails. But it's real. And maybe that's enough. Maybe that's everything.
Eight Months Later
The private jet levels off somewhere over Europe. You're curled up in the leather seat across from Lando, watching him pretend to read the same page of his book for the fifth time. You've been living together for six months now—his place became your place became our place somewhere around month three when you finally stopped keeping a drawer at your apartment "just in case." You sold that apartment four months ago. Haven't regretted it once.
"Nervous?" you ask.
"About what?" He sets the book down, reaches for your hand. The promise ring sits on your right hand, exactly where it's been for eight months. You've gotten used to the weight of it. Used to the way Lando looks at it sometimes, like he's planning something.
"You've read the same page five times."
He laughs, caught. "Fine. Maybe a little nervous." He stands up, walks to his bag. "Actually, I have something for you."
"Lando—"
"Close your eyes. Trust me."
You close your eyes. Feel silk brush against your face—a blindfold. He ties it carefully at the back of your head. "What are you doing?"
"Surprising you." He takes your hand. "Just trust me. We'll land soon."
"We're supposed to be going to Belgium."
"We are. Eventually." You can hear the smile in his voice. "But first—a detour." Twenty minutes of torture. You can hear everything but see nothing—the engine, the change in air pressure as you descend, Lando's thumb tracing circles on your palm like he's the one who needs reassurance. The plane touches down. Smooth landing. Lando helps you stand, guides you down the stairs carefully, his hand firm on your waist. The air is different here—warmer than Monaco, with a breeze that smells like salt and something floral you can't quite place.
"Are we at the beach?"
"Maybe. Keep walking." He guides you across tarmac, then pavement, then sand. Definitely sand. You can hear waves now, the rhythmic crash of water against shore. The sand gives way to wood—a deck, maybe a dock. The sound of the waves is louder here. Then he stops. His hands on your shoulders.
"Okay," he says, and his voice is different now. Nervous. "You can take it off."
You untie the blindfold, let it fall.
You're standing on a dock. The sun is setting over crystal-clear water that stretches to the horizon. There's a villa behind you, white stone and huge windows, the kind of place that's definitely not in Belgium. Palm trees. Bougainvillea climbing the walls. The most beautiful sunset you've ever seen painting everything gold and pink.
"Where are we?" you breathe.
"Greece." Lando's voice comes from behind you. "Santorini, specifically."
You turn around and Lando Norris is on one knee. Your heart stops. Actually fucking stops because he's holding a box—a different box than the one from eight months ago. This one is smaller, more delicate, and when he opens it there's a ring inside that catches the sunset and throws light everywhere.
"I know this is fast," he starts, and his voice is shaking. "I know eight months isn't very long in the grand scheme of things. But I've been in love with you for two years. I wasted eighteen months of that being an idiot. And the last eight months have been everything. Coming home to you. Waking up next to you. Fighting about whose turn it is to do dishes and making terrible pasta at midnight and watching you reorganize my closet for the third time." He takes a shaky breath. "I don't want to waste any more time. I don't want to wait until it's been a year or two years or whatever arbitrary timeline is supposed to make this acceptable. I know what I want. I've known since Qatar. I've known since before Qatar."
You're crying already. God, what is happening?
"You make me better. You make everything better. You call me on my shit and you're there at 3 AM when I can't sleep and you make Emma text you updates because you're worried about her even though you don't work for me anymore. I love you. I love you so much it's stupid. And I want to marry you. I want to marry you and fight about coffee orders and have you reorganize our entire life and grow old and—"
"Yes," you interrupt.
He blinks. "What?"
"Yes. I'll marry you. Obviously I'll marry you, you idiot."
"I had a whole speech prepared—"
"I don't care about the speech." You're pulling him up off his knees, laughing and crying at the same time. "Ask me. Properly."
He laughs, stands up, takes the ring out of the box with shaking hands. "Will you marry me?"
"Yes. A thousand times yes."
He slides the ring onto your left hand—your actual left hand, the important one. It sits there catching the light, real and perfect and terrifying. "I can't believe you did this," you say, and you're in his arms now, held tight against his chest. "Greece. A sunset. What about Spa? The race?"
"Fuck Spa." He's grinning against your hair. "We'll get there Sunday. I told Zak I needed a couple days. Told him it was important. Everyone knows—McLaren, Emma, Charlotte. They're all in on it. I've been planning this for three months." He pulls back to look at you, and his eyes are shiny. "I'm yours. For as long as you'll have me."
"Forever, then."
"Forever." He kisses you as the sun sets over Santorini, soft and deep and perfect. When he pulls back, he's still grinning. "No take backs."
Lando pushes the door open to the bedroom and you see champagne on ice, rose petals scattered across the bed, the whole romantic setup that he definitely planned down to the last detail. "You're very sure of yourself," you say, even as he's walking you backward toward the bed. "What if I'd said no?"
"You didn't." His hands find your waist, slide under your shirt. "And even if you had, I would've asked again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that until you said yes."
"That's insane."
"That's commitment." He pulls your shirt over your head, tosses it somewhere behind him. "Now stop talking and let me worship my fiancée." The word makes you clench. Fiancée. You're his fiancée now. The ring on your finger catches the candlelight as you reach for him, pulling him closer.
"I love you," you whisper against his mouth.
"I love you too." His hands are everywhere now—in your hair, on your skin, working open the button of your jeans. "And I'm going to spend the rest of the night proving it." He pushes you down onto the bed and follows you, covering your body with his. His mouth finds your neck, biting down just hard enough to make you gasp, and you arch into him. "Shh." He's working his way down, kissing and biting and marking you as he goes. "Let me take care of you. Let me show you what it means to be mine." He makes quick work of the rest of your clothes, and then his mouth is between your thighs and you're fisting your hands in the expensive sheets, gasping his name. He takes his time, licking and sucking and bringing you right to the edge before pulling back.
"Not yet," he says, grinning up at you with his mouth wet and obscene. "Want you desperate for it. Want you begging."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't." He slides two fingers inside you, curling them just right. "You love me. You're going to marry me. And right now, you're going to come for me." He lowers his mouth again and you shatter, coming hard with his name on your lips and your hands in his hair. He works you through it, drawing it out until you're shaking and pushing him away.
"Too much," you gasp.
"Not nearly enough." He's pulling off his own clothes now, and when he's finally naked he settles between your thighs, the head of his cock brushing against you. "Ready?"
"God, yes." He slides in slowly, so slowly, and you can feel every inch. When he's fully seated he stops, just breathing hard against your neck.
"Fuck," he groans. "Feel so good. Always feel so good. My perfect girl. My fiancée. Mine."
"Yours," you agree, wrapping your legs around his waist. "Always yours."
He starts moving then—slow at first, then harder, faster, until the bed is slamming against the wall and you're both gasping. His hand slides between your bodies to find your clit and you're coming again, clenching around him as he fucks you through it. "That's it," he growls. "That's my girl. Come on my cock. Let me feel it, baby."
You're barely down from the second orgasm when you feel the third building. Lando shifts the angle and hits something inside you that makes you sob.
"Right there?" he asks, doing it again. "That the spot?"
"Yes—fuck—yes, don't stop—"
"Never stopping. Never letting you go. You're mine now. Forever." His rhythm is getting erratic, his grip on your hips tightening. "Gonna come inside you. Fill you up. You want that?"
"Yes—please—Lando—"
"Mine," he says fiercely, and then he's kissing you as you both come, him spilling inside you as you clench around him, both of you shaking and completely wrecked. He collapses on top of you, breathing hard. You can feel his heart racing against your chest, matching your own.
"Holy shit," you manage eventually.
"Yeah." He lifts his head to look at you, and he's grinning. "So. Still want to marry me?"
"After that? Absolutely." You trace his jaw with your finger. "Though I'm going to need you to do that again. You know, to make sure."
"Fiancée has demands." He's already hardening inside you again. "I think I can work with that." He does it again. And then again. By the time you finally collapse in a tangle of sweaty limbs and expensive sheets, the moon is high and you can barely move. "Can't believe you're mine," Lando murmurs against your hair, his hand finding yours to trace the ring there.
"Can't believe you proposed on a dock."
"Romantic as fuck."
"Insane as fuck."
"Same thing." He kisses your temple. "Get some sleep. We have Spa on Sunday and I need you well-rested."
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to win that race for you. For my fiancée." He says the word like he's testing it out, like he can't quite believe it's real. "And then I'm going to take you back to Monaco and fuck you in our bed as a race winner and your future husband."
"Very confident."
"Very in love." He pulls you closer. "Now sleep. I'll wake you up properly in a few hours." You fall asleep like that—engaged, thoroughly fucked, in Greece with Lando already planning tomorrow. It's him. It's always been him. And finally, you're both brave enough to admit it.
Summary : Lando wears one stupid shirt in a club without thinking about the consequences. But when Y/N, the girl he has been unsuccessfully flirting with for years, finally notices him, maybe the chaos is worth it.
Pairing : Lando Norris x reader
Genre : suggestive, smau
Face claim : Madelyne Cline
Main Masterlist
@_f1 gossip:
📹 Lando Norris was out last night, taking one of his friends shirt that says: “EAT PUSSY IT’S VEGAN.”
user1: sir??? the shirt says what ???
user2: not him wearing it like he’d been waiting his entire life for that exact shirt
user3: whoever filmed this needs an award 😭
user4: he knew. HE KNEW what he was doing.
user5: his pr team is currently drafting a resignation letter
user6: he needs to get on his knees and prove it
user7: don't ask me the color of anything
user8: well we like men who are ready to give heads
yourusername: god he is so unserious
liked by @_lando
user9: NOT THE LIKE????
user10: y/n, babe, you have approximately thirty seconds before he slides into your dms.
user11: wait...THE y/n? as in the girl he has been liking every single photo of since 2023??
user12: girl go get your man
Instagram DMs
lando:
unserious?
yourusername:
you swapped shirts with a stranger in a club because you thought the slogan was funny
lando:
not just funny
it suited me
yourusername:
that is exactly why you’re unserious
lando:
i have talents, you know
yourusername:
being a menace is not a talent
lando:
i’m more talking about being talented at eating stuff
yourusername:
lando.
lando:
what?
it's true, you don't belived me?
yourusername:
you are genuinely terrible at flirting
lando:
was that flirting?
yourusername:
you tell me
lando:
fine.
wanna go eat dinner with me?
yourusername:
no. for the fith time this month, no.
lando:
no to dinner or no to me?
yourusername:
yes.
lando:
that is not an answer
yourusername:
it is the only answer you deserve after that line
lando:
harsh.
yourusername:
accurate.
lando:
so there’s no chance?
yourusername:
there is a chance you learn how to flirt before trying again
lando:
cruel. but fair
yourusername:
goodnight, lando
lando:
goodnight, future dinner date
yourusername:
you're delusional
@_yourusername
Too spicy for you 🌶️
❤️ 186,492 likes
liked by lando and others
user1: OH MY GOD. they’re communicating exclusively through shirt slogans now.
lando: I like spicy food
user3: this is the worst flirting I have ever witnessed and I need it framed in a museum.
user4: he took one look at that shirt and forgot how to act normal.
user5: “I like spicy food” sir this is a public comment section, please behave.
user6: no because they are having an entire conversation through clothing and captions 😭
user7 the way he said that like he has not already been rejected twice this week.
user8: someone confiscate his phone before he says something worse.
