Chapter Text
Las Vegas under the lights felt unreal, even from inside a cockpit. Floodlights turned the Strip into daylight, and the barriers glowed neon pink and blue as the cars cut through the night. Fifty laps of racing and, inevitably, it had boiled down to the same two names it always did now. Max Verstappen leading the hunt; George Russell refusing to let him breathe.
By lap forty-two the championship narrative everyone had predicted was playing out in real time. Max could feel George closing through every mirror angle the helmet offered. The Mercedes was steady through the high-speed corners, a little kinder on its tyres, but Max made up for anything the car lacked simply by being Max. George had been closing, Sector 1 then Sector 2, creeping into DRS range with every tenth he eked out.
“Strat three. You’ll have DRS next straight,” Marcus said, casual as a Monday morning briefing.
George didn’t speak. He flicked the steering mode switch with his thumb and pushed. The engine responded instantly, the rear wheels biting hard as the speed crept up the digital readout. DRS flap snapped open. 310. 315. 325. The car shuddered with the sudden loss of drag, and the roar in George’s ears swallowed everything else.
Max defended early, edging left, legal weaving, just enough to make his point. George followed him anyway, the turbulence buffeting him so hard he felt it in his ribs. He still stayed there, pressing into the air wake until they reached the braking boards.
One hundred metres. Max didn’t blink. Seventy-five. George knew he was already late. Fifty. The tyres squealed under him, a hair from locking, and Max somehow stayed on the brake half a beat longer. They turned into Turn One side-by-side, sparks spitting from the floor plank and a ripple from the contact that ran straight through George’s seat.
Instantly, Max was on the radio. “He turned in on me!”
GP sounded like he’d had to say this sentence a hundred times already this year. “Copy. Continue.”
George’s jaw clenched. “Learn to brake, honestly–!”
“Language,” Marcus cut in. “Car is fine. Keep him behind.”
The stewards’ note flashed on the dash display, and even without hearing it, George could have guessed: incident noted, no immediate action. A few more corners and the message updated to what everyone knew was coming. No further investigation. Racing incident. Again.
Max didn’t let it go. DRS on the next zone, battery dump deployed right at the activation line, and he shot past into Turn 14 with a move so committed it bordered on recklessness. George tried to cover it, but the Red Bull had too much straight-line speed left.
“You’re racing for the win,” Marcus reminded him, voice maddeningly calm.
George refocused. Shifted brake bias. Turned off a little recharge. Managed the tyres just enough to give himself a launch out of Turn 12. Marcus didn’t even need to say it, he could hear the approval in the silence when George nailed the corner exit perfectly.
Then the return shot. George lined up the overtake, Max squeezing him just enough to remind him who he was fighting. George still sent it, pushing alongside, refusing to yield even half a car length. Turn One again, side-by-side again, both of them playing chicken with their braking points and neither of them willing to be the first to lift.
Broadcast commentators must have been losing it, but inside the helmet there was only breathing, numbers, and Max.
And it kept going, lap after lap, like neither of them cared about the tyres flattening into blisters or the fuel delta creeping into the danger zone. Verstappen taking the lead into Turn 14. Russell stealing it back with better traction into Turn One. Engineers offering tyre management advice and getting ignored in stereo.
By the time lap forty-nine began, the paddock had gone strangely quiet. Toto wasn’t talking. Christian wasn’t pacing. Whatever happened now, nobody could stop it.
Marcus tried again. “Tyre temps are high. If you can’t attack, manage.”
George released a short laugh. Attack was the only option left. If he stepped back even half a lap, the title swung back toward Max.
Two laps remained when the decisive moment came. Max tried the outside of Turn One again; wide entry, late apex, leaning on muscle memory and pure confidence. But George placed the car perfectly this time. A tighter turn-in, clipping the inside kerb, forcing Max onto the dust line. The Red Bull slid, only a moment, only a twitch, but it was enough.
George was through. And for the first time all race, he stayed there.
Two laps of defending. Max all over his mirrors, the Delta hovering at three tenths, but the Mercedes hung on. George took the chequered flag with his entire body locked tight, like he had been holding himself together by sheer force of will.
“P1, mate. Great drive,” Marcus said, relief bleeding through the radio static.
George finally let himself exhale. “Yeah. Good job, team.”
Max crossed the line a blink later. There was a pause, long enough for the world to hear it, before he said, flat but razor-edged, “P2. Good race.”
Everyone knew it wasn’t a compliment.
One-two finish on paper.
But tension doesn’t disappear just because the race is over.
It follows you into parc fermé.
The Red Bull rolled into the P2 box first, engine coughing into silence.
Max shut the car down with mechanical muscle memory, hands still buzzing from the steering wheel. His heart was punching at his ribs, not from effort, he could drive fifty laps half-asleep, but from that final lap, from watching the silver car stay just far enough ahead, from knowing exactly who he’d lost to.
He unclipped, tore off the belts, and climbed out, visor still down, expression protected. He glanced automatically toward the P1 slot. Empty.
Of course it was, George always liked to make an entrance.
Max walked over to the little FIA P2 stand, peeled off his gloves, balaclava, helmet. Sweat stuck his hair to his forehead, and he didn't bother to fix it. He grabbed a bottle of water someone shoved at him, took a long swallow, and tried, unsuccessfully, to throttle the words cycling through his head.
Dirty. Reckless. Fucking amateur.
