clove

“No, forget it.”

Your roommate’s voice echoed through the dorm room as she pointed a mascara wand at you like a loaded weapon.

“You are absolutely not spending Charles’ birthday here alone dressed like a tired substitute teacher.”

Rain tapped softly against the window beside your bed while Boston glowed gold and blurry outside, the entire campus soaked in that cold October dampness that made everyone walk around with their hands shoved deep into hoodie pockets. Somewhere down the hall, someone was blasting Taylor Swift loud enough to vibrate the walls.

Your statistics textbook sat abandoned beside you on the bed, open to a page full of formulas that had stopped making sense two hours ago. Highlighters, flashcards, empty energy drink cans, and half-finished iced coffees cluttered every available surface of your side of the room, making it painfully obvious that midterms were a week away.

Which was exactly why you had absolutely no business going to a frat party tonight.

You looked up from your laptop just in time to see Luna applying lipstick in the tiny mirror hanging crookedly beside her closet door. She looked effortlessly pretty in the most unfair way possible, dressed in dark jeans and a cream sweater slipping off one shoulder like she belonged in some indie college movie. Her hair framed her face perfectly, messy in that intentional Pinterest-girl way that should’ve been annoying but somehow wasn’t.

“I have a statistics exam in four days,” you reminded her for what felt like the tenth time.

“And you’ve been studying for twelve straight hours.”

“Because I don’t want to fail.”

“You’re not going to fail.”

You snorted quietly, earning a satisfied smile from her.

Living together for the last three years had basically turned the two of you into an old married couple. Luna could read your moods before you even opened your mouth. She knew when you were stressed, when you were overthinking, when you needed coffee, and when you were one inconvenience away from a complete emotional collapse.

And it was absolutely mutual.

Right now, apparently, she’d diagnosed you with needing alcohol and social interaction.

She crossed the room and dropped onto your bed beside you, nudging your leg with hers.

“Come on,” she said softer this time. “It’s Charles’ birthday.”

“That requires your presence, not mine.”

Luna rolled her eyes affectionately before stealing your laptop straight out of your hands and snapping it shut.

“Hey!”

“No more studying tonight.”

“You don’t understand, Lu. I have three deadlines next week, a presentation on Monday, and if I fail this statistics exam I’m actually done for.”

“What I do understand is… ”she interrupted calmly, “… that you’ve been wearing the same sweatshirt for two days and muttering about standard deviation in your sleep.”

You groaned and fell backward against your pillows while she laughed.

Luna had always been impossible not to love. There was something naturally warm about her, something soft without ever feeling fragile. She was the kind of person who left handwritten notes in your backpack before exams and bought flowers from street markets just because they “looked romantic.” A literature and poetry major who spent rainy afternoons reading Neruda by the window and somehow made it look cinematic instead of pretentious.

And of course Charles Leclerc, campus heartthrob and president of Delta One fraternity, had fallen hopelessly in love with her during freshman year orientation.

Honestly, everybody saw it coming.

You still remembered the first time you met him. Luna had barely finished introducing herself before Charles offered to carry all her boxes upstairs to the dorm building like some ridiculously attractive gentleman straight out of a Netflix series. By Halloween they were inseparable. By Christmas they were officially dating. Three years later, they were still painfully obsessed with each other.

The kind of couple people simultaneously adored and hated.

Meanwhile, every single guy you’d dated in college had somehow become an inside joke or an horror tale.

One ghosted you the week before winter formal. One called you by his ex-girlfriend’s name during some awful sex. One spent an entire dinner date explaining cryptocurrency and it felt like he was trying to lure you in some weird selling scheme.

College dating genuinely felt like a social experiment designed to humble women.

Luna stood again and immediately started digging through your closet like she owned it.

“You should wear this one.”

You stared at the black top she tossed at your face. “That top is criminally tiny.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not dressing for male validation at a frat party”

“Lando Norris will be there.”

You froze instantly and Luna’s grin widened in pure satisfaction.

Busted.

“Oh my God,” you muttered, horrified. “You’re evil. Stop using my innocent crush against me.”

“Crush?” she repeated dramatically.

“Luna.”

“I’m just saying, I’m giving you incentives!”

Your face warmed despite yourself as you looked down at the top still in your hands.

The unfortunate reality was that Lando Norris was ridiculously attractive.

Messy curls constantly falling into his blue eyes. Hoodies with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, baseball cap often thrown backwards and biceps sticking out of tight t-shirs. And not to mention his lazy smirks that always felt vaguely flirtatious even when they probably weren’t. He had this annoyingly effortless confidence about him, like he moved through life permanently entertained.

And worse of all, he was smart.

The kind of smart that didn’t seem fair. You knew it for all those times you peeked at his tests or essays.

Boy had brain.

You barely knew him outside of Statistics II and occasional run-ins at the Delta One house, but honestly, that almost made the crush worse. There was still enough mystery left for your brain to romanticize him into something unrealistic.

Which it absolutely had.

And you’d made the unforgivable mistake of admitting to Luna one time*, one single time*, that you thought Lando was hot.

That had apparently become the downfall of your entire life.

You and Lando usually sat a few rows apart during statistics lectures, though “sat through lectures” was generous in his case.

He was always in the back row with the other sport business majors, looking unfairly good in hoodies while doing literally anything except paying attention. Half the time he was on his phone. The other half he was making quiet comments to whoever sat beside him that made them laugh hard enough to get yelled at by the professor.

And somehow, despite behaving like a man who had never opened a textbook in his life, he still got good grades.

You hated people like that.

Unfortunately, you also wanted him a little bit.

“So tiny top for great boobs?” she asked, completely deadpan, holding the corset as an invitation.

An hour later, you were walking down Greek Street wearing that exactly tight black corset-style top that definitely did not respect the space your breasts needed, paired with jeans that somehow made the whole situation feel worse.

Your hair had been styled, your makeup done with Luna’s annoyingly steady hands, and you were now actively questioning all of your life choices.

“This thing is squeezing the life out of me.”

“Shut up, you look amazing.”

The cold October air clung to your skin, sharp enough to wake you up properly, while the sidewalks shimmered with rainwater reflecting neon porch lights. Frat houses lined the street like competing kingdoms, each one louder than the last, each one trying harder than the next to prove it was the place to be.

The Delta One mansion sat at the end of the street like it owned the entire campus. Big, white, obnoxiously grand in a way that made you certain half the alumni donations had gone into maintaining its aesthetic. The porch lights were warm and golden, and a massive banner stretched across the railing:

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR PRESIDENT”

The second you stepped inside, the world changed completely.

Warmth hit you first, thick and immediate. Then sound. Then smell.

