Please.

hear me out… virgin!könig whos so used to fucking his fist so the minute he tastes his gfs pussy he cums.. -🐶

he’d been begging to eat you out for a while, growing frustrated with your insistence to take things slow. he’d even practiced on his worn out little fleshlight countless times, imagining how he was going to rock your world and have you seeing stars with his tongue, surely skillful now that he watched so much porn surrounding the topic.

in reality, seeing your pretty, glistening pussy in person breaks his brain a little bit, and he suddenly forgets all of the long nights he spent training for this, your sweet voice attempting to talk him through it drowned out by the sound of his blood pumping in his ears. he gets overwhelmed by how good you smell, how soft you look, shaky hands gripping your thighs as he marvels at the sight in front of him. he hovers over your hot cunt for what feels like hours, just inspecting and playing around with all your wet folds and sensitive nerves with hesitant fingers like he’s figuring out a new toy— or trying to make a scientific discovery. his aching dick is left untouched, twitching and leaking in his pants.

meanwhile, you’re getting all worked up from the teasing, chest heaving and heart racing as you dip in and out of pleasure. you finally push his head down until he has no choice but to lick into you, his large nose bumping against your clit as he licks a stripe up your pussy, and immediately, he’s groaning out in a familiar, almost pained way.

“did you… did you just cum?”

he looks up at you all puppy dog-eyed and guilty. “i’m sorry, maus. you just… taste so good.”

Sometimes, girls just wanna have fun…

Picking at the flowers in her backyard, she softly hums with herself. Behind her there’s him, hiding in her shadow. This has been going on for years. And she refuses to acknowledge him.

Does she even know that he is there?

I can’t tell you, not now at least.

She plucks as many petals off her roses as possible. Her intention was to use them for an important spell: a love spell.

She had freed her long brownish wavy hair off the braid she had done the prior night, on the full moon. In fact, this morning, she woke up determined; she stretched her body as usual, ate her breakfast, read her grimoire while petting her sweet cat’s head and searching for the right spell of the day. Putting on a soft pinkish dress might I say: in a very mischievous way, she got out on her garden. And began plotting her plan.

He was intently watching her every move. He was waiting for her to finally notice him, not knowing that she was very much aware of his presence and his intentions towards her and for that, she was precisely doing a spell to make him vulnerable to her. He was entirely oblivious to what was going to happen. Poor Ares… he was going to fall right in her trap…

Getting all the ingredients, she stays in front of the mirror and starts enchanting…

She turns her head to the side and stares at a corner of the room. “Ares.” she lightly whispers.

He hears his name coming out of her mouth and unknowingly comes out of his hiding spot. “Angel…” he mutters in response.

She sweetly smiles at him and softly says “I missed you, Ares.”

His eyes widened and he sighs “I missed you, my Queen.”

She slowly gets up from her chair and goes near to his chest. She wraps her arms around his neck and sweetly looks at him directly in his eyes.

He looks down at her and hesitantly raises his hands to her hips. And softly sighs.

He was as enchanted as she was with him.

Fairly enough, this is what happens between a sweet witch and a God when they’re in love.

She’s a Tiger [Tony Montana x Reader 18+ Smut] Oneshot.

Read on AO3.

18+, explicit smut oneshot.

“I like to look at what’s mine, baby.” / “You want it that badly and rough, huh?”

Loyalty, money and trust are the only three principles Tony's revered since the attempt on his life at his estate and his divorce with Elvira. Meeting you amidst his new business deals, what you and Tony have had with one another behind closed doors is anything but innocent. Tony wanted you the moment he saw you and decided nothing would get in his way. Being able to spend as much time as you wanted with Tony while on business, both of your sexual desires matched into a three year sexual relationship with Tony's intention to go further with you. As the new owner of The Babylon Club, you've never shied away from a good time and as Tony's made excuses to come and see you time and time again, tonight he takes you back to your estate and gives you a rough night in that you've been begging for.

[WARNINGS]: Drinking/alcohol consumption / Wine play / Mentions of drugs / Heavy touching and teasing / Dirty talk / Rough sex / Spanking / Rough face and hair grabbing / Rough oral sex / Rimming / Slapping / Orgasm edging / Spit play / Fingering.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE]: My first Tony Montana x Reader (smut 😛) oneshot is finally here!! I promise you all it was well worth the wait. 🥵 The smut in this fic revolves around rough smut, so please make sure you check out the warnings. 🙏🏻 If you know my writing style, you know I can't stand reading "Y/N" or "reader", so the reader in this oneshot is named Celeste. ✨ Multi-chapter fic coming when...!? We'll have to see! 👀 All I have to say is until then, enjoy one smutty night in with rough Tony in bed sharing a bottle of wine. 🥴🔥

[ Babylon Club, 1:00 AM ]

Tony’s no stranger to the Babylon Club and its flashing lights, crowds of sweaty people dancing, pop and techno music blaring over the speakers while exotic cocktails and bottles of wine easily costing somebody’s monthly paycheque are served by the dozen.

Sights such as cocktail waitresses talking up customers at the front of the bar, patrons snorting cocaine off their credit cards in the bathrooms, bouncers keeping watch, and hookups in the corner are just the ordinary as Tony and Manny remain surrounded by the carefree and upbeat aura of the Babylon Club.

That’s the way it’s been for you just as it has for anyone else. The Babylon Club makes you millions a month; a truth Tony, Manny, and your father both know.

What your father doesn’t know is that you’ve been fucking his favorite Miami drug lord almost as long as the two have known one another and worked with each other. 

Tony hit his own private jackpot with Manny knowing he couldn’t even get a share of the big money working for street rats like Frank Lopez. 

Playing it big and making it big as Tony’s new motto after he and Manny singlehandedly took down every one of Sosa’s assassins sent to his estate which in itself sent out a dangerous method to anyone who had their eyes on Tony Montana.

Tony Montana isn’t a threat to be taken lightly. Tony Montana isn’t to be fucked with. Tony Montana isn’t your average Joe smuggling powder out on the street and neither is anybody acquainted with him. Tony Montana is the man with the money and the power—two traits your father valued in a business partner.

Born and raised in Miami, Florida coming from money and knowing money, your father owns every major hotel, casino, and resort in the entire state with a monopoly over the tourism industry. 

Being an only child and his only daughter, you’ve always been one to manage and help out in your line of the family business now working with Montana Management Company to launder drug money and sell cocaine in Miami. 

Tony’s now been under this business for three years with mutual trust and liking for your father—getting along with him and especially you on a personal level whether it's business talks or simply sharing a drink at the club. The big life has paid off for both Tony and Manny indefinitely.

As your own investment and as a birthday present, your father bought the Babylon Club and registered it under your name three years ago, even when Frank and Elvira were regular patrons at the time.

Tony and Manny have always been entitled to free drinks and service at the Babylon, but Tony’s never shied away from giving luxurious tips knowing just to who the club belongs.

When your father decided to meet with Tony and discuss the opportunity to do business with him for the first time three years ago, that was also the day you met Tony for yourself.

~

[ 3 Years Ago ]

“In all honesty,” your father glanced down at the endless array of numbers printed over a financial statement before he shook his head. “These numbers mean nothing to me. Your name is enough.”

“Who told ya first?” Tony took a puff of his Cuban cigar, completely and utterly relaxed in front of your father as compared to the formal and upright sitting Manny to his side. “That cockroach Sosa or Lopez?”

“Lopez, to be honest with you.” Your father chuckled and set the paper down. “Sosa choked on his own blood before I could even get a word out of him.”

“So now you know.” Manny gave a grin, “that says enough for us. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” Your father repeated with a small scoff as he raised his cocktail glass up to his lips. “I think you’re either a smart businessman or a dead businessman, so,” taking a large sip, your father set his drink back down. “I’m gonna take advantage of what those two bastards lost out on.”

Just then, you knocked on the door of your father’s office lightly enough to be heard but not to interrupt his conversation—carrying a suitcase in your free hand.

“Ah, come in.” Your father’s attention peaked, expecting you. “There she is now.”

You turned the doorknob and pushed open the door, aware you were a little over five minutes late to the meeting but only because of what you were carrying with you.

Tony turned his head towards the door in surprise, expecting no further company, especially from a “she”, whereas Manny kept his attention focused on the banking statements scattered over your father’s office desk.

You knew your father had been meeting with two new businessmen today and you were one of the first to see them escorted inside with security. 

You neither knew the businessmen’s names nor saw their faces properly but if it’s one thing that caught your eye and almost caused you to do a doubletake as you came to approach your father, it was locking eyes with Tony Montana.

From the moment that you had walked in carrying the suitcase close to you, the man with the short cut, choppy hair and pinstripe blue suit worn with a carefreeness to reveal the gold necklaces over a peek of his chest hair, had caught your attention instantly.

Feeling a tingle of arousal from the quick attraction, you forced your eyes off of Tony as quickly as you had put them on him and walked up to your father with the suitcase. “Everything’s all settled, dad.”

‘Dad?’ Tony thought to himself and let his greedy eyes dart over every inch of your body in the flowing, white summer dress that hugged over your curves.

“Ah, perfect. Thanks, darling.” Your father gave you a warm smile, gesturing to the middle of his table. “Please set it down here—I wanna show our newest partners what they’ve been itching for since they got here.”

While Manny politely looked up to acknowledge your presence now in the room, Tony was all the more amused to see his newest and wealthiest business partner had a daughter just as cunning as him and a part of the business. 

“Tony, Manny,” your father looked back at the two, beginning to introduce them to you. “This is my daughter. You’ll see she’s no different from you and me in our little operation. She owns the Babylon Club under our family name. Honey,” your father first pointed at Manny, “Manny Ribera,” then to Tony, whom you couldn’t help but catch his gaze over you, “and Tony Montana.”

“Mm, nice to meet you.” Purposefully, you extended your hand out to Manny to shake his first.

“Nice to meet you too.” Manny gave you his signature, charming smile.

“Babylon Club, huh?” Tony didn’t bother with introductions as he firmly shook your hand. “Think I’ve seen you there a few times before.”

Curiosity sparks in your eyes. “Haven’t seen you around before, Mr. Montana.”

“I’ll come ‘round more often then,” Tony smirked, causing your father and Manny to chuckle as you both began to pull your hands back from each other. 

Although you could pinpoint the exact moment you found yourself attracted to this Tony Montana figure as when you first walked into your father’s office, it was another thing entirely to feel his firm hand squeezing over yours and knowing just who you were meeting.

“I look forward to it then.” You told him.

The scent of Tony’s expensive cologne hit you first, and the gold adorning his collarbones, the unbuttoned dress shirt Tony was wearing and the look of confident boldness over his expression only confirmed how sexy you found this man. Even with Tony’s entrance to your father’s manor, you could tell he carried himself like he took no shit from anybody and owned the place. 

“You can call me Tony.” Tony grazed his tongue over his lips and wet them without taking his eyes off of you. “What do you call yourself?”

Tony’s eyes must have admired every inch of your body from your clothes to your eyes, the shape of your breasts, your thighs, your ass down to the natural posture your body was in. 

Seeing and knowing for himself that you were just as confident as he is in your words and actions—that you weren’t a nobody—turned Tony on even more. 

The Babylon Club would now just be an excuse for Tony to drop by with or without Manny to see you time and time again, and that was an advantage Tony wouldn’t be giving up. 

The gold over Tony’s slender fingers glistened underneath the bright lights in your father’s office and emphasized all the more that Tony was clearly giving it away to you right away that he was attracted to you.

Manny already felt the second-hand embarrassment from how Tony was coming off to you with his facial expression alone—something he would tease Tony about later without a doubt.

After telling Tony your name, you took your seat next to your father across from Tony and Manny. 

It was then that your father gestured back to the suitcase you had brought in and his security approached from the other end of the room to open it up in front of Tony and Manny.

The suitcase popped open to reveal three million dollars in cash, neatly stacked and organized inside. 

Your father rose from his seat with an amused look over his eyes as he picked up a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from it and gave it a wave. “Three million is nothing, this is daily cash. This is the very least of what we’ll all be making a day.”

“That’s all I wanna see, man.” Tony grinned and put his cigar loosely in the corner of his mouth. “I like that.”

“We’ll make a boatload more then.” Your father laughed, tossing the stack in his hand to Tony who immediately caught it midair. “So then you know my answer to both of you is crystal clear today.”

“That is is,” Manny said with a smile. “We’re partners?”

“Without a doubt, we’re partners.” Your father sealed the deal by shaking hands with Tony Montana and Manny Ribera that day three years ago.

Having become official business partners, you knew to yourself back then that this was the first time you’d seen and gotten to know Tony Montana, but it certainly wouldn’t be your last—especially if your own desire could help it.

~

[ Present Day, 1985, Babylon Club ]

She’s on Fire blasts through the speakers of the Babylon Club, bringing nothing but the familiar sight of sweaty crowds drunk on cocktails and grinding up against one another through dance moves.

Tony and Manny sit in their back, private booth specially reserved for their every visit, smoking a cigar over five hundred dollars worth of 1964, vintage red wine. 

Tony remains just as distracted as Manny, now used to the loud blaring music above him as he puffs his cigar and gazes off towards the dancefloor. 

Already enjoying the luxury, familiarity, and comfort the Babylon Club has to offer, Tony wouldn’t want to spend the rest of his Friday evening after a full day of business everywhere else—but it’s your presence in the nightclub and only that which Tony gives a shit about.

Tony’s night is coming to an end but only with you, knowing he’s to pick you up tonight and return you to your father’s estate while he’s still away on business in Las Vegas for the time being.

Manny relaxes his muscles against the leather seats of the booth, letting out a relieved sigh and staring at his fingers clasped around his glass of wine. “Man, thought my fingers were gonna fall off today man. Count, count, count…”

“Get used to it.” Tony reverts his gaze to Manny. “You countin’ the big bucks now.”

“We got machines to do that for us, man.” Manny chuckles, sipping his wine. “They count that shit, then you make us count it twice.”

“The boss like his money exact.” Tony’s cigar loosely rests in the corner of his mouth. “And so do I.”

“Yeah?” Manny exhales, swallowing down his wine. “How much we takin’ home tonight, eh?”

“Ten.” Tony inches his wineglass closer to him over the table. “Each.”

“Shiiiiiit,” Manny grins, unable to hide his enthusiasm through his body language. “Damn right, baby. Oh, I could get used to this. Beats washin’ dishes any day for me.”

“Let the world think we still doing that.” Tony takes a long drag of his cigar. “I ain’t hungry anymore.”

“Got a million reasons to make mama proud now.” Manny holds up his wineglass, “and that girl of yours, eh?”

“My girl,” Tony repeats, a little stunned by Manny’s suggestive comment knowing he’s referring to you, but it’s only then that Tony easily discerns you out of the crowd of other girls you dance by.

Sitting upright in his seat, Tony locks eyes with the way your hips sway back and forth to the beat of the music. 

Carefree and lost within the music’s rhythm, you dance in a group with others, solely focused on enjoying yourself and unaware Tony’s eyes are on you from afar.

Ignoring the flashy sequin dresses of the girls dancing next to you and with you, Tony keeps his eyes focused only on you—drowning out the rest of his surroundings.

Manny’s already rambling on about buying a new sportscar he’s had his eyes on for the last little while, but as Tony’s greedy eyes wander over your body, all he sees and wants to see is that skin-tight, little black dress hugging every curve of your body.

The mini dress you’re wearing tonight has a lace-up feature on both sides that you’ve tied up to tighten your dress further over your thighs—revealing a sexy peek of skin through the laces with your back entirely exposed from the halter top style dress.

Wearing fishnet socks and finishing off your look for tonight with a pair of shiny black pumps, a surge of arousal hits Tony as he gets a perfect view of you dancing from where he and Manny sit.

Tony knows he’s to be taking you home tonight, but all he wants to do is relax back and watch you dance before him all night; it’s no surprise to Tony yet again how sexy he finds you.

Still ignoring Manny whose under the impression Tony’s actually listening to him, Tony watches you throw your head back in laughter, spinning around in a dance.

Tony’s eyes immediately land on your ass just as his imagination wanders to how he’d approach you on the dancefloor; his cigar in the corner of his mouth as he grinds up against your body in dance and gives your ass a firm squeeze.

From the peek of skin showing through the laced-up sides of your dress, Tony already wants to slip his fingers through and teasingly feel at you. 