Except George wasn’t an amateur. And that was the real problem.
The McLaren slid into P3. Oscar hopped out neatly, offering a nod at his team. Clean job. No drama.
Max envied him for a second, Then dismissed it. Oscar wasn’t part of this.
Engines roared behind him. George’s Mercedes pulled in, hit the mark dead center. Precise, smugly perfect–like George himself.
Max didn’t wait. Didn’t let him breathe.
George got out, tugging his steering wheel free, yanking the drinking tube from his suit. He pulled the helmet off, curls damp, cheeks streaked with sweat and high colour.
Max stepped directly into his space.
Not a handshake.
Not a nod.
Not even a well done through gritted teeth.
“You are a dirty driver,” he said. Flat. Bitter. Accusation, not opinion.
George blinked once, then laughed, short and humorless, like Max had told the funniest joke in the world.
“Oh please,” he said, voice raw from race stress. “Like you’re any better.”
He placed his helmet carefully on the P1 stand, so controlled it made Max angrier, and chugged half his drink bottle without breaking eye contact. Gloves came off next, tugged with his teeth and clenched fists.
Max stayed there, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, pressuring, daring.
The cameras caught it instantly. Boom mics pivoted, the media’s sixth sense for drama tingled and focused.
Oscar hovered three steps away, clearly regretting every life decision that had led him to this moment.
Max didn’t care.
“That win was dirty,” Max said, louder now, letting venom sharpen every consonant. “You shoved me wide three times, minimum. And of course the stewards didn’t care–why would they, when you’ve fucked half the FIA board already? Must be nice, getting off on and off track, slut.”
It landed like a slap.
George froze.
Half a second, then he turned, fully, deliberately, face thunderous.
“I haven’t fucked anyone on the FIA board,” he said through clenched teeth. “And you know damn well I don’t ‘fuck for fun.’ You want to throw accusations, fine, but at least make them believable.” His eyes narrowed. “Slut? Please. Look in a mirror, Max.”
Max’s jaw flexed, “Oh, you fucking princess–”
“There we go again,” George cut in, voice pitching just under control. “Princess. Really scraping the bottom today. Try something new.”
Max grabbed his shoulder, spun him back around when George tried to walk away.
“You don’t get to walk off,” Max snarled, stepping closer, chest touching chest, body heat rolling through both race suits. “Not after that shitshow.”
“Oh, I get to do whatever the hell I want,” George shot back. “Lap one you brake late, squeeze me, turn into me, then whine down the radio like you’re the victim. It’s pathetic.”
“That’s called racing,” Max snapped.
“It’s called bad sportsmanship when you fuck it up and blame me.”
Max scoffed, leaning in until George could feel his breath on his cheek. “News flash, we’re all assholes out here. We care about one thing–winning. You play dirty? I’ll play dirtier.”
“And yet,” George said sweetly, smile without joy, “you still lost.”
That landed.
Max’s pupils flared, he moved forward another inch, close enough that Oscar toed backward instinctively.
“You. Can’t. Handle. Pressure,” Max bit out. “It shows every time you’re ahead of me. You’re desperate. You’re twitchy. I see it from behind you. You break before you want to. You breathe wrong.”
George shot back instantly, “And you can’t stand someone fast enough to beat you.”
Max didn’t flinch, but he didn’t blink either. Silence stretched; hot, dangerous, nearly physical.
Cameras captured everything. Every muscle twitch, every furious swallow, every charged millimeter between them.
George’s voice dropped lower, pitched for Max’s ears only; “You hate that it’s me.”
Max didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
The tightness in his jaw answered for him.
A marshal cleared her throat, timidly, like she wasn’t entirely sure approaching them was safe.
“Verstappen, Russell,” she said, voice shaking just a little, “group interview. This way.”
Oscar exhaled like he’d been holding his breath since lap one. He looked between them for a moment, two predators circling, and then scurried toward the interview area as if that would save him.
Max shoulder-checked George, subtle, but intentional, as he pushed past to the camera line. He picked up a microphone and stepped to the far right position, where the race winner normally stood. For one tiny, perfect moment, Max acted like he still owned the spot.
George took far left, a full space away, using Oscar like a human buffer.
He was meant to stand beside Max.
He didn’t.
He wasn’t doing Max that courtesy.
Jenson Button smiled like a man who’d walked into a storm he definitely hadn’t prepared for.
“Congratulations, gentlemen,” he said, oblivious or choosing to be, “what a race.”
Max answered first, staring straight ahead.
George answered next, voice steady but jaw twitching.
Oscar answered like a man praying to God, any God, for escape.
None of them looked at each other, but the air between Max and George pulsed hot enough to set sparks.
Every journalist saw it. Every mic caught the strain.
And every viewer at home knew, the racing might have ended at the chequered flag, but the fight?
The fight was just getting started.
The post-race chaos hit both of them like a freight train.
George barely had time to towel the sweat and champagne off his face before a Mercedes press officer was pushing a mic into his hand and steering him toward the media tent. The air was thick with humidity, rubber dust, champagne residue from other teams already celebrating like the night was theirs.
Behind him, Max stalked in with a stiffness that was almost theatrical, still half in his race suit, half in that stubborn fury he refused to let fall away. They didn’t even glance at each other. They couldn’t. Because a single glance would spark another explosion.
Reporters pounced the second they crossed the threshold.