Beer, perfume, weed, cheap vodka, fried food you couldn’t identify, and something sweet that was probably punch but definitely not legal in any sense. Music pulsed through the floorboards so strongly you could feel it in your ribs, like the house itself had a heartbeat set to bass.

People were everywhere.

The living room was packed shoulder to shoulder, bodies moving under flickering LED lights. Someone was dancing like nobody was watching, which was objectively untrue because everyone was watching.

In the dining room, a beer pong game had turned into a full-blown spectator sport, complete with shouting and dramatic reactions.

It was loud. Chaotic. Overstimulating.

And painfully, stereotypically college life.

You could almost imagine it as a montage in a movie, slow motion shots and golden lighting, everyone pretending this was the peak of youth and freedom.

Somehow, it almost worked.

And just like that, Charles appeared through the crowd.

There was always something unfair about the way he looked at Luna. Like the entire room faded into background noise the second she was in his line of sight.

His face softened in a way that made you instinctively look away for privacy’s sake, even though no one was actually watching.

He wrapped an arm around her waist like it was instinct, like it was muscle memory, and leaned down to kiss her hello.

“Happy birthday,” Luna said softly against his lips.

You stared at the ceiling for a moment. Respectfully. For your own sanity. When Charles finally turned to you, he smiled.

“She bullied you into coming, didn’t she?”

“Emotionally manipulated,” you corrected immediately.

“That tracks.”

He laughed, pulling you into a quick hug before someone yelled his name from the staircase.

“I’m glad you came,” he said sincerely between distractions, before gesturing toward the kitchen. “Drinks are everywhere. Help yourself. And there’s a beer pong tournament starting soon if you’re into that kind of thing.”

And just like that, you were left standing in the middle of Delta One.

You exhaled slowly, taking in the chaos again.

Normally, parties like this drained you within ten minutes. Too many people. Too much noise. Too many versions of happiness you were supposed to pretend to match.

But tonight felt different.

Maybe because midterms had been swallowing your entire life and your brain had finally hit its limit. Maybe because the music was good, the lights were warm, and for once nobody expected anything from you except showing up.

Maybe because fuck it, Luna was right, just for once you could have fun.

You ended up drifting through the party with a plastic cup in your hand and Luna appearing and disappearing beside you every twenty minutes like an overly social ghost. Sometimes she dragged you into conversations with people from her literature seminars. Sometimes you found yourself talking to classmates from your lectures about upcoming presentations and professors everyone hated equally.

At one point you got cornered by two girls from your marketing elective group arguing passionately about whether the university should cut funding to the hockey program, and somewhere in the middle of the conversation you realized you were actually having a good time.

Real fun. Not performative fun.

Your second drink helped too.

And you were halfway through telling a story about a disastrous date you had when Luna suddenly appeared beside you out of nowhere, eyes bright with the exact kind of energy that usually meant trouble.

“Oh no,” you said immediately.

“What?”

“You did something.”

She smiled innocently. “I signed you up for beer pong.”

You blinked once. Then twice. You knew where this was going.

“With who?”

“With him.”

Your stomach dropped so fast it almost felt physical.

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh, absolutely yes.”

“No.”

“He just got here.”

“No.”

“He looks really good tonight.”

“You signed me up without asking me?”

“You would’ve said no.”

“Exactly.”

Luna took a sip from her drink calmly, completely unbothered by your spiral. Obviously.

It wasn’t even that you couldn’t talk to attractive men. You could flirt when you wanted to. You knew how to hold conversations, how to be charming, how to act confident even when you weren’t feeling it.

But him?

That felt different somehow.

Maybe because he’d always existed slightly outside your reach. Like one of those people who naturally belonged to a different social orbit than yours. The frat parties, the confidence, the easy charisma, the girls who always seemed to hover around him without effort.

And then there was you. You had never genuinely expected him to notice you beyond statistics lectures and the occasional sarcastic comment before class.

Which was why the idea of being publicly paired with him for a game while half the frat watched made your pulse spike immediately.

Five minutes later, a shot glass was being pushed into your hand by somebody you vaguely recognized from sophomore-year economics. The burn hit immediately, sharp and warm down your throat, settling into your chest seconds later. You coughed once, grabbing a lime slice off the counter.

Next thing you noticed: a crowd had gathered around the beer pong table, people squeezing shoulder-to-shoulder with drinks raised while someone blasted music from a speaker balanced dangerously on a chair. Empty cans covered nearly every surface nearby. The atmosphere had shifted into something more competitive now, louder and messier in the way frat games always became after enough alcohol.

At the center of it all stood the birthday boy himself, holding a microphone someone had somehow found.

“Alright!” he shouted over the noise while the room erupted around him. “Beer pong tournament starts now, and before anybody accuses me of favoritism, yes, the teams were chosen completely randomly.”

Yeah, sure. Sooo randomly.

A chorus of very loud bullshit answers came from the crowd immediately. He ignored them smoothly.

You barely heard the next pair announced because your attention caught somewhere else entirely.

On him.

He stood on the opposite side of the room near the table, one hand wrapped around a red cup while talking to one of his friends. White linen shirt with sleeves pushed to his elbows. Messy curls. That stupid relaxed posture that made it seem like he never got nervous about anything in his life.

Oh, you were definitely not sober enough for this.

Luna nudged your side. “Go.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

There was no escaping anymore.

Not when Luna was practically shoving you forward with an entertained smile on her face. Not when half the room had already turned its attention toward the tournament bracket being taped to the wall. And definitely not when Lando had already started walking toward you too, red cup still in hand, looking completely relaxed while your own nervous system was seconds away from shortcircuiting.

You straightened your shoulders instinctively, forcing yourself to act normal. Which, at this point, mostly meant pretending your heart wasn’t beating ridiculously fast over a guy you’d technically exchanged maybe twenty seven conversations with in total.

The closer he got, the more unfairly attractive he became. The white linen shirt wasn’t helping either, sleeves pushed carelessly to his elbows, the top buttons undone just enough to make you irritated about it. His curls looked slightly damp from either rain or heat from the crowded house, and there was something so annoyingly effortless about him that it made you want to study him academically.

“So,” he said once he reached you, mouth curving into an easy grin, “Charles told me you’re the lucky girl who gets to play with me.”

You crossed your arms lightly, mostly to keep yourself grounded. “Am I lucky?”

“Oh, absolutely.” He looked genuinely offended you’d even question it. “I’ve won every beer pong tournament at every party this semester.”

That made you laugh immediately. The kind of laugh that slipped out before you could overthink it.

“Well,” you replied, “Hopefully I won’t ruin your streak.”

“Nah,” he said easily. “You look competitive enough.”

God, he was easy to talk to. That was the first thing that surprised you.

You’d built him up so much in your head that somewhere along the line you’d convinced yourself he’d be intimidating one-on-one. Too confident. Too smooth. Too cocky. Too aware of the effect he had on people.