Tony knows he’d have to fight the urge to pull off the ties and strip you down, but if anything he could do so once you both leave the Babylon together. 

After all, both you and Tony know it wouldn’t be the first time he’s stripped you and down and fucked you—especially in the back of Tony’s car when he was far too impatient and horny to bother driving you home or to his place first.

“Ay—” Manny nudges Tony, realizing only a few minutes onto his sportscar ramble that Tony may not even be listening in the first place. “You listening to me, man?”

“Yeah.” Tony clears his throat, still sounding distracted as his eyes haven’t left you. 

“Oh yeah?” Manny shifts in his seat, taking a sip of his wine. “Then what I say, man?”

“I don’t know.” Tony mumbles, continuing to watch you dance. “Some bullshit about another car or some shit.”

“Oh man, you ain’t listening at all.” Manny groans out in annoyance. “What—Oh. Ohhhhh, man…” A playful grin spreads over Manny’s lips as he finds just where Tony’s eyes firmly remain—onto you over the dancefloor. “Okay now, I see what you’re up to.” 

Tony doesn’t answer Manny, almost ignoring him outright as he lets his eyes continue to wander over the shape of your thighs and ass. 

“You keep lookin’ at Celeste like that and she’s gonna see you creepin’ her, man.” Manny nudges Tony again with his elbow. 

“Shut up, man.” Tony elbows Manny back. “I’m not creepin’ her. You know we gotta take her home tonight, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Manny taps his fingers against the back of the wine bottle. “And when we gonna do that?”

Tony forces his eyes off of you for the first time in several minutes to glance over at Manny and the wine. “Now. You go get the car, park in the front. I gonna get her then we head out.”

“Alright, alright.” Manny grunts, stretching out his arms. “I’m taking this too, though.” He snatches up the wine bottle.

“You leaving the rest for Celeste.” Manny points a finger at the wine bottle clutched in Manny’s hand. “You drank too much of that shit.”

“I will, I will.” Manny laughs. “I’mma just put it in the car so you won’t forget. All you do is stare at her anyway, man.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’mma go down to her.” Tony puts out his cigar, setting it down over the table before rising out of his seat at the same time as Manny.

Manny steps out of the booth holding the bottle of wine like it’s his firstborn child while he manages to awkwardly get through the sweaty crowds before him.

Tony thinks you haven’t seen him yet or at least you won’t while he’s approaching the dancefloor with just how packed and crowded it is, but you’ve already spotted him from the corner of your eye since he’d been sitting and drinking with Manny earlier on in the evening.

Even with the flashing lights strobing through the dimly light nightclub and the fast rhythm of loud music playing from the overhead speakers, it only takes you another quick glance up to see Tony now making his way towards you.

Without breaking your own dancing pace, you continue to swerve your hips and dance, enjoying yourself with everyone else around you.

Tony’s awkward half shuffle half dance through the crowd causes an amused smile to break over your face as you giggle, already locking eyes with him.

Without a word said to each other, you move from side to side over to Tony and press your back against his chest, teasing him by grinding against his body as you dance.

The surge of arousal Tony’s become all too familiar with in your presence spikes through Tony again, turned on to no avail by the way you dance and how sexy Tony finds your confidence coming off you.

“Is the night ending so soon?” You reach your hand back, caressing Tony’s face behind your shoulder. 

“Only if you want it to be.” Tony grins, dancing with you. 

You twirl around over your heel, facing him directly. “Mhmm, and when exactly did you get here?”

“Didn’t notice?” Tony raises a brow, wrapping an arm around your waist.

“How could I?” You move in closer to him, running a hand through your hair. “You’ve seen what I’ve been doing all night, haven’t you?”

“I noticed you alright.” Tony’s eyes flicker from your breasts back up to your eyes. “Just like everyone in this room too.”

“They can watch if they want. I don’t care what they think.” You chuckle quietly, pressing your hips up to Tony’s. 

“Yeah, I came here ‘bout thirty minutes ago before I saw you dancin’ like this.” Tony gestures to your waist. “Got you a little treat for tonight—you like your red wine, huh?”

“Mhmm.” You hold your arms up, continuing to dance. “If that bottle will last with Manny. Where is he, anyway?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout Manny, baby. He out to get the car.” Tony places both hands over your hips, giving them a light squeeze.

“Baby?” You blush, already feeling a swarm of butterflies beginning to accompany your reaction.

“That’s what you are,” Tony says in your ear over the music, “always been. You like it when I call you that?”

“You know I do.” Your face flushes red as you clutch onto Tony’s shoulders. “You gonna tease me in here all night like that or take me home?”

“Depends.” Tony smirks, “I can keep Manny waiting a while longer, you know. When you dancin’ like this,” he bites his lip, holding himself back from slipping his fingers underneath the lacing detail of your dress, “gonna have me waitin’ all night.”

“Mhmm, I’m not stupid you know.” You let out a laugh, placing your hands over top of Tony’s on your hips. “I’ve seen you looking at me all night, Tony.”

“Good.” Tony’s eyes meet with yours. “I like to look at what’s mine, baby.”

‘Fuck...’ It’s all Tony needs to say to have your arousal matching his in an instant in front of everyone.

You feel Tony’s hand squeezing over your ass harshly. “And like this, why not?” His hands begin to feel the material of your dress. “Look at you—got a nice body, perfect thighs, ass, tits.”

“Yeah? What are you gonna do with it?” You challenge back teasingly.

“What am I gonna do with it?” Tony repeats, raising both of his brows. There’s that playful look shining in his eyes again. “I’mma take you home like I was told to do. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Fine by me.” You smirk, letting Tony guide you away from the dancefloor by your hips. “If Manny’s driving us home, I won’t even be looking at you twice in the car.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.” Tony grins playfully, moving past crowds with you. “Manny can be a nosy fuck when he wanna be.” You laugh out at Tony’s comment as he continues, “oh yeah, I love the guy to death. He like my brother, but he gonna shove this up both of our asses if he finds out. Better he don’t know nothin’. Not now.” 

“Always.” You hold back a giggle as you and Tony finally reach the lobby of the club. 

“So my girl gonna pretend she don’t wanna touch me but,” Tony’s eyes dart over yours as he wets his lips, “you get home with me anytime and you act like you haven’t been fucked in a year.”

“Tony!” You whine, nudging him out of reaction to his provocative comment.

“It’s true, don’t lie.” Tony nudges you back with his elbow as you both approach the exit out of the club.

From the very moment you take the first step out and distance yourself from Tony, a moody and irritated “someone-interrupted-my-evening-out-and-is-making-me-go-home” look twists over your expression.

Manny’s already pulled out his convertible in front of the club, resting his arm against the front seat and eagerly looking up at you and Tony; not the least bit surprised as to how annoyed you appear.

“Hey!” Manny takes his other hand off the steering wheel, waving at you both to grab your attention. “How was your night, Celeste?”

“Just fine.” You huff, approaching the back seat. “Ended a little too early though, don’t you think?” You briefly exchange a glance with Tony, knowing, in reality, you want nothing more than for him to take you back home already. 

“Ah, yeah. Sorry about that.” Manny smiles back at you sheepishly. “Gotta do as boss says, you know. You look beautiful tonight, by the way.”

“You say it to my sister first, now to the boss's girl?” Tony raises a brow at Manny, getting into the passenger seat next to him.

You hold back a smile as Manny lets out a laugh, shrugging his shoulders. “I got my eyes on one girl, just my Gina.”

“Uh-huh.” Tony rolls his eyes, relaxing in his seat. “Get that straight.”

“No harsh feelings, right Tony?” Manny jokes back.

“Yeah, yeah.” Tony brushes him off, hearing you giggle behind him. “Just drive before I rearrange your jaw bones, okay? Okay.”

Manny chuckles, shaking his head as he starts up his car and begins to pull out of the vicinity of the Babylon Club careful to avoid the swarm of taxis and limousines hounding one another for VIP parking spots.

“What ya think, Celeste?” Manny taps his fingers over the steering wheel, driving out onto the street. “You like the car?”

“Yeah.” Your eyes wander over the red, leather seats and detailing. “Yours, huh?”

“Yep, one of them.” Manny proudly claims. “You seen Tony’s new ride?”

“How she gonna see what I didn’t buy, man?” Tony rests his head back against the headrest. “Sportscar is upcoming. I’m getting it customized, not buying that boring factory shit.”

“Of course you are.” Manny points out. 

“Another one, Tony?” You raise your brows, unaware he’s beginning to build such a collection for himself.

“Oh yeah.” Tony grins, turning his head back to face you. “Because I can, you know? That’s why. That’s the beauty of all this.” Tony begins to gesture and pat around the interior of Manny’s car. “Boss told me what’s the point of cash if you ain’t gonna spend it like this?”

“I don’t know, man.” Manny lets out a laugh. “Maybe our cars ain’t good enough. You know that Elvira always say she won’t be ‘caught dead’ in our cars.”

Elvira’s name sparks your interest instantly as you sit up in your seat. “Elvira Hancock?”

“Fuck Elvira, man.” Tony spits out, growing irritated almost immediately. “She ain’t like nothing.”

“So the great Tony Montana couldn’t even impress her, huh?” You rest your chin over your fist, amused by Tony’s reaction just by the mention of Elvira’s name. 

“Frank wasn’t just balls deep in her pussy. In her mind too.” Tony gestures to the side of his head as Manny snickers. “I ain’t ever impressed that woman. I got the big mansion, but she ain’ like me.”

“Maybe that’s better.” Manny points out. “Never hook up with the boss’ girl, that’s the main rule.”

Hiding your growing smirk behind your hand, you exchange a glance with Tony who winks at you. That’s definitely always been the case between the two of you—without a doubt.

A brief moment of silence follows before Tony slouches back in his seat and clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah. Boss’ girl. Especially one that don’t wanna be seen with you, right? She say shit like ‘you got off a banana boat, man’.”

Manny can’t help but burst out laughing, gesturing over to you. “At least when we take the boss’ daughter to dinner she doesn’t snort her own supply just to keep a conversation up, huh?”

“Damn.” You mumble in astonishment. “What the hell was up with that?”

“I dunno, man.” Tony throws his hands up in surrender. “I don’t give a shit no more.”

“Elvira really stormed off like they say she did?” You clear your throat. 

“Yeah,” Manny replies, no longer making a laughing matter out of it. “She went off to Balti—what was it?”

“Balty-more,” Tony tells him back.

“Balty? Baltimore, oh yeah! Yeah, Baltimore.” Manny repeats. 

“She got a new sugar daddy or somethin’, I guess.” Tony scoffs.

“And you two…?” You point your finger at Tony, expecting him to elaborate. “Divorced afterward?”

“What do you think, man?” Tony appears in no mood to answer any questions about it. “First thing she did was throw the papers in my face.”

“Someone sounds rather bitter.” You run a hand through your hair, tousling it.

“Confused.” Tony corrects you. “I give the woman everything and she don’t like it, don’t want it. Oh but you can get this, oh you see me dead in that car, I don’t go in no pools like that, I don’t eat this, I don’t like the wine you buy me. So what? She only want the powder. That’s crazy man. You can’t live like that.”

“Never get high on your own supply,” Manny quietly singsongs Frank Lopez’s advice to himself. “Yeah, man.”

Amused by how quickly both Tony and Manny’s tone has changed throughout the sudden shift of conversation touching Elvira’s name, you’re aware now that the playful, tough guy demeanor off Tony has faded into a serious and mellow, moody attitude.

You never met Elvira Hancock personally and didn’t feel the need to, but you’ve seen her in person in the past with Frank Lopez from your father’s business dealings with him.

Your father—just like Tony—never liked Frank much to begin with, but tolerated him for the sake of business and making money. It was never more than that, mostly unbeknownst to Frank himself, so it was nothing but a relief for your father and his business partners to hear Tony made short work of Frank and his men.

“Couldn’t have done a better job myself. That Tony—I told them, I said ‘don’t fuck with this guy’. Now I can’t say anything to the bastards at all, eh?”

The same reaction was warranted from your father and his men with Sosa’s death, but he was far more impressed with how Tony took down every single one of his men that clearly outnumbered Tony after they breached the Montana estate.

Without Sosa in the way and all of his operations falling into the hands of Tony and your father, there was no longer any heavy competition or talk about a monopoly starting to come onto the drug trade.

As a ‘thank you’ of sorts and a show of gratitude, your father personally paid for all of Tony’s expenses including the damage to his estate and belongings and provided replacements for Tony’s weaponry all out of his own pocket like a gift.

However, the bond between your father and Tony as both friends and business partners wasn’t bought or fueled by fear one may turn on the other. It’s built on trust and loyalty and is all the more exciting to you that your dirty little secret is that you’re fucking Tony on the regular without another soul knowing.

Still, Tony and you couldn’t be farther away from what “fuck buddies” are. Just as Tony has trust and loyalty to your father, he does for you.

Tony’s the only one who knows just what you like behind closed doors—how rough you love taking him in bed and how loud you can beg and whine for his cock.

“What does a woman who already got the whole world at her feet want from a guy like me. Huh?”

“Just your loyalty.”

Tony knew then without doing so much as even flirting with you that he liked you—that he wanted you for himself. 

After Sosa’s attempt on exacting revenge on Tony, almost losing Gina to gunfire and seeing the men he shared drinks with and counted cash with shooting at him relentlessly, Tony came out of that situation holding loyalty above all.

With the loyalty and trust you gave to Tony, he could never think of you just as a fling, something to fuck to pass the time let alone a “fuck buddy” and he’s made that clear to you time and time again, one way or another. 

Tony knows personally—and perhaps you don’t—but your father would more than likely approve and not mind Tony and you being in a relationship with one another. 

Your father sees Tony as a successful man of his word, his equal—not some half-brained goon working for him after all, so who's to say Tony won’t ask for his approval in the very near future?

The rest of the car ride home consists of small talk mostly between Tony and Manny, helping you keep up the “I’m-irritated-my-night-ended-early-thanks-to-Tony” attitude knowing how very curious Manny can be, piecing two and two together if he suspects some sexual chemistry going on between you and Tony.

Driving through the guarded gates after brief security clearance, Manny slows his car to a halt by the front entrance of your father’s estate before parking; still mesmerized by the grand splendor of the manor regardless of how many times Manny comes to visit.

Complete with custom-carved, marble fountains, three swimming pools, a private tennis court, and a garage for fourteen sports cars, the luxurious estate is a sight for sore eyes on its own just from the outside view.

Tony and you are both well aware your father still isn’t home—away on a business trip in Los Angeles for the next few days, and your estate remains heavily guarded. 

Manny on the other hand is still under the belief that your father is indeed home and occupied, hence why he requested Manny and Tony to pick you up from the Babylon.

Tony’s mansion isn’t far from yours in terms of size or distance; still in the same enclosed, private and hidden lots of Miami.

From the moment both of you step out of Manny’s car, your security by the front doors recognizes the three of you from afar.

Little glistening lights illuminate the walkway past the floral arrangements in the garden wrapping around the estate and leading up to the front doors. 

There’s a peaceful contrasting silence of crickets chirping and a warm summer breeze brushing up against you three from the loud, sweaty, and packed Babylon Club, marking the end of your night and the entrance into some much-needed “relaxation”.

“You gonna see the big boss, Tony?” Manny looks over at both of you. 

“Yeah, man.” Tony takes it from him with a nod. “Still got some business to do for tonight. I still got one of my cars parked here, I’mma drive home after.”

“Alright.” Manny accepts the lie, “call me if you need anything, and hey—Celeste—” Manny snaps his finger at you, “you too, you know?”

“For sure.” You chuckle quietly. “Thanks for the drive home, Manny.”

“Heh, no problem.” Manny grins, always boastful of his driving skills in the newest sports cars he can get his hands on. “Oh, and don’t forget this, yeah?” Manny reaches between the cushions of the car seats, pulling out the wine bottle he and Tony shared earlier tonight, and hands it to Tony. 

“You put that between the seats, man?” Tony knits his eyebrows in disgust and confusion.

“Yeah, why?” Manny pats the seats as you clasp a hand over your mouth to hold back your giggling. “I kept it nice and safe in case we hit a road bump, you know?”

“You better hope this shit ain’t broken, man.” Tony carefully examines the bottle in his hand before giving an accusing glare to Manny. “That’s five hundred bucks, if it smash in your car I was gonna make you lick it up.”

Manny and you burst out laughing as Tony rolls his eyes, shooing Manny off and dismissing him. “You just go say goodnight to Gina for me. You can’t fuck that up.”