Instagram DMs
lando:
wdym you’re too spicy for meeee?
yourusername:
couldn’t handle me. it’s all norris
lando:
whyyy?
yourusername:
because.
lando:
that is not an answer
yourusername:
it’s the only one you’re getting
lando:
please. just one date.
just to show you i’m nice and funny
lando
and then maybe more, eventually, to show you why i wore that shirt the other day…it’s a true passion
yourusername:
what is, lando?
wearing terrible shirts?
lando:
no, you know what i mean
yourusername:
if this is your attempt to imply you’re very talented at whatever that shirt was suggesting, this is actually terrible flirting
lando:
why? you don’t you believe me?
yourusername:
i don’t, actually
lando
just so you know, i’ve had girls coming in seconds just from that
yourusername:
they were just too polite to tell you it was shit, lando
lando:
their legs shaking tell me otherwise darling
yourusername:
most boys genuinely don’t have a clue what they’re doing
lando:
not me, then
yourusername:
you’re way too confident, lando
lando:
confidence is attractive
yourusername:
not when it’s completely unearned
lando:
one date.
i’ll prove it to you
yourusername:
this is still a no
lando:
you’re impossible
yourusername:
keep dreaming, club-shirt thief
@_lando
Refuelling properly before the next one 🍓✈️
@onflightinternational
❤️ 942,817 likes
liked by yourusername and others
user: not the pr-approved fruit post two days after the shirt incident 😭
user2: his team definitely said, “post something wholesome. make people forget the club video.”
user3: this is so aggressively out of character after seeing him take his shirt off for a man wearing that slogan
user4: lando norris promoting healthy eating while the entire internet remembers a very different definition of “vegan.”
user5: someone needs to tell him the fruit isn’t going to distract us. we saw the video, babe
user6: he’s trying way too hard to look innocent here
user7: “refuelling properly” SIR. after that week, you cannot use words like that casually
user8: i suddenly understand why y/n said he was unserious
yourusername: since when do you eat fruit?
lando: told you i’m vegan now 😉
user9: HE DID NOT
user10: they are still having their whole relationship through public comments. someone confiscate both their phones
user11: y/n walked directly into that one and he has been waiting for his chance all day
user12: lando, one normal post. that’s all we asked for
@_yourusername
The light was good so obviously i had to do a photoshoot
❤️ 241,883 likes
liked by lando and others
user1: this is genuinely the most beautiful set of photos i have ever seen
user2: she saw a camera flash and turned it into a magazine cover. iconic behavior
user3: you were meant to be photographed forever, actually
user4: no because she is so effortlessly pretty it makes me angry
user5: the way she can make lying on a TV console look like high fashion???
user6: someone get this woman on the cover of vogue immediately
user7: oh she knew exactly what she was doing with these
lando: I wish I was this TV console btw
user8: LANDO????
user9: somebody take his phone. immediately.
user10: he is not even pretending to be subtle anymore 😭
user11: “btw” as if he did not just throw himself directly into the comment section
user12: lando norris has officially entered his public embarrassment era
user13: THEY ARE FLIRTING IN FRONT OF US AGAIN
Instagram DMs
yourusername:
stop commenting stuff like that under my posts
lando:
what? it’s true.
yourusername:
lando.
lando:
you look good
just though you'll look even better under me
yourusername:
please if we ever do it, I'm on top
lando:
i'd love to see that, does that mean you wanna go out for a drink?
yourusername:
no.
lando:
oh directly going for the sex part, ok, i'm in for that as well
yourusername:
you’re dreaming
lando:
of you?
yes. but you don't wanna know what sort of dream they are
yourusername:
i have the image lando thank you very much
lando:
good, you could think about it next time you touch yourself, goodnight love
yourusername:
goodnight, lando...
@_yourusername Instagram Story
Out with friends tonight ✨
Instagram DMs
lando:
which club are you going to?
yourusername:
why?
lando:
just curious
yourusername:
you are never “just curious.”
lando:
answer the question
yourusername:
twiga
lando:
what a surprise
yourusername:
what?
lando:
i’m there as well
yourusername:
you are lying
lando:
look to your left
yourusername:
that is actually terrifying
lando:
you look happy to see me
yourusername:
i look concerned
lando:
same thing, basically
lando:
maybe you’ll see me later then
yourusername:
i have seen you already. unfortunately
lando:
hope you’re thirsty
yourusername:
why?
lando:
because i’m totally buying you a drink, or if you're thristy for something else, ask me...
yourusername:
are you actually talking about sex?
lando:
only if you want it to be
yourusername:
lando...
lando:
relax. we could have a drink first
i’ll be charming and completely normal
yourusername:
you have never been completely normal a day in your life
lando:
but you’re still coming over?
yourusername:
maybe.
lando:
that’s basically a yes
yourusername:
do not get ahead of yoursel
@_lando private Instagram Story
Your drink is waiting for you 🍸
Instagram DMs
yourusername:
stop flirting.
lando:
i’m not flirting
i’m just saying facts
lando:
wanna go get dessert then?
yourusername:
why would i have dessert, lando?
lando:
you are the dessert, darling
yourusername:
god, again with that?
lando:
i’m one hundred percent sure that if you let me show you how good i am with my mouth, you’d stop calling me insufferable
yourusername:
i just don’t believe you. that’s all
lando:
yeah?
want me to prove it?
yourusername:
you don’t have the guts to get on your knees for me in a club bathroom, lando
lando:
oh, you think?
lando:
just to remind you, i was shirtless in front of half of monaco wearing that ridiculous shirt a few days ago
i’m not scared of this
lando:
are you?
yourusername:
you’re an idiot. what if people see?
lando:
then they see
i don’t care
yourusername:
this is not me being interested, okay?
i’m just tipsy and it’s been a long time
lando:
don’t worry, sweetheart
i’ll change your mind
yourusername:
so sure of yourself, huh?
lando:
oh, yeah
lando:
seeing me between your legs will make you rethink every single mean things you’ve ever told me, baby.
yourusername:
stop saying stuff like this.
lando:
why?
does it turn you on?
yourusername:
we are in public, lando.
lando:
then let’s go somewhere private
lando:
unless you want me to eat you out on the table in the middle of the club's dancefloor
yourusername:
stop.
lando:
make me.
yourusername:
bathroom. now.
lando:
as you wish, ma’am
lando:
i like when you give me orders
yourusername:
just stop talking.
lando:
already on my way
@_f1 gossip:
📸 Lando Norris and Y/N were spotted arriving at the same Monaco club separately, disappearing toward the bathrooms together, and leaving not long after.
user1: FINALLY HE SUCCEEDED 😭
user2: he spent years embarrassing himself in her comments and it actually worked???
user3: they went to the bathroom together and left twenty minutes later. i am choosing not to ask questions
user4: what the hell happened in that bathroom
user5: this man has been asking her out since the dawn of time. let him have this
user6: the way they left so soon after is sending me. like neither of them even tried to pretend
user7: i need everyone to remember that shirt from a few days ago because suddenly it feels less like a joke
user8: lando saw her saying “too spicy for you” and made it his life’s mission to prove her wrong
user9: the quickie in the batheroom must have been good for them to leave this fast
user10: the pr team is going to wake up, see these photos, and immediately regret letting him out
user11: i just know he is unbearably smug today
@_yourusername
He wasn’t wrong, he actually knows what he’s doing.
❤️ 518,204 likes
liked by @_lando and others
user1: Y/N????? you cannot post this after disappearing into a club bathroom with him
user2: did she just publicly give him a five-star review???
user3: sooo it was that good huh? good for you honestly
user4: not the mysterious bathroom trip, the car make-out photos, and now THIS caption. i need a minute
user5: he was acting so confident with that shirt on and apparently he had a reason for it
user6: he 100% eat her out in that toilet cabin
user7: so what happened after she went home with him anyway?? the plot is plotting
user8: the club bathroom was apparently only the beginning because they left together SO fast
lando: could do it again anytime soon, baby 😉
liked by yourusername
user9: LANDO. THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE.
user9: he is never beating the allegations now
user10: at least we know what they did in that club bathroom
user11: he did went on his knees and prove it
user12: the smugness in this comment is actually outrageous
yourusername: you’re insufferable
lando: and yet you still let me prove my point
user13: I AM LOOKING AWAY RESPECTFULLY BUT ALSO NOT AT ALL
would you be able to do morning sex with lando after a long race weekend please :)
hope u like it, enjoyed writing it a lot :P
sleepyheads
pairing: lando norris x f!reader
contains/warnings: heavy smut, p in v, unprotected sex (only pills), creampie, sleepy morning sex, lots of sweet and dirty talk, kind of switch!lando and switch!reader, fingering, smut smut smut smut smut
summary: after a long, hard and tiring race weekend, waking up with you on top of him is the best way for lando to recover.
word count: 13k~
masterlist
enjoy!;)
this weekend was everything but easy on lando. the car wasn't as good as it should've been at all, he didn't feel focused and the position he finished in on the race was definitely not something he was proud of. it was exhausting, and he felt irritated while all of the interviews and media duties he had afterwards. he could feel his body aching, screaming at him to just go and sleep already. go and have some rest already. so after finishing up, he searched for you, collected you from where you were talking to some people and dragged you to the parking lot. he didn't even want to drive, he let you sit in the driver's seat without a word. when you finally arrived to your room in the hotel, he barely said a word while the quick shower you shared. afterwards, he face planted on the bed,and fell asleep right away.
the next morning, he woke up in a rather grumpy mood, blinking his eyes open, staring at the ceiling for a little while. then, he realized where he was, in the hotel room, with you. he looked to his side, and there you were, wrapped around his left arm like a koala, still sleeping peacefully, lips a little parted, he found you adorable.
he tried to tug his arm free,just so he could turn to face you and get a little bit more comfortable,but you stirred awake as he moved.
"where are you goin'?" you mumbled half into the pillow as you grabbed onto his arm, letting out a tiny groan. "I'm just trying to get comfortable.." he sighed, going limp against the sheets again, letting you grab him and drag him as you wished. you pulled him closer to yourself, then draped yourself over him, planting a soft kiss on the middle of his chest. "how are you, baby?" you asked, voice a little muffled against his skin. "eh.. still tired" he said and it was followed by a yawn, he was clearly still tired, ready to fall back asleep any time soon. "yeah? you're a sleepyhead, aren't you?" you giggled softly, resting your cheek against his warm skin, smiling into your question. he groaned as an answer, throwing an arm over his face. "don't act like you're not one yourself." he finished his sentence then tilted his head, getting comfortable on the pillows again, probably wanting to sleep. "you're right" you smiled, because he wasn't wrong, "then let's sleep some more, yeah?" you suggested, but it wasn't really a question. you settled comfortably half on top of him and closed your eyes, trying to drift back off to unconsciousness.
however, you couldn't bring yourself to sleep again, so you just lay there, a hand slowly starting to caress his upper body, sliding over his chest, then down to his stomach, over and over again.
lando let out a quiet little hum at the touches, the sound low and barely audible. he didn't open his eyes, just shifted a little under your hand, his breathing slow and heavy, still lost in that sleepy haze. you kept going for a while, tracing lazy patterns across his warm skin, feeling the way his muscles jumped under your fingers when you crossed a ticklish spot. after a bit, you tilted your head and pressed a soft kiss on his chest again, then another one a little higher, then one om his collarbone. he made another small noise, something between a sigh and a sleepy groan, and his arm came up to rest loosely across your back.
you took that as an invitation, so you slowly shifted, swinging a leg over him so you were fully on top of him, straddling his hips. the change in position made him blink once, but his eyes stayed closed, lashes resting against his cheeks. he looked so soft like this, all tired and pliant beneath you. you leaned down and started kissing up the side of his neck, light and unhurried. just gentle presses of your lips against his skin, moving from the base of his throat up toward his jaw. he tilted his head a little to give you more space, still not opening his eyes, still completely relaxed under you. "feels nice.." he mumbled, voice a little raspy, and quiet.