Instead, standing next to him felt strangely natural.

Like talking to someone you already knew a little, even if technically you didn’t.

The crowd around the table erupted into shouting as the first game officially started, people squeezing closer around the players while someone dramatically commentated from the sidelines. You and him stayed near the corner of the table waiting for your turn, shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the noise.

“You’re in Statistics II, right?” he asked after a second, glancing at you. “I knew I recognized you.”

You nodded. “Unfortunately.”

He laughed softly. “I remember your presentation.”

You blinked at him. “My presentation?”

“Yeah.” He took a sip from his drink casually. “The probability analysis one. About media engagement patterns?”

Your eyebrows lifted immediately in surprise. Not because he remembered you from class. That alone already felt unlikely enough considering most people spent statistics lectures either asleep or mentally elsewhere.

But your presentation?

“You actually listened to that?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

“I did. It was brilliant!”

“I thought the professor was the only one paying attention.”

“No,” he said, smiling slightly. “I was listening. Between very important rounds of Solitaire.”

That pulled another laugh out of you. The compliment caught you off guard in the worst way because it sounded genuine. Not flirtatious. Not exaggerated. And maybe that shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did, but you’d spent most of college around guys who rarely noticed things beyond appearances. Half the people in class probably couldn’t even remember what your presentation had been about.

Yet somehow he did.

You looked away first, hiding a small smile behind your cup.

The game in front of you ended in dramatic shouting and accusations of cheating before the birthday boy loudly announced the next teams.

Yours included; and the crowd shifted around the table while you moved into position opposite another pair you vaguely recognized from the business school. Someone handed your teammate a ball.

He turned toward you immediately. “Okay, serious question before we start.”

You narrowed your eyes suspiciously.

“What’s your actual beer pong skill level?”

You exhaled a laugh. “Honestly? I’ve had enough shots that I genuinely don’t know anymore.”

“That’s fair.”

Then his expression softened slightly, voice lowering just enough to cut through some of the surrounding noise.

“On that note, if you don’t feel like drinking anymore at some point, just tell me. I’ll take over the cups.”

The comment fell from his lips so casually it almost could’ve passed unnoticed.

But it didn’t.

Because there was something unexpectedly considerate about it. No pressure. No frat-boy weirdness about keeping up or getting drunker. Just a simple check-in to make sure you were comfortable. And for some reason, that tiny moment settled something inside you completely.

“Thanks,” you said honestly.

He just shrugged lightly. “We’re here to have fun, right?”

And somehow, against all odds, the game became fun almost immediately. Not because you suddenly turned into some beer pong prodigy. You absolutely did not. Your aim remained questionable at best.

But he made everything feel easy.

Every missed shot became a joke. Every successful cup turned into exaggerated celebration. He hyped you up so enthusiastically after your first actual score that you nearly choked laughing. By the middle of the game, your stomach hurt from laughing. And that surprised you most of all.

Not the flirting. Not the attraction. Not even the fact that he kept standing slightly too close every time he leaned toward you to talk over the music.

It was how comfortable he made you feel.

He teased you constantly, but gently. Easily. Like he’d known you longer than one semester of shared lectures and occasional hallway conversations. And somewhere between missed shots, sarcastic commentary, and his hand brushing yours every time you passed the ball back and forth, all the nervousness you’d carried into the party started dissolving completely.

The game continued, a whirlwind of laughter and competition that blurred the edges of the party into a warm, golden haze. The tequila shot you’d taken earlier hummed pleasantly beneath your skin, softening your focus just enough to make the flashing lights seem softer, the music a rhythmic pulse rather than an assault.

And with every passing minute, the space between you and Lando seemed to shrink, charged with a chemistry that felt less like a spark and more like a slow, steady burn.

His teasing took on a new edge. It wasn’t malicious, not even close, but it wasn’t entirely innocent either. When you managed to sink a particularly difficult shot, ricocheting the ball off the rim of a cup already half-full, he let out a low whistle of approval.

“Okay, girl….” he said, his voice a notch lower, meant only for you amidst the din. His blue eyes held yours for a beat too long. “Showing off now?”

“Beginner’s luck,” you shot back, but your smile felt wider, more knowing.

“Doubt it.” He leaned in to retrieve the ball, his shoulder brushing against yours.

You found yourself leaning into it, into him, answering his smirks with your own, your retorts laced with a flirtation you reserved for boys you were usually not attracted to.

“You’re distracting me,” you accused after missing another shot, your body angled toward his.

“Am I?” he asked, all feigned innocence, his gaze dropping to your mouth for a fraction of a second before meeting your eyes again. “My bad...”.

The tournament narrowed down until it was just your team against birtday boy and your best friend in the finals. The entire frat seemed to have gathered around the table, a roaring, cup-waving audience.

And of course, when Luna sank the winning cup, the room erupted. Charles swept her up in a hug, spinning her around as she laughed against his shoulder and you felt a rush of genuine relief.

You’d had more beers than you’d planned, and the room had begun to tilt in a gentle, warm way. You weren’t drunk, not sloppily so, but you were floating somewhere pleasantly adrift, where every sensation was amplified: the heat of the bodies around you, the thump of the bass, the electric awareness of Lando’s presence.

He bumped his shoulder against yours as the crowd began to disperse. You hadn’t even realized he’d been watching you closely, his earlier sharp focus now softened into something almost gentle. “You good?”

“Yeah, just starting to feel the tequila a little.”

"Let's get you some water, yeah?" He tilted his head toward the kitchen, but his eyes lingered on yours, and there was something in them, like an invitation, a question. "Or we could find somewhere quieter. If you want."

The offer hung in the air between you, casual on the surface, loaded underneath.

You bit your lip, considering. "Quieter sounds nice."

He led you to the kitchen, snagging two cold water bottles from a cooler buried under bags of ice, his fingers brushing yours as he handed one over. The contact sent a little jolt up your arm. Then he pushed open the back door, and the cold October night rushed in, a shocking, clean contrast to the stuffy heat inside.

The porch was a wide, wraparound space littered with mismatched outdoor furniture and empty planters. Strings of Edison bulbs glowed overhead, casting everything in a soft, amber light. The noise of the party became a muffled heartbeat through the walls. You sat on a weathered wooden bench, the chill of the slats seeping through your jeans, and cracked open the water, drinking half of it in one long, grateful pull.

Lando sat beside you, not too close, but close enough that you could see the way the bulb light caught the gold in his messy curls. He stretched his legs out, crossing his ankles. “So,” he began, a playful smirk tugging at his lips. “Beer pong. Not your hidden talent, then.”

You groaned, leaning your head back against the siding of the house. “I did warn you, tho. You chose to ignore me”

He chuckled, the sound warm in the cool air. “I thought it was a decoy strategy. Throw them off our scent.”