“Yeah man, I will, no worries.” Manny starts up his car again, waving at the two of you. “Goodniiiight! I’mma see both of you tomorrow.”

“Night! Drive carefully!” You wave back as Tony shakes his head, heading straight for the estate instead. 

“This guy, man.” Tony looks over his shoulder the minute Manny begins to drive back towards the secured gate, now blasting loud pop music from his car’s radio. “Twenty-four seven party.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t offer to come to see ‘the boss man’ with you.” You smirk, approaching the front doors of the estate with Tony. 

“Oh, yeah.” Tony chuckles, “the one in Los Angeles for the next few days. Take it easy, huh baby?” Tony gives your ass a firm smack, grabbing it with one hand and giving the bottle of wine in his other hand a shake. “I gotta make excuses so he, believe me, you know? Not gonna say I’mma walk in here and fuck my girl tonight.”

Your face flushes red with blush as you slip off your heels by the foyer. “Who said anything about fucking?”

“Don’t tease me like that, baby.” Tony licks over his lips, holding up the wine. “I ain’t gonna do so until my girl gets to relax with me tonight.”

“You know I’d love to.” You smile wryly, eyeing the wine in his hand. 

“You got more of those guards up there?” Tony’s eyes dart up towards the spiral staircase leading to the second floor. 

“Mhmm, just a few.” You clasp off your earrings, looking up at the stairs. “They’re at the end of every hall, not much different from here.”

“Good.” Tony continues staring at the second floor, getting a good look for himself. “Then they won’t be all up hearin’ you in your room.” His gaze directs back down to the wine bottle in his hand. 

“What’s wrong with taking it right here?” A playful mood sets through you as you gesture Tony towards the living room.

“Sittin’ thirty feet away from each other in that big ass room?” Tony grins back at you. “What I gotta do to be close to you, baby?”

You let out a small laugh, “we’ve got privacy, of course. I’ll take you upstairs if you really want.”

“You do that then.” Tony follows you from behind as you lead him off towards the staircase. 

“Eager much?” You glance over your shoulder at Tony, sliding your hand up the railing.

“Eager?” Tony repeats, knowing damn well what you mean as you come near your bedroom. “Just get in that room—I’mma tell you what eager is.”

“Tony,” you giggle, pushing open your bedroom door and feeling Tony push you in with his hand over your ass.

“Gonna have to wait.” Tony’s quick to kick the door back shut with his ankle and set the wine bottle aside over top of your dresser. “You c’mere.” In an instant, Tony grabs your hips and causes you to squeal out in excitement, pulling your ass against the erection in his dress trousers. “What’s this, huh?”

“Tony,” you groan, feeling his cock brushing up against your ass and feeling almost embarrassed at how quickly he’s got you aroused.

“You see these?” Tony breathes hotly over your neck, tugging on the strings over the side of your dress. “You know, I been wanting to rip these off you since tonight. You lookin’ this sexy—” He gives the strings another pull before slapping your ass again.

“More than welcome to do it now,” you moan back in response. “Push it, already.”

“Push it, huh?” Tony grabs your arm, spinning you around to face him before tilting your chin up roughly to face him. “You tellin’ me to what to do, baby?”

“Mhmm,” you graze your tongue against your bottom lip, “stop pretending like Manny’s still here and push it already.”

“Oh yeah,” Tony roughly grabs your face, giving it a shake. “I’ll fuckin’ push it, baby. I’ll push it.” 

You let out a half squeal, half gasp as Tony shoves you onto your bed, prompting you to immediately begin to strip off your skin-tight dress. “You want it that badly and rough, huh?”

“Don’t fuckin’ remind me.” Just as quickly, Tony kneels on top of your bed and hovers over top of you, yanking and pulling at the fabric of your dress to get you undressed as quickly as possible. “You don’t know—” Tony hungrily kisses up your neck, much too impatient and frantic with his movements. “How fucking sexy you are.”

“Tony,” a soft moan escapes your lips as you tilt your head up to let Tony kiss you further; letting your hands wander through his choppy hair. “F-fuck.”

“Want to do this to you—” Tony’s kisses grow more demanding and sloppy as he pulls your dress off your chest and down by your waist. “All fuckin’ night. You know that?”

“Yes, baby. Yes,” you whimper, already feeling your nipples harden from Tony’s fingers brushing up against them and the cool air of your bedroom. 

“Fuck this,” Tony throws the dress off your thighs and tosses it to the floor like a rag, shrugging off his own suit jacket next. “Not even wearin’ a bra, huh?”

“Just how you like it,” you tease, squeezing your breasts together.

“Don’t fuckin’ tease me, baby.” Tony grabs your face again with one hand, sharing a wet, full-mouthed kiss with you.

Your eyes flutter shut instantly as you part your lips open to feel Tony’s tongue dominating yours; his kiss is deep, greedy, and almost bruising with power behind it. 

It’s not the first time your lips have ached for more after Tony’s kiss, reddened and glistening with his spit.

“S-so much for the wine,” you breathe shakily as Tony breaks the kiss.

Tony unbuckles his leather belt, tossing it over to the pile of his and your clothes upon the bedroom floor. “You know I wouldn’t forget the wine, baby.” Tony gives both of your breasts a firm slap, “I’ll drink it off your fuckin’ tits if I have to.”

“Uh, fuck!” You cry out in pleasure, watching as Tony begins to fully undress before you. 

“Get undressed, but keep these on.” Tony pulls at your stockings. 

“Mm, yes sir.” Only left in your fishnet stockings and a dainty pair of black, lace panties beneath him, you hook your fingers into the waistband of your panties and slip them off your ankles. “I’ve only got one wineglass in here, you know?”

“That’s gonna be enough, believe me.” Tony’s cock springs free from his briefs before he throws those off as well, pumping his thick eight inches in one hand before momentarily getting off the bed to reach for the wine.

‘Oh fuck. Fuck.’ Deep, tugging arousal builds in the pit of your stomach from the sight of Tony naked before you, let alone the feeling of your pussy having its own heartbeat from seeing his size again like it’s the first time.

Tony’s eyes dart across your room before spotting the single wine glass over your makeup table. 

“We’re gonna share a glass together, huh?” You rub down your thighs, beginning to spread open your legs.

“Think I have a much better idea than that, baby.” Tony licks over his lips, watching your pussy lips spread open—dewy from the wetness of your arousal. Tony holds the bottle of red wine in one and the wineglass in the other, keeping his eyes over your naked body and approaching the bed again. “Not gonna make me repeat myself tonight, right baby?”

“Never.” Your breath hitches as you watch Tony kneel down on the bed. “I’ll do anything you want, you know that.”

“I do,” Tony smirks wryly, gesturing to you with the wine bottle. “Get on those hands and knees—ass up, face down, baby.”

You gladly do as Tony demands, arching your back and blushing furiously knowing Tony’s got a perfect view of your ass and pussy from the doggy-style position you’re in. 

Keeping your face pressed down onto the pillow in front of you, your eyes peek to the side to see Tony placing the wine glass and the bottle onto your nightstand—redirecting his attention to you now.

“Mmhmm,” Tony cups your ass with both hands, squeezing and touching you.

“Ooh,” you let out a soft whimper, aroused by the feeling of Tony’s cool, gold rings against your skin. “Tony…”

“This ass belongs to me.” Tony gives your ass cheek a harsh slap, taking you by surprise. “Doesn’t it? Huh?”

“Mmm, yes!” You cry out, feeling Tony’s firm hands roughly fondling and squeezing your ass. “Yes, sir—” your words are muffled out from speaking against the pillow.

“This ass,” Tony hooks his fingers into the holes of your fishnet stocks, tearing a hole in them right over your ass and pussy with hardly any effort. “Is mine.” Tony spanks your other ass cheek even harder than he did to the other the first time. “Don’t move, baby.”

“M-mhmm.” You nod shakily against the pillow, keeping your legs spread open and your ass and back arched up in the air. 

Tony takes the wineglass off of the end table, spreading your ass with one hand before inching the stem of the glass in-between both of your ass cheeks so it’s tucked in without risk of falling out. “Yeah, look at that…”

Gasping quietly in surprise from feeling the glass being held between your ass cheeks, you look over your shoulder to see Tony giving the wineglass a few more nudges to nestle it between your ass.

“Said we was gonna share the wine.” Tony snatches the bottle of red wine off the end table next, popping the loosely put top off before moving the bottle towards your mouth. “You want a taste, baby? That good, red wine?”

“Mhmm,” nodding, you take a shaky sip of the wine straight from the bottle but only get a little bit to swallow before Tony pulls the bottle back.

“Now we can share. Get a real fuckin’ taste.” Tony begins to not only pour the wine all over your ass and torn fishnet stockings but into the wineglass between your ass as well.

“Yeah, baby. Look at that.” With Tony pouring the glass aimlessly and chuckling to himself as he makes a mess, you shiver from the cold, crimson liquor dripping all down your ass, soaking into your stockings with a majority of the wine landing into the wineglass. 

“Tony!” You whine, covered in wine and still looking back at him over your shoulder as Tony lets the empty wine bottle roll onto the other side of the bed.

“What’s the matter, baby?” Keeping the wineglass firmly pressed between your ass, Tony grabs your ass cheeks with both hands again and begins to lick up the wine over your skin.

“Ohhhh,” a moan escapes your mouth as you’re back to keeping your head firmly placed against the pillow. “Fuck, fuck…”

“I got it everywhere…for a reason,” Tony pants, letting his tongue slobber up the wine over your ass and thighs. “Mmm, taste so fuckin’ good. And ya got an ass like that…” Tony smacks both of your ass cheeks, letting more wine drip onto your legs and the bed before he yanks the wineglass out from between your ass.

“Ah!” You giggle breathily, clenching down on the bed sheets with both hands as you glance back over your shoulder again to see Tony taking a messy gulp of the wine before exhaling deeply.

“Come here, slut.” Gritting his teeth, Tony yanks a fistful of your hair back and raises the wine glass to your lips, spilling a bit down your chest before letting you drink up the rest. “Take a sip, huh?”

“I want—” You part open your lips, excited for a taste yourself but end up spilling the majority of it down your breasts.

“Someone’s a little too excited.” Tony chuckles breathily, giving you a rough, full-mouthed kiss over the mouth that could almost bruise you before he lets go of both the empty wine glass in his hand and your hair. 

“Tonyyyyy,” you whine, moaning as loud as ever as Tony moves back behind you, now quick to spread your ass cheeks open again before slicking his tongue in between.

“Ohhhhh, my God!” You throw your head back in surprise and moan loudly feeling Tony’s warm, wet tongue circling over your asshole and back down to your pussy.

“Fuck—” Humming against your clit, Tony drools and spits all over both your ass and pussy—licking every inch of you hungrily as if it’s his last meal. “—yes! YES!”

Demanding, rough, and feverish, Tony grips your hips to press your ass onto his face; his own spit dribbling down his chin from eating the hell out of you. “Mm!”

Waves of pleasure soar through you, causing your knees to tingle and feel weak from how Tony’s tongue focuses on flickering over your clit. “M-more, more, please, yes, more!”

You can neither stop yourself from moaning nor continuing to push your hips back against his face—obsessed with how greedy Tony is when it comes to teasing and pleasing you.

With the way Tony keeps a perfect rhythm and pace over your clit, it only takes you a few minutes throughout your filthy moans to feel your toes and fingers clenching from the intense orgasm approaching you.

“Tony! Tony!” You plead out, rolling your eyes back in pleasure. “G-gonna cum, I’m gonna cum!”

Tony is barely holding himself back while sloppily eating you out. Determined to make you cum over his tongue, Tony’s cock remains rock hard and pulsating—desperate to be inside you so much that it’s almost uncomfortable to him.

Spurts of precum already begin to dribble down Tony’s tip and shaft from hearing you moan and groan about how good Tony’s making you feel again and again.

Obsessed with the way Tony’s tongue licks and suckles over both of your holes, you attempt to keep your moaning quiet by muffling your voice against the pillow, but you can hardly remain still in the doggy-style position while Tony’s tongue is easing its way inside your pussy.

Tony doesn’t relent, beginning to slick his index finger inside of you two—impressed by how wet your pussy has become mixed with his spit. 

“Ahhhh, fuck, yes! C-cumming, I’m cumming—” Unable to hold back any longer, your orgasm breaks through and instantly rocks over every inch of your body in erotic ecstasy as Tony continues finger fucking you throughout it. 

Before you can even process what just happened or even act out in shock towards it, Tony’s eyes widen in amusement and he grins—keeping his head angled under your pussy as you squirt over his chin and neck in orgasm.

“That’s fuckin’ perfect, baby.” Tony smacks your pussy with the palm of his hand, giving your pussy lips a shake to get more of your squirt and cum out while swallowing everything in his mouth and on his lips. 

“T-Tony, Tony,” struggling to keep your back arched with the energy drained out of you from such an intense, heavenly orgasm, you squeal again to feel Tony dipping two fingers inside of your pussy, getting a string of your cum between them.

“Taste, baby.” Tony grips your neck, pulling you back before smearing your cum over your lips and then easing his fingers inside your mouth. “See how fuckin’ good you taste. Squirt in my mouth like that.”

“Oh fuck—” You let out another moan as Tony roughly grips your throat and forces you to flip over. 

“Spread yourself open.” Pinning your back down onto the bed, Tony grabs both of your ankles and stretches them back towards your shoulders. “Yeah baby, like that.”

Clutching onto your ankles and holding them up by your head in as much as you can stretch and spread yourself wide open for Tony, your face flushes red in humiliation and arousal. “Please…”

“Yeah,” Tony chuckles breathily, spreading your pussy lips open with both hands. “Look at that pussy, huh?” Tony rolls his tongue in his mouth before letting a wad of spit land over your clit.

You gasp out softly in surprise, watching as Tony rubs his spit in with the palm of his hand all over the wet folds of your pussy, and with his free hand, he pumps all thick, eight inches of his cock.

“Give me,” you whine, inhaling sharply as Tony doesn’t waste time teasing you further and slicks his cock over the folds of your pussy.

“Not gonna have to ask me twice,” Tony grunts, obsessed with how warm and wet your pussy feels against his shaft. “Fuck…”

The oversensitivity on your clit from your first orgasm causes you to squirm underneath Tony, whining quietly and feeling as if you’re about to sink into the bed from embarrassment at the way Tony looks pleased down at your pussy.

“You’re a tiger,” Tony breathes, positioning his cock to your entrance. “You know that?”

The impressive length of his cock alone causes the butterflies swarming in your stomach to knot up in excitement, wanting Tony to push every single inch of him inside you until you’re filled to the brim with his cock and begging for more.

Giggling out of breath, you feel Tony’s precum dripping over your entrance hole, easily mixing in with your wetness. 

Tony positions his hips as if he’s about to thrust in, but purposefully delays to tease you. Instead, Tony’s hands trail up to your breasts, giving them a squeeze with both hands.

“Gonna get you even more wet for me, baby.” Tony lets his fingers toy over your hardened, sensitive nipples—rubbing them between his forefingers and hearing you moan back in response.

Tony leans his head down to kiss both of your nipples sloppily, causing you to whimper and tug on his hair. 

Now more than ever, you can’t stop yourself from fantasizing about bouncing over Tony’s cock—wanting him badly as ever through all of this teasing.

Obsessed with the feeling of Tony’s firm, large hands gripping over the sides of your throat, your hot skin feels cool relief from the gold rings over Tony’s finger and his silver chain bracelet as he begins to apply pressure.

“Got ya, baby.” Tony now has you right where he wants you and how he wants you—fully under his dominance and control, spread open and ready to be mercilessly fucked all night.

Breathing heavily and locking eyes with Tony, you’ve absolutely no desire to fight back or resist. All your mind tells you is how desperately you want to get fucking railed by this man as hard as he wants to take you for however long he wants to pound your pussy.

“You’re mine, ain’t that right, baby?” Tony gives your face a smack, demanding a quick answer. “Ain’t that right?”

“Y-yes, Tonyyyyyy—ohhh!” You cry out in pleasure as you feel Tony’s cock entering your pussy, one thick inch at a time to fill you in.

“Fuck, yes, yes, yes.” Tony hisses under his breath, watching his cock penetrate you. “You like that baby, huh? That big cock going inside that tight pussy?”