"I know" you smiled, then started nibbling on his neck, which earned you a groan, and his hands gripped your hips. "none of that, or I'll have to fuck you, baby" he chuckled, and that sound made heat pool in your lower belly. he said it as if it was a bad idea, but honestly, you kind of wanted it, because it was always pleasant to start off a day with him inside you, so you decided to leave some more playful bites on his skin. "seems like you liked my idea?" he teased lightly, and one of his hands travelled to your thighs, then straight between your legs cupping your heat. you gasped at his sudden boldness and fell forward, starting to leave open mouthed little kisses on his neck once again, paired with a tiny whimper. his fingers were tracing along your folds through your panties, and it caused you to wriggle your bottom, trying to grind down onto his hand. "why so eager, hm? we have all the time in the world, it's still early." he wasn't wrong, because as you quickly glanced at the clock on the bedside table, it was only 7 am, and you suddenly started wondering how did you to manage to naturally wake up this early, but your thoughts were quickly cut off when lando pushed your panties aside, now caressing your bare pussy, dipping his fingers just with a little more strength around your entrance and it made you let out a sudden moan. it was still so early, you weren't even sure if your body processed what was happening, so, of course, you were sensitive as hell. "c'mere and kiss me" he murmured and raised his head just a little off the pillow, waiting for you to listen and kiss him. you, obviously didn't have to be told twice, leaned down and pressed your lips to his ones, immediately sucking his bottom lip in, because, why not? he groaned at the feeling and his fingers got more confident, now circling lazily around your clit, but it was enough for you to get wetter, and need him even more than you already did.
"c'mon lan.." you whined softly against his lips, shifting your hips again, trying to demand more friction. "what now, hm? you need more?" he chuckled again with a cocky smirk on his lips, and if he wasn't looking still kind of adorable with those sleepy, half lidded eyes, then maybe you would've gotten annoyed by his teasing, but this time, you just nodded instead. "yeah, want you.." you punctured your words with a kiss on his jawline, hips grinding down against his hand again. though, you'd lie if you said you weren't getting a little uncomfortable in this position, your legs were getting strained and you were still too weak to hold yourself up. "and want you on top.." you finally managed to tell him, which he luckily didn't mind at all. "sure baby, whatever you want", he pressed a peck on your lips, then with gentle ease, he flipped you onto your back on the bed. once you were settled comfortably, he hovered over you, parting your legs slowly, positioning himself between them, then he just leaned down and kissed you again. "better?" he asked after pulling away, and you answered him with a nod, then your hands flew down to his waist. you started messing with the waistband of his boxers, because obviously, those were the only things he was wearing. "want them off?" he asked, but his tone was teasing again, of course he already knew that you just wanted him to take out his cock. "mhm.. yeah, want you, babyy" you asked for it, and he didn't make you wait longer, he reached down and tugged himself free, already hard, because, who wouldn't get hard if their girlfriend would straddle them first thing in the morning?
lando should probably still be at least a little upset about yesterday's failed race, but it hasn't crossed his mind once since he's woken up, and that was perfectly fine, because now he was nudging your entrance with the tip of his cock through your panties, which, by the way, we're absolutely drenched by now. you let out a few quiet moans, arching into him, trying to get more friction, because apparently, lando wasn't trying to rush. other times you'd think this is sweet, but right now you found him hotter than usual for some reason, and you wanted to get him inside of you as soon as possible. he might have noticed your eagerness, because his hands finally started fumbling with the band of your panties, sliding them off of you slowly, throwing them somewhere further on the bed. he then looked in your eyes again and leaned in for yet another kiss as his hand touched you again, this time his middle finger slipping inside of you. you moaned softly into his mouth, happy to finally get something, and your still hazy mind already started floating away as he curled that finger. your hands came up to hold onto his shoulders as you needily deepened the kiss, a hand leaving his shoulder just to grab onto the back of his head, keeping him right there, kissing you. he added another finger and it made your hips buck up, chasing the feeling. "shh, just relax, yeah?" he soothed you, then he withdrew his fingers, which caused a small, desperate whine leave your throat. you were about to ask for more, for him to finally push in, but you didn't have to, because his wet fingers now were wrapped around his cock, stroking a few times before he aligned himself with your fluttering hole. "you gon' take all of me, baby, right?" his voice was quiet and low and he spoke, which was so unfairly hot and you nodded, "yes.. c'mon, how many times do I have to tell you that I want you?" you were sulking a little, it happened sometimes, even though he had his cock right against your pussy, ready to fuck you. you were just a little impatient sometimes, that's it. "sorry, pretty girl, just love to see you this needy" he grinned against your neck as he leaned down to kiss your skin, and he finally drove his hips forward, pushing into you.
the first thrust made both of you moan in pleasure, then he stilled after bottoming out. his body finally realized was happening, and exhaustion was catching up on him. he was actually so, so tired and so, so sleepy. he groaned, lifting his head from the crook of your neck, straightened up a little and gripped your hips, wanting to move and fuck you well as always, but he quickly came to the realization that this time, he won't be able to just pound into you. "what's wrong, hm?" you asked as you saw the frown on his face, a hand coming up to gently cup his face. "nothin', just a bit tired, or somethin", he shrugged it off and finally started to move, thrusting into you slowly, and as hard as he could bring himself to do so. you thought about asking if he wants you back on top, but you decided to skip the question as he thrust in deep and hard, suddenly punching a loud moan out of you. "fuck.. yes.." you whimpered, letting your head fall back against the pillows underneath you as both of your hands fell down next to you, weakly gripping the sheets, anchoring yourself. "mh.. you feel so good, baby" he moaned low as he picked up the speed finally, eyes closing, letting the pleasure take over him. he still wasn't going at his usual pace though, and for a second he felt a little bad about it, but when he opened his eyes and looked at your face, seeing you blissed out and hearing you moan for him so prettily, he realized that this is just fine, and sometimes slow is just as good as fast. he let himself fall forward again, resting his forehead against yours. "look at me, pretty girl" he whispered, and you opened your eyes and looked at him, another whimper immediately leaving you. he looked unfairly hot, actually, somehow he managed to always look way too hot, and you always lost yourself way too fast in those pretty eyes of his. "you know," he started, but he couldn't finish straight away because he just couldn't keep his little moans in control as you clenched around him, "I'm still pretty upset about yesterday.." he admitted, closing his eyes once again and letting his head fall against your shoulder this time, "but, fuck.. wakin' up to you like this makes it so much better." his voice now was barely above a whisper, and as he finished, he immediately started showering your sensitive skin in hot little kisses. "you don't have to act like it's okay, y'know.." you started talking, but your own voice got cut off for a second as he hits a particularly sensitive spot in you, moaning and gripping one of his biceps tightly, "but I'm happy that it's better, at least a little. I love you, baby" you reassured him, then tilted your head, placing a kiss on his temple. "I love you too.." he whispered, but how voice was breathy now. he was emotional, and when he got emotional during sex, it always ended up with him coming embarrassingly fast. at least it was embarrassing for him, you found it adorable. and hot, always so hot. "are you close?" you ask softly, a hand coming up to cradle the back of his head again, keeping his face against your neck, not wanting him to raise himself up, not wanting him to accidentally create a distance between you two. "fuck.. yeah, love this pussy so much, makes me wanna fill it up again and again.." he was moaning into your ear, and it sent shivers down your spine. suddenly, you felt the heat growing too, you felt your lower stomach tighten, and you clenched down on him hard. he let out a strangled groan at the feeling gripping your sides with both hands. "fuck.. 'm not gonna last.." he let out a whine, which genuinely pulled you so close to your orgasm that for a second you thought it was over. "mhm.. give it to me, lando" he moaned softly, your fingers tightening just a little in his curls, making him whimper again. his hair was his soft spot and you knew that, and also gladly used it against him. "are you.. fuck, are you close, baby? please cum with me, want to feel you squeezin' me.." his voice was strained now, clearly holding back. he was impossibly close, but he didn't want to come before you.
"yeah, so close, baby, so close.." you reached down with your free hand, wanting to rub your clit, but as soon as he noticed, he swatted your hand away gently, replacing it with his own.
"cum for me..please, baby 'm so close too.. " he nearly begged you at this point, and that was all you needed to be pushed over the edge. you suddenly arched into him, a strangled gasp, then cry leaving your lips as your orgasm struck over you, your fingers tightening in his hair borderline painful. "oh gosh.. fuck, lando.." you whimpered, feeling the intense pleasure ripping through you, and it just became more and more because he was still thrusting into you, now fast and without a real rhythm, just him chasing his own high. "take it, baby, fuck, take my cum, gon', fill you up so good.." and with that and a loud groan, he bottomed out and grinded hard against you, spilling inside your still pulsing heat. he couldn't help the nosies escaping him as he buried his face desperately into your neck once again, he just loved filling you up. he was probably the happiest man alive when you told him you have no problems with taking pills, because not being able to cum inside you sounded like absolute torture for him. but since this wasn't a problem, he could enjoy the feeling of your pussy milking his cock so we'll.
"ugh.. I'm fuckin' spent baby.." he giggled softly, his body giving out after such an intense orgasm and he just collapsed on top of you, breathing heavily. you hugged himself against yourself, his weight giving you a sense of comfort on top of you. "I'm tired too.." you laughed softly, then placed a few soft kisses on his face.
"I love you sooo much.." he mumbled against your skin, nuzzling his face into your shoulder, it was adorable. "I love you too.." you kissed the mess of hair, the only thing not pressed into your shoulder, then you went slack under him.
you glanced at the clock, reading nearly 8 am. so, you've basically just spent nearly an hour fucking. well, it was nothing new. you still had almost 4 hours until you had to be at the airport to get home, so you decided that a little more sleep wouldn't hurt. "sleepy?" you asked him, but his only answer was a barely audible hum, so that basically meant he was already falling asleep. he was still inside of you though, so you decided to clench around him. he jerked up at the sudden sensation with a groan and you couldn't help but giggle. he then pulled out of you slowly, then collapsed back on top of you. "at least one more hour of sleep, baby.." he mumbled, and he was already falling asleep again. you decided to not to fight the exhaustion either, closing your eyes, enjoying the warmth of his body surrounding you as you also drifted off again.
Hi!! I would like to request a fic hehe i saw something similar written for isack hadjar and would love to have 1 done for lando. Its basically yn using a moulded dildo made from the mould of his dick and he is using a pocket pussy and they put on a show for each other.
Thank u!!
The Gift
Lando Norris x Girlfriend!reader
Synopsis: Lando surprises his girlfriend with an intimate gift-a custom-moulded dildo made from his very own dick…
The box sits on the bed between you, wrapped in matte black paper with a silver ribbon. Lando's watching you with that particular gleam in his eyes-the one that means he's either done something incredibly thoughtful or incredibly filthy. Possibly both.
"Go on then," he urges, leaning back against the headboard with his arms crossed, looking far too pleased with himself. "Open it."
Your fingers work at the ribbon, and you can feel the anticipation radiating off him. Whatever's in this box, he's been dying to give it to you. The paper falls away to reveal a sleek black box, unmarked except for a small logo you don't recognize.
When you lift the lid, your breath catches.
Nestled in black velvet is a dildo. But not just any dildo-this one is unmistakably, intimately familiar. Every vein, every curve, the slight leftward curve, the pronounced ridge of the head. You've had this cock inside you countless times, know every inch of it, and now you're holding a perfect replica in your hands.
"Lando..." Your voice comes out breathy, shocked. Heat floods your cheeks and pools lower, much lower.
"Had it made a few weeks ago," he says, and there's a roughness to his voice now. "Went to this place in London. They do custom moldings. Thought about you the entire time I was getting hard for the casting."
You turn the silicone replica over in your hands. It's substantial, weighty, and so incredibly detailed. The color is even right-that perfect shade that matches his skin tone. Your thighs press together involuntarily.
"There's more," Lando adds, reaching into the box and pulling out a second item. A clear stroker, a pocket pussy. "Got myself something too. Thought we could... put on a show for each other."
The way he says it makes your pussy clench. You look up at him, and the heat in his eyes is unmistakable. He's already half-hard in his joggers, and you can see the outline of his cock pressing against the fabric.
"You want to watch me fuck myself with this?" you ask, holding up the dildo. "While you..."
"While I fuck my toy and pretend it's your tight little cunt," he finishes, voice dropping an octave. "Want to see what you look like when you're taking my cock. Want you to see what you do to me."
Your pulse is racing now, heat spreading through your entire body. "Where?"
"Right here." He gestures to the bed. "You on that side, me on this side. Close enough to see everything."
The exhibitionism of it, the intimacy, sends a thrill through you. You've never done anything like this before-this deliberate, this voyeuristic.
"Okay," you breathe.