You shook your head laughing, sneaking a glance at him. In the quieter light, away from the performative chaos of the party, he looked different. The effortless, showy confidence was still there, but it had settled into something more relaxed, more real. The lines of his face were softer, his long fingers curled around the water bottle. He was just… beautiful. In a way that made your chest feel tight. The sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the faint shadow of stubble along it. He wasn’t trying, and that was somehow infinitely more attractive.

A comfortable silence settled between you, filled only by the distant party sounds and the rustle of leaves in the night breeze. It teetered on the edge of awkwardness, that silence, thick with everything unsaid from the past hour.

He shifted, his knee accidentally brushing yours. He didn’t jerk away, but he didn’t press in either. He just left it there, a point of contact. “Cold out here,” he remarked, stating the obvious.

“A little.” “You want to go back in?” You thought about the wall of heat and noise, the press of bodies. “Not really.”

“Me neither.” He leaned back, mirroring your posture against the siding, his shoulder now just a hair’s breadth from yours.

You could sense the tension. And the chemistry of the situation. But the flirtation wasn’t in grand declarations or intense eye contact. It was in the shared quiet. In the way he’d noticed your attitude and mentioned it.

In the deliberate way he was staying out here in the cold with you instead of being the centre of the party inside.

It was in the way, when you finally turned your head to look at him, you found he was already looking at you. Not with a smoldering stare, but with a quiet, curious focus, as if he was trying to figure out a pleasant puzzle.

“What?” you asked softly.

He shook his head, a little almost-embarrassed smile touching his lips, and looked down at his hands. “Nothing. Just… this is nice.”

And it was. It was really, genuinely nice. And for the first time all night, the nervous, performative feeling you’d had completely melted away. You were just two people, sitting on a cold porch step, talking about nothing much at all.

“So I haven’t seen you in any of my other classes,” he said, turning his head to look at you. “Just Statistics II. So I’m guessing you’re not majoring in business right?.”

You shook your head, twisting the cap back on your bottle. “Nope. Media and Communications.”

“Ah.” He nodded, a genuine interest in his eyes. “That makes sense, actually.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah. The effort you put into that presentation? Very professional.” He said it plainly, a statement of fact. “Way better than the crap most people submit.”

A warm flush spread through you, unrelated to the alcohol. “Well, don’t give me too much credit. I just picked a pretty template on Canva.”

You gathered your courage, wanting to keep the thread, to keep him talking in that low, intimate tone. “What about you? Why business? You don’t exactly strike me as the suit-and-tie type.”

He shrugged, looking out into the dark yard. “I don’t know, honestly. I love the sports industry and what’s behind it so, I guess sports business felt like the way in.” He glanced back at you, a wry twist to his mouth. “It’s less exciting than it sounds. Mostly a lot of spreadsheets and case studies about game strategies and financial management.”

It started with the easy stuff: professors you both hated, the mystery meat in the dining hall, the best place to get coffee on campus when you were running on three hours of sleep. He told you about growing up with three siblings, the chaotic, competitive energy of it that had shaped his own easygoing nature as a survival tactic.

He mentioned golf, and you couldn’t stop the snort of laughter. “Golf? Seriously? That’s not a sport, that’s older men wearing polo shirt having walks on a pretty grass.”

He clutched his chest, feigning deep offense. “It’s strategy! Precision! It’s—”

“Boring.”

“You’ve never tried it.”

“I don’t need to know it’s boring, Lando.”

He laughed, a rich, full sound that seemed to vibrate through the bench. “Fine. I’ll convert you one day. You’ll see.”

You talked about the terrifying abyss of post-graduation, the pressure to have a five-year plan when you could barely plan your next week. You talked about the snacks you loved as a kid, the movies you’d watch on repeat, the stupid, profound fears that kept you up at night:failing, being ordinary, getting stuck.

He confessed he’d tried out for the university hockey team freshman year. “Lasted two weeks of practice,” he said, a rueful smile on his face as he ran a hand through his curls. “Those guys are built different. Like, genetically modified or something”

The hours slipped by, marked only by the gradual dimming of the party’s roar behind the walls and the slow journey of the moon across the clear, cold sky.

At some point, you weren’t sure when, the space between you vanished. You were leaning into the corner of the bench, your legs tucked up, and his arm was resting along the back of it.

A particularly loud laugh from you at one of his stories had you tilting, and your head found the solid, warm curve of his shoulder as naturally as breathing. His arm settled around you, his fingers drawing absent, soothing circles on the sleeve of your top. Neither of you acknowledged it. You just kept talking, your voice lower now, the words shared in the intimate space between his chin and your hair.

Internally, you were sending silent, fervent thank-you notes to Luna.

Master manipulator. And bestest friend in the whole universe.

You’d braced for noise, for superficiality, for the awkward strain of a crush you couldn’t act on. Instead, you were wrapped in Lando Norris’s arm, sharing pieces of yourself you rarely voiced, and receiving his in return.

It felt surreal and yet more real than anything else that semester.

At this point, you felt like you both had sobered up completely, the earlier buzz replaced by a crystalline, hyper-aware clarity. You could feel every point of contact: his thigh against yours, the weight of his arm, the steady rise and fall of his chest under your cheek.

He shifted slightly, his voice a soft rumble near your ear. “So I was wondering, I have this presentation for my Sports Marketing midterm next week.”

He paused, and you could feel him smiling. “And I thought… as a Media Major and a Canva pro and all… you could come upstairs and, I don’t know, judge it? Give it a professional advice? A few tips? ”

Upstairs.

The party was dying. The house was quieting. This wasn’t a public porch anymore. This was an invitation into a private space, veiled in a hilariously thin excuse.

Of course it was an excuse.

You lifted your head from his shoulder to look at him. His face was close, his eyes dark and unreadable in the low light, but his mouth held that familiar, teasing curve. The tension was back, coiled tight and potent, stripped of all beer-pong bravado and laid bare in the quiet night.

You arched an eyebrow, forcing a lightness into your voice you didn’t entirely feel. “Ah. So that’s why you kept me out here all night. You just needed free graphic design labor.”

His grin widened, unrepentant. “Busted. You saw right through me.”

You held his gaze, the playful challenge hanging between you.

You could say no. You could say you should find Luna, that you had an early study group. The safe, sensible part of your brain whispered those options.

But you weren’t feeling sensible. You were feeling the lingering warmth of his touch, the echo of his laughter, the thrilling, terrifying pull of what upstairs might truly mean.

You smiled, a slow, matching curve of your lips. “Well, okay ” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. “Since you asked so nicely”

His eyes flashed with something hot and triumphant. He stood, offering you his hand. You took it, his fingers closing around yours, firm and sure.