All you can let out are filthy moans in response; your momentary shyness with Tony is replaced by a burst of sexual confidence. 

“Ooh,” Tony grunts as he stretches and fills your pussy completely. “Keep those nice legs up for me, baby.”

“Uhhhh,” groaning loudly, you feel a slight burning sensation from Tony’s thickness inside of you before it's replaced by nothing but pure pleasure; his cock beginning to thrust back and forth. “F-fuck me, Tony. Fuck me!”

“You’ll let me do anything I want?” Tony pants, clutching onto your inner thighs and picking up his pace fucking you. “Huh?”

“A-anything you want,” you nod frantically with a moan. “God, your cock feels so good.”

“That’s what I like to hear, baby.” Tony plants a full-mouthed, sloppy kiss over your mouth as he continues thrusting deeply and roughly.

You roll your eyes back in pleasure, feeling the room get ten degrees hotter to you from how Tony angles his cock downward to hit your weak spots as he fucks you.

As Tony begins to suckle and kiss your neck roughly, you pick up on the scent of his expensive cologne mixing with the smell of sex in the room.

Tony’s cock twitches in your body, pulsating with so much arousal that all he wants to do is pound you mercilessly all night; your body has never cried out this desperately for him to fuck you.

Tony gives one of your breasts a slap, watching them jiggle in front of him. “I m-make you feel good, huh?” An aggressive, demanding Tony is more than welcome fucking every one of his desires into you on your bed. 

“Yes!” You whine, shakily watching his cock slick into your pussy with ease.

“You take my cock in like a slut, you know that?” Tony speeds up, even more, his cock now rapidly slamming in and out of you with no intention to ever slow back down.

“Fuck!” You pant as you feel Tony’s lips pulling over the skin on your neck, leaving a reddened hickie and only heightening your pleasure.

Just from the way Tony’s body is pressed up to yours as he fucks you and the sight of Tony’s hips gyrating to yours sparks a fire of sexual frustration and desire into you like none other.

‘He knows exactly where to touch me, to make me like this…’

As Tony’s kisses trail upward, growing sloppier until he’s practically licking up your neck and to your jawline, you both join in another needy kiss with tongue.

You can feel Tony’s tongue battling for dominance over yours, suckling over it any chance he gets and meeting your moans into his mouth for a response. 

“Your father—” Tony parts from the kiss as a string of spit from both of your mouths splits. “—doesn’t know I’m fucking his daughter like this huh?” 

As you whimper and whine about from sensation after sensation, Tony keeps both of his firm hands pressed onto your hips and lets you eagerly take his cock in again and again with little to no effort on his part.

Now with a hand going up to grip your throat again, Tony leans down to your ear and fully angles his thrusting downward to reach your G-spot.

 “I want you so much, baby,” Tony breathes hotly over your neck. “Fuck…” The pressure he keeps down onto your hip subsides as Tony’s fingers now move down to play with your soaked clit at a quickened pace.

You let out a raspy moan and buck your hips up in response to the sudden, almost about to scream out from how good it feels to have Tony’s fingers rubbing quickly over your clit.

The expression on your face twists to pure delirium as your orgasm approaches you steadily. 

All you can hear is Tony breathing down against your lips saying, “I’m making you my little whore.”

“Tony, oh fuck!” Your legs begin to quiver up above your sides and you begin to struggle to maintain a hold on your ankles.

Each moan you give out is louder than the last, but it’s a surprise when Tony suddenly slicks his cock out of your pussy and taps it roughly over your reddened, throbbing clit.

“Don’t wanna make you cum just yet, huh?” Tony gives your face another slap—not enough to sting or leave a mark but enough for some pain knowing how much you love it.

His tongue hungrily grazes over your top and bottom lips before his hands squeeze over yours on your ankles, insisting you keep yourself spread in this position.

Your clit is almost swollen with arousal, begging to be touched and stimulated so much that your orgasm is desperate to be released even as Tony just teases you.

“Oooh, baby, music to my ears.” Tony chuckles breathily, letting his cock soaked in your juices slide over your clit once more just to hear the sloshing sound of the folds of your pussy parting.

Tony doesn’t waste any more time in teasing you—knowing you’re about to cum and if anything, you’ll do so on his cock only. 

Tony jerks his hips down and roughly thrusts into you without warning, making you scream from how good his cock feels filling you up all over again.

“You’re mine,” Tony growls in a low voice, “mine.” 

Tony exhales shakily, gritting his teeth as he presses his hips in further, completely filling you to the brim with his cock stretching open your tightness. 

“Ohhhh, I’m gonna cum! Gonna cum!” You squeal, arching your hips to Tony’s. “Oh, God!” It takes every bit of willpower in you not to scream out again and again from the euphoric sensations Tony draws out of you.

Tony forces his own orgasm back, refusing to cum in you just yet but the way your pussy clenches and contracts around his cock tempts him to do otherwise.

Tony coaxes your orgasm out of you first; the sight of him now with beads of sweat over his forehead sticking to his hair as he’s fixated on fucking you until you cum is more than enough to have you give in.

There’s an insatiable lust and craving you and Tony have for one another that releases through your second orgasm as you cum over his cock—shrieking out through your moans. “Yesssss!”

“I wanna fuck you—” Tony squeezes your thighs so harshly he digs his fingernails into your skin before slapping them as hard as he can. “—all the fuckin’ time.” 

Your mascara and eyeliner smear off your eyes and drip onto your cheeks from tearing up—it’s not due to pain or being overwhelmed, but from how good you’re being fucked and how intense your orgasm spilling out of you is.

Tony never slows his pace, obsessed with feeling your pussy still humming around his cock from the aftermath of your orgasm. “You fuck so good, baby.”

With Tony fucking the ever-living life out of you by the second, you desperately beg and whine for him to touch you over and over again—slapping and smacking your breasts, pussy, and thighs. 

Tony continues pounding into your soaked pussy like a wild animal, growing far more aggressive knowing how badly you like it rough with him. 

Barely able to form out a coherent sentence, your trembling hands threaten to loosen from holding up your ankles, and the soreness your legs feel from being spread open for so long even adds to your pleasure.

“Fuck!” Tony pounds into you, causing the springs in your mattress to squeak from fucking you like a ragdoll.

Tony’s more than well aware of how you roll your hips back at him weakly, still desperate for each and every thrust inside of you. 

Tony grins down at your pussy lazily, loving the way your creamy cum drips off his cock while he continues to pummel inside of you. “T-tight fucking pussy.”

You curl your toes in response, using the last bit of energy inside of you to clutch onto your ankles as your third orgasm begins to build in your pelvis.

“Open your fuckin’ mouth,” Tony squeezes your face, forcing you to face him directly.

Doing as he says, your eyes widen as Tony spits in your mouth. You swallow instantly, giggling breathily. “Y-yes!”

“Good girl,” Tony praises you, caressing the side of your cheek.

Your third orgasm building inside of you now is growing increasingly insistent and almost pleasurably painful. 

This time as Tony can tell you’re about to cum, he has no plans on drawing it out of you for long so he can take you by surprise again.

“Fuck, oh my God!” The tip of Tony’s cock hits your G-Spot and causes you to moan out so loud your hands let go of your ankles as your climax unwinds.

This time your orgasm hits you from all sides, unraveling in your gut and squirting over Tony’s cock and lower waist uncontrollably. 

“Mm!” Tony keeps your body firmly pinned to the bed, edging his own orgasm for as long as he can through yours.

It’s definitely not the first time you’ve squirted over Tony’s cock and with the way a final whine escapes your lips as Tony shoots his cum deep inside of your pussy, you revel in the sensation of feeling spurt after hot spurt of his seed in you.

Tony jerks his head back, letting out the loudest, deep moan you’ve heard from him as his cock twitches inside of you. “Yeah, baby—that’s it.”

Over a dozen spurts of thick cum inside of you later, a devilish smirk crosses Tony’s lips as he pops his cock out of you like nothing happened.

“Oh!” You whimper, quick to clutch onto your lower pelvis from the sudden feeling of fullness coming out of you.

“Fuck, yeah, baby. Look at that.” Tony spreads open your pussy lips, watching eagerly as a loud of his cum oozes out of you. 

“Tony,” you lick over your lips weakly. “G-gonna get me pregnant?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ about baby names all night,” he grins before giving you a wet kiss.

“You and me both,” you giggle weakly, clutching onto his shoulders. “Surely you’re not done with me.”

“You know how I fuck you well then.” Tony pulls your hair to move you off the bed. “I ain’t gonna be finished with you all night, baby. See this?” He pumps his still-hard cock, “gonna fuckin’ suck on it, aren’t you?”

“Mm, yes, I will.” You grin up at Tony as he practically drags you down to your knees off the bed.

“Fucking suck and don’t make me wait.” Tony taps the tip of his cum covered cock over your lips. “I wanna fuck that pretty mouth of yours, baby.”

You eagerly attempt to catch Tony’s cock in your mouth without using your hands and instantly surprise Tony with how you push your head in to take him into your throat.

“You’re gonna choke on my cum down that throat,” Tony keeps a steady hand over the back of your head to guide you on his cock.

As you sloppily begin to suck over Tony’s shaft, he bucks his hips forwards in response and moans. “Fuck, just like that.” 

The sight of your head bobbing back and forth over Tony’s cock like a hungry whore is one he’d gladly want to see night after night if he could help it.

Tony can’t hold back his own moans, letting his hands roam through your hair and pull back the loose, messy strands from your face. 

It’s only after then that he begins to thrust into your mouth to make you take more of his cock deeper down your throat, gritting his teeth. “Choke on it—dirty fucking whore.”

Insistently face fucking you, you gargle and gag over Tony’s cock as you slobber over it in a messy blowjob.

You clasp your hands around Tony’s girth, pumping his cock and giving him a handjob while you suck him off as fast as you can take him in and out of your mouth again.

Tony’s eyes remain half opened, his lips parted to let out low groans as he feels his second orgasm steadily approaching with your wet, warm mouth wrapped around his throbbing cock.

“You like having your mouth used, don’t you?” Tony watches as you drool all over his shaft, letting your spit drip off of him in wads before it lands on the floor. 

Sucking, slurping, jerking him off—it’s Tony’s hips beginning to twitch while he thrusts into your mouth that signals he’s about to hit the peak of his next orgasm.

Looking up at Tony with an innocent gaze in your eyes, you keep eye contact with him and moan against his cock; just as equally flustered and sweaty as Tony.

More of your spit trickles down Tony’s cock and sticks to his pubic hair—this time with no chance for Tony to edge himself into another intense orgasm he already knows is coming.

Without warning or showing he’s right about to cum, Tony cums in your mouth—surprising you, but only lets two spurts of cum down your throat before he pulls his cock right out of your mouth. “Fuck, yes!”

“See that?” Gasping out for air and swallowing down the cum in your mouth, Tony yanks your hair downward and lets the next six spurts of his hot cum land all over your face. “Yeah, baby. That’s right… No other man gonna do this to you like me.”

“Mm,” you lick off any cum near your mouth and chin, trying to catch some on your tongue as Tony finishes. “A-anytime, baby.”

“You know what that makes you?” Tony grunts, trailing cum off your cheeks with his thumb and back into your mouth.

“M-mhmm?” You suck on Tony’s thumb, licking off the cum and looking into his eyes.

“Mine,” Tony gives your face a playful slap, smirking. “Mine, baby, mine.”

With that, Tony pulls his finger out of your mouth, licking off your spit from it before roughly cupping your face with both hands and kissing you right down on the mouth.

Tony knows now he’s going to pin you up against the wall next and fuck you until both of you can’t take anymore or the sun begins to rise—whichever one comes first. Your heavily anticipated fuck session with Mr. Montana has yet to come to an end for tonight.

crying

more than anyone ✴︎ cl16

genre: childhood friends to enemies to lovers (a mouthful), smut, humor, Fluffff!!!!,

word count: 13.7k  

You moved out of Monaco at fourteen with an unrepaired friendship hanging by a thread. Ten years and a whole lifetime later, you’re forced to work with him confront it all over again.

auds here… hi hi hi!!!! HAPPY 4k to us guys!!!!! i am so insanely thankful for all of u and i will make this a longer note when i wake up tomorrow because i have so much to say but have this for now. i hope u like it. this was born out of 2 asks, one of which was if u could make ur own score for a fic what would it be? so if ur interested in the playlist to this, LMK. i love love love u guys not proofread thats a job for tomorrow's auds

nsfw warnings under the cut!

18+ because... penetrative sex, semi public sex, praise central, size kink (pretty tame smut in auds world)

You know it’s bad when your assistant-and-friend-aka-friendsistant (her vernacular) Rachel walks in with a free coffee without a quip about how dependent you are on this exact order of coffee (she’s a millennial, so caffeine and lack thereof are in her arsenal of Funny Jokes). You fear you didn’t correctly anticipate just how bad it was going to be when she stays instead of leaving to work on your schedule, combing a few fingers through her fringe and sitting herself on your couch stiffly. Maybe you’re intuitive, maybe you spend too much time with Rachel and you can spot the way she scratches at her eye, maybe both—but it’s bad.

You don’t take a sip from the Starbucks that sits idly on the coaster, opting to watch the latte sweat instead. You do stare, though, at Rachel’s stagnant posture, scrutinizing her every movement. She takes a few deep breaths and drops the bomb.

“David sent me to tell you he has good news. But there is, um. Bad news.” Dread writhes through you at the mention of your manager with bad news, and you clear your throat to compose yourself.

“What’s going on?”

She purses her lips. “He’s on his way over here. Just…” She cocks her head sharply to the glass door of your home office, expression antsy. “Sorry. Wait for him. I can’t tell you anything yet.”

You take a swig from the pity coffee. “Am I getting blacklisted?”

“God, you dumbass, no—” She makes an incredulous noise, but before she can open her mouth to elaborate, your manager walks in with an excited expression on his face, pocketing his Juul to take a seat by your table. His smile is the radiant one of a man over forty with a comical amount of Botox.

“Rachel told me you had”—you stifle the adjective—“news.”

“That I do, yes.” He hums, tracing the edge of your table. “Did you enjoy Paris Fashion Week?”

Beside the brash Frenchmen, God-awful timezone differences and consequent calls at half past three, hungover show attendances, posing for pictures until your ankles blistered, and a temporary diet of black coffee, cigarettes, and stale croissants—sure, it was fun. It was your job to attend anyway, your obligation to shake hands with important people and be photographed in designer clothing and benefit from the PR, but how often could people call work fun? 

“Sure.” You take another gulp off your coffee. “It was… fun.”

“Well, since your movie’s doing well,” David pauses and hums, “how do you feel about another few weeks of fun?” 

“Like Paris Fashion Week—weeks… this month?” You frown, eyebrows knitting together. Is this a new Vogue thing? You’re not sure how many updates they give the schedule, but you wouldn’t mind too much if you could travel again for a little bit. “So soon after spring? Did Anna want this?”

“Iiiit’s, er, Vogue’s new project. Capsule shows in Europe, coastal and summery. She wanted an exclusive guest list. She asked for you by name,” David says smugly. “Well, she called my office, granted. But to ask for you—”

“Are you fucking serious?” You stand up, and if you hadn’t had some fix of coffee you would’ve gotten dizzy. “David, tell me you’re serious.” Time seems to have suspended itself as you await his answer—which, if affirmative, would be a pretty big deal to you. 

“Yeah, I am.” He plays off a grin. “She loved your movie with Greta, and would love to send you to Europe to do PR on a few shows and pair up with some guests on a couple features. Exclusive stuff.”

You sit back down, mouth slack. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe it.” Your eyes dart to Rachel, who’s caught between a smile and an awkward purse of her lips. “Fuck! This is huge, David.”

“Yeah—okay, yeah, it is.” David shifts in his seat and crosses, then uncrosses, his legs, then his arms. He stutters for a second. “Good and bad news, remember?”

You blink a few times. You’d nearly totally forgotten the fact that this good news—and it is overwhelmingly good—comes with a bout of bad news, so bad apparently that it’s noteworthy enough to state alongside this massive deal. But it’s. Fine. It’s whatever. Worst case scenario, you’re going to need to fucking swim to Europe sans oxygen canister.

“So… the shows? Events, and shit?” He watches, waiting for you to signal that you follow. When you nod, he continues, averting his gaze to the face of his Patek. “They’re all in Monaco.”

Wrong.