“Max, talk us through the contact at turn one–”
“George, would you say the move into turn fourteen was fair–”
“Is this rivalry turning personal–?”
No names needed. Everyone knew who they meant.
Max answered first, snapping his gloves into his hands like he wanted to tear them apart instead of roll them up.
“Look, if we’re calling that ‘racing,’ then we’re changing definitions every week,” Max said, clipped, biting. “I play fair. Someone else decided to leave his brain in the garage.”
He knew George heard him. Good. That was the point.
George, meanwhile, squared his shoulders and deliberately leaned toward a completely different ring of microphones, pretending Max was air.
“Fair? Fair is leaving someone room,” George countered to a Sky reporter. “Not braking late and hoping you can bully your way through. Max thinks he’s entitled to whatever line he wants–newsflash, we’re all here to win.”
His tone was icy-calm, but the way his jaw tensed betrayed him.
Max turned sharply to another journalist, purposefully raising his voice enough to carry across the tent.
“It’s funny, yeah? Every time something goes wrong around him, it’s someone else’s fault. He touches me, I get blamed, the stewards shrug, and suddenly I’m fighting for space on track with a guy who thinks he’s God’s gift. He’s reckless.”
George lifted his chin and addressed a Dutch reporter with equal volume.
“Reckless? He barged into me like a toddler throwing a tantrum and then cried to his engineer about it. If you can’t handle someone standing their ground, maybe you don’t deserve to be out front.”
Max whipped his head, mock laughter escaping.
“That’s rich, coming from someone who spent half the race weaving like he was drawing lines for a colouring book.”
“Oh piss off,” George muttered, still technically answering a question about strategy. “I defended exactly how I’m allowed. If he touched my wheels three more times I could’ve claimed repairs on his tab.”
“And if you moved under braking one more time,” Max fired off to another cluster of mics, “I would’ve put you in the wall and called it self-defense.”
Laughter rippled through the tent. Cameras pivoted. Microphones lurched closer.
Neither acknowledged them. They were speaking to journalists, yes, but mostly they were firing arrows across five metres of carpet.
Another reporter tried diplomacy.
“Is this rivalry something you respect? Iron sharpening iron?”
Max rolled his eyes so hard they nearly disappeared into his skull.
“I don’t need sharpening,” he growled. “Especially not by you.”
George responded instantly, perfectly timed like they’d rehearsed it.
“You’re right,” he said sweetly enough to curdle blood. “You need humbling.”
A few awkward laughs tittered around the tent.
Max ignored them, jaw clenching, lips curling into something ugly.
“What I need,” he said, “is a rival who can fight clean.”
“What you need,” George snapped back, “is a reality check.”
They weren’t even pretending anymore.
They stood side by side, backs half turned, bodies tense, breaths shallow and quick. Occasionally a shoulder brushed as one shifted and the other went rigid like he’d been electrocuted.
Reporters tried redirecting.
“Oscar, thoughts on–”
But Oscar was long gone, having escaped the way someone flees a live grenade.
A German journalist tried to lighten the mood.
“You two looked like you were enjoying the battle on track, at least–”
Two simultaneous answers cut in, perfectly overlapping.
“No.”
“Not with him.”
The echo froze the room.
For a moment, there was silence, a stunned, thick silence as if everyone realised that this rivalry that had entertained the world wasn’t playful, wasn’t competitive spirit.
It was venom. Pure venom.
Finally, the PR managers swooped in like hazmat teams.
“That’s all for today.”
“No further questions.”
“We need to move.”
George stepped backward first, turning away, but Max’s voice followed him like a whip crack.
“You know you only won because you nearly killed us both.”
George stopped in his tracks. Didn’t turn. Didn’t blink.
“And you know you’ll never admit I beat you fair.”
Then he walked, long strides, shoulders stiff, heart hammering.
Max watched him go, every muscle burning with annoyance, frustration, something he refused to name.
Because it was hatred.
Wasn’t it?
It had to be.
Because the alternative, the heat rising under his skin every time George stood too close, the electric irritation that felt suspiciously like adrenaline in his veins, was something far more dangerous.
⪻────𖤓────⪼
It was like the universe was tired of giving them space.
Max had turned a blind corner in the paddock hospitality building, still half vibrating with rage, adrenaline lingering in his veins like static charge. At the exact same moment, George rounded from the opposite direction, walking fast, head down, replaying the race in his mind and muttering to himself.
They slammed into each other shoulder-first, hard enough that Max’s phone clattered to the floor and George’s water bottle bounced twice and rolled.
“What the fu–?” Max hissed, stepping back, clutching his shoulder.
George snapped upright like he’d been shoved into a wall. “Watch where you’re going, you absolute bellend.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “You walked straight into me. You’ve got a whole hallway and somehow you still manage to hit the only human in it.”
George scoffed, bending to pick up the bottle he’d dropped. “Maybe if you weren’t built like a brick and walking like you own the place–”
“I do more than you,” Max cut in, folding his arms. “On track, anyway.”
George froze just long enough for Max to see the hit land, that tiny microsecond of flinch before the façade slammed back into place.
“Oh, here we go,” George muttered. “One half-assed insult and suddenly you’re King of the World again.”
“Not my fault the truth hurts,” Max shot back.
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it parked itself on your front wing,” George said coldly, “Everything’s unfair, everything’s someone else’s fault–God forbid you take responsibility for once.”