Lando's smile is wicked. "Get undressed for me, baby. Slowly."
You stand on shaky legs, and his eyes track your every movement. You're wearing one of his t-shirts and a pair of panties, nothing fancy, but the way he's looking at you makes you feel like you're wearing the most expensive lingerie in the world.
You grab the hem of the shirt and pull it up slowly, revealing your stomach, then your breasts. You're not wearing a bra, and your nipples are already hard, peaked with arousal. The shirt drops to the floor.
"Fuck," Lando mutters, adjusting himself. "Keep going."
Your thumbs hook into your panties, and you turn around, bending at the waist as you slide them down your legs. You hear his sharp intake of breath, know he's getting a perfect view of your pussy from behind, already wet and ready.
When you turn back around, completely naked, Lando's stroking himself through his joggers, his eyes dark with lust.
"Your turn," you say, surprised by how steady your voice sounds.
He strips efficiently, pulling his shirt over his head and shoving his joggers and boxers down in one motion. His cock springs free, already hard and flushed, a bead of precum glistening at the tip. You want to taste it, want to drop to your knees and take him in your mouth, but that's not what tonight is about.
Tonight is about the show.
You both climb onto the bed, positioning yourselves facing each other with enough space between you to see everything. Lando's sitting with his back against the headboard, legs spread, his cock jutting up proudly. You're kneeling, the dildo in one hand, suddenly feeling shy despite how many times this man has seen you naked, has been inside you.
"Let me see you touch yourself first," Lando says, wrapping his hand around his cock and giving it a slow stroke. "Get yourself ready for it."
Your free hand trails down your body, over your breasts, your stomach, until your fingers find your pussy. You're already so wet, your fingers sliding easily through your folds. You circle your clit slowly, watching Lando watch you, and the intensity of his gaze makes you moan.
"That's it," he encourages, stroking himself in time with your movements. "Get that pussy nice and wet for my cock. Even if it's just the replica."
You dip two fingers inside yourself, pumping slowly, and your hips rock forward seeking more friction. Your other hand brings the dildo up, and you run it through your folds, coating it in your wetness. The silicone is cool against your heated flesh, and the familiarity of the shape makes your pussy clench in anticipation.
"Lando," you whimper, positioning the head of the dildo at your entrance.
"Do it," he growls, his hand moving faster on his cock. "Take it. Show me how you take my cock when I'm not here."
You push the dildo inside slowly, and the stretch is perfect, so familiar and yet different. It's cool where Lando is usually hot, unyielding where he has some give, but the shape is exactly right. The curve hits that spot inside you that makes your toes curl, and you moan loudly as you sink down onto it.
"Fuck, look at you," Lando breathes. "Look at your pussy stretching around it. That's what you look like when you're taking me, baby. So fucking perfect."
You start to move, pulling the dildo almost all the way out before pushing it back in, establishing a rhythm. Your other hand finds your clit, rubbing in tight circles, and pleasure builds in your core.
Lando reaches for his pocket pussy, and you watch as he brings it to his cock. He spits into his palm first, slicking himself up, and then he's pushing into the clear stroker. You can see everything-his cock disappearing into the toy, the way it grips him, the flex of his abs as he thrusts.
"Pretend that's me," you gasp out, fucking yourself harder with the dildo. "Pretend you're inside me."
"I am inside you," he grunts, his hips snapping up into the toy. "This is your pussy, baby. So tight and wet for me. Can feel you clenching around me."
The dirty talk spurs you on, and you match his rhythm, both of you fucking your respective toys with increasing desperation. The room fills with the obscene sounds of your pleasure-your wetness, his grunts, your moans, the slap of silicone against skin.
"Faster," Lando demands, and you obey, your hand moving the dildo in and out of your pussy at a punishing pace. "That's it, fuck yourself on my cock. Want to see you come all over it."
You're so close already, the combination of the physical pleasure and the visual of Lando fucking his toy while watching you pushing you rapidly toward the edge. Your fingers work your clit frantically, and you can feel your orgasm building, coiling tight in your belly.
"Lando, I'm-fuck, I'm going to come," you gasp.
"Do it," he commands, his voice strained. "Come for me. Let me see it."
Your orgasm crashes over you, and you cry out, your pussy clenching rhythmically around the dildo as waves of pleasure roll through you. You don't stop moving, fucking yourself through it, and you can see Lando's eyes fixed on your pussy, watching you come apart.
"Jesus Christ," he groans. "Again. I want to see you come again."
You're sensitive, almost too sensitive, but you keep going. The dildo is soaked now, your arousal coating it, making obscene wet sounds as you pump it in and out. You adjust the angle slightly, and the head drags perfectly against your g-spot, making you see stars.
"Tell me what it feels like," Lando pants, still fucking his toy with hard, fast strokes. "Tell me what my cock feels like inside you."
"So good," you moan, your voice high and breathy. "So deep. You fill me up so perfectly, Lando. This curve-fuck-hits right where I need it. Makes me want to cum over and over."
"You look so fucking hot like this," he says, his free hand gripping the base of his cock, squeezing. "Watching you fuck yourself, knowing that's exactly what my cock looks like disappearing into your tight little pussy. Wish I could feel you right now. Wish I could feel how wet you are, how you're clenching."
You're building again, impossibly, your second orgasm approaching even faster than the first. Your thighs are trembling, your whole body covered in a light sheen of sweat. You can't look away from Lando, from the way his muscles flex as he fucks his toy, from his cock appearing and disappearing into the clear stroker, from the intense focus on his face.
"Come closer," you gasp suddenly. "Want to be closer to you."
You both shift on the bed, moving until you're close enough to touch, though you don't. The proximity makes everything more intense. You can hear every catch in his breath, can smell the musk of his arousal, can see every detail of his cock sliding in and out of the toy.
"Can I touch you?" you ask desperately. "Please, Lando, I need—"
"No," he says firmly, though his voice is strained. "Not yet. Want to watch you come again first. Want to see you fall apart on my cock."
You whimper but obey, redoubling your efforts. Your hand is cramping slightly from the angle, but you don't care. The pleasure is too intense, too all-consuming. You're fucking yourself frantically now, chasing your second orgasm with single-minded determination.
"That's my girl," Lando encourages, his voice rough. "Look at you, so desperate for it. Your pussy is gripping that cock so tight. Can see how swollen your clit is, how wet you are. You're making such a mess, baby."
His words push you over the edge, and you come with a sharp cry, your whole body going rigid as pleasure explodes through you. This orgasm is even more intense than the first, and you have to brace yourself with your free hand on the bed to keep from collapsing.
"Fuck, yes," Lando groans, and you can tell he's close too. His movements are becoming erratic, his breathing harsh. "One more, baby. Give me one more. Want us to come together."
"I can't," you whimper, but even as you say it, you're still moving the dildo, still chasing more pleasure despite the oversensitivity.
"You can," he insists. "You will. Touch your clit for me. Make yourself come one more time while I fill this toy with my cum, pretending it's your pussy."
Your fingers find your clit again, and the touch is almost too much, bordering on painful, but you push through it. The pleasure builds differently this time, sharper, more intense. You're not sure if you're going to cum or just combust entirely.
"Look at me," Lando demands, and your eyes snap to his face. "Want to see your eyes when you cum. Want you to see me when I cum for you."
The eye contact is devastating. You can see everything in his gaze-the love, the lust, the desperate need. His hand is moving frantically on the pocket pussy now, and you can see his balls drawing up tight, can see the tension in his whole body.
"Now," he grits out. "Cum with me, baby. Now."
Your third orgasm hits you like a freight train, and you scream, your vision whiting out as pleasure consumes you entirely. Dimly, you hear Lando's guttural groan, see him thrust hard into the toy one final time as he comes, his cock pulsing as he fills the stroker with his release.
You collapse onto the bed, the dildo slipping out of you, your whole body trembling with aftershocks. Lando tosses the pocket pussy aside and immediately reaches for you, pulling you into his arms. His skin is hot and slick with sweat, and you can feel his heart pounding against your cheek.
"Holy fuck," he breathes, pressing kisses to your hair, your forehead, anywhere he can reach. "That was... fuck."
"Yeah," you agree weakly, still trying to catch your breath. Your pussy is still clenching rhythmically, oversensitive and thoroughly used.
Lando's hand trails down your body, and his fingers find your pussy, sliding through your wetness. You whimper at the touch, and he makes a satisfied sound.
"So wet," he murmurs. "So perfect. Think you could take the real thing now?"
You pull back to look at him in disbelief. "You can't possibly be ready to go again already."
But when you glance down, his cock is already starting to harden again, flushed and interested despite having just come.
"What can I say?" He grins, that cocky smile you love. "Watching you fuck yourself with a replica of my cock while I jerked off was the hottest thing I've ever seen. I'm going to need the real thing now. Need to feel your pussy around me, not some toy."
"Insatiable," you accuse, but you're already shifting, already opening your legs for him.
"Only for you," he says, and then he's covering your body with his, the head of his cock nudging at your entrance. "Only ever for you."
He slides inside in one smooth thrust, and you both groan. After the dildo, the heat of him is shocking, the slight give of real flesh so different from unyielding silicone. He's perfect, filling you completely, and you wrap your legs around his waist to pull him deeper.
"This," Lando says, starting to move with slow, deep thrusts. "This is what I needed. Your pussy, your body, you."
You can't form words anymore, can only hold onto him as he fucks you with increasing intensity. Your pussy is so sensitive from your multiple orgasms that every thrust sends sparks of pleasure-pain through you, and you know you're not going to last long.
"One more," Lando murmurs against your neck, his hips snapping harder. "Give me one more, baby. Cum on my cock this time. The real thing."
"Lando," you gasp, your nails digging into his shoulders. "Too much, I can't—"
"You can," he insists, one hand sliding between your bodies to find your clit. "You will. Cum for me, baby. Let me feel it."
His fingers on your clit combined with the perfect angle of his cock inside you is too much, and you shatter, cuming with a broken cry. Your pussy clamps down on him rhythmically, and Lando groans, his rhythm faltering.
"Fuck, yes, that's it," he grunts, and then he's cuming too, his cock pulsing inside you as he fills you with his release. "So good, so fucking good."
He collapses on top of you, careful not to crush you with his full weight, and you both lie there panting, sweaty, thoroughly satisfied. His cock is still inside you, softening slowly, and you can feel his cum starting to leak out around him.
"Best gift ever," you finally manage to say, and Lando laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest into yours.
"Yeah?" He props himself up on his elbows to look at you, his eyes soft now, the sharp edge of lust replaced with affection. "Glad you liked it."
"Liked it?" You laugh. "Lando, that was... I don't even have words."
"Good," he says smugly, pressing a kiss to your lips. "Because I'm thinking we should make this a regular thing. Maybe next time we video call when I'm away for a race. You can use the dildo, I can use the pocket pussy, and we can pretend we're together."
Heat floods through you again at the thought, and you feel his cock twitch inside you, interested despite having just come twice.
"You're going to kill me," you tell him, but you're smiling.
"What a way to go though," he says with a grin, and then he's kissing you again, deep and thorough, and you know that despite your exhaustion, you're nowhere near done for the night.
The dildo lies forgotten on the bed beside you, a perfect replica of the real thing currently inside you, and you make a mental note to send a thank you card to whatever company made it possible. Because this-this intimacy, this trust, this pleasure-is everything you never knew you needed.
And judging by the way Lando is already starting to move inside you again, his cock hardening, he feels exactly the same way.
or: your neighbors are a strange pair. there's lando (golden boy, smile too wide, canines hiding something wicked). and there's oscar (too good to be true, too kind to be clean). they're only home december to february, but, god, do they make the most of it. to your expense. oscar piastri x lando norris x fem!neighbor!reader
warnings: neighbor!oscar and neighbor!lando being muppets, this is DISGUSTANGGGG voyeuristic bullshit, porn with plot because duh!!