He didn’t let go as he led you back through the quiet, dim kitchen, past the remnants of the party and toward the staircase. The house felt like a sleeping beast, the silence profound after hours of noise.

Your footsteps on the wooden stairs were the only sound, echoing in the hushed darkness, each step carrying you further away from the world of the party and deeper into the unknown, electric promise of what came next.

His room was at the end of a quiet hallway. He pushed the door open, and a wave of relative peace washed over you.

It was tidy in the way of someone who cleaned up when they had to, but lived in comfortably. A king size bed was neatly made with a dark blue comforter and thousand pillows.

A desk under the window was the epicenter of chaos: textbooks stacked precariously, notebooks splayed open, highlighted pages bristling with sticky notes.

Tiny important detail: everything smelled like him. And that was dangerous.

The intimacy of being alone with him here, after the porch bench, was a different beast entirely.

It was concentrated, quiet, and palpably charged. You weren’t sure what to do with your hands, your body.

“So this is the inner sanctum of Delta One vice president?” you said, trying for casual as you peered at the books on his desk. Sports Economics, Financial Management, a well-thumbed copy of The Art of Strategy.

You smiled, continuing your exploration. You glanced at the photos tucked into the edge of his mirror: a younger Lando with his siblings, all grinning identical, mischievous grins; one with Charles, arms slung around each other’s shoulders on what looked like a ski trip. It was a normal room. A smart, focused, athletic guy’s room.

The nervous flutter in your stomach hadn’t subsided; it had just changed frequency, becoming a low, steady hum of anticipation. You turned finally, leaning back against his desk. He was still by the door, but his posture had changed. He was no longer leaning casually; he was standing straight, his gaze intent and dark.

“So,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest, mostly to give your hands something to do. “This famous presentation. What does it need?”

A slow smile spread across his face. He pushed off the door and walked toward you. Not with any hurry, but with a deliberate, quiet purpose that made the air in the room seem to thin. He stopped when he was standing right in front of you, so close you had to tilt your head up to meet his eyes.

“Right,” he murmured. “The presentation.”

He reached around you, his body not quite touching yours, to open the laptop on the desk. The screen glowed to life, illuminating his hands as they typed in the password. He was caging you in, his arms on either side of you, his chest a mere breath away from your back. You could feel the heat radiating from him, could smell the night air and his skin. Your heart was pounding so hard you were sure he could hear it.

He clicked a file, and a PowerPoint titled “Sponsorship ROI in Hockey Leagues: A Data-Driven Approach” filled the screen.

“See?” he said, his voice a low rumble right beside your ear. His head was bent next to yours, both of you staring at the screen, though you were absorbing exactly none of the information on it. “Slide one. Title. Very important, right?”

“Yup, you gotta start with that,” you managed, your own voice sounding strangely high.

“Mhm.” His hand came up to the trackpad, his arm brushing against yours.

He clicked to the next slide: a complex-looking graph. “This is where I talk about annual expenditure versus media value yield.”

He was so close. His breath stirred the hair at your temple. You knew exactly what he was doing.

Tease.

The presentation was a prop, a thin veneer of plausible deniability that was dissolving with every second he spent not moving away.

The tension was a live wire, humming between the press of his front and your back, in the scant millimeter of air separating his cheek from yours.

You let him. You leaned back, just a fraction, until your shoulder blades brushed against the solid wall of his chest. A silent permission. A surrender to the game.

He went utterly still for a heartbeat. Then, his voice dropped even lower, losing all pretense of discussing marketing strategies. “And this slide…” he whispered, his lips now dangerously close to the shell of your ear as he clicked again, bringing up a pie chart, “… is where I usually lose people’s attention.”

You turned your head slightly, your nose almost skimming his jaw. “Is that so?”

“Mhm.” He didn’t look at the screen. He was looking at you, his blue eyes dark and focused solely on your face, on your lips. “They tend to get… distracted by other things.”

The pretense was gone. The presentation was forgotten on the screen, casting a pale blue light over the two of you, frozen in the intimate darkness of his room. The only sound was the quiet whir of his laptop fan and the thunderous rush of your own blood in your ears.

His hand left the trackpad and came to rest on the desk beside your hip, his fingers splayed. He wasn’t hovering anymore. He was holding himself there, a question in the tension of his body, in the heat of his gaze.

“Maybe,” you said, the word barely more than an exhale, “you should work on making your content more engaging.”

A slow, devastating smile touched his lips. “Yeah,” he breathed, his eyes dropping to your mouth. “I’m working on it.”

You didn’t want to give in. Not yet. You wanted to stretch this moment, this delicious, aching tension, until it sang.

So you bit your lower lip, a slow, deliberate gesture you knew he was watching. You felt the sharp intake of his breath against your ear. “Oh really?” you murmured, your voice laced with a skepticism you didn’t feel.

“And how exactly are you planning to do that?”

A low, rough sound escaped him, not quite a laugh. “Less talking, for starters.”

Then his hands were on your face, his touch impossibly gentle, cradling your cheeks as if you were something fragile and precious.

The first kiss was a soft press of his lips against yours. It was gentle, achingly so, a stark contrast to the hungry tension that had built between you all night.

The softness of his mouth, the faint taste of mint and the night air, the way his breath hitched as you kissed him back, your lips moving tentatively against his.

And you couldn’t help it. A smile bloomed against his mouth, a helpless, joyous curve you couldn’t suppress. He felt it and kissed the smile, his own lips curving in response.

Your hands, which had been hovering nervously, found their purpose. They slid from his waist, your fingers seeking the warmth of his skin under the hem of his white linen shirt, skating over the taut, smooth plane of his lower back. He shuddered at the contact, a full-body tremor you felt against your front, and his kiss turned hungrier, more insistent.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Luna.

Cause this was perfect: his gentle hands on your face became one tangled in your hair, angling your head to deepen the kiss, while the other slid down, his palm a hot brand through your top as it traveled the curve of your spine.

Your own exploration grew bolder, your hands mapping the muscles of his back, pulling him closer until not a sliver of light could exist between you. You rose onto your toes, your arms looping around his neck, your fingers burying themselves in the soft, chaotic curls at his nape.

Kiss after kiss, you just couldn’t stop.

It was as if you’d been starved for the taste of him, for the feel of his mouth moving over yours with a slow, devastating patience that belied the hunger thrumming beneath the surface.

His lips were addictively soft, slightly pouty, and they chased yours with a devotion that made your head spin.

When you broke for a gasping breath, he’d murmur something unintelligible and sweet against your cheek before finding your mouth again, as if being apart for even a second was a minor agony.