Max bristled. “I take responsibility every time I wipe the floor with you.”
George barked a humourless laugh. “Wipe the floor? Mate, if today was ‘wiping the floor,’ I’d hate to see your definition of getting your arse kicked.”
Max stepped closer. Not enough to touch, but enough that George had to tilt his chin slightly down to meet his eyes.
“You had to cheat half the race to stay ahead,” Max growled. “You should thank me I didn’t dump you into the barriers.”
“Oh my God, you cannot still be on about that!” George exploded, hands flying up. “The only reason there were barriers near us is because you can’t hold a fucking line when fear gets to you!”
Max felt something snap, something thin, overstretched, worn down from months of tension.
“What did you just say?”
George leaned in too, like they were both tethered to a point between them, dragged forward whether they wanted it or not.
“You heard me perfectly,” George bit out. “Fear gets to you. Every time. Big bad Max Verstappen, scared someone might actually beat him without his car saving his skin.”
Max’s jaw clenched so tight it clicked.
“You’re delusional.”
“And you’re fragile,” George shot back, voice low and vicious. “One tiny challenge and you spiral. Cry to your team, complain to the stewards, shove people on track like a child having a fit.”
Max pushed forward. George held his ground. Their chests grazed.
“I don’t spiral,” Max said, barely above a whisper, but the whisper was worse than a shout. “I fight.”
“You lash out,” George corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Max shoved a finger into George’s chest. Not hard, just enough to ignite.
“And you’re a smug, pretentious–”
“Careful,” George warned, eyes flashing. “You’re running out of vocabulary, and I’d hate for you to embarrass yourself on top of today.”
Max snorted, breath hot, face inches away.
“Oh yeah? At least I don’t beg for sympathy in interviews. ‘Poor me, someone’s picking on me because I’m finally relevant.’”
George leaned so close Max could feel the words on his skin.
“At least I am relevant. You wouldn’t be half as pissed if I wasn’t in your mirrors every weekend scaring the shit out of you.”
Max’s pulse spiked so violently it felt like panic.
“I’m not scared of you.”
“Yes, you are,” George murmured, almost smug. “Every time I’m behind you, you drive like you’re one mistake from losing control. And you did. Today. Twice.”
Max swallowed hard, the air suddenly thicker.
“You are such a–” he started.
“Say it,” George taunted softly.
“A prick.”
George smiled, dangerous, sharp, designed to cut open ribs.
“I’ll take that over a coward.”
Max choked on rage. “Coward?”
“Yeah,” George said, expression cool but breathing faster. “Because it’s easier to call me dirty than admit you couldn’t beat me. You need the excuse. I don’t.”
Max wanted to deny it. Wanted to shove him away. Wanted to shake him, yell in his face, anything to break that calm superiority.
Instead, he stepped closer again.
Now they were pressed together properly, chest to chest, breath exchanging, shoulders squared like every vein in their bodies was screaming for contact of any kind, violent or otherwise.
“You don’t know a fucking thing about me,” Max spat.
“I know you can’t stand not being first,” George replied softly. “You lost the race before you lost the position.”
Max laughed bitterly. “You’re so full of yourself.”
“Says the man ready to strangle me in an empty hallway because his ego’s bruised.”
Max’s eyes flicked down George’s face, cheekbones flushed from anger, jaw tight, lips parted with adrenaline.
It was a millisecond glance.
George saw it.
And smiled again, this time slower, dirtier.
“Oh,” he exhaled, voice low. “It’s that, isn’t it?”
Max froze. “What?”
“You don’t hate me as much as you pretend to,” George said, head tilting. “You’re terrified you don’t.”
Max felt heat crawl up from his collarbone like wildfire.
“Shut up.”
George didn’t.
“You get so close when you shout,” he continued, tone a dare. “You ever notice? You act like you want to hit me, but you never step back. You lean in.”
Max’s breath stuttered.
“That’s not–”
“And you watch my mouth,” George added, almost pleased with himself. “Every time we argue. It’s pathetic.”
Max shoved him, not hard, just enough to break contact, but George followed the movement, stepping right back into the space like gravity had hooks in him.
“You’re so full of shit,” Max muttered, voice shaky.
“Am I?” George whispered.
A beat.
Two.
Their foreheads were nearly touching.
Max could feel George’s breath, warm and fast and angry, hitting his lips. His hand twitched as if it wanted to grab something–shoulder, collar, throat, anything to anchor himself.
George swallowed. His voice dropped even lower.
“Say you hate me.”
Max opened his mouth.
No sound came out.
George’s lips tilted. Not quite a smile, something darker, something triumphant, something hungry.
“Exactly.”
The corridor felt smaller. Hotter. Like the walls were leaning in, like the lights were dimming, shoving them together, denying them air unless they breathed it from the same space.
Max’s voice finally surfaced, rough and thin.
“You’re unbearable.”
George murmured back, “You’re obsessed.”
Max froze, half a second, barely perceptible, but George saw it, and he smiled. Slow. Sharp. Dangerous.
George licked his lips, dragging the tip of his tongue deliberately across the seam, as if daring Max to acknowledge the movement. Max’s eyes snapped down, tracking it–hungry, involuntary, traitorous.
When Max looked back up, George’s grin widened, smug and triumphant. Pupils blown wide, adrenaline and something more burning under the surface.
That was the final snap.
Max shoved him.