♡
there is a special place in hell for oscar piastri and lando norris. and it's paved with spilled beer, sticky shot glasses, and a bass-heavy playlist that makes your overhead lamp shiver with each pulsating beat. (one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, god, when were they going to shut up?)
you'd tried it all at that point. high-end, noise-cancelling earbuds. white-noise apps. begging to sleep at your best friend's, or your ex's, or an overpriced hotel room on the other side of the island (a low moment, you admit). and fifteen desperate texts to your landlord later, righteous rage was coloring your insides less rational by the minute. (god, you would break your own lease if it meant those two inconsiderate idiots would get what was coming to them.)
what kind of normal neighbors threw parties on a tuesday night? what kind of normal neighbors kept a strict schedule—december to february, blackout season, working nine months just to come home and ruin your remaining three? what kind of neighbors haunted your peace (in-person) when they weren't haunting the screen of your living-room television?
the answer? none. except these two.
(fuck it).
your feet hit the tile cold and sharp as you count the steps out of bed, across the hallway, up the echoing stairwell, breathless with exhaustion and a splinter of glee you haven’t felt in weeks. (maybe you want a fight. maybe you want to be the problem, for once. it's only human.)
"some of us pay rent here," you rehearse, not-so under your breath. "some of us have actual jobs. some of us care whether or not our neighbors can sleep through the night.”
you take the stairs two at a time, a bead of sweat trickling down length of your spine. up close, the beat syncopates with your pulse, every floorboard humming under your bare feet, slinking up your calves. (only then, somewhere on the landing, do you realize you're not at all dressed for the confrontation you're about to instigate. of course.)
it's too late to turn back now. you raise your fist as you approach the door, swallowing the taste of marijuana smoke curling under the jamb, the clatter of a southern-english accent, sweat, and sugar, and suffocating heat. you pause. you could walk away, try again tomorrow, let your anger go gracelessly. (but all of a sudden the music gets impossibly louder, crashing through a fresh round of voracious laughter, and your patience—never your strong suit—snaps right in half.)
you knock. no, you pound. hard enough that it goes silent for half a second before resuming (if not doubling) in volume.
it takes fourteen seconds for someone to come to the door. you're raising your hand to knock again when it swings open, and there goes your dignity, because lando norris is standing in front of you, and he's smiling, and very, very drunk, and, oh, no.
he's shirtless, flushed a deep cherry-red, black training shorts riding halfway up his thighs. he pulls at them with his free hand as he throws a 'be back 'n a second' over his shoulder, pupils blown wide under blinding hallway light. you catch low-lit glimpses of drinks stacked on an entryway table before lando steps out, letting the door shut with a low clunk behind him. "hi, neighbor," he slurs, voice curling gentle and soft. "y'lost or somethin'?"
you open your mouth to say something, anything, but all you can do is inhale the scent of his sweat, the reek of gin splashing faintly under expensive cologne, and it should disgust you (it almost does), but your anger is tangled now, caught in something deep, and dark, and wrong. (you came here to yell at him, remember?)
"i've lived here longer than you," you bite out, and you swear lando's eyes drop to your mouth and stay there. "so no. i'm not lost."
"m'kay," lando chuckles, a low, warm thing that starts in his chest and spills down the hallway. "d'you wanna come in? 's that it?"
"no," you say, indignant, and his smile shifts, looser, an uptick in the curve of his mouth.
"wha's up, then?" he asks, hooking his thumb into the waistband of his shorts. his grip is tighter than you'd expect, knuckles turning white, as though he's holding himself back from reaching for you, resisting the urge to pull you in with him—
"what's. up?" you snarl. "what's up is that it's four in the morning, and you're throwing a fucking rave! what's up is that the walls in this building are made of fucking paper and i have to listen to every fucking thing—"
the door opens, interrupting you, and oscar steps out slow, hair touch-mussed, white t-shirt sticking translucent-thin to the dip of his collarbone, the sharp hinge of his shoulders. he doesn't say anything at first, standing there too tall, too comfortable, gaze scraping over you so thoroughly you resist the urge to cross your arms over your chest like a petulant child.
(it's surgical, his silence. you swear he's underneath your skin, storing your image for later review. you think about snapping at him to stop staring, but that would be admitting you feel seen when all you wanted was to be heard.)
"everything alright?" oscar finally asks, voice vibrating straight to the bone. you suddenly feel violently unsteady. lando doesn’t move, and for a second you forget what you wanted to yell about. (for a second, the entire world goes deathly quiet.)
"no, actually, it's not," you snap. "unless you're about to tell all these people to get the fuck out, nothing is 'alright'."
oscar blinks, arms folding slow across his chest. "didn't think we were that loud."
your scoff is graceless. "you have got to be kidding me."
"i'm not."
"are you seriously telling me you don't hear it?"
"we don't."
"it's fucking loud."
"this could've been a text message," your rage burns so hot you almost hit him. though you doubt it would do much.
"fuck. off."
"gladly," he replies, expression something between surprise and amusement. "you're what's keeping us here."
you wish you had something to say to that. you really do.
but oscar moves, slow, cracking the door just enough to let the party spill out in tidal waves of laughter and thudding bass. there’s the unmistakable crash of glass shattering hard on tile, the scrape of voices overlapping in drunken crescendos, and the sticky-sweet smell of spilled liquor and lando’s impossibly sharp cologne that drifts under the door and settles right smack in your diaphragm.
lando shifts off balance, and it's watching electricity, the way oscar’s hand slides up without missing a beat, palm coming to rest with such easy certainty against lando’s elbow that it makes something coil tight in your gut. (they fit together, in some secret way you've only just noticed.)
you blink, and the doorframe is suddenly closing on you, an acute end to the conversation. "i'm telling the landlord about this!" you snap, cutting through the lull between songs.
oscar throws a glance over his shoulder, mouth quirking upward. (you'd think he was beautiful, if he wasn't such an ass.) "cry to daddy, baby. go ahead."
you're halfway down the stairs when you realize he called you baby.
♡
it only gets worse from there.
you decide to start with mailing lists. harmless, really. except you sign both lando and oscar up for fifteen of them. each.
first, the alcoholism anonymous emails. ("struggling to stay sober? you’re not alone. join our virtual support meeting!") then, the porn addiction group emails. ("battle porn cravings with our scientifically-backed mindfulness exercises!") the spam is worse: "THE SECRET TRUTH BEHIND F1 DRIVERS’ UNBELIEVABLE FITNESS ROUTINE—CLICK TO FIND OUT!"
you think you’ve got away with it. nights fall silent, merciful quiet pressing against your eardrums with an unnatural pressure. no thudding footsteps. no blaring music. (no reason to see them again.)
that is, until the magazines.
stacked like a brick wall on your doorstep, tied so sweetly that you let yourself believe, for half a heartbeat, that this is some kind of olive branch. an apology wrapped in glossy, fresh pages, slick covers of... official F1 magazines. (well, high-octane marketing that you don’t care about but now absolutely cannot ignore.)
you untie the bow, flipping through the first with impatient flicks of your wrist. there’s lando first—turned away from the camera, low, golden light catching his cheekbones and the faint flush blooming just above the dark fabric of his racing suit. then oscar, skin in vivid color, helmet clutched in the space between his elbow and hip.
(you don't stop to excuse the slick heat ruining your best pair of panties—a mistake, certainly.)
you almost miss the note scrawled onto the top right of the last page:
pictures of me should help w/the porn addiction. make it worse, i mean. xxx lando
you did not get away with it. you do, however, up your game.
you think you’re clever about it. anonymous shipping. no gift receipt, no note, the billing address a throwaway email you haven’t used since college. you order nineteen different protein powders—who even needs that many flavors?—to be shipped right to their door. the perfect play.
you track the order, refresh the delivery status twelve times an hour, and choke imagining oscar drinking the the mango sorbet flavor out of politeness and then sending you a legal notice. (very polite of him.)
the package lands at their door right before noon; by dinnertime, you’re yet again positive you’ve won. (it's unnerving, the way you’re slightly disappointed.)
it doesn't last long.
at first, you think you’re hallucinating a beat, muffled and persistent, seeping through the walls that night, familiar enough for your shoulders to rise and fall with each measure. it's sweet caroline. playing loud enough to set your bathroom mirror twitching with every bass kick.
you don't mind it for the first ten minutes.
but you go from neutral to rage in the time it takes the chorus to repeat for the ninth time. the song loops, as if trying to drill a singular, awful message through your skull. (you were going to kill them. you debate calling the landlord. animal control. the goddamn police.)
instead, you climb onto your kitchen counter and pound your fist against the vent on the ceiling with as much force as you can muster.
the song only gets louder in response. the second hour of it, you're already planning your next move. by the fourth, you're curled up on the couch with your head planted in between the thick leather cushions, unable to hear yourself think.
by the time sweet caroline finally sputters out—an ugly, abrupt end to an ugly, abrupt punishment— you’re asleep, lyrics splintering like a broken record across your eyelids.
your saving grace? boxer briefs. in forest-green, aquamarine, navy blue. two pairs each. the catch? you order the absolute smallest size in stock, the ones that barely look made for humans, let alone someone even slightly well-endowed. you put their address in the shipping box, smirking like you can taste victory. (and god, that’s enough to make your pulse jack up.)
hope these fit right. from, your neighbor.
it's magnificent until your buzzer goes off the next morning, slicing through your kitchen headache-sharp. you ignore it once, twice, but it doesn't stop, impending doom on your doorstep. (bad omen, bad, bad, bad, your brain suggests, before your hands even reach for the doorknob. this isn’t a game anymore.)
when you finally crack the door, the hallway is empty save for a sleek, black box on your doormat—unmarked, glossy, obnoxious in the soft spill of hallway morning light.
your fingers slip on the lid as you hastily carry it inside, paper brushing against your skin like a tease.
a bra. delicate, impossible, nearly see-through. italian lace, if the quality was any indication. baby-pink embroidery, scalloped cups heavy with hand-stitched rosettes—you trace a strap with your fingertip, just to prove it's real. matching panties underneath, same pale pink, nothing left to the imagination except the price tag (obscene, you notice, and in euros, which honestly makes it worse).
the card’s slipped under the elastic, scrawled in a neat hand you recognize now.
hope these fit right, baby. — o.p.
oscar piastri just sent you lingerie. i see you, it said. come here and see me.
♡
they simply don't let up.
the parties multiply. a glitter bomb ends up from in their vent to yours (lando's idea, clearly). oscar smiles, polite as ever, when you mention his new underwear. somewhere, in the midst of rubber-banding their junk mail and replacing their tequila with water, you crack. (because it's valentine's day, and it's been two and a half months of their bullshit, and you're feeling especially, violently, completely single.)
you pick a dress (short). you wear a pair of heels that's been collecting dust since last june. you're halfway out the door (shallow breath, prickling nerves for a stranger) when you see it.
the black box. perched dead-center on your dresser. mocking you in the low lamp light, like it knows you’re full of shit.
you ignore it to fix the strap on your shoe, but your eyes dart back, magnetic as a car crash. god, it’s just underwear. (it’s lingerie. it's gorgeous. it's his. for you, for you, for you.)
you groan. turn away. then turn back. meander over to the dresser. (fuck it.) you snap the band off, peel back tissue—cursing under your breath when you almost tear it. the lace is softer than you remember as you slip it on underneath your dress, light as air. skin-like in all the right places.
you stare at yourself in the mirror, playing with the neckline of the dress. (low. too low. not low enough. you want everyone to see. you want to curl up and die.) you roll your eyes at your reflection—hope these fit right, baby, you can hear oscar saying. my pretty baby.
(nope. nope. nope. not doing this right now.)
the hallway’s already buzzing with weekend chatter as you lock your door behind you, pressing the elevator button at the end of the corridor with a breath that burns. (this is not about them. it isn’t. it’s about needing something easy. a drink, a stranger, the pleasure of knowing you could want and be wanted and go home alone. or not.)
the elevator dings, and you catch his reflection in the mirrored panel inside before your own.
oscar.