The pace was still slow, a torturous, beautiful build. This wasn’t a frantic race; it was a savoring. His hands learned you. One remained tangled in your hair, his grip firm but not demanding, while the other journeyed down your side, over the dip of your waist, coming to rest with a possessive, gentle weight on the curve of your ass. He squeezed softly, pulling you flush against him, and you felt the hard, undeniable evidence of his desire press into your stomach.

A sharp, involuntary hiss escaped you, stolen directly from your lips to his. It was a sound of pure, overwhelmed sensation. He swallowed the sound, his kiss turning hotter, wetter, his tongue sliding against yours in a slow, claiming stroke that had your knees buckling. He held you up effortlessly, his arm banding around your waist, his hand still cupping you, holding you to him as if he could fuse you together.

You were devouring each other. His mouth was a drug, and you were already addicted, chasing the high of each deep, searching kiss. Your hands slid from his shoulders down the powerful lines of his arms, feeling the corded strength there, before gripping his biceps to anchor yourself in the whirlpool of sensation. His lips trailed from your mouth to your jaw, down the sensitive column of your throat, his teeth scraping lightly, making you arch into him with a broken moan.

“Lando,” you breathed, the name a plea and a prayer.

He answered by capturing your mouth again, his kiss now a potent mix of that initial tenderness and a raw, gathering need.

His pouty lips were always searching, always returning, as if the very idea of not kissing you was incomprehensible.

He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged. The blue light from the laptop screen painted the sharp planes of his face in stark relief, his long lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.

“Tell me,” he whispered, his voice gravelly and raw, a stark contrast to the gentle hold he still had on your face. His thumbs stroked your cheeks. “Tell me if I’m rushing this. If this is… too much.”

You shook your head, the motion brushing your nose against his. “You’re not,” you breathed, the words fervent. “You’re not rushing anything.”

He opened his eyes, searching yours, the playful confidence from earlier replaced by a vulnerable, sober intensity. “You’re sure? We both had… a few drinks. I just need to know you’re—”

You silenced him with another soft, lingering kiss, pouring every ounce of your certainty into it. When you pulled away, you kept your eyes locked on his.

“ I’ve sobered up” you promised with a smile, trying to reassure him.

“Okay, you sure?”

“Yeah, I promise”

He let out a long, shaky breath, his shoulders relaxing. He pressed his forehead back against yours, his eyes closing for a second. “Okay. Good. That’s… good.” He opened his eyes, the blue of them almost black in the dim light. “But listen. Any minute. You change your mind, you just say it. We stop. You have the reins, yeah?”

You nodded, your throat too tight with a sudden, overwhelming surge of emotion to speak.

Who was this boy?

The tenderness was so raw, so genuine, it felt like a secret side of him he kept locked away from the parties and the crowds. And he was giving it to you.

Months of imagining what it might be like to just have a real conversation with him. And now you were in his arms, his taste on your tongue, his heart pounding against yours. You were not going to waste a single second of this surreal, perfect reality.

This wasn't a drunk hookup. This was the culmination of every stolen glance, every shared laugh, every charged moment of tension that had simmered between you for months, finally boiling over in the quiet sanctuary of his room.

A new, confident smile touched your lips, born of that certainty. Your hands, which had been resting on his chest, slid lower. Your fingers found the first button of his white linen shirt and tou slipped it free. Then the next. Your movements were slow, deliberate, your eyes locked on his as you revealed more of the smooth, warm skin of his chest, the defined lines of his stomach.

His breath caught, his hands flexing in your hair. He watched your progress, his gaze heavy-lidded and full of a reverent heat. When your fingers reached the last button, you pushed the shirt open, letting your palms flatten against the hard planes of his torso.

“Your turn,” you murmured, your voice husky.

A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. In one smooth, effortless motion, his hands gripped your thighs and he lifted you, setting you down on the edge of his sturdy wooden desk. The surface was cool and solid against the backs of your thighs. He stepped immediately between your legs, his hands coming to rest on the desk on either side of your hips, caging you in. The new position brought him flush against your core, even through your clothes, and you gasped, instinctively wrapping your legs around his waist to pull him closer.

He didn’t need to be asked twice. His hands slid down your neck, over your shoulders, coming to rest on the laces of your corset top at your back. His fingers traced the intricate pattern, his touch sending shivers down your spine.

“Yeah? Can I?” he asked, his voice a rough scrape against your ear. His breath was warm on your neck.

A breathless laugh escaped you. “Please.”

He grinned against your skin, a flash of that familiar, playful Lando, and began to work at the knots and laces with a surprising dexterity. It was a slow, intimate process, his knuckles brushing your spine with every pull. There was a moment of fumbling, a tangled loop that made him mutter a quiet curse, and you both dissolved into soft, shared laughter, your foreheads pressed together. The sound was light and giddy, cutting through the heavy tension, making it feel real, human, and even more precious.

“Need a hand?” you teased, your fingers joining his at the small of your back.

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” he insisted, his voice laced with mock indignation, and finally, with a last gentle tug, the corset loosened. He peeled it away from your body, letting it fall to the floor in a silken heap. The cool air of the room hit your skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat of his gaze as it swept over you, clad now only in your simple bra and shorts. His eyes were wide, almost awestruck.

“Fuck,” he breathed, the word full of reverence.

He kissed you deeply then, his tongue sweeping into your mouth as one hand came up to cradle the back of your head, the other roaming down your back. He found the clasp of your bra and unfastened it with practiced ease. The straps fell away, and he broke the kiss only to pull the garment off completely, letting it drop from his fingers. A low groan rumbled in his chest as his eyes drank in the sight of you, bare from the waist up, leaning back on your hands on his desk.

With his eyes locked in yours, he bent his head, his mouth finding one peaked nipple, then the other, his tongue laving, his teeth grazing with just the right amount of pressure. You cried out, your fingers tangling in his soft curls, holding him to you as shocks of pleasure radiated outwards, making you tighten your legs around him.

You were panting into his mouth, your own hands exploring the hard muscles of his back, the curve of his ass, learning the feel of him as he moved against you, a slow, agonizingly good rhythm of his hips that had you seeing stars.

Your own hands were busy, pushing at the waistband of his jeans, fumbling with the button. He helped you, his fingers covering yours for a second before he shucked them and his boxers down in one hurried motion, kicking them away. The air was cool against his skin, and yours. Then his hands were on the button of your shorts, but he paused, his eyes lifting from between your thighs to meet yours. In the pale blue light, his gaze was a storm of desire, but beneath it, that unwavering thread of care.

“You’re sure?” he whispered, his voice so raw it was almost painful. His thumbs stroked the skin just above your hip bones. “Tell me again. I need to hear it.”

“Positive, I’m sure Lando” you breathed, the truth of it ringing in every syllable.