“Monaco.” You repeat, deadpanning your delivery. It’s not out of the ordinary, the glitz and coast of the city being a perfect venue for high fashion. But Monaco is different for you, vastly different, and you tend to avoid the place to the best of your abilities. “Monaco. Are—you’re sure?”

“Mmm,” he hums in affirmation. “I know, I know you’re not exactly privy to Monaco because, bleh, childhood shit, whatever. But this—like you said, this is huge! And I don’t think we should jeopardize that.” He pulls a piece of paper from the folders tucked in his arm and waves it around.

“Well—yeah, I suppose. I’ll deal with it.”

“Yeah.” He sucks his teeth, eyes gliding over the scenery of L.A. that your window offers. “Okay, that’s it, so. Byeandhaveagoodlunch.” He slams the paper onto your desk, jostling you a little, but as he makes his exeunt, Rachel raises her arm to stop him.

“Is that it, David?” She asks, an edge to her voice.

You pick up the paper as they make hushed, stifled conversation, and find that it’s a call sheet of sorts, listing all the collaborators traveling to Monaco and what or who they’re in charge of, or paired up with, there. Models, athletes, celebrities, influencers—all making TikToks, or appearances, or brand deals, or interviews, or YouTube videos, the whole shebang.

“Yeah,” says David dismissively—nervously? “That’s it.”

You search for your name. “Okay. Um, hey.” Rachel turns to you, trying to catch your eye, which is busy scanning the sheet. “Did, um—did David mention you’re paired up with Charles Leclerc for a feature? Because you are. Paired up with Charles Leclerc for a feature, I mean.”

David sucks his teeth. “Thank you very much for graciously reminding me of that, Rachel.” 

Still half-distracted and growing increasingly worried with the exchange happening in front of you, you make haste in your search—eventually, you find your name, printed in plain letters beside one you’ve wished to never read over ever again.

“Wait, my Charles?” You pause and look up, suppressing a yell as your eyes widen, and you blunder over a pathetic self-correction. “I mean—no, sorry—Charles, as in Charles Leclerc? I can’t work with him, you know this!” 

“Wh—well, Vogue apparently wanted a really good Monaco-born pair and they seriously lucked out on you two. Also,” Rachel says, adamantly defending herself, “you’re always saying you can work ‘with anyone’!” She raises two comically vigorous air quotes to further her (moot) point.

“I didn’t ev—I never say that,” you lie straight through your teeth, mouth dry. You definitely do. You can place all the exact moments. “I would’ve known if I did. Rach—David—I cannot, absolutely cannot work with Leclerc. He’s my… we…” You shut your eyes and sneak two fingers upward to massage your temple, slowly caving into defeat.

David makes an oh well face and shrugs passively. “Fine. Then it’s either Anna Wintour’s special job that will help the Academy campaign or not meeting the ex-bo—”

“—friend.” You look up to cut him off, eyes narrowed. “Ex-friend.”

“Alright, kid. Suuuure.” David leans against the back wall of your office as Rachel comes to comfort you, her eyes already sympathetic and droopy. It shouldn’t be so bad, right? She asks sweetly, nudging the latte closer to your catatonic figure. You have seen him since, anyway.

With a despondent gaze, you just remain silent, refusing to state the negative aloud, opting to stare at the latte. At your disagreeable silence, Rachel continues, tone anxious: You have seen him since. Right?

You moved out of Monaco at fourteen, right after the school year finished and your father had gotten the opportunity to transfer out. The whole thing would’ve—should’ve, even—been a sentimental affair, full of tears and dramatic caresses of your bedroom wall, whispering thank yous to the city air in French and Italian, but it wasn’t. Months prior, you’d been preparing yourself for this kind of goodbye; but when it came to it, you merely kissed your extended family goodbye and slept en route to the airport, silk sleeping mask pulled taut over your shut eyelids. The only thing you left in the city was a letter written only to Gi and Cha about how much you’d miss them, with your email address scribbled at the bottom for an added touch, in case they felt like sending you longer messages.

“Do you two at least get along?” David asks, noting how genuinely aghast you appear.

“It’s not that simple.” You tap a nail against your desk a few times. “But I think it’ll be fine. I hope, at least. We used to be… good friends? As teenagers.”

You feel like an alien hearing yourself talk about it, talk about him and the whole circumstance a decade later. Your friendship with Charles was the only thing that mattered to your adolescent self, all lemonade stands and long car rides and stealthy conversations about your futures (racing and acting, respectively). It was happiness, in what you consider to be its truest form, it was lovely and real. And it ended abruptly, no goodbyes, no nothing.

“So it’s a no.”

“I’m just saying it’s impossible for me to work with him, and in Monaco no less?!” Your eyes are wild with frustration and anxiety at the prospect of your past whipping you in the face, full-fledged. “I don’t even talk about the guy or the city, how can I spend time with him there?”

“Are you seriously going to junk this amazing fucking opportunity just because of some petty childhood fight?” David’s tone is comparable to that of a dad’s, scolding and horrified, almost. “Look. If you don’t take this, career-wise, it doesn’t mean much. You get paid a shit ton, you’ll survive—you’ll do well. But emotions-wise? Maturity-wise? Be the bigger person and do it—I mean it.”

You stare back at him because you know he’s right. “Maybe it won’t be a big, long feature?” Rachel offers as some advice, some comfort. “If you reject it, his team will know, and so will he.”

And yes, you were fourteen, and yes it was petty and unexplainable even for fourteen—but there was a catalyst to all of this, a reason why the move became easy and forgetting childhood memories became second nature. A reason why you’re selective with who you make contact with from home. A reason why Giada and Charlotte are selective with topics they choose to bring up with you.

So, fuck it, really. That’s how you end up in Monaco, booked for the next three weeks, sharing a studio and public appearances and a 24-hour shoot with the last person you’d ever want to be in a room with. Ten years later—the person still is, and no doubt will always be, Charles Leclerc.

—

“MAMAN!” Charles’ voice was loud, loud, and so incredibly loud. You followed not far behind, legs running at full speed to try and leap onto his lanky figure and wrap an arm around his head to quiet him. It’d been futile: he ended up at the dining table facing his family with a victorious smile on his pink face. He breathed heavy, waiting for everyone to turn their attention to him.

“Charles,” you chimed in warningly, breathing even harder with the effort you had exerted to chase him from the sidewalk to here. “Don’t.”

“Guess who got the lead spot in the recital.” He slowly turned to point at to your angry face, and then bent, rifling through his already messy, grubby knapsack for something that he raised with glee: a headress that read…

“But-ter-cup.” Hervé sounded amused when he looked at your fuming expression. “You?”

“Yes, Papa! Maybe, just maybe,” he sing-songed, using the term wrong yet again, “she got the titular role!” He walked over to you and placed the headress square on your head, beaming. 

“There is no titular role in a school recital,” you seethed, burning with embarrassment. Your stellar academic record had apparently granted you incentive to be centre stage during the routine year-end recital, where years were lumped into twos or threes (in your and Charles’ cases, Years 8 and 9) and the student body would dance or sing a variety of teacher-selected music.

In your case, it was Build Me Up, Buttercup, complete with choreography you’d be practicing over the next month and a half. Charles laughed at your pouting expression, didn’t stop laughing even when you’d both sat down and twirled through forkfuls of spaghetti, didn’t stop chuckling even when Lorenzo got the turn to speak and he started talking about how Bringing Up Baby was his movie of the month.

You allowed him to laugh—even laughed yourself at some point—because all day, you’d been absently wondering how you’d break the news about your moving away to him.

—

Charles is not okay. He’d gotten off a red-eye from a short vacation stint, and now he’s back in Monaco, sleepy and a bit jetlagged, being briefed on brand deals and press junkets he has to accomplish by three p.m. today. “On the dot, sharp,” said his assistant, like the two didn’t just mean the same fucking thing. He’s patient, though, smiling through the exhaustion, through the dressing room, the tape around his waist and legs to measure clothes for this fashion… thing.

“A meeting for Ferrari, two TikToks, a vlog for your personal YouTube channel, three stories by noon… oh, and in the next few weeks, you’re going to film a Vogue-sponsored 24 Hours With… with—”

“D’accord, thank you,” he cuts in, already exhausted from the spiel alone. He’s a professional; no matter what people believed or what gossip rags liked to say about him, he maintains a well-kept reputation of being polite and kind to people he works with. Maybe it’s the jetlag, maybe it’s the lack of sleep, maybe it’s the heat outside, but today he just wants to close his eyes and sleep for days.

But the assistant follows, clipboard and Excel sheet and all, still spouting all his media obligations lest he forget (and mark his words, he definitely will). “Sorry,” he says. He’s new, probably assigned as a part of the Vogue team, lanky and tall and nervous looking. “I’m new. I’m Greg.”

Briefly, Charles is left alone to stare at his tired reflection while the assistants reconvene and connect. There’s several of them, each assigned or already committed to a different celebrity. Charles should know more details, but there’s only so much reading of a call sheet he can do before he’s conked out on Ambien; he trusts he’ll be around people much more famous than he is, probably American or English, actors and athletes alike. He’ll figure it out.

Yeah, she’s almost ready. Is Charles here? One of the assistants says, a bright-eyed American. They need to be introduced before 11. Her voice is quiet, quick and hushed, and Charles has to focus to hear what she’s saying. Greg chips in with something he can’t decipher; in response, the American whispers, Yeah, I’ll get her to sign it for you. Bring Charles out in five.

In five, he is indeed being brought out to the lobby of this hotel; the outdoor area is decked out with models, cocktail tables, Vogue signage and a carpet for pictures. It’s even busier inside, wait staff and event coordinators conversing in angry, aggressive French—table settings, mineral water, extra forks are needed. Greg keeps a steady pace transporting Charles through the indoor throng, and at 10:59, Charles is outside, by the pool.

“Um, right, yeah. Okay, uh—wait here. Your partner—not really partner, but like, mate? Fuck, definitely not. Um, partner. She’s on her way heeere…” He checks his phone. “Okay. You caught her name, right?” Charles nods to fend him off. “Okay. So, wait here.”

There are cameras taking pictures of him when Greg departs, some microphones waved his way; in the distance he spots fans waving crazily, sporting Ferrari merch. Charles is doing what he’s told (waiting, maybe posing a bit) when an even bigger crowd appears, surrounding one person; with their arrival, ameras click even faster, and an uproar follows. Greg waves him over, pointing at the person frantically, so Charles smiles, extends a hand, and when the crowd parts—

There you are, in all your glory. Pink dress, hair clipped into a bun, a tanline on your exposed skin, lithe hand coming up to shake his. Your eyes are flat but the lack of expression doesn’t inoculate them from beauty; they remain sparkling and pretty all the same. Cameras snap the interaction, seemingly innocent, seemingly the first.

He fights, he really does, to keep his hands shaking yours. He forces himself not to hug you, press a kiss to your cheek even if that might look friendly, caress a hand across your cheekbone, brush the tendrils of hair out of your eyes. It’s a valiant effort.

A valiant effort that pays off because, as soon as you’re ushered into a room by yourselves, your smile turns into a scoff; your hands are kept to yourself, slipping a pair of sunglasses on, and; underneath them, your eyes begin to roll. “I need a drink,” you huff, not even looking at him. 

You’re on two couches opposite each other, in what he assumes to be a foyer to a hotel room that’s much bigger than the one he was in earlier. A-list fame and that. The girl he’d seen earlier scurries off, mumbling something about a martini. Greg, beside him, goes: “Do you need a drink, too?” But he shakes his head.

“Are you voluntarily working for this guy, Greg?” You refer to his assistant by name, offering a sarastic, honeyed smile. You adjust the strap of your dress and he blinks his gaze away.

“Oh, no. I mean—yeah. Kind of. I was assigned to him.”

“It’s okay, I don’t expect you to do it of your own will,” you joke, crossing your legs.

Charles laughs dryly. “Who asked?”

“So he speaks…” You ping off his retort without missing a beat, a sardonic smile playing at your lips. 

“In the two minutes we’ve been around each other, you’ve insulted me and my assistant. I’d prefer silence, your highness.”

“Aww, did my joke and asking Greg a question piss you off?” You suck your teeth. “You must be fun at parties.”

“Do you two, um. I don’t want to, like, overstep, but do you know each other?” Charles notices that Greg’s forearm is signed by you and realizes he has no allies here, with an inward grimace. “Or if you don’t, like, are you two just… not in good moods or something?”

The girl comes in then, saying here’s the martini and catering you a sweaty glass with a smile. You offer up the empty space beside you, patting the white leather for her to sit down on. Your eyes meet his again briefly, catty and a bit challenging, before you turn back to the girl. “Sit.”

Maybe Charles spends too much time with Max, because he’s starting to become more and more inclined to getting the last word in lately. “Bossing people around, eh? Fame really does change you.” He offers a smile of his own.

“She’s my assistant, Rachel,” you say sweetly, but your smile is gritty. “We need to check my schedule.”

He wants to slap himself. “Too busy to open your calendar?” Nevermind, he’s a god.

Your sarcastic smile drops. “And what’s on yours? P6 this week, P7 next, DNF after?”

Fuck. The tension is so thick at this point, it’s almost steaming hot. Both the assistants stare at you, waiting for Charles to wedge something in, but he bites himself back. Thankfully, right as the silence just begins to settle like oil on water, the door swings open and one of the coordinators steps in, noisily rattling off the week’s plans and proclaiming you’re both free for the remainder of the day before things pick back up—Schiaparelli show at noon, both of you, front row—tomorrow.

The four of you filter out of the room, and you make a quip about your autograph on Greg’s arm, which grants your assistant some face time with Charles. She turns to him, combing a hand through her hair and furrowing her thick eyebrows. “Hey, I’m Rachel, by the way.”

“Charles.”

“I know,” she says sheepishly. “Listen. I know you two have history, she—we—she’s, um, told me about it before. I don’t know the whole story, and I’m not… like, I’m not saying I do, so I respect it, whatever it is. But I hope you can find it in you to work with her properly. It’s a huge gig for you both. So—yeah, uh. Great job, and good luck.”

She smiles with a nod before exiting the room, leaving Charles alone and stirring with thoughts and memories woken from wild unrest.

—

“Alors,” Charles had said, not turning from his position in front of your vanity mirror. He’d been picking at his face, stopping only when you tsked at him not to. “What is the problem?” His eyes flicked over to you, your lying figure on the bed exhaling little puffs of frustrated air to the ceiling. “Are you missing the recital?”

“Quoi? Non.” You gnawed at your lip, accepting your defeat. You couldn’t lie for much longer, not when you’d been keeping this under wraps for two months. “Listen. Charles.” He nodded, clearly preoccupied with something. “Charles.”

“Hmm?”

“Can you ple—look at me.” Your voice hardened.

He’d noticed it then, the curt cutoff of your voice, the absent look in your eyes. He knows you even through a mirror, even in the low light of your room. “Desolé. This pimple won’t go away.”

“Charles,” you said, groaning but allowing yourself to laugh. “Listen.”

“Okay.” He turned to face you, a spot on his chin red from how long he’d been scratching at it.

You shrugged then, suddenly scared to deal with the realness of it all. You didn’t understand why you felt so torn. “It’s something to do with me,” you said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m moving.” You rubbed at your nose, the cold draft coming in through the window causing you to sniffle. “Out of Monaco.”

A beat. “What?”

You closed your fingers around your necklace, scratching absently at the divots of the pendant. One, two, three little dips in the gold locket, tiny but comforting. “Yeah. In a few months, like, after school. It’s Papa—his job. It’s a whole thing.”

“Europe?” You shook your head. America.

“What… well, what does that mean, then?” His expression didn’t waver but if anything did, it was his eyes—desperate, seeking more answers, wanting them with a guttural, belly-deep desire. You’re his best friend, so if he has to let you go in this life, he at least needs to know everything about the move. 

“We’ll keep in touch,” you reassured, kicking your leg to further your point. “You were bound to get busy with karting anyway, so it’s like. Ça revient au même.”

“It isn’t the same,” he said, his voice thin and cracking. 

“You’ll be fine.”

“You have a very misguided idea of who I am.”

“Shut up. Come off it,” you laughed, sitting up straighter. “We’ll call everyday, and I’ll meet all the famous people who’ll get me a real acting job, and I’ll come for the holidays or summer or something. Things won’t change. Not that much, at least.”

“Maybe, just maybe.” He pauses. “Will you be here for my birthday, at least?” He’d made a big deal all year of his turning sixteen on the sixteenth.