(don't look at him. don't look at him. don't look at him.) you catch the flick of his eyes bouncing back and forth in your periphery as the doors close—impassive, as if he's categorizing groceries on a shelf beside you. the floors blink down to your left—thirteen, twelve, ten, eight, six, four, two, one—
oscar slams the bright red 'emergency stop', jolting you both forward.
you blink. "oscar. what the fuck."
"don't go."
"i—what?"
"don't. go."
your laugh is brittle, barely-concealed offense. "i have a date."
his mouth sets as you stare at him, ironed-out lines of soft skin. not angry. not anything. "today?" (he still won't look at you.)
"yes, today," you snap. "obviously."
the silence is full, thick and sour. "it's cold out," is all he says. "you don't have a coat."
that stops you for half a second. then—anger, hot and immediate, renders you nearly non-verbal. who the fuck are you to tell me what i have and don't have? you want to yell. who the fuck are you to tell me what i need?
"i don't need a coat," is what comes out. "let me out. god—"
you move for the door, and he steps into your path, not close enough to touch, just... there. close enough to hold your gaze. close enough to catch the hitch in your breath. (come closer, go farther, go away, be here, do nothing, oh, god.)
"don't," he murmurs, and something rotten twists in your chest. "trust me."
"you're—" you inhale, schooling your tone. "you're a real piece of shit."
his expression goes blank. not annoyed. not offended. (flat, you realize.) he reaches past you and presses the emergency stop again, and the elevator sinks to the first floor, a clean dismissal.
you take two steps out then turn on your heels, ready to give him the final piece of your mind, to say something razor-blade sharp and stinging, something to pretend you didn't care what he thought of you, that you've never cared what he thought of you—
when you catch your reflection in the mirrored panel. and with it, the pink lace of your bra beneath the neckline of your dress. (visible. obvious. his gift, on you, like you wanted him to look.)
but he doesn't spare you a glance as the doors slide shut.
oh.
♡
valentine's day comes and goes.
so do your neighbors.
mid-february hits hard and fast, and suddenly the apartment above yours is dark more often than not. no music bleeding through the vents at all hours of the night. no laughter and clinking beer bottles ricocheting down the stairwell. their door stays shut for weeks. their lights stay off so long you wonder if they've moved.
you tell yourself it’s a blessing. a needed vacancy.
(it should be.)
you sleep through the night for the first time in weeks, sans noise-cancelling earbuds and white-noise apps. your mornings are quieter (and you definitely don't spend minutes each morning staring at the vent above your kitchen counter wondering when you'll hear something again). the building settles back into something resembling... normal.
you don’t get any mail that isn’t yours. (which should be a good thing.)
you stop checking the hallway camera on your way home from work. you stop planning your next move at odd hours of the night. (which should be a relief, shouldn't it?)
you catch yourself pausing in the kitchen when a door slams somewhere down the hall, waiting for the tell-tale pair of footsteps, a chance to catch them in the act, to stop holding your breath. but nothing happens.
(you open and re-open the black box nearly a hundred times. you wake up at 3:30 in the morning with your heart in your throat. they're training, you tell yourself. this is their job. you wanted this, you wanted this, you wanted this.)
nothing happens. then everything happens.
1:37 am. monday. keys scrape on the floor above you. a door slams. suitcase wheels stutter across tile, thunk-whine, thunk-whine, the rhythm unmistakable and unwelcome. (welcome home.) you freeze, heart a tight fist in your ribs; irritation hits first. of course they couldn’t be gone for good, they were back to disturb your peace, wreck your life, make you miserable.
then relief. sour, thick, slamming through you. you listen to the subdued laughter stuffed behind walls, and you stay stubbornly in bed, staring at the patch of light bleeding under your door from the hallway. (nope. not going. won’t give them the satisfaction.)
but the pattern returns.
at first, it’s subtle: a stray beat of music, dull and far, seeping through the drywall late tuesday. a clatter of glass bottles. laughter—two, maybe three voices, never more, but always too loud, always right above where your head hits the pillow. you clamber around at midnight searching for your noise-cancelling earbuds, falling asleep to remixes of god-awful pop songs.
but lando and oscar were never subtle.
friday night brings bass so heavy the lamp rattles on your nightstand, voices crashing over each other in slurred crescendo, liquor and something else headier threading the air. and god, you try to be angry. you roll onto your back, curse loud and colorfully at the ceiling. practice the way you'd uppercut both of them if given the opportunity. realize you wouldn't do half the damage you wanted to.
(you'll never admit that you missed the reason to go storming up there.)
you throw back the sheets, pad across the hallway past the elevator, up the echoing stairwell, and the closer you get, the louder it is. you can feel the bass in your teeth, in your collarbones, rattling up through the soles of your feet to your thighs. that familiar flush of nerves, rage rising. (or maybe just excitement. you’ll never admit the difference.)
lando somehow opens the door before you knock—not shirtless, not wasted, just standing there in one of his old karting shirts, collar loose, curls still slightly damp from a midnight shower, eyes much too focused on you. he leans against the doorframe, mouth tilting (never quite a smile). "are y’lost again?"
your jaw sets, resisting the pull of his mouth, the dare in his voice. "you’re throwing another rave."
"could say that," he shrugs, glancing over your shoulder. "missed us?"
"no." (maybe? yes?)
"wanna join?"
you hesitate for a beat too long. "no."
his gaze flickers, obvious. "suit y'rself, then."
the music thrashes through your bones, inside louder than ever, laughter ricocheting from wall to wall. you’re about to turn, to tell him to shut it down, to tell him anything else so he won't leave—when from the living room, clear and bored as anything:
"let her in, lan." (oh, oscar.)
lando shrugs, steps aside. "y'heard him."
you step in, ignoring the heat behind your cheeks, the flush crawling up your neck at the smoke and sugar and sweat and something warm swirling in the air, oscar leaning against the living room window, arms folded, face unreadable in the garish light. a handful of people you don't know gathered around the kitchen counter, backs pressed to the island, yelling over the music, laughing at jokes you don't understand.
oscar doesn't look at you when he cuts the speakers. "party's over."
lando's brows shoot up, half-delighted, half-annoyed. "bit early, mate," he murmurs, but he doesn’t look surprised—that, more than anything, flips your stomach inside out.
oscar's gaze flicks up, across the room, over you, past you, then: "everyone out. now."
lando shepherds the crowd, clapping everyone on the back ("rain check, see y'next time"), dragging footsteps and half-mumbled complaints crossing the threshold, the scrape of coats off hooks, the last pair of heels clacking across the floor. the energy empties out in a seismic wave, and, more suddenly than it feels, it is silent.
the door clicks shut.
lando is standing behind you—close enough that you feel his breath ghosting the back of your neck, more threat than comfort. you don’t move. (won’t give either of them the satisfaction.)
you scoff, voice dry: “i thought that would take a lot more work.”
oscar is already watching you, eyes shadowed against the harsh overhead light. "how was your date?"
(fuck.)
you dig your nails into your palm. "it—fine. it was fine."
lando makes a low, amused sound, somewhere between a snort and a sigh that curls against the curve of your spine. you resist the urge to shiver. "tha's convincing," he chimes in.
"it's true," you snap, turning your head over your shoulder, and that was a mistake, because your breath catches in your throat the second your eyes meet lando’s. his gaze flickers, brows a touch raised, a challenge, a dare, a promise. (come here and see me. come here and see. come here.)
then, his breath just barely brushing your ear, he murmurs, "y’wanna go home?"
your heart stalls. because you should go home. you really should.
lando nudges again, quieter still. just for the two of you. "y'wanna stay?"
and you're not sure if you say yes, or you nod, but lando's mouth finds yours, an explosion of mint-chased cigarettes, and sloppy want, and when he chuckles, you feel the vibration of the shattered sound echo down your spine.
he's dragging your bottom lip between his teeth like he knows you wanted it (needed it), a thin line of spit stretching between his mouth and yours; heat burns your cheeks as his tongue darts out, licks the strand away, the corners of his eyes crinkling with that infuriating too-wide grin.
you've barely caught your breath when there's a hand curling around your stomach to spin you around—oscar. he's got one palm at the base of your spine, and the other anchoring itself at the hinge of lando’s jaw. his thumb traces slow over the mess you made, catching that slick string at the corner of lando’s mouth (cleaning up after you, messy girl, look at what you did).
lando's lashes flutter, running a full-body shudder, and you feel it where his hip is pressed to yours, everywhere you’re tangled together. (you feel it in your goddamn bones.)
oscar's hand slips south just as he kisses lando, almost gentle, except for the way it's not, except for the way watching their mouths share the same breath of air cracks something open deep in your stomach. lando's hands fist in oscar's shirt the same way they had in your hair, wounded need you’ve never seen from him—not on tv, not at the door, not even when he kissed you.
it's reserved for oscar. you understand that now.
you don’t realize you’re staring until oscar breaks the kiss with a soft, low sound—more an exhale than anything else—and shifts to press his mouth to yours.
not hard. not rushed. not sloppy, not hungry. purposeful, controlled. you hate him for it.
he’s correcting the angle, you realize. molding you soft, like you kissed lando all wrong and he’s showing you how it should be, what you should do. the hand at your back tightens, pulling you flush to his chest; the other lingers on lando’s jaw, thumb stroking absent circles there (to kiss both of you at once).
(and you don't hear lando whine—you feel it.)
oscar pulls back just enough for you to see it—the faint shine on his mouth from kissing lando first. it glistens when he drags his thumb across your lower lip, smearing the mix of you and him and lando into something you shouldn’t want but do.
and you're getting ready to tell him off for it, but lando's mouth is on you, hot at the column of your throat, two months of restraint branded into a blind, hungry path for skin. (the blind leading the blind, you don't have any more control than he does—)
"easy, mate," oscar warns angling your face toward the wall with a kiss to your jaw, your cheek. "you'll spook her."
lando's exhale punches straight through your stomach. "s-sorry," he says, but he doesn't mean it. (he's been starved off of praise for years, and, fuck, this is what he looks like waiting for someone to give it to him.) his teeth scrape your pulse, forcing a breathy sound of surprise out of you before you can swallow it down. both his hands are frantic—one fisting the fabric at your hip, the other tugging, tugging, tugging until the hem of your sleep shirt slips off your shoulder and pools at the crook of your arm.
(all of a sudden he's higher, fingers grazing the curve of your chest.)
he goes still.
"pretty," lando whispers, the words slurred with want, and you're not exactly sure who he's talking to. he noses at the exposed skin, kissing the skin like he’s thanking it. (thank you, thank you, thank you.) "c-can i take it off?" (he's talking to oscar. about undressing you. like you're not even there.)
oscar steals whatever sound was about to leave you, fondness in the lick he gives your upper row of teeth. it's predatory, but you want it, and you would feel ashamed if you could feel anything at all. "she doesn't seem to mind." he taps the side of your cheek as your eyes roll back, heat lining your cheekbones. "right?"
you barely get out a nod as lando's mouth trails lower, lips closing around the top swell of your breast as he's pulling your shirt down, down, down—"oh—"
oscar's breath brushes your ear when his hand clamps over lando's, halting the motion. (oh, you hate him now, the absolute piece of shit, making you wait, starving you of something he so evidently wants.) "let her take this off." he puppeteers lando's hand where it grips the hem of your shirt. "by the window."
your pulse trips. "the—window?"
both men go still, watching you. assessing. your gaze slams against lando's, his pupils blown black in the half-light, but he doesn’t say a word. he just waits, knuckles white on your hip. (because that's what he does for oscar. waits.)
oscar’s thumb drags slow over your cheek, and you realize you've been quiet for too long. "you heard me. go on."
you want to tell him to fuck off, or at least to pull the blinds, but lando’s teeth are ghosting your skin, and you’re suddenly, unreasonably hot all over. the window’s only a few steps away, but it might as well be miles with your shaky stance. you catch the streetlights flickering beyond, the golden spill of someone else’s kitchen window. it's too early in the morning to catch passerbyes on the street, but the impossibility dwindles.
you half-turn, glancing over your shoulder. oscar’s watching you with that unreadable look from the elevator, a hand lingering alongside lando's hip. you don’t know who you want to impress more. (danger, danger, danger, danger.)
you're curling your fingers under the hem of your shirt when oscar's voice lilts through the room.