A shudder of relief, of pure, unadulterated want, racked his frame. He leaned forward, capturing your mouth in a kiss that was less a kiss and more like a vow: deep, consuming, and endlessly tender. As he kissed you, his arms slid under your knees and around your back. In one fluid, effortless motion, he lifted you from the desk, cradling you against his chest. You wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing him back, lost in the taste of him, in the solid strength of him holding you.

He carried you the few short steps to his bed, never breaking the kiss, and laid you down gently in the center of the rumpled duvet. The world tilted, the cool cotton of his sheets a shock against your heated skin. He followed you down, kneeling on the bed, his other hand sliding down your body. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of your shorts and the panties beneath them, and with a single, slow pull, he stripped them from your legs, tossing them aside without a second glance.

Now you were completely bare, and he was there, between your legs, looking down at you

Every drop of beer from the pong table, every faint buzz of tequila, had evaporated from your system at this point, burned away by the intensity of your connection on the porch. In this moment, you felt nothing but a crystalline clarity settling over you. There was no haze, no filter. This was stark, breathtaking reality.

He was naked before you, kneeling on the bed, the muscles of his thighs and abdomen taut. His gaze was a physical weight, traveling from your face, down your body, with a reverence that made your heart ache. He reached down, his hand wrapping around the hard, thick length of himself, giving a slow, deliberate stroke.

The sight was so intensely erotic, so vulnerably real, it stole the breath from your lungs. The pale light from the window caught the movement, the definition of his body, the focused intensity on his face.

This was it.

This was Lando Norris, the boy you’d watched from afar for months, the man you’d discovered in small bits after a beer pong tournament , completely exposed and wanting you. The chemistry that had crackled between you since the first time your eyes met across a crowded room was now a tangible, living thing in the quiet space between your bodies.

It was in the way he looked at you: not with conquest, but with awe.

It was in the way your body arched toward him of its own volition, an ancient, undeniable pull.

It was in the profound silence, louder than any music from the party below, screaming that this was concrete. This was real. This was the beginning of something that had been waiting to happen all along.

You reached for him, “Come here,” you whispered, your voice steady despite the thunder of your heart.

A slow, devastating smile touched his lips and he leaned over you, bracing his weight on his arms, his body hovering just above yours, not touching, letting the heat radiate between you.

He lowered his head, but not to your mouth. His lips trailed a scorching path down the column of your throat, over the frantic pulse at the base, down the center of your chest. He took a moment to lavish attention on each breast, his tongue swirling around a nipple before drawing it deep into the heat of his mouth, sucking gently until you cried out, your back bowing off the bed. He soothed the sting with a soft kiss, his eyes flicking up to watch your face, a dark, pleased glint in them.

“You’re so responsive,” he murmured, his voice a rough caress against your damp skin. “I love it”

His journey continued south, kisses peppered along your trembling stomach, his hands smoothing over your hips, holding you down with a gentle firmness as you arched into his touch. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of your panties—the last scrap of fabric separating you—and looked up at you, his blue eyes dark as a midnight sky, a silent question burning in them.

You answered by lifting your hips, a wordless, desperate plea. He smiled against your skin, a soft, wicked thing, and drew the lace down your legs, discarding them with a finality that made your stomach flip.

Then he settled between your thighs, his hands spreading you open for him. The first touch of his breath against your most intimate skin was a lightning strike. You jolted, a sharp gasp tearing from your throat. He looked up the length of your body, his gaze locking with yours, holding you captive.

“… and so beautiful,” he murmured, the words a warm vibration against you. “All for me.”

And then he tasted you.

Oh, dear lord.

It wasn’t a tentative flick or an experimental probe. It was a deep, languid, knowing stroke of his tongue from your entrance all the way up to your clit, slow and thorough, as if he was committing your flavor to memory. A broken, guttural sound you didn’t recognize erupted from you, your head thrashing back against the pillows.

“Oh, fuck… Lando.”

He hummed in approval, the sensation making your legs shake. And then he set to work with a focused, devastating expertise that completely dismantled you. There was no frantic race to an end. He explored you with a patient, rapturous intensity, learning what made you gasp, what made your back bow off the bed, what made you sob his name into the quiet room.

His tongue was a wicked, clever instrument. He licked broad, flat strokes that had you moaning, then focused into tight, relentless circles around your clit that had you seeing stars. He would suck gently, then soothe with soft presses of his lips, alternating patterns until you were a trembling, pleading mess beneath him.

He’d hold you down with a firm, gentle hand on your stomach, his other hand coming up to knead and palm your breast, his thumb brushing your nipple in time with the strokes of his tongue.

Lando Norris was eating you out. Properly going down on you in his bedroom. And he was devastatingly good at it.

“So good,” he muttered against you, his words muffled but clear, hot puffs of air making you shiver. “Taste so fucking good.”

The dirty words, whispered against your most sensitive flesh while he devoured you, sent a fresh wave of heat crashing through you. You were moaning constantly now, a stream of breathless, helpless sounds: his name, yes, please, oh god, oh fuck. And you couldn’t stay still either: your hips rolled, seeking more, deeper, more.

“Easy, baby,” he murmured, lifting his head just enough to speak. He gave your hip a light, playful slap.

You whimpered, trying to obey, but another expert swirl of his tongue had you bucking again. He chuckled, the sound a low, wicked vibration that you felt everywhere. He actually giggled against your cunt, the boyish, delighted sound so at odds with the intensely erotic act that it somehow made it even hotter.

“You just can’t help it, can you?” he teased, his breath fanning over your wetness. “So eager for my tongue, yeah?” Then he dove back in with renewed fervor, his tongue spearing into you before returning to lavish attention on your clit with relentless, circling pressure.

His tongue was a maestro, conducting your body to a symphony of gasps and shudders. You were so close, teetering on the very edge, your entire world narrowed to the wet, insistent heat of his mouth, the scrape of his stubble on your inner thighs, the delicious pressure building to an unbearable peak.

“Lando… please, I’m right there…” You begged, your voice a shattered whisper.

He hummed in response, the vibration pushing you even closer. You felt the climax gathering, a tidal wave about to crash—

And then he stopped.

He lifted his head, leaving you achingly empty, throbbing and aching with unmet need. A broken, frustrated cry escaped your lips. You were panting, your body arched and trembling, suspended in agonizing anticipation.

Before you could protest, he was crawling up your body, his weight settling over you. His lips, slick and warm from you, found yours in a deep, claiming kiss and you could taste yourself on his tongue.

Hot.

He settled more fully between your legs, the hard, hot length of him grinding against your sensitive, soaked core. The friction was maddening, a teasing promise. You wrapped your legs around his waist, locking your ankles at the small of his back, pulling him tighter against you. You could feel every inch of him, and you rocked your hips, seeking more of that delicious pressure.

“Fuck, you feel incredible,” he rasped against your lips.