Harder than he probably meant to, hands flat against George’s chest, slamming him into the wall with a muted thud. George gasped, more startled than hurt, head tipping back against the plaster.
A yelp burst out of him as Max stepped closer, half indignation, half–God help them both–excitement.
Max didn’t step back. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t think.
George’s voice came out rough, delighted, “Careful, Verstappen. Someone might think you like having your hands on me.”
Max growled, a low, animalistic sound, and grabbed George’s collar, fingers curling in the fabric like they’d been waiting all season to do it.
“Shut up,” he hissed.
“Make me.”
Max did.
He surged forward, closing the last centimetres between them, and crushed his mouth to George’s.
It wasn’t a kiss so much as a collision. Teeth hitting. Lips sliding. Breath stolen straight from lungs.
George released a soft, shocked noise that melted instantly into a groan, his arms flinging up and over Max’s shoulders, one hand gripping the back of his neck, dragging him closer.
Max pinned him harder against the wall, chest pressing into chest, bodies aligning like puzzle pieces neither of them ever wanted to admit fit.
George kissed back with every ounce of fury he’d ever thrown into a wheel-to-wheel fight. Messy. Clumsy. Devouring.
Max’s breath stuttered as George mouthed against him like he’d been waiting. For months. For years. Maybe since the moment they first swapped words.
Hatred had always been a heartbeat away from something else.
George pulled back just a fraction, just far enough to gasp air, lips moving before sense could catch up.
“See?” he panted, voice shaking with something close to laughter. “Obsessed.”
Max answered by slamming their mouths together again, one hand sliding up George’s collar to press flat against his cheek, not tender–claiming, anchoring, burning.
Between kisses, Max spat words like shrapnel.
“Arrogant–”
another bruising kiss,
“Selfish–”
George bit his lower lip just enough to sting,
“Smug–”
Max tasted the smirk before he saw it.
George’s mouth curved against his, laughter muffled into the kiss like he couldn’t help himself, like he was enjoying this humiliatingly much. “Max,” he breathed against his lips–half taunt, half plea.
That was all it took.
Max shoved him harder into the wall, teeth grazing George’s lower lip in punishment he hoped didn’t count as reward.
Their lips crashed again, sloppy, rushed. There was no rhythm, just need; ugly, urgent, competitive. George tugged at Max’s collar, dragging him impossibly closer, as if body heat could solve anything.
Max braced a knee between George’s legs, meant as a pin, a hold, a tease, but George shivered like Max had flipped a switch.
“Christ–Max,” George whispered, like an accusation and a confession at once.
“Oh, you like that?” Max muttered into his skin, voice low and viciously pleased.
George tried to scoff, but the sound dissolved into a sharp inhale when Max shifted his thigh, the pressure unintentional and unmistakable. George’s fingers dug into Max’s shoulders, head tipping back against the wall, lips parted in shock.
Max froze, not stopping, but calculating, watching the flush climb George’s throat.
“Don’t you dare get cocky about this,” George hissed, though it wavered, breath snagging.
Max grinned like a wolf anyway, mouth grazing the corner of George’s lips, “Bit late.”
George lunged forward and bit his shoulder, through fabric, messy, claiming, forcing Max’s breath out in a sound he hoped didn’t count as a gasp.
Their bodies collided again, all angles and tension, hands grabbing whatever they could find. Max kissed like he was trying to win something, his teeth grazing, lips pushing too hard, breaths ragged and hot. George answered like he refused to lose, tugging hair, chasing every retreat, daring Max to back down.
“Say my name again,” Max demanded, voice low, half-laughing, half-threatening.
“No,” George shot back instantly, and then Max shifted his knee, not hard, just firm enough to remind George where he was pinned.
George broke, half a laugh, half a shaky groan, muffled against Max’s collar, “Max,” he breathed. “Happy?”
Max’s voice scraped out of him. “Ecstatic.”
The hallway felt too small to contain them. Lights buzzed overhead, cold and clinical, but every inch of George burned under Max’s hands. One palm slid up George’s side, ribs expanding under the touch, breath hitching, body leaning into it despite himself.
“You hate me,” George rasped, lips brushing Max’s cheek, tone almost sing-song.
Max bit his jaw in answer, tasting salt and sweat where skin met shaven stubble. “I do,” he whispered, too fast, too real. His fingers curled in the fabric at George’s hip like he couldn’t afford to let go. “God, I do.”
George laughed again, wrecked and breathless, as if it delighted him.
“Then why–” His voice broke when Max pressed in, bodies sliding, heat against heat but still, not quite enough. George swallowed his own sentence on a gasp.
“Because you started this,” Max said into his throat, words shaking with more than exertion.
George tugged his hair again, dragging Max’s face back to his. Their noses brushed, breaths shared, lips hovering without touching for a heartbeat too long.
“Coward,” George taunted softly.
“Come get your win.”
Max did.
He crushed their mouths together, one hand cupping George’s jaw, thumb tracing the hinge like he was memorizing it. George met him head-on, tilting up, leaning in, every kiss deeper than the one before.
They weren’t just kissing, they were arguing with their mouths. Pushing, pulling, daring, answering challenges neither voiced out loud.
George’s thigh lifted just enough–instinct, reflex, or maybe cruelty–to press back against Max’s leg.
This time Max was the one whose breath stuttered.
George felt it, of course he did, and his grin turned wicked. “Oh,” he murmured sweetly, smugly. “Interesting.”