“Charles,” you sighed. 

“No, yeah. I get it.” He looked down, rubbing his thumbs together, like he’s just been hit across the face. He will tell you one day it felt infinitely more painful than that. But at the time he shook his head and looked up at you, reached his pinky to yours, a thin slip of paper around the finger that matched your interlocked one, and didn’t say anything else.

Just: “We’ll be okay.”

—

You could pin a lot of adjectives on Monaco: picturesque, without a doubt; warm, glamorous, but you’d sooner die than pin the word home over it. The city is sprawling even with the little surface area it possesses, and only few things seem familiar. Your lodging is a hotel in Monte-Carlo, a penthouse suite that requires you to travel very little. It feels like a vacation.

And you embody the role of a vacationer very well—the first five, six days of your stay in Monaco went great, mainly appearances that lasted a few hours at most and several junkets to promote Vogue and your latest film, before you were free to do whatever you wished. You’d gone the touristy route already: shopping more times than you could count, trying your immense luck at the casinos, and eating at Michelin-starred restaurants; eventually all the fun blurred into each other and you found solace in naps instead.

Your troubles are not far behind, however, and they finally come after you on Day 7. The event coordinators had informed Rachel, who in turn informed you, that the first of next week’s agenda would be a photographed tour of the Musée Océanographique de Monaco, a grand seaside building right at the edge of the water. Today is, apparently, a day for you to “fraternize with” Charles, which meant you would once again need to put a façade over your less-than-kind appearance toward him.

Those are the concluding words of David’s very firm text, encouraging (read: coercing) you to settle things with Charles into some approximation of civility. You resolve things by calling him to skip over the awkwardness that comes with texting. It takes you all of twenty minutes and twice your body weight in courage to press the green telephone button.

“B’jour,” he goes, his voice quick. French people (he will hate that you called him French, even if it was just in your head; you relish in this) always talk rapidly. After some silence, he clears his throat: “Hello?”

Butterflies—some form of them, whatever—flutter in your stomach. “It’s me.”

He drops formalities and adopts a disinterested voice. “Huh. What do you want?” The butterflies have rotted to death.

“I need to talk to you.”

“To insult me again?” He sounds a little amused even over the phone, a breath of laughter landing in your ear. “Bah, I get it. We are enemies. You have no interest in reconnecting, et cetera. C’est tout ce que tu as à dire? I gotta go.”

Your face warms at his accusatory tone. “Wow, leave it to a guy to be charming, huh?”

“Why should I be charming with you?”

“At least be polite,” you taunt, but your voice lacks its usual edge. On the other line, Charles lets his own defiant tone ebb downward.

At least be polite. It’s the least he can owe you after ten years of forgetting. It wasn’t as if you two had a mutual agreement then, in 2013 when you moved away, to stop becoming friends. For months before you moved out, he completely stopped talking to you, like he’d forgotten you two were even connected, were even friends. What little words you two shared became petty and abrasive, and suddenly Monaco lost its color. The closeness you had with him, which for so long you’d convinced yourself was once-in-a-lifetime, was ripped from you, robbed from you—by him, no less, which hurt all the more. You’d given up on finding out why at some point. You waited for him to reach out. Maybe, you told yourself, just maybe, it would take a few months, a year.

Ten years of radio silence. He owes you that: politeness.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say to nobody in particular, in an effort to segue into the topic of your choosing. “Look, we’re supposed to be friends. In… on camera, at least. It’s disastrous if we look like we, you know, hate each other. We need to be professional.”

“For the cameras,” he says back, solemn.

“Yeah.” You wind a finger through your hair. “Just… for the sake of civility.”

You hear his little hums of consideration. “D’accord,” he says after a few minutes. “Truce, then.”

“Sure.” You smile a little. “I have to go.”

—

You were halfway through your mess of clothes when your mum peeked through your door, her hair held back by a headband. “Call you yet, poppet?” 

“Non,” you said, decimating your voice to a monotonous murmur. You looked up from the dress you’d been folding and offer a half-hearted, sardonic smile. “Je t’ai dit qu’il ne le ferait pas.” You were right: he wouldn’t call. What difference did a month make, anyway? This time, though, the usual victory of being right settled into an ugly disappointment in the pit of your stomach.

You wanted so badly to be wrong. To clamber to the telephone, to your Skype, to your cellphone, any of the three, and see his name flashed across the helm or his voice in your ear. Maybe he was dialing your number now, to ask if you wanted to grab dinner after the year-end recital, or to update you on karting, or to tell you Pascale wanted lunch.

She could tell, as all mothers can, that you’d been upset. The knit in your brows that didn’t go away, the bottom lip being chewed, the tight clutch of your fingers over the already-folded dress. She sighed. “I’m sorry, baby.” 

“It’s fine.” Your voice came out sharper than you intended and you have to roll it back, recede it, to sound more relaxed, more at ease. “It’s… fine. I’m fine.” She knew better than to pry, closing the door softly to continue packing up the living room.

You heaved a dry sigh to express the nausea that came with his absence. It began a month ago, two days after you first told him about it and poked at the zit on his chin. He’d buried his head in your shoulder until tears seeped into the cotton sleeve of your shirt, and you let him. You felt guilty, after all, for keeping it a secret for so long. You would leave in September, you told him. We have time.

Two days later he walked you home as always, on the “dangerous” side of the street, lanky legs skipping to the tree in front of your house. You pointed at the beginnings of clementines on its dewy branches, smiling, inviting him in, but he remained leaning against the trunk, playing with his mop of hair that covered his forehead.

“Bah, trop dramatique,” you said, poking fun. Lorenzo had showed you both some art house films he studied in class, and with the bout of French cinema, you and Charles had grown obsessed with making fun of overdramatic stills that often included the classic leaning-against-a-surface. “Come on, Mum made bouillabasse, I smell it.”

“We need to talk,” he eked out awkwardly. “I have something important to tell you.”

You dropped your knapsack, leather scratching against the concrete of the steps to the front door as you walked over to him. “Ouais?”

“I…” His lips moved, wobbled, but nothing left, so he shut them and his eyes, like he was considering something. His breathing slowed into one rhythm you find yourself unconsciously matching, just two kids looking at each other in the dusky breeze of Monaco, the orange sun casting shadows over the clementine tree. You closed your hand over his, a tight clamp over his knobby wrist with certainty. “I…”

“Say it.”

“I want to.” His eyes were shut. Exhale. Inhale, open. “I… I’m going… going home.”

You breathed out apprehensively and relaxed. “Oh.” You blinked. “That’s it?”

“Ye—ouais. Yeah. I gotta.” Already he was climbing to the gate, waving a half-hearted goodbye. “Save some for me, oui? Bye.”

“Charles,” you warned after him, voice tinged with concern. “That’s it, promise?” Your hand flexed around air.

“Cross my heart!” The last thing he ever said with any bit of something genuine.

—

You reunite with Charles at a meeting; under the guise of your truce, he makes the barely-necessary small talk. The rest of the staff file out of the restaurant in due time, but you both stay. You ask about Lorenzo and Arthur, leaving out questions you’d rather not listen to him answer, and he tells you they’re both alright. That his mum asks about you sometimes. That makes you smile. He asks if you’re still dating the guy you’d most recently been partnered with in Us Weekly.

“God, no. We never even dated, the… um, tabloids always make shit up.” You purse your lips. “Anyway. Is Lorenzo still in film?” You ask, turning your head a little. You don’t think you’ll ever forget his affinity for cinema.

“Not professionally, but I still sit through hours-long… you know, reviews, and stuff.” He laughs when he sees you laugh, eyes half-closed and meeting the ceiling.

“He introduced me to some of my favorite movies, especially when I got into acting and I was kind of… like, I wanted some inspiration, acting-wise. But not my actual favorite movie.”

“Which is?” He segues into a more personal topic. “Is it still Bambi?”

“Oh, it was, for the longest time!” You almost squeal with excitement. “Not anymore, though. It’s been dethroned, ha ha. I think it’s… I’d say it’s maybe Casablanca now.”

“How American.”

“Shut up.” Your face warms. “It’s so romantic. When he says—when he goes, um. We’ll always have Paris. And then, God—when Ilsa goes, I said I would never leave you—and Rick goes, And you never will… isn’t it so classic? Romance movies nowadays are—I, I, I… I get scripts sent to me that are just so bad, and they’re either too idealistic or too pessimistic, or too indie or too commercial, and.” You sigh. “It’s like nobody gets love right anymore.”

“Us Weekly disagrees,” he says weakly, after a period of silence.

“Stop,” you laugh warningly. “And don’t act like you’re not being paired up with different girls, too.”

For a minute you sit with the realization that you’ve both been keeping tabs on each other all these years, even just a little bit. It’s a bit jarring, it’s a bit warm, it’s a lot confusing. You make a move to ask for the bill but Charles is quicker, opens his mouth to implore your presence.

“Come see me tonight.” He says it like he didn’t mean to, like it escaped him on a whim, a blurted out confession born out of your memories and conversation. His voice is dreamy, faraway. “Earth to…?”

“Wh—sorry. Fuck.” You clear your throat and deduce your next words. “Where?”

“I’ll text you. A club, near your hotel.”

“Yeah… yeah, sure.” You hum an affirming noise and hang up. 

—

Your name is on the list, though you’re sure it doesn’t matter whether or not it was. No ID is needed, and paps catch a bouncer being dispatched to guide you through the nightclub toward the elevated area with significantly less people. It’s low-lit, smoky, vaguely blue and purple, smelling of flows of alcohol and fresh ice. An Azealia Banks song is playing, pounding through your head.

Tabloids don’t care about nightclubs. They care if you come out drunk or with a smidge of snow under your nose, neither of which have happened to you; entering is fair game, a fun affair, especially in a district like Monte-Carlo. You don’t have any explaining to do, not even to questions like are you clubbing with your professional Vogue collaborator, Charles Leclerc?

The collaborator in question is the first to greet you, getting up and approaching you with a smile so obviously tense. The picture in front of him is like if he’d conjured up a forlorn fantasy of his to life—your hair fell loosely over black lace, a hand pinched around the hem of your dress. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“So.” He realizes he’s in charge of the socializing, and turns to properly introduce you. “Um, guys, this is my—friend—you already know”—he fusses over your name, which everyone in the world knows, anyway—“and these are my friends. Pierre, Alex, George, Lando, Daniel… you know Joris.” He points to each guy's face as he goes, eliciting a beam every time he gestures.

You wave with a polite smile before you station yourself beside the only one you know: Joris, with whom Charles shares a longtime friendship. He greets you first, with a side hug. “Long time.”

“Yeah, it’s been.” You watch him turn toward the low table, and back around with two shots, offering them to you with haste.

You thank the Lord that he makes quick, dextrous work of it, and before long you’ve downed a glass or three of some strawberry four seasons thing, socializing with the different people around the table. One of them, Lando, talks about your latest film for five whole minutes (“I rated it five stars on Letterboxd. I left a review, if you wanna see”) before he leans close and asks: “Are you his girlfriend?” His is obviously referencing Charles, and you pull back from the proximity to shake your head.

“No,” you holler to emphasize it. “We used to know each other. I grew up here.”

“Oh shit! Native!” He whoops, offering you another glass. This must be your fifth, maybe, fifth G&T or Cosmo or something or other of the night. You take it, drinking as you walk, planning to collect your bag to take with you to the bathroom—another hand takes yours, though, dragging you down the steps. Halfway through, you realize it’s Charles.

“How’s the drink?” He asks, brows straight.

“That’s all you wanted to ask?” You raise your voice above the bass. “Someone needs to teach you fucking… proper small talk.” A laugh involuntarily bubbles past your lips, eyes crinkling. 

He laughs, too, despite himself. “Non, I was—I was just asking. We should—I brought you over here to—so we could…” He realizes he’s been talking too fast without getting to the point and pauses, resetting himself with a pinched sigh. “Dance.”

Your heart pulses. Dance? You hear yourself ask. For wh…Why?

“For the sake of the truce.” His voice is light. “We should try being closer.”

“We were close once,” you say, loose. “Did you forget?”

He’s looking right at you, and you’re warm all over. “How could I?”

It feels too real. Not the words—yes the words—but the alcohol, the alcohol is what you’re referring to, and all those shots and drinks suddenly seem not as harmless as they’d seemed earlier. You scan the periphery for the WC sign and try your best not to look deranged on your way there, offering the same pretty smile to recognizing passersby. Behind you, Charles calls out; but you wave him off, heaving dryly.

The restroom is clean because the nightclub is outrageously expensive; you push yourself into the available stall that’s in your direct path and crumple above it. You heave. Heave some more. Nothing comes. The nausea rises and recedes, so you decide to wait it out.

The bathroom door hauls open, bringing with it a few seconds of noise before it swings heavily onto the frame again, sealing the sterile silence. The momentary return of the bass from the dance floor sends your head spinning all over again and you freeze, willing yourself not to wind up hurling your guts into the toilet. It’s a futile effort, though, because you’re feeling nauseated beyond your limit again, and you need water and maybe a salve or something.

“This stall is open,” somebody says, a chipper American voice that grows in volume as it nears you. A gasp follows, and then: “Oh, my God. Are you okay?”

You turn, your face flushed and lips parted. “I’m so sorry. I just—I’ve been nauseous all night.”

“I have water,” she answers, reaching her arm outward, as if seeking it. “Carmen, the water!” A bottle of Evian is thrust into her hand by another girl (Carmen, you presume), and she doesn’t hesitate to bend next to you to feed it into your mouth. She stares for a second, then goes: “On the off chance I’m lucky, and you’re the famous actress, by the way, I just want to say I’m a huge fan of your work.”

Eyes wide, you lock eyes with her and pull away from the water. “Oh, God. Yeah, that’s me. I’m so sorry—this is so humiliating.”

“It’s not—it’s normal,” she assures, nodding. “We’ve all… y’know, puked into a club toilet before.” From the stall doorframe, Carmen nods. “What’d you drink?”

“Fruity stuff,” you recall, eyebrows knitting at the memory. “And shots.”

They both grimace at the same time, knowing the exact feeling, the exact taste, it seems. “Are you heartbroken or something?” Carmen asks; Lily shoots her a look that can only really mean don’t ask the world-famous actress if she’s heartbroken. But you laugh it off, shaking your head.

“No. There’s a guy, though, and he’s… we’re… it’s a lot. I think I thought alcohol would absorb all of it, but… clearly, it did not.” Your lips simmer into a straight line and you’re quiet for a few moments before remembering you’re on a dingy club floor being supported by two nice girls who are strangers. “Anyway! Sorry. I’m clearly, um, delirious.” You get up on semi-wobbly feet, swallowing the nausea as you go. 

You walk to the sink, and behind your back, the girl and Carmen share a telepathic exchange (should we ask her to elaborate? Yes! Should we really? Fuck, no.) You rinse your mouth out, washing your hands and focusing on your reflection—your tired eyes, your smudged lip gloss, your fussed-up hair. You turn after rinsing, offering a small smile. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” says the first girl, offering her hand and a tube of lip gloss. “I’m Lily, by the way. And just so you know—I’m so sure that guy has nothing on you.” Carmen, beside her, nods in solidarity, and your heart blooms.

Your smile grows as your hand shakes hers, accepting the lip gloss. “You’re too kind. Thank y—” 

“Lil? Baby, are you puking?” Comes a disembodied male voice from the door, ajar ever so slightly. Lily visibly cringes and walks over to the door, pulling it open further. On the other side—the detective of sorts—happens to be Alex, who you’d been introduced to a few hours ago. At the sight of you, his eyes widen with recognition. 

“We’re fine. Leave us alone,” replies Lily in a conspiratorial whisper. “Carmen and I have a new friend.” She doesn’t even need to drop your name; your face alone is enough to make people recognize who you are.

Alex, however, refuses to admit defeat. “Try harder next time.” He pumps his eyebrows. “We were introduced earlier.” He looks up and waves to demonstrate his truth; when you smile back, Lily’s jaw drops as she turns to her boyfriend again, aghast.

“What the hell? How?” A pause. “No offense. It’s like. Two levels of fame, right there.”

He makes a pinched face. “She’s Charles’… friend? I don’t—coworker? Something, something. They were both vague about it. Actually, George and I were talking about it, and we both think something is up. With them.”

“Wait—you might be right.” Her eyes are hyperfocused, and her voice drops to a whisper for a second. “Let’s talk about it at the hotel.”