You kissed him back, all teeth and tongue, your hands roaming the sweat-slick planes of his back, clutching him to you. You never wanted this feeling to end: the weight of him, the heat, the raw, unfiltered connection.

With a final, searing kiss, he braced himself on one arm and stretched towards his bedside table. You heard the drawer open, the rustle of foil. He pulled back, a small, square packet held between his fingers. His eyes, dark and blown with desire, held yours.

“Put it on.”

The command, delivered in that rough, needy tone, sent a fresh jolt of heat straight to your core. Your hands, which had been clutching his shoulders, trembled slightly as you took the condom from him. You tore the foil with your teeth, the sound loud in the quiet room. He watched you, his gaze intense, his breathing ragged as you carefully rolled the latex down the thick, hard length of him. Your touch was deliberate, your fingers smoothing it into place, and he hissed through clenched teeth, his hips giving an involuntary jerk.

Once he was sheathed, you slid your hands back up to cup his face, pulling him down for another kiss.

He pulled away slowly, his eyes searching yours one last time. You nodded, wordless, your answer in the way you arched beneath him, in the way your legs tightened around him, pulling him closer.

“Okay,” he whispered, laughing a little. “Okay.”

He positioned himself at your entrance, the broad head of him nudging against you. He paused, letting you feel the pressure, the imminent breach. Then, with a slow, controlled push, he began to sink into you.

And Lord have mercy.

The feeling was exquisite: a perfect, stretching fullness that stole the air from your lungs. He moved with infinite patience, inch by breathtaking inch, giving your body time to adjust, to welcome him. Your eyes locked on his, and in the blue depths, you saw the same awe, the same staggering reality reflected back at you.

When he was fully buried to the hilt, he stilled, both of you trembling with the intensity of the connection. He was everywhere, surrounding you, filling you completely.

“Oh, god,” you breathed, the words a reverent exhale. “You’re big”

"Yeah?" A low, rough groan vibrated in his chest, a sound of pure male satisfaction and strained control. “You can take it”, he whispered against your lips, his voice a gravelly rasp.

He began to move.

The first withdrawal was a slow, deliberate drag that made you whimper, the sensation of him filling you again even more intense. He set a pace that was deep and measured, not frantic, each thrust a deliberate claiming of the space he’d found within you. It was a rhythm that spoke of a desire to savor, to feel every single inch of the connection. The stretch was profound, a perfect, aching fullness that had your inner muscles fluttering around him in shocked, involuntary clenches.

“Fuck,” he hissed, his forehead dropping to yours, his rhythm faltering for a second at the sensation. “If you keep squeezing me like that… Christ baby, we not gonna last…”

You could only moan in response, a high, breathy sound that was swallowed by his mouth as he kissed you again, deep and messy. Your hands scrambled for purchase on the sweat-slick skin of his back, your nails digging into the hard muscle there. You were clinging to him, your anchor in the rising tide of sensation.

He shifted his weight, bracing himself on his forearms on either side of your head and sinking his knees into the mattress, and the new angle drove him even deeper. A sharp, gasping cry was torn from you. “There… oh, god, Lando, right there…”

He zeroed in on that spot with the focus of a racer finding the perfect line.

His thrusts became more purposeful, each one grinding against that delicious, sensitive place inside you that made your vision blur at the edges. The slow, savoring pace began to quicken, fueled by your desperate moans and the way your body arched to meet his every move.

The room filled with the sounds of you: the wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin, the creak of the bedframe, your ragged, pleading whines, his guttural, punched-out groans. You were a chorus of need.

One of his hands slid from the mattress to tangle in your hair, not pulling, just holding, his fingers massaging your scalp. The other hand roamed down your side, over the curve of your hip, gripping your thigh and hiking it higher around his waist, opening you up to him even more.

“That’s it, baby,” he panted into your ear, his breath hot and ragged. “You’re so tight… fucking heaven.”

The dirty praise, growled directly into your ear while he moved inside you with such devastating precision, unraveled you further. You turned your head, seeking his mouth, and he kissed you hungrily, swallowing your moans. When you broke for air, you buried your face in the sweaty crook of his neck, your lips against his skin.

“Don’t stop,” you begged, your voice muffled against him. “Please Lando, don’t stop.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he grunted, his thrusts gaining a new intensity, a building ferocity that spoke of his own control beginning to fray. His hips snapped against yours, the force driving you up the mattress. You wrapped your legs tighter around him, locking your ankles, trying to pull him deeper with every plunge.

“You like that?” he rasped, his voice shredded. “Like it a little rough, baby? Tell me.”

“Yes,” you sobbed, your body coiling tighter and tighter, a spring wound to its absolute limit. “Yes, Lando, just like that… fuck…”

He was relentless. He fucked you through the building storm of your orgasm, his pace never faltering, his words a continuous, filthy stream of encouragement and awe. “I can feel you getting so close, squeezing me so fucking good… Come baby, let go for me”

It was the command in his voice, the perfect, punishing friction of him hitting that spot over and over, and the overwhelming reality of him pouring all of his focus into wrecking you, that finally shattered your last shred of control.

The climax detonated without warning, a supernova of pleasure that ripped through every nerve ending. You screamed, a raw, broken sound, as your body convulsed around him, wave after wave of blinding ecstasy tearing through you. Your back arched off the bed, your fingers digging into his skin so hard you knew you’d leave marks, your inner muscles clamping down on him in rhythmic, milking pulses.

“That’s it… fuck, yes… god, yes…” he chanted, his own rhythm becoming erratic, brutal, as he was pushed over the edge by the violent clutch of your body. With a final, deep, grinding thrust that buried him to the root, he stilled, a harsh, guttural cry tearing from his throat as he found his own release.

Fucking wow.

For long moments, there was only the sound of ragged breathing, the frantic hammering of two hearts slowing into sync. He collapsed onto you, his full weight a welcome, grounding pressure, his face buried in your neck. You could feel the rapid flutter of his pulse against your chest, the sweat cooling on both your skins.

Slowly, carefully, he rolled to the side, taking you with him so you were curled against his chest. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead, then your lips, his touch now tender, reverent again.

“Okay?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and wrecked.

You could only nod, nuzzling into his chest, your body humming with a bone-deep satisfaction. You were utterly spent, every muscle liquid, your mind blissfully blank. The stretch and ache between your legs was a perfect, cherished souvenir.

You were blissfully fucked out. By Lando Norris.

He held you close, one hand stroking lazy patterns up and down your spine. The pale morning light had grown stronger, painting the room in shades of gold and gray. Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed, and the distant sound of a vacuum cleaner started up: the real world beginning its Sunday morning resurrection.

“Well,” he said, the single word heavy with implication. “Thank you Luna, I guess?”