Max pinned him all over again, knee firmer against George, shoulder barring his escape, lips attacking his with bruising precision.
“You’re talking too much,” Max hissed.
“You love it,” George whispered against his mouth. “You’d miss my voice.”
Max swallowed his next words with another kiss, angling George’s head back, deepening it until breathing was optional. George clung to him, fingers tight in his hair, every line of his body arching into Max like he needed more contact than the world could legally allow.
Their names slipped out now, between gasps and kisses, involuntary, like the air was pulling them loose.
“Max–”
“George–”
Neither had the advantage anymore, just heat and gravity and months of rivalry cracking open between their teeth.
George finally tore away, just an inch, breathing hard, lips red and swollen.
“This is–” His chest heaved, “–such a bad idea.”
Max leaned in, catching his lower lip between his own teeth, tugging lightly, just to hear the sound George made.
“I know,” Max said, and crushed their mouths together again.
The wall held George upright when his knees nearly didn’t. Max’s weight kept him grounded, trapped, thrilled, undone.
Max’s patience snapped. George jerked his head toward the nearest door, barely a gesture, barely permission.
But Max took it.
His hand clamped around George’s wrist, firm, hungry, dragging him down the hall like he couldn’t bear another wasted second. The door flew open under Max’s shove and George stumbled inside, only to be slammed back against it with a gasp and the echoing thud of wood.
Max kicked it shut behind them, hard enough to rattle the frame. Then his mouth was on George’s again; desperate, messy, claiming, hands everywhere as the rest of the world dissolved.
The night swallowed them whole.
“Lock,” George managed, voice barely more than a whisper. “Before someone–”
Max was already reaching, one hand still braced on George’s hip, the other fumbling behind them. George snorted a laugh despite himself.
“You can’t multitask?” he teased, breath catching as Max’s thigh shifted again.
“Shut,” click, “up,” Max replied triumphantly as the door lock snapped.
And George pulled him back into the kiss like the world outside no longer mattered.
It had already dissolved into chaos, breathless and bruising, when Max’s hands slid lower, found the hem of George’s shirt, and shoved underneath like the fabric had personally offended him.
George jerked in surprise at the first touch, air catching in his throat. Max’s fingers were ice-cold, shockingly so, pressing flat against overheated skin.
George’s laugh broke out mid-kiss, half gasp, half shiver. “You always run cold,” he muttered, voice roughened and too pleased.
Max didn’t bother answering. His mouth was far too occupied dragging along George’s throat, teeth scraping up toward the jaw, marking him anywhere the collar hadn’t covered. George tilted his head back without thinking, an instinctive surrender he’d deny to death.
“Off,” Max growled, tugging sharply at the shirt–a command disguised as a word.
George paused, lips swollen, breathing hard, “Go on then,” he challenged, even though his arms were already lifting.
Blue eyes met blue, only inches apart, the air between them sparking.
Max didn’t hesitate.
He grabbed fistfuls of the thin Mercedes top and pulled–hard. The fabric protested, strained, and then ripped, the sound sharp and shocking in the tight room.
George stared, mouth parting in disbelief as the halves fell away, sliding off his shoulders.
“You’re a menace,” he breathed, stripping the scraps the rest of the way off and letting them fall.
Max tossed the cloth aside like rubbish, “I hate that uniform,” he muttered, breath hot against George’s cheek. “Looks like someone turned the saturation down.”
George snorted, the laugh dissolving almost instantly into a gasp as Max’s mouth found his neck again, “You calling me bland?” he managed, even though his voice wobbled.
“Yes,” Max said simply, and his hands, no longer cold, mapped the edge of George’s ribs, splaying wide over warm skin.
George tried for a glare. Failed spectacularly when Max pressed forward, thigh sliding back between his legs, pinning him, holding him in place without saying what else it meant.
His head tipped back against the wall, breath breaking.
“Fu–” he started, then swallowed the sound like it might escape on its own.
Max smirked against his throat, teeth grazing, “There it is,” he murmured. Again, more satisfaction than teasing. “Every time.”
George’s arms clutched around Max’s shoulders, fingers tensing in the fabric like he needed something to hold onto.
“You’re such a–” He bit the inside of his cheek when his body reacted to the pressure, and the word dissolved into nothing.
“Princess,” Max finished for him, voice dripping with smugness.
George snapped back without thought, “Whore.”
Max drew back half an inch, eyes narrowing in affront, like the slur had personally insulted his racecraft.
“Really?” he said flatly.
George had the nerve to grin, “Hit a nerve?”
Max didn’t answer with words.
His weight shifted, thigh firming between George’s legs, grinding against George’s hard on, undeniable. George froze, then exhaled sharply, the sound entirely too close to a moan not to be noticed.
He slapped a hand over his mouth instinctively, mortified by his own reaction.
Max clucked his tongue, “Oh, the dramatics,” he murmured, brushing George’s wrist aside just long enough to catch his mouth again.
“You should hear yourself.”
“Feels like you’re narrating,” George panted when he could breathe, “You always do this?”
“Only with idiots who can’t shut up,” Max muttered, mouth still on his skin.
George shoved at his shoulder, not to push him away, just to remind them both he could. “Take your shirt off. I feel like a stripper.”
Max’s eyes glittered with something wicked.
“What happened to your ‘I look better than everyone’ ego?”
“I still do,” George shot back. “But I’m not giving you free material.”