"aren't you going to open the window?"
(you're going to kill him.) "oscar."
"yes."
you roll your eyes—try for defiance, but your hands are trembling. "it's—someone could see me."
"so?"
you suddenly find yourself unequipped to handle the english language. "so it's—wrong. and... dirty. and i—"
"—am both of those things." oscar finishes for you, and something hot curls low in your stomach. he nods to where your palm traces over the soft skin of your navel absently, a flash of electricity sparking in his tone. "finish what you started, baby."
"what i started?" you're surprised you've got the breath to spit the words out. still, you reach forward to unlatch the window, beginning to drag the fabric of your shirt over your head, slow enough for them to see, for the world to see, if they cared to look. the air bites at every inch of bare skin you reveal. "y-you put glitter bombs in my vent. and you sent me lingerie."
"which you wore," comes lando's voice as you drop your shirt to the floor. you hear the scrape of his breath catching behind you as you shiver dutifully in the cold february air, nipples pebbling almost immediately under the gaze of the world turning, the pairs of eyes staring fire into your spine.
"only because—" you start to defend, but oscar interrupts, clicking his tongue.
"if you want to talk," he says, barely louder than the wind rattling the glass, "do it while taking off the rest."
you don't talk. but you do keep your eyes pointedly on the window latch, fingers fumbling at the waistband of your shorts.
"go slow" oscar murmurs as you rush, and you hate him for how gentle it sounds. how soft he's being with you. "make it pretty."
your face burns as you peel your shorts down, the fabric catching on your thighs, your underwear following behind it. you kick them away, bare feet against the cold floor, the chill biting up your legs, nowhere left to hide. the february air kisses between your legs, sharp and mean. (oh, that feels nice, doesn't it?)
oscar steps closer, his body a shadow at your back. "look," he says, voice honey-thick and terrible. "how many people can you see?"
you blink, eyes adjusting to the street below. it's a blur of streetlights and shifting shapes, the occasional glimmer of movement. at first, you want to lie—say no one, say it’s empty—but there’s laughter echoing up from the sidewalk, the far-off clatter of heels on wet pavement. you squint, heart pounding.
"n-none," you stammer, but it comes out pathetic.
oscar laughs, low and knowing. "look harder."
lando’s hand ghosts over your hip when your hands twitch by your sides. you swallow. there’s a group spilling out of a taxi, a pair of friends weaving home, someone lighting a cigarette under the yellow haze of a street lamp. oscar’s hand comes to rest at the center of your chest, over your heart, fingers splayed. "how many?" he asks again, mouth at your temple. "how many people could look up and see you right now?"
(honesty burns.) "seven. or—eight."
"fuck," is lando's exhale, palm sliding higher, stomach to sternum, flicking over your peaked nipples. when did they get so close? where did they begin and you end?
"imagine if they looked up," oscar continues, lips brushing your ear. you barely hear him over the sound of your heart. "imagine if they saw you. what would they think, hmm?"
your knees nearly give out. you press your palms to the cold window, the city yawning open below, the air biting at your skin. you bite down on a breath, but it doesn't matter. lando’s hands have found your waist, lips dragging desperate down your shoulder. but then he sinks lower. and lower, and suddenly he's slinking a hand in between your thighs, spreading your legs. (he's on his knees in front of you and staring at your pussy like he wants to pray to it, and oh, god, he better do something about it soon.)
you must jolt forward into lando's hand, because oscar punches out a breath.
"dirty," he grits out, and you can feel the hard press of him behind you, the slow grind of denim against naked skin. "dirty fucking girl." and oh, his thumb reaches through to push ever so slightly at the entrance there, circling the slick gathered from the show you put on. "ever take it back here before?"
shame tangles in your throat. "n-no," you answer honestly, and lando's resounding moan vibrates through your lower half. "guys tried. in the past. but i-i'd let you." (you're saying just about anything to get either of them to do something, aren't you?)
oscar hums, rocking his hips up against you, just once. you nearly choke. "bet you’d let me do it right fucking now, wouldn’t you?"
"yes," lando responds for you, and you're keenly aware of the way he's tonguing at the inside of your thigh, hot and desperate.
oscar's mouth meets your throat, and you stretch backward, hand stuttering into lando's hair. "would you? hmm?" his palm slides up your spine, curling at the back of your neck. "right here, where anyone could see you? would you let me just—" he pauses, and you hear his belt buckle clink. "—fuck your tight lit—?"
it's lando who doesn’t let him finish.
he moves forward, mouth catching on your cunt, and the noise that rips out of you is nothing short of obscene—half-moan, half-curse, all deep, dark hunger. your forehead hits the cold glass, breath fogging up the view, and you know if anyone looked up they’d see fucking everything, and humiliation courses through your blood.
lando leans his tongue flat, like he’s been waiting his whole life just to taste you, hands digging bruises into your hips, keeping you spread open for him, for oscar, for anyone who might be watching.
"there we go," oscar mutters, prideful. he leans in, mouth hot at your ear, hand sliding down, down, down, until his thumb is sliding through the slick mess lando’s making of you, pressing down, not enough to penetrate but just enough to feel your natural resistance give.
"osc—lando—" you gasp when the latter's hands lock around your hips, grinding your body across his open mouth, and you damn near break the window with how hard your hand slams against it.
oscar’s thumb drags lower, circling, teasing, and then—fuck—there’s a second finger joining the first, slick and slow and stretching you open. it’s too much and not enough, and he's not giving you any time to recover, but god, you’re already so close you can taste it. lando groans, tongue somehow dipping inside of you, and you’re a mess down his chin but you know he wants it just as much as you do.
"jesus—y'hear that, baby?" oscar murmurs, clearly pleased, and only then does it occur to you how wet you actually are. you lock up, every muscle straining, right there, so close—
and then he pulls out.
you sob, hips jerking forward, and then you're coming around nothing, white light behind your eyes, knees stuttering against lando's shoulders as he suckles your clit into his mouth then releases it with a slow slip of his tongue, forehead drooping against your thigh. (you're opening your mouth to thank him when he kisses your hip, and you realize he already knows.)
"fuck you," you choke out, hands scrabbling for purchase. "fuck you to hell and fucking back—"
oscar's two steps ahead of you. one second he's lining up, and the next the blunt head of his cock slides easy, too easy, through the mess between your cheeks, hot and heavy, pressed right where you’re aching for it, contracting around nothing.
you shiver when he kisses the back of your neck, smoothing the sweaty hair at your nape. you expect him to scold you, to say something mean back as he gathers your slick in his palm and covers his cock with it. but no.
"perfect girl, sweet girl, fucking takin' it so good, fight me if you want me to stop, put up a fight, pretty—"
and then he's splitting you open so slowly you fold over, hands braced on lando's shoulders.
you squeeze your eyes shut as oscar punches out a choked breath ("tight fuckin' fit—"), a painfully sharp shot of electricity going up your spine. you've barely got your eyes open before you're keening, nails dug deep into the crevices of lando's broad collar. and god, isn't the man himself a sight, jaw slack, cheeks cherry-red, fumbling with the waistband of his sweats.
he shoves them down his thighs just enough to free his cock—flushed dark, leaking in his fist. he doesn’t even bother getting up, just sits back on his heels, hand working himself in time with the way oscar’s fucking you open. his hand tightens when you watch the flush creep up his chest, the way his stomach twitches when you moan.
(he likes the attention just as much as you do.)
oscar's breathing words into your neck, his voice deep, strangled brass, and you have to remind yourself to keep breathing. "did you miss us? hmm?" (nod.) "gonna let me fuck you like this all the time?" (nod.) "gonna let lando have a turn?" (nod, nod.)
lando whimpers like he can imagine it already, and you feel the sound like a live wire between your legs. you reach for him blindly, fingers tangling in his hair, dragging him up, and he goes willingly, cock still in his hand, mouth sealing over yours in a mess of tears and spit.
you kiss him the way oscar taught you—slow, controlled, all tongue and filthy want, and you taste yourself lingering in his mouth, slick and sharp and obscene. lando groans into it, hips rutting into his own fist.
"oh—" he breathes, breaking away to pant against your jaw, "god, 'm gonna come—"
oscar shifts behind you and you yelp, breaking the kiss as he angles your back, pressing your shoulder blades so you lean down, chest nearly touching lando's. his hips are already high into his hand, cock throbbing within reach, and oscar thrusts so deep you see stars as he grits out, "put your mouth on him."
(you almost want to say no. just to see what he'd do. but there's a shine in lando's eyes, oh, god, he's crying for you—)
your lips close around the tip just as his hips shudder up, unintentionally fucking your mouth. his hands fly to your hair, a half-syllable of your name leaving his lips as you close your lips tighter, a soft, possessive kiss in the swirl of your tongue. you barely get any warning before he's going ramrod straight, babbling, "shit, ‘m gonna—" and tumbling off the edge, release flooding your mouth.
you don't swallow. not immediately. not until oscar pulls you upright, presses you flush to his chest, and draws the hinge of your mouth open. "swallow," he says after what feels like hours, and you do, and he's kissing you, and oh, god you've never tasted anything better.
there's an ache in your navel, a desperate, sweet torment that buckles your knees and slackens your spine, and every single nerve ending sings when oscar's hand loops forward, fingers ghosting over your clit, a touch so light it should’ve been too much. it would have been too much, had his cock not sunk in just that inch deeper, had it not been exactly what you needed.
"fuck, 'm gonna—wait—osc—" your eyes roll back, because oh, god, you're going to come, and you can't believe you didn't do this that very first night, you can't believe you let so many months go by without knowing how shallow oscar's thrusts get when he's about to come, how he breathes your name into your spine and hunches forward as warmth splatters along your skin.
(you can't believe you went so long not knowing how it feels to come around his cock.)
you barely catch your breath before lando’s hands meet your hips, strong and sure and steady, catching your weight as you fold forward toward the open window.
oscar pulls out slow, and you wince as he eases away the discomfort, hands moving to the small of your back to trace the warmth of his release there.
"we're not done," he murmurs, enchanted with the way you arch up. "not by a long shot."
♡
note: I NEED HOLY WATER OMG. 😭 you all are INCREDIBLE i know this is longer than most of my works but i hope it serves as something new from me!! once again i apologize for my extended absences—i should have a lil something else coming soon!! LOVE FROM GRACIE!!
Day 31: FUCKING TWO BAD BITCHES AT THE SAME DAMN TIME ⭒ Oscar Piastri + Lando Norris
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Characters: Oscar x Lando x fem!reader
Kinktober prompt: Double penetration
2,189 words
Warnings: NSFW 18+, they're all in a relationship, ok this is ALOT, I might miss some stuff, unprotected sex, multiple rounds and orgasms to the point I lost count and still kept going, oral (male and female receiving), blowjobs, 69, shower sex, squirting, fucking the same hole, reader wears lingerie, dom!oscar, fingering, fucking standing up, cum eating, dirty talk, they just don't stop, morning sex, face sitting, face fucking, nipple play
Yours Truly: Happy Halloween (to those who celebrate) and happy final day of Kinktober I can't believe this is it😭😭😭. I feel like the month went by fast no? Anyway here's my final piece Enjoy!💗💗💗
Taglist: @regu1ar-huh @bellaciao0
Kinktober masterlist
THANK YOU!
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The roar of the crowd still echoed in your ears as you stumbled into the luxurious hotel suite, the door clicking shut behind you. The 2024 McLaren Constructor's Championship win had been a whirlwind—champagne showers on the podium, endless toasts at the after-party, bodies pressed close in the dim club lights.
Oscar, your silent, commanding boyfriend, wrapped an arm around your waist, his touch firm and possessive. Lando Norris, the playful one of your poly trio, giggled as he kicked off his shoes, already tugging at his shirt. You three had been together for years, a perfect balance, love woven through every shared glance and stolen kiss.