You and Carmen watch their hushed exchange, and eventually Alex leaves you three alone again with a loud goodbye, which allows Lily to rejoin your conversation. “Sorry,” she says with a smile. “That was my boyfriend, Alex. I didn’t know you two were introduced! He told me you knew Charles?”

“Oh.” Your shoulders relax. “Yeah, um. We knew each other as kids, but I moved away and we kind of—we drifted apart, so. I’m here on a business trip, and he’s just welcoming me.” You try to reduce the decade-long mess into a sentence.

“So you’re friends?”

“Yeah.” You feel like vomiting all over again. 

—

The sky’s a searing blue at noon, silver clouds lining the horizon. Charles has to press a finger to the high point of his cheek to test if he’s sunburned from the heat, and the cameras catch it; he doesn’t doubt the fans will spin that into something cute later. You’re somewhere else on the property, this big, massive thing of a museum that’s crashed into by the waves.

He remembers Andrea first telling him about this whole arrangement. He and the team had deliberately left out any mention of you, like they could predict the immediate veto. He wonders if you knew, or if you, too, had been surprised when seeing him, a ghost of your past looking into your eyes. He wonders if you, too, are now in this endless emotional turmoil. Inside there’s a photoshoot ongoing, with you but also with some models in varying aquatic-related poses to convey the intent of the building; he’s done his share of pictures already, just needs to sit down with you for an interview. 

“And a B-roll of you guys, um, like, walking, like—around?” Greg’s voice invades his head again, the nervous man beside him running through a to-do list like this is boot camp.

You’d left him hanging at the club—he couldn’t blame you though. A truce hardly called for the bringing forth of memories you two are now supposed to have buried beneath you. Memories he buried first. But alcohol had loosened him, and maybe you had, too, your eyes in the vaguely bluish light and your smile.

He wishes to apologize. He makes up some excuse and finds you nursing an Evian by a faraway corner, against a screen of stingrays. Your eyes widen when you see him, in recognition. He waves and then, with a thumb, gestures to the catering outside.

You end up by the water eating one of the caterer’s churros, a recommendation he deems “very special.” (“Have you worked with these caterers before?” “No.”) It’s also his excuse to cheat on his diet and eat a churro or three—chocolate dip included, always. You rave over the taste, smile, enjoy the view. Charles realizes this looks deceivingly like a date, and at the same time realizes he would not stop to correct someone if they assumed so.

“Our truce seems to be working.” You say in-between chews, voice flat but eyes bright.

“It seems so. I owe that to my personality.”

You really laugh at that. “I didn’t know you had one. It’s very fit for someone as unapproachable as I am.”

“Who said that?”

“No, noth—nobody.” You comb a lock of hair behind your ear. “Aw, putain. I’m ruining my lipstick. Pat’s going to kill me. I look awful.” There are no reflective surfaces around you to affirm your statement, but you sound so sure of yourself.

He smiles. He enjoys the illusion, the mask that you two seem to wear, albeit involuntarily. The chocolate syrup he squeezes on your little paper box of churros. The muttered back merci when he’s finished. Your flushed face, eyes darting from the delicacy to the ocean, eyelashes fluttering, lips smiling, curving into a laugh at some random realization. Briefly he imagines what he might tell somebody if they stopped to ask if you were dating.

Some old woman, French accent and short in stature. You two are so cute. Si mignon! And she would ask how you two met. Charles would tell her the story. But that is imagination. He blinks out of it and focuses on the beauty in front of him, so very real.

“No. You are very pretty, you know.” He says then, and it’s taken him all his nerves and then some just to wrangle it out of his mouth and past his lips. Anticipatory, he watches you, waits for your response.

You comb the hair out of your face messily, licking over the cinnamon sugar on your lips; then you smile up at him, turning your head in question. “Sorry,” you laugh, and his heart’s frozen because it’s the prettiest sound he’s ever heard. “What did you say?”

The wind roars in his ears, so Charles barely hears himself when he says, stuttering, “What? Nothing, I said nothing.”

You make a face—confused, suspicious—but all your allegations quell once you bite into another churro, stepping yourself a path along the area. Having blocked off the building, production staff and models are all that populate your surroundings, big headphones and even bigger cameras, rolling around racks of monochrome and Hermés, Birkins to match Loro Pianas. It’s easy to get lost in a crowd—in a city—where everyone looks the same, and knows the other’s name. Perhaps that’s why, even at nine, you were excited to leave, he thinks.

“The coast was always my favorite part about the city.”

He notices. The way your eyes have softened, become more fond than when you’re in the centre of it all, in the bustle. Here it’s busy, but less busy; the distinction, perhaps, matters. Your gaze is not one of distaste, of disdain. It’s nostalgic, homesick, yearning. He supposes he describes this gaze so well because it’s the way he catches himself looking at you over the week. 

“I wanted to…” He trails off. “I wanted to talk to you because, ah. I’m sorry. It was foolish of me to put you on the spot last night. I should’ve been more… yeah. I’m sorry. I hope you’re okay.”

You stare at the sea and nod quietly. Instead of responding, you launch a story: “I always…” You’re clearly lost in a different sphere of thought, and you have to fall quiet while finding the right words to say. “I remember, um. In Year 3, we—I came here with my mum. And I was super mad, because I got, like, three mistakes on my Maths paper?” You laugh and he does, too, but more because your storytelling is so effortlessly enthralling and funny and he needs to shut himself up.

“Anyway.” You pace around again, and he follows. “So, I’m mad, and she’s trying to cheer me up, buys me glace and everything, but no. So I go sit myself on a random bench. It must’ve been around here, I think.” You look around and point at an empty area. “There. But it’s—they must’ve ripped it out. Whatever. So yeah, I’m sitting there, and moping, and all of a sudden All You Need is Love by The Beatles comes blaring into the entire area.”

Charles’ eyebrows knit confusedly. “What, the bench area?”

“No—the whole pier, I guess? Like, it was loud, I almost jumped. And then this guy comes in holding this huge—this, um, board? Sign? Poster? And he’s got half the pier in on his whole thing, and I’m totally… it was just… yeah.” You smile. It’s the biggest smile he’s seen on you since you got here and the fact that he’s even around to see it gets him all warm.

“So what happened?”

“It was a flash mob. You know those—yeah, they’re usually insufferable, but that one was a little calmer. Nobody was, you know, dancing and yelling. It was just a bunch of people cheering and all, and the guy was actually proposing to his girlfriend. It was so cute.” You sigh a little, a brief exhale of air, and it turns into a smile. “I’d love that.”

He raises his eyebrows and, despite himself, laughs. “Vraiment?” 

You turn to him, ready to defend yourself, mid-laugh. “Heeey. Everyone says they find big, romantic gestures cheesy, but I think deep down, if you trust the person enough, you’ll like it. Maybe not a proposal, though—can you imagine the pressure?” You pause. “But I don’t know. There’s something so nice about just knowing that person loves you so much they think it’s worth it to share it to everyone around you. So even if it’s cheesy, I wouldn’t mind much. You?”

“It’s cheesy for me,” he disagrees, shrugging. “But I see your point.” Truth be told, he didn’t see you as a romantic type—but all he’s ever seen you do lately is work, and even back in childhood, all you ever did was study. He likes learning these little facts, ones you wouldn’t share in interviews—likes knowing you feel comfortable enough to share with him. “Dancing is a bit overboard.”

“Oh, definitely.” You throw your head back to laugh, eyes half-shut and crinkled and reflecting the sun. Would you look the same if he was dancing to The Beatles, proclaiming all the words he hasn’t had the courage to say?

—

Next question is who your first love was—we’re rolling in three…

“First love?” You laughed a little, facing the camera to continue your Screen Test interview with W. The questions had been candid and lovely, but they were about your career, which you answered with familiar ease. First love is different—uncharted, private territory. But you’d realized all this too late, and the director called go, and you let words spill out of you like a bag popped open.

“I want to be funny and witty and say acting, but that would be a lie. Um, my first love was a childhood friend. We lived near each other, our parents were friends, and I… I really did, I liked him a lot. But these—there were so many factors at tension with each other, like me moving away in 2013—that’s, what, six years ago now? And us being young and not really knowing how to communicate. When you’re a teenager, you’re kind of just like, oh, no worries, um, that’ll sort itself out, and then you grow up and look back and realize, these things never do. But I miss him a, a, a… a lot, and I think of him always.” Your smile didn’t reach your eyes when you looked at the camera again. “We learn a lot from childhood loves.”

Cut. Lovely. Just lovely.

“Thank you, Lynn,” you said with a small smile. A pause as silence creeps up onto the room, and then, quieter: “Could we omit that? I—sorry. I could answer anything else. First kiss, or something? I’m sorry, I just. Sorry.” For the first time in five years, you realize, you’ve conjured his memory again.

—

“Okay. What else do you remember?”

“I… do you remember the recital song?”

“Of course I do! The dance is… that’s a different story.” You’d been at Charles’ hotel room earlier to go over some video shoot regulations for a 24 Hours With video you’re doing in a few days. You stayed because—that’s beyond you at this point, and you’d rather not delve into the rationality of it all. You’re content with thinking about how nice this conversation is, a trip down memory lane.

“The dance, mon dieu, the dance.” He smothers a hand over his face, smiles fondly. “You were at the center!”

“Stop. Stop,” you protest, letting laughter settle into quiet. “It’s crazy, you know? How we… like, we share a life. Not—but like, we had a whole childhood together.” 

“And nobody knows.” It’s not something you keep a secret on purpose—it’s just that neither of you feel like name-dropping the other. Some stories have surfaced, but none of you have fully commented. Somehow, that’s a good thing for you.

“Do people ask?”

“People ask, yes.” His accent is a reminder of your past—you’d once had the same thick wraparound, the loose reign over English you’ve now grown to master. Now your accent is a lot thinner, to the point where it’s barely perceptible, and if it is, your coworkers and fans call it cute, chic, use it as a jumping off point to ask where you grew up. But in this hotel room, legs folded underneath you and glass of wine in hand, you have no coworkers or fans, it feels like; no one to perceive you but Charles. Charles and his accent, nostalgic and so very his, which you wouldn’t describe as anything but home.

“What do you tell them, then?” Quickly, you add: “The truth, or…?”

“That we knew each other as kids,” he says, smiling absently. “That is the truth, no?”

You cover a smile with the rim of your wine glass, nodding. There’s no revisionist history in that statement, but it hides a lot of the truth, the nitty gritty of it. You know it, he knows it, you both know it. “What would you want me to say?” His voice is soft and thin and imploring, so different from the boisterous voice he uses in public, from the slurred voice you heard in the club. This sounds real. This sounds like a conversation you would’ve had years ago in your childhood bedroom before everything went—

“Nothing, that’s fine.” You cut your own reverie off, clearing your throat. You even laugh, to alleviate the tension, but he sees right through you so many years later. “Unless you’re privy to telling people how we didn’t talk for months before I left.”

He blinks, smothers a palm over his face again, and sighs, eyes meeting yours. “I’m sorry. I don’t—I… I’ve wanted to bring it up.”

“I’m not mad.” It’s a half-lie. “Okay, no—I am, a bit. It just—it would’ve been nice to hear it two weeks ago.”

“I know.” He doesn’t even need to say it, but him saying it sends a low thrum of reassurance in you. Charles has found, in the two weeks of being in your company, that he accomplishes a sense of self—a sense of quiet, a sense of privacy—when he’s alone with you. Perhaps it’s your natural ability to bring out the best in people, to talk and loosen tongues and make everyone around you feel safe. Or, and this is on a likely front, maybe he misses being one of those people. 

He pretends he’s back to last week after another club rendezvous left you tipsier than the first time, dropping you off at your hotel room with two hands taut at your shoulders, one pinching a keycard. You’d been muttering something under your breath, stumbling as you went—you weren’t tripping too much, really; he didn’t need to hold you, but he told himself he had to—and leaning against the doorframe of your room, staring at him blankly. When he met your eyes, you said: maybe, just maybe. Just those three words. If he tries to remember right, you’d been smiling, but he was sufficiently tipsy, too, so he could just as well be wrong.

He does remember a few things right. The eyeliner smudged across your lower eye, lipstick smacked to a point where it looked like you wore none, beads of salt by your lip, your hand wrapped around your necklace. 

The silence is anything but awkward; still, he resolves to break it. “When you were drunk last week.” He looks up. “You said—you kept saying, maybe, just maybe.”

A laugh escapes you, stilted and a bit nervous. “Oh. That was—yeah, okay.”

“What’s it mean?”

“You seriously don’t remember?” You’re laughing for real now, your hair bobbing with it, eyebrows furrowed to emphasize your confusion. “Oh, my God. Charles, it’s all you ever said in Year… what, 7? I don’t… anyway. But when we were maybe twelve, I…”

Momentarily, you’re stunned by the memories of him—you’d forgotten they were even there. You press a few fingers to your lips and clear your throat. “Sorry. Yeah, I, um—I think you heard it in a movie or read it somewhere, and for ages it was your favorite saying. Maybe, just maybe.”

“I don’t underst—”

“—You were always just saying it,” you cut in, laughing, your voices layering as you discuss the origin of his former favorite term. “No, you really—”

“I don’t—I do not ever remember say—”

“—Well,” you say,  “I remember.” He stays silent for a few seconds, the intensity of your stare and the little smile on your face and everything beating down on him. For a split second he thinks of opening his mouth and getting on his knees and telling you everything, all the apologies, all the things unsaid in the months and years you became strangers. He seriously does. The pressure is almost physical, beyond overwhelming.

“I have to go.” You swallow the lump in your throat, disentangle your legs and clamber off the couch, setting the empty glass on his coffee table. “Good?”

“Yeah,” he says, blinking. “Yeah. Take care. Should I drive you?”

“God, no.” You laugh breathily. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

He closes the door after you leave, stares at it, as if that will conjure you back to him. It occurs to him, jolts him almost, that he’d almost let slip a quiet utterance of love you as you slipped out. His stomach boils. With thankfulness over not having said it, he wonders—or with regret?

—

“Best friends now, are you?” Lily, Carmen, and Rachel look up to the sound of your voice, their serious faces breaking out into smiles. If you could chart the time you spent here, there are definitely people you’ve spent the most time with—these three are at the top of the list. You hang your coat and drop your Chanel bag on the entryway seat, already picking up on the British noises of Love Island UK from the telly.

“Wait, so she’s hooking up with him?” Lily asks, confused; her train of thought is cut off by your flopping onto the bed. “Hiiii. Where’ve you been?”

Muffled by the bedspread: Charles’ place.

Silence. The television switches off and you hear the precarious preparation of three girls readying themselves for a debrief-or-sobfest of a lifetime, a noise you’ve heard and partaken in countless times over your life. You suddenly feel too watched, too spectated; you break the quiet by looking up, displaying your tear-streaked face.

“Talk to us,” Rachel encourages, her voice raspy with unuse (Love Island will keep one occupied and quiet for hours on end). Three of them are touching you in some way or other, reassuring grips on your hair or shoulders. “Did you two fight?”

And, oh Christ, fight? It’s not like you’re dating. You aren’t even halfway to that (not that you want to be, but that’s a discussion for another time). The idea of a fight with him is so terribly juvenile, so horribly reminiscent of secondary school and Monaco and being together and being friends. You can’t fight with a guy who’s not your boyfriend. You can’t fight with a guy you’re not close to, for Chrissake. You squeeze your tears out of your eyes and breathe hiccups out.

“Do you want gelato?” No, no.

“Love Island?” In a minute.

The truth is, you want both, but you really just want to sort everything out with Charles. It was no use—hating each other was futile, but pretending everything was fine in some pathetic attempt at a “truce” seemed even worse. You just want to talk everything out, even if it excavates feelings you’d once been able to suppress.

“What kind of crush doesn’t disappear after ten years?” You ask through tears. It’s almost funny, but the question comes straight from the heart. “I’ve dated guys, lived across the world, started a whole new life pretending he never—pretending we were—fuck. Pretending he didn’t exist. It was—I’m not lying, it was easy, pretending. But one glimpse—I see him one time and suddenly it feels like all of it was in vain. It’s the same crush I had before, coming back, like it’s never going to leave me alone.”

“Maybe it’s not a crush,” says Lily, slowly.

“So what is it then?” You ask, hopelessly. What is this—this revival of memories? This little feeling, this sense that no matter where he is or what he’s doing, you’ll be just as in tune when you reunite even if it takes a decade? A decade spurred by months of being given the cold shoulder? What kind of magic is that?