Max laughed, an abrupt thing, shocked out of him.
“Thought you liked feeding the camera. Plenty of bitches drooling over your photos.”
George grimaced even as his fingers curled back into Max’s collar.
“You’re incredible at setting the mood.”
“Thank you,” Max said earnestly, and peeled his own polo off without ceremony, tossing it somewhere behind him.
George’s eyes flicked downward before he could stop them, lustful, confirmation, sizing him up like a rival car.
Max noticed.
Of course he did.
Their mouths crashed together again, less frantic now, but deeper, more anchored. Hands roamed in broad sweeps across bare backs and shoulders, mapping muscle, movement, warmth; not lingering anywhere inappropriate, just claiming territory.
“For the record–” Max started, lips brushing George’s, words slipping into the space between one heated kiss and the next.
George leaned forward, swallowing the sentence with a soft huff of breath.
“Don’t ruin this,” he murmured, like a plea disguised as a command.
Max persisted anyway, the stubbornness practically part of his blood.
“It’s not just girls who–”
George shut him up again, one hand at the back of Max’s neck, one arm hooking around his waist, dragging him closer.
Max broke free long enough to choke out the end of the sentence.
“–get off to your photos.”
George froze like someone had hit the brakes at 300 kph.
He pulled back only far enough to look Max in the eye, pupils blown wide, “You’ve… what?” he said, voice cracking straight down the middle.
Max blinked, unaffected, “No point lying now.”
“You’ve–Max. Seriously?!” George demanded, flustered and entirely unprepared.
Max shrugged, as if this were just another pit strategy call.
“Everyone fantasizes.”
George stared another second, then his expression shifted, shock melting into delight, then into smugness so bright it should have been illegal.
“What kind?” he asked, voice low, playful, reckless, “What does the mighty Max Verstappen imagine I’m doing?”
Max didn’t give him the satisfaction of a direct answer. He leaned in close, lips brushing George’s ear, a whisper, a promise, a threat.
“Too many–” he murmured, “–to fit into one night.”
George’s breath hitched.
His eyes fluttered shut.
The grin that curved his lips was helpless; ruined, giddy, dangerous.
“Then you’d better pace yourself,” he whispered back.
Max didn’t respond with words.
He kissed him instead, slow now, deep and consuming, language replaced by lips and breath and shared heat. The venom that had defined every earlier touch was dissolving into something worse, something neither of them had the guts to name.
George sighed into the kiss, body melting just a little, all sharp edges softening. Max’s hands slid up his ribs, palms steady, fingers splayed wide, like grounding wires.
Rage simmered into want, want blurred into need, need tangled into something dangerously close to tenderness.
For the first time, neither pushed to break the kiss first.
Neither bit.
Neither laughed.
They just stayed there, pressed together, shirtless, flushed, overheated, breathing the same air, letting their hearts catch up to their bodies. George’s back hit the door only long enough for him to push off it again, hands bunching into Max’s shoulders as he walked them backward, step by stubborn step, toward the couch.
Max barely had time to process it. One second he had George pinned to cold wood, the next he was stumbling over the edge of the rug and dropping onto the cushions, back sinking into them with a soft thud.
He stared up, chest rising and falling, hair mussed, lips swollen from kissing too hard.
“What–” he breathed, voice rough, “–are you doing?”
George stood over him, shirtless, flushed, eyes bright with something electric. His breath shook out of him, and he grinned like a man who’d just discovered gravity bent for him alone.
“Did you ever–” George began, stepping forward, voice dropping low and intimate, “–imagine this?”
Max opened his mouth, probably to deny, probably to lie, but the words died before they formed.
George’s hands slid to his waistband.
Max froze.
George didn’t tear at buttons this time. He undid the buckle slowly, like he wanted Max to watch the whole thing. Metal clicked softly, deliberate and precise. George’s eyes stayed locked on his, daring him to object.
He slid the belt free and tossed it aside. The soft slap of leather on the floor felt louder than it should have.
Max swallowed. Hard.
George let his hands pause half a heartbeat at the top of his trousers, like offering one mercy–say stop, push me away, call it off–but he already knew Max wouldn’t.
He unfastened the button.
Max’s breath stuttered.
George smirked at the reaction.
“You know,” he murmured, “for someone who keeps saying he hates me, you react very nicely.”
He eased the zipper open, not yanked, not torn, just dragged down with maddening slowness. The soft rasp of metal teeth filled the room and Max clenched his jaw like the sound alone was a provocation.
George finally let the fabric loosen, now just in boxers, a darker stain of precome staining them. And his legs; tan, smooth, tension visible in every muscle.
He didn’t rush stepping out of the chinos. He leaned down without bending his knees, hands sweeping briefly up his sides like framing the reveal. He knew exactly where Max’s eyes were and what that made him look like.
A chess player, not a piece.
Then he was moving again, crawling forward on the couch in a lazy, predatory slink, his knees bracketing Max’s hips. He straddled him easily, thighs gripping just enough to pin Max in place, not trapping him, but removing every excuse not to stay.
Max’s hands went immediately to George’s waist, thumb digging in like he needed proof George was solid and real on top of him.
George dipped low until their noses nearly brushed.
“How do you want me, loser?” he purred, a tease, a weapon, a dare.
Max’s breath caught. His eyes were blown wide and furious, desire and irritation indistinguishable. “George,” he warned, voice ripped raw, “you know exactly what to do.”