The suite was a haze of dim lighting and scattered clothes from earlier rushes. The king-sized bed dominated the room, sheets crisp and inviting. You slipped away to the bathroom, heart racing with anticipation. Tonight wasn't ending with the party. You'd planned this surprise for weeks.
Emerging, the black lace lingerie hugging your curves. The top was sheer, your breasts straining against the fabric embroidered with '81' in bold stitching—Oscar's number. The bottoms dipped low, '4' glinting on the hip in shimmering thread for Lando. Thigh-high stockings completed the look, garters snapping taut.
Oscar's eyes darkened, his jaw tightening as he leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He didn't speak, but his gaze raked over you like a promise. Lando's mouth fell open, a whine escaping. "Fuck, baby," he breathed, stepping closer, hands hovering. "You look... that's our numbers. On you. All for us."
You smirked, sauntering forward, hips swaying. "Champions deserve a proper celebration. Thought I'd wear your victories." Oscar pushed off the wall, closing the distance in two strides. His hand cupped your chin, tilting your face up. No words, just a deep, claiming kiss that left you breathless. Lando pressed against your back, lips brushing your neck. "Gonna make you feel like a winner too," he murmured, fingers tracing the '4' on your hip.
Clothes hit the floor in a frenzy. Oscar stripped methodically, his lean, muscled body revealed—broad shoulders, defined abs from endless training. Lando was quicker, shirt yanked over his head, pants shoved down to free his hardening cock. You dropped to your knees between them, the carpet soft under you. Oscar's hand tangled in your hair, guiding you toward Lando first. "Suck him," Oscar commanded, voice low and gravelly, the words sending heat pooling between your thighs.
You wrapped your lips around Lando's cock, tongue swirling the tip, tasting the salt of his pre-cum. He groaned, hips bucking slightly as you took him deeper, hollowing your cheeks. Oscar knelt behind you, hands spreading your ass cheeks. His fingers hooked into your lingerie bottoms, ripping them aside with a sharp tug. Cool air hit your exposed pussy and ass, then his mouth followed—tongue flat and insistent, licking a stripe.
Lando's fingers gripped your hair, fucking your mouth in shallow thrusts. "God, your mouth... so wet, so good." You moaned around him, the vibration making him shudder. Oscar's tongue delved into your pussy, lapping at your folds, then switched to your ass, circling the tight ring with deliberate pressure. He prepped you slowly, one finger pressing in alongside his tongue, stretching you open. The dual assault had you dripping, thighs slick.
They switched. Oscar pulled you off Lando, his cock thick and veined, nudging your lips. You sucked him eagerly, hand pumping the base while Lando took his place behind. His fingers joined Oscar's remnants, two sliding into your pussy, curling to hit that spot. "You're soaked," Lando panted, free hand spanking your ass lightly. "Gonna fuck this pretty cunt while you blow Osc." Oscar thrust deeper, hitting the back of your throat, his silence amplifying the wet sounds filling the room.
Lando aligned his cock and slammed in, filling your pussy in one stroke. You cried out around Oscar, the stretch burning sweet. He set a rhythm, pulling out as Oscar pushed in. Your body rocked between them, mouth full, pussy clenching. Spit dripped down your chin as you gagged on Oscar, Lando's balls slapping your clit with each drive.
"Take it," Oscar grunted, finally breaking his quiet. "Our good girl, stuffed at both ends." Lando whimpered, pace faltering. "She's squeezing me... fuck, gonna cum if she keeps—" You pulled off Oscar with a pop, gasping. "Not yet. More."
They eased you up, bodies slick with sweat. Oscar lifted you effortlessly, carrying you to the bed while Lando followed, stroking himself. But you weren't done surprising them. "Wait," you said, pushing Oscar onto his back. Straddling his face reverse, you lowered your pussy onto his mouth. He gripped your thighs, tongue plunging in without hesitation. Lando climbed up, positioning between Oscar's legs, his face inches from yours.
"Both of you," you demanded, grinding down. Lando dove in, tongue flicking your clit while Oscar sucked your folds from below. Their mouths worked in tandem—Lando's eager laps contrasting Oscar's firm sucks. Tongues tangled over your sensitive nub, one dipping into your entrance as the other circled. You arched, hands fisting the sheets, moans spilling free. "Yes... eat me out together. Make me cum."
Lando hummed against you, the vibration shooting sparks up your spine. Oscar's stubble scraped your inner thighs, adding friction. They alternated, Lando tonguing your ass now while Oscar focused on your pussy, fingers joining to scissor inside. The pressure built fast, your hips bucking wildly. "Close... don't stop." They didn't, mouths relentless until you shattered, slick flooding their tongues. You rode the waves, grinding through the orgasm, their faces glistening when you finally collapsed forward.
Panting, you slid off, but the night pressed on. Oscar sat up, eyes locked on you. "Prep time," he said simply, pulling you onto his lap facing him. His cock teased your entrance, but he held back, fingers slick with lube from the nightstand—always prepared. He worked two into your ass, scissoring gently, then three, stretching you wide. Lando watched, hand on his cock, biting his lip. "Look at her take it. So ready for us both."
Satisfied, Oscar nodded to Lando. They stood, sandwiching you between their bodies. Oscar's hands under your thighs, lifting you like you weighed nothing. Lando pressed against your front, cock nudging your pussy. "Gonna fill you up," he whispered, sliding in slow. The fullness made you gasp, walls fluttering. Oscar followed, tip breaching your ass, inching deeper. The double stretch burned, then bloomed into pleasure as they bottomed out.
They found their rhythm—Oscar thrusting up steady and deep, Lando pulling back as Oscar pushed in, then switching. Cocks dragging against thin walls, rubbing through you. "Fuck, I feel you," Lando groaned, forehead to yours. "His cock in your ass, mine in your pussy." You clung to them, nails digging into shoulders, the suspension heightening every slide. Sweat-slick skin slapped, your breasts bouncing with each opposing thrust.
"Harder," you begged, head lolling. Oscar obliged, pace unyielding, silent grunts escaping. Lando matched, whimpering. "You're so tight... gonna make me explode." The friction built, their cocks pulsing inside you. You clenched, chasing release, until it hit—orgasm ripping through, pussy and ass spasming around them. They held you through it, thrusts slowing as you trembled.
Gently, they lowered you to the bed. Lando lay back first, cock still hard, pulling you onto his chest on your back. Your head rested on his shoulder, legs spread wide. He guided his dick to your ass, pushing up slow. The angle let him fill you completely, tip pressing deep. "Ride me backward," he murmured, hands on your hips.
Oscar knelt between your legs, eyes dark with hunger. He stroked his cock, then aligned with your pussy, sinking in with a groan. The double penetration, bodies stacked. Oscar on top, thrusting down forceful, Lando bucking up from below. Their cocks moved independently—Oscar's powerful drives contrasting Lando's eager snaps.
Dirty talk flowed like the champagne earlier. "Feel that?" Oscar rasped, voice breaking silence. "Both of us buried inside you." You moaned, arching into him. "Yes... fuck me like you own me." Lando nipped your ear. "You're dripping down my balls. Love sharing you with Osc. His cock rubbing mine through you—fuck, it's too much."
Oscar's hand snaked between you, thumb circling your clit. "Cum with us. Squeeze our cocks." Lando's fingers joined, pinching your nipples. The pressure coiled tight, thrusts syncing now—deep, grinding rolls. "Gonna fill you," Lando panted. "Breed your ass while he takes your pussy." Oscar's breath hitched. "Together. Now."
You shattered first, walls clamping down, milking them. They followed—Lando spilling hot into your ass with a cry, Oscar pulsing ropes into your pussy seconds later. Cum leaked as they kept pumping, riding out the highs until spent. You all collapsed in a tangle, breaths mingling, bodies marked by the night's fervor.
After catching breath, Lando's hand wandered again, fingers dipping into the mess between your legs. "Round two?" he teased. Oscar's silent nod sealed it. You grinned, pulling them close.
⭒
The afterglow faded into renewed hunger. You rolled off Lando, cum trickling from both holes, but the ache for more pulsed strong. Oscar pulled you to the edge of the bed, standing as he positioned you on all fours. "Again," he said, voice commanding. Lando scrambled up, kneeling in front. The pattern repeated, but slower this time, savoring.
Your mouth enveloped Lando's cock, licking clean with broad strokes. He threaded fingers through your hair, guiding gently. "Suck it good, love. Clean me up." Behind, Oscar's hands parted your cheeks, tongue lapping the cum from your pussy, then ass. His cock followed, sliding into your pussy first, thick length stretching the slick heat.
He fucked you deliberate, each thrust pulling whimpers from your throat around Lando. He leaned back, moaning. "Her mouth... vibrating on me. Osc, you're pounding her so hard." Oscar's pace quickened, hips snapping, balls heavy against your clit. You hollowed cheeks, taking Lando deeper, gagging as Oscar hit deep.
Switching holes, Oscar pulled out, slick with your juices, and pressed into your ass. The glide was easier now, lube and cum aiding. He bottomed out, groaning low. Lando thrust into your mouth, matching the rhythm. "Double stuffed again. Our perfect girl."
You came first, body shaking, but they held off, drawing it out. Pulling away, they flipped you onto your back. Lando straddled your chest, cock between your breasts, tit-fucking while you licked the tip. Oscar spread your legs wide, diving in with his mouth—tongue fucking your pussy, fingers in your ass.
"Taste us on her," Lando said, voice breathy. Oscar hummed affirmation, the sound sending you over. Then, both mouths returned—Lando shifting down to join, tongues dueling over your clit, one in pussy, one in ass. Fingers everywhere, stretching, rubbing. You bucked, cumming hard, squirting lightly on their faces.
Lifting you once more, they sandwiched again. This time, Lando in your ass from behind, Oscar in pussy from front. Opposing thrusts, cocks grinding. "Feel that friction?" Oscar murmured. "Us sliding together inside you." You nodded, lost in sensation. "Yes... fuck. Don't stop."
They carried you like that, bouncing you on their lengths. Walls shook with your cries. To the bed—Oscar lay down, you on your stomach atop him, his cock in your pussy. Lando mounted from behind, entering your ass. The prone position deepened everything, bodies flush.
Thrusts alternated—Oscar up as Lando pulled back. Dirty words spilled. "Tighten up," Lando begged. "Milk my cock." You did, clenching. Oscar's hands pinned your wrists. "Ours. All night." The build was slow, teasing, until synced. "Cum," Oscar ordered. You obeyed, and they flooded you, hot spurts mixing.
Hours blurred—more oral, you riding one while sucking the other, doubles in every combo. By dawn, exhausted, sated, you curled between them, lingerie torn, bodies marked.
⭒
Morning light filtered through curtains, but sleep evaded. Your body hummed, sore in the best ways. Lando stirred first, hand sliding between your thighs, fingers circling your swollen clit. "One more?" he whispered. Oscar's arm tightened around you, cock hardening against your ass.
You nodded, rolling to face Lando. His mouth claimed yours, tongue deep, while Oscar spooned behind, cock nudging your entrance. He pushed into your pussy slow, filling the tender heat. Lando's fingers worked your ass, prepping quick. Then he aligned, sliding in beside Oscar—no, wait, double in pussy this time, stretching impossibly.
"Mhmm not gonna fit," you gasped. But they did, cocks side by side, rubbing. Thrusts shallow, careful. "So full... gonna split me." Lando kissed your neck. "You can take it. Our trophy." Oscar's hand rubbed your back, silent support. The friction was electric, tips kissing your cervix.
They built pace, one in as the other out. You came quick, walls fluttering around both. They followed, cum overflowing, dripping down.
Shower next—water cascading, hands soaping. You dropped to knees, alternating blowjobs, water mixing with saliva. Lando came down your throat, Oscar on your breasts. Back to bed, lazy 69 with Lando while Oscar fucked your ass.
Endless rounds, positions blending—reverse cowgirl on Oscar, Lando in mouth; doggy with doubles; standing lifts. Dirty talk constant: "Cum for us, baby."
The championship win was sweet, but this—your love, raw and shared—was the real victory.