She doesn’t answer, because you already know.

—

“Hey Vogue—I’m here with Charles Leclerc, and we’re here to take you along with us on all our little adventures here in Monaco.” Your smile is rehearsed, the perfectly-orchestrated blend of fun and serious, and when the cameraman calls cut, it falls into a more natural resting face. It’s the one Charles turns to and observes for any signs of a grudge.

The day is busy, which is precisely why it was chosen as the film day: three shows in the morning, press junkets for your movie and Charles’ season in the afternoon, and then a gala in the evening, hosted and attended by Anna Wintour herself.

The day’s business is only trumped by its tension, which reaches its crescendo in the janitor’s closet of the fourth floor of your hotel. It’d begun with a fight over the color palette, then a fight over last conversation you shared, then a fight over him fucking up the color palette, and then kissing against the door. Ironically enough, this floor houses a fair number of honeymoon suites.

It’s ironic beause hardly anything about this is or should be romantic—it’s a temporary fix, a pause from the turmoil, his hand squeezing your thigh. He’s gentle but you feel his possessiveness, lingering longer, higher and higher up until he’s playing with the high hem of your skirt. You knot your fingers in his hair, smell the shampoo and hairspray and cologne in the wispy curls there.

He kisses your jaw, then downward, until he’s licking, nipping at your throat. Charles.

“Yeah?” His voice is rough against your pulse point.

“Make it—we gotta—quicker.” Your hands tremble, heart hammering loud and bold in your chest. His voice is sure, gravelly, quiet, and you have to focus on something—so you centre on his hands, up your thighs and slipping under the lace of your skirt, bunching the fabric up around your hips. His hands, big and calloused, fingers resting on your hipbones, on your ass.

He’s hard against your thigh, straining against his jeans. You could cry. “I want more.”

“I know, baby. I know.” The pet name, so new but so natural, sends you into a dopamine rush.

You squirm when he doesn’t let up on his touches, over every inch of your body, groping you. He wants to take his time—he hates that he can’t—and counts on the possibility of a next time. You pull him in for a spit-slick kiss, needy and whimpering, sloppy and tongues knotted. It feels good—fuck, it feels like this was all you were ever made for, his touch. 

You buck your hips into the air desperately. “We really—fuck. We don’t have time.” Cameras, a shoot, a video; reminders ring in your head like alarm bells. He nods, goes I know, and you pick up the strain in his voice as he tugs his jeans down just enough to rub his clothed cock under your entrance, hard and drooling through the fabric.

You moan softly. “Please, I can take it,” you breathe. You’ve never been this wet, this worked up, this teased. You need to feel him, be full of him; he presses you flush against the door with a hand at the small of your back to keep it from aching too much, and drops forward as he pushes into you. Your noses brush and he goes deeper, air thick and muffled with little moans and whimpers.

His mouth is against your jaw, thrusting slowly to get you used to the size of him. The angle gets you dizzy, draws a burst of wetness out and gets you clenching around him. You’re flushed and sweaty, moaning. Feels s’good. So good, Charles, so, so good. He fucks harder, the door rattling, dirty talk cooed from his lips to your ear: Yeah? Feels real good? You’re so good for me, baby, come on.

Your needy voice, needier movements, are driving him crazy, getting him to fuck you harder, licking over his lips as he watches you fall apart on his dick. Relax, he slurs. You squeeze around him and moan, wretched and raw. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. You’re so big. You’re getting his dick wetter and wetter with every thrust, shiny and drooling with cum.

Yeah? He says it so well, the best kind of reassurance. Come on, we don’t have time, baby. Let me feel you cum.

I know— you whine. I’m cumming—it feels too good—

You cum first, thighs shaky around him and lip curling into your teeth. You lean forward, mouth to his shoulder, and bite at the cotton. Fuck, he grunts, and releases then, a groan spilled into your hair. You watch, laughing breathlessly, and feel the world click into something different. 

You two will do anything, apparently, but talk this all through.

—

The gala is big and extravagant and you’re seated not with Charles this time, but with a roster of celebrities straight out of an LAX red-eye. Anna is at the table adjacent, andy you were able to talk to her about the experience, though not without leaving out bits with Charles in them.

You’re beside Florence and she’s talking about something, about a new movie she’s working on, and you chip in with jokes and laughs but your smile doesn’t really reach your eyes. You’re still caught in a web of fragile confusion. “I need to excuse myself for a moment,” you say after a while, after you’ve done nothing but smile and push broccoli puree around on your plate.

Consolation comes with isolation, at least tonight, at least right now. You find an empty balcony on the third floor, stare into the black sea. You try and try to remember what life was like three weeks ago, but it’s irrevocable now, the change that’s come since then. You tap the glass of your beer bottle against the marble banister, solid and probably expensive—a match for the rest of the hotel, you realize. It’s starkingly clean and smooth, and white, the kind of things you’d only say about a marble banister when you’re trying to avoid an adult introspection.

Behind you: “Are you okay?” 

In response, you say, “We shouldn’t have had sex.”

Charles settles himself into a spot near you, not totally beside but not too far—he, too, holds onto a bottle of beer. There are fancier drinks around, but somehow the dry taste of ale is all that brings you comfort right now. Your gears turn and, without prompt or question, you spill yourself forth.

“It was hard, when you didn’t… when we didn’t talk, and you didn’t ever tell me why, so I didn’t know anything. I keep remembering it, even now, what—ten years later, ha ha, even after… I don’t know, after the fact. We’re supposed to have moved on from shit that happened to us when we were fifteen but I’m finding it to be the hardest thing in the world. It was so… like, I had no trouble saying goodbye to anything else but you. And I’m famous now, my life is a whole thing, a—this whole party, and I’m supposed to… fuck.” You shut your eyes, and you can feel, through the thick fog of embarrassment and delirium, the tears that stain your cheeks. “It’s like. You know when you’re a teenager and you see all of it in movies and TV, this, like, moment where you’re staring at someone from across a room, and you’re smiling and talking to other people and you’re happy because you know in a few hours, you’ll be with that person anyway? At home, rearranging furniture, feeding the dog, eating leftovers? That… I always thought you’d be that person for me. Maybe because you were the only—you know—the only love I ever knew, and now, what. Four? Boyfriends and ten years later, you might expect me to feel differently—hell I expect myself to feel differently, but, unfortunately for you and me, I don’t. Sorry. I’m not—I’m not drunk, or anything.”

He stares at you, his expression soft and unreadable. It feels like it’s just the two of you in the world today, twenty-somethings, ten years later, unearthing all you left buried. “I…” he says, before pausing. “I’m sorry for leaving.”

You nod in response. 

“I always thought you would forgive me.” His face is sullen and handsome and your heart seizes. “I wanted to be your person.”

“How could I forgive you without an apology?” Your voice comes out fragile. “I leave in three days. You’ve fu—you’ve… you’ve kissed me, had sex with me, flirted with me. You’ve done everything but that.”

“I did apologize. I don’t think it was enough, but—”

“But you didn’t,” you reply, a jagged response. “You never said anything.”

“I wrote you.” His eyebrows knit. “I wrote you.” 

“You wrote me.” You repeat, deadpan. Your head spins with it. “What, a letter?”

“An e-mail. Before your first film came out—2014? A year after you… yeah.” He’s quiet and timid and nervous. “I forced Gi to tell me your address.”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t using that e-mail anymore. I haven’t in years.” You pinch your nose and let the silence settle like fine dust onto the room, an unspoken bomb that explodes over the both of you, raining regret and unsaid words. “I have to go.” You push yourself off the banister, turning already to the doors of the balcony. He stops you before you can step any further, a hand closed over your wrist, rough and warm.

“If you find the message,” he says, “will you read it?”

“I don’t plan to,” you lie. “Goodnight.”

—

From: Charles Perceval Leclerc <cmhpleclerc@gmail.com>

Date: 14 October 2014

To: You

Subject: Urgent!

hey buttercup, I asked Giada for this email address. my bday in 2 days. Will you be home for Xmas this year btw? ill show you some new places that open ed + we can bike around. mum misses u a lot too. parfois je souhaite que tu ne partes pas… not sometimes but always. i think i need to edit this a little let me try ag

From: Charles Perceval Leclerc <cmhpleclerc@gmail.com>

Date: 14 October 2014

To: You

Subject: Buttercup

j’appellerais mais je ne pense pas que tu veuilles répondre. it’s been more than a year since you moved out, in two days i’ll be celebrating my second birthday w/o you. i’ve been karting a lot, things are looking up, just like we always said they would :) just want to say i miss you a lot, and i hope you’re doing good. i would say i hate radio silence but i know it’s my fault all this happened in the first place. i’m sorry i stopped talking to you last year when you were moving away. i was being childish, but the truth is it was the only way i could handle it - by pretending we werent friends at all… i don’t want to make you pity me or anything (ne pense pas que je suis) but yeah you’re my best friend and you always will be. i’m sorry for being a knot head.

i was always scared to tell you but it’s been there since forever: i love you. i should’ve enjoyed your months here instead of leaving you in the air. i know i ignored you but it’s the 1 thing i regret. should’ve done a lot more, i know.. but i didn’t. we have a lot of promises i broke because i was being selfish. i kept the paper ring to remind me. remember that? we had a “playground wedding” when we were 5/6?

tu ne me dois rien - i just want you to give me a chance to make you happy, even if it’s just in the way we’ve always been (as friends). if you write me back i’ll try and fly there. mum is always asking me if we’ve talked yet. if not, that’s ok. i love you all the same and i will love you as you reach your dreams. this will never change. 

charles

p.s: est-ce que je te manque?

p.p.s: call me if you can and wish me a happy birthday?

—

“Rachel, I would sooner die than wait another two hours for the tarmac to clear again.” You try to up the firmness in your voice but it fails, only serving to make you sound less angry and more agitated. When all you get in response is a muffled I’m coming! you grumble and hang up the phone. Your plane was delayed all of three times, and the instant it arrives and is scheduled to take off on time, your friendsistant is nowhere to be found.

Lily and Carmen had thrown you a goodbye party the night prior, with sprinklers and music and cocktails, and promised to be on the next flight to L.A. Vogue and David had emailed you for a job done spectacularly, and to watch out for the videos and interviews’ release dates. Twitter is raving about your movie. Everything should be good, and yet, it’s not.

You check your inbox. IM COMJNG LILTIERALLY IM RUNNING THRU AJRPPRT!!!!!! You scoff again, hoping the plane doesn’t somehow take off for the fourth time, and take a seat on the VIP waiting area sofa again, shaking your now-empty chai latte. The room, sectioned off from economy and business, is fairly full.

A woman paces over to you, a bright grin on her face. “Hi. I’m a huge fan.”

“Thank you,” you smile, despite your tiredness.

“This is so embarrassing—but do you happen to have the time?”

“Sure”—you tap your phone open—“half past four.”

“Great,” she says. “Thanks, Buttercup.”

You’re opening your mouth to say you’re welcome, but it catches like cotton in your throat. You watch her depart like nothing happened, a strange feeling settling in your chest. You have barely any time to answer it, because a flight attendant is tapping you on the shoulder, addressing you by name, thankfully. She maintains a tone of professionalism all throughout her announcement that the aircraft under your name will have to evacuate the runway in ten minutes or less.

“I know, I know—I’m just, um. I’m waiting for somebody. She should be near now, though.”

“Tremendous. Merci, Buttercup.”

“Wh—” You stutter, blinking and watching her leave. “What?”

She doesn’t turn, walking to the kiosk to exchange information with her coworkers. You look around the airport, for a camera hidden somewhere maybe. Perhaps you’ve been unknowingly listed in some Impractical Jokers skit.

Rach hurry you text instead, leaning back and hoping you’re in some grandiose delusion. Your phone dings. Omw promise! It reads. Then: Look up buttercup

Your head snaps upward faster than you can register what you’ve just read, matching the opening notes of a song you’ve grown all too familiar with in your lifetime. The opening beat to Build Me Up, Buttercup flows like honey through the room’s intercom and floods it with life.

Mouth agape, you watch as the staff and guests perform the routine you’d learned at fourteen, complete with hops and turns you were too embarrassed to do even then. They’re smiling and whooping themselves and each other as they go, finishing the entire first verse before turning collectively to the entrance of the room. There, in all his glory: Charles, wearing an entirely too-small headdress that reads Buttercup, worn dusty from years of being stored away.

He’s dancing, too, closer to you. You refuse to budge for the express purpose that he dance some more, which he complies with, though not without an eyeroll and an exasperated sigh. Your heart beats with something irregular and warm. You’d told him about this before. He’d listened.

The music settles for a little and the dancers do, too, so he takes the time to raise his sign. Will you forgive me? It reads. No pressure. Except kind of. You laugh, throwing your head back at the gesture, at this entire affair that must have taken some amount of effort to prepare. As the lyric comes on, so does his sign: I need you… more than anyone, darling.

He drops the sign when you approach him, arms crossed over your torso. He removed the headdress and places it gingerly on yours. “I believe that belongs to you.”

And, hyperaware of all the eyes and yet the complete lack of cameras—you’re grateful for it—you finally, finally, finally pull him in for a kiss. You’ve kissed before, done your worst, but still means volumes to the both of you.

In-between kisses and cheers (from voices belonging to Lorenzo, Rachel, Lily—so many familiar ones), he says it again: “I’m sorry. I’ll make it all up to you.”

“You better,” you tease into his lips, smiling. “I know. I love you.” Ten years later—your person still is, and no doubt will always be, Charles Leclerc.

My heart is full and my soul is healing! 😭❤️

In the low light, I'd do anything for you

Max Verstappen - Race Winner, Karting Champion, Charles Leclerc's Personal Mic Assistant

Basia.

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus (Carme 5, Catullo) Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis. Soles occidere et redire possunt; nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum; dein, cum milia multa fecerīmus, conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus invidere possit, cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Under water. Body immerged in the ocean, seeking for an opportunity to near the after life. Because everything was useless without him in my life. Indeed, I didn't know where he was.

I decided to let my body die. For, without him in my life, I wouldn't know how to thrive.

Want to feel again his soft lips on mine, to bring him back in my life. And, someone held my body. Brought me to the land, caressed my hair but didn't try to revive me.

The touch was strikingly abusing my consciousness. because my body had gone limp in the nowhere.

I was feeling the stare of its presence, it was abnormal and I paradoxally wanted to open eyes and see who that was.

But, it was nearly impossible. And yet, I could see without seeing.

It's unexplainable but, my body knew who that was.

Now, I might have had a guess and I think I did know who that was. Because, those soft, plump lips , were on my skin. My body recognised him.

He was there for me.

Had I not immerged myself in the deep waters of the Atlantide, I would have seen him again.

I coulnd't move, neither speak. I couldn't open my eyes, neither breath. So, how was it possible that I could hear his voice?

I was screaming in my head. Meanwhile. he shushed me.

"My bunny. Don't panic. Amor animi arbitrio sumitur, non ponitur. I'm here now with you, thats all that matters" , he said.

My Henry was here.My cold and freezing winter had come again to help me. There was an happiness inside me that nothing, not even Hades, could ever diminish it from me.

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. That was all I could think of.

We choose to love, we do not choose to cease loving .

“I hate and I love Why do I, you ask ? I don't know, but it's happening and it hurts”

I don't believe l've ever met anyone quite like you. Taxi Driver (1976) dir. Martin Scorsese

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ FOREVER WINTER (IF YOU GO) — task force 141 x reader

✩ part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten, part eleven, part twelve, part thirteen, part fourteen

// read on ao3. fanfic playlist.

!! description.

When your commander -- Phillip Graves -- turns against the Los Vaqueros and Task Force 141, you find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Between your own morals, and your duty to serve the man you can no longer idolise, a choice must be made.

Do you help the two operatives you know deserve to live? Or do you fight with your unit -- the men you swore to stand beside?

The decision is made when you find yourself stumbling, quite literally, into one Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish; and, effectively, the 141's entire lives.

!! characters.

simon 'ghost' riley + johnny 'soap' mactavish + kyle 'gaz' garrick + john 'bravo six' price + (non-endgame phillip graves)

!! warnings.

nsfw, fem!reader, fmmmm, enemies to lovers, slow burn, polyamory, ghostsoap, pricegaz, alerudy, heavy angst, requited unrequited love, graphic violence