George’s smile sharpened, “Hm. Thought so.”
He shifted, not grinding, just redistributing weight, settling himself more firmly across Max’s lap, chest close enough that Max could feel every breath against his skin.
His hands slid slowly up Max’s bare shoulders, fingers grazing the base of his neck, nails lightly dragging down muscle. Max’s eyes fluttered shut, jaw clenching like he was trying very hard not to let any sound escape.
George leaned forward, mouth brushing Max’s ear, “You make it too easy,” he whispered.
Max reacted instantly, hands tightening at George’s hips like he was holding onto a steering wheel through a corner he couldn’t afford to miss.
George reared back just enough to see the expression: jaw set, chest heaving, knuckles white against skin.
“Pathetic,” George murmured, delighted. “You’re already–”
Max surged upward, lips crashing against his, swallowing the sentence whole.
Their mouths collided hard, messy and desperate, George’s gasp lost between teeth. He braced his hands against Max’s chest to steady himself, palms flattening over frantic heartbeats.
Max pulled him down, deeper into the kiss, tongues clashing, breath hot and uneven. George felt something inside him flick and burn, anger melting quick into want.
“You’re impossible,” he muttered against Max’s mouth.
“You like it,” Max shot back, voice low, strained.
George laughed breathlessly, head tipping back just far enough that Max’s lips could chase down the line of his throat.
“I hate you,” he gasped.
“I know,” Max murmured, kissing the spot just below his jaw, “keep saying it.”
George shivered.
He didn’t stop. Didn’t get off. Didn’t pull away.
He sat there, straddling Max, hair falling into his eyes, fingers trembling slightly where they gripped Max’s shoulders.
And then, soft, unexpected, almost dangerous, Max’s hands slid upward, from George’s hips to the small of his back, settling there. Steadying him. Holding him in more ways than either of them would acknowledge.
George exhaled shakily.
He leaned in again, slower this time, foreheads almost touching.
“You’re ruining me,” he whispered, and it sounded more honest than either of them deserved.
Max smiled, a small, unbearable thing, and kissed him again, letting it swallow whatever answer he would have given.
The couch creaked beneath them, the world narrowing to warmth and breath and contact, half-formed curses turning into half-swallowed sighs, rivalry dissolving at the seam.
George didn’t move away.
If anything, he pressed closer, like quitting now would be worse than any mistake they’d already made.
He didn’t even give Max a warning.
He slid down the length of his body, slow enough to be purposeful, fast enough to look like he wasn’t thinking about it, when he absolutely was. He’d done this before, too many nights he’d sworn he wouldn’t repeat, and every lesson came back to him now, coiling hot beneath his ribs.
“Stay still,” he murmured, voice velvet-strained.
Max didn’t move, couldn’t, not with George kneeling between his spread knees, palms braced on hard muscle, eyes turned up through his lashes in a look that had broken stronger men.
He hooked Max’s belt with his thumbs, tugged it loose, and let it hang open. Then, deliberately, he stopped using his hands.
George dipped his head.
His teeth caught the edge of the zip and dragged it down, metal teeth releasing with a slow, intimate rasp. He held Max’s gaze the whole time–pupils blown wide, expression unfairly pretty and far too confident. A silent statement: I know exactly what I’m doing. You’re not the first. But I’m choosing you.
Max’s breath hitched, chest rising like he’d been punched.
“Show-off,” he muttered, except it sounded nothing like an insult.
George smirked around the metal, lips brushing skin as he tugged the jeans open far enough to finish with his hands. He shoved them down Max’s hips and off, tossing them aside like they offended him.
Then he climbed back up, slow and deliberate, knees bracketing Max’s hips again. His thighs locked around Max’s sides, warm and tense. From this close, they could taste each other’s breath.
“Better?” George asked sweetly, too sweetly, like he hadn’t just melted Max’s ability to think.
Max swallowed hard. “Do that again and I might die.”
“That’s the point,” George purred.
He planted his hands on Max’s chest, fingers curling into the fabric, using it for leverage. Then he rolled his hips, grinding enough pressure to send a shock up his own spine. His mouth fell open with a small, unguarded sound he couldn’t swallow fast enough.
Heat lit Max’s eyes like a match.
George did it again, a little heavier, a little needier, the kind of movement that could be brushed off as accidental if either of them was pretending, but neither of them were pretending anymore.
Air stuttered out of Max’s lungs. “George–”
“Shut up,” George breathed, hips moving again, more uneven this time. “Just–let me.”
Every slide of clothed cock against cock was overload, too much contact and not nearly enough. His pulse pounded in his throat. Max’s did the same under his palms.
George leaned closer, voice a scraped whisper against Max’s mouth.
“Still think you’re imagining this?”
Max’s hands finally came up, not pushing him away, not dragging him close, just holding him still enough to steady the shaking breath he took.
“No,” Max said. “And if you stop moving, I swear–”
George’s laugh broke in the middle, half-taunt, half-need.
“Yeah,” he murmured, grinding, shifting again, sharper, breathless, helpless, “That’s what I thought.”
George barely had time to breathe before Max’s hand was in his hair, yanking him up into a kiss that was more teeth than lips. George gasped into it, clutching at Max’s shoulders, and then the world went upside down.
In one sharp, deliberate motion Max twisted, rolled, and pinned him flat to the couch. George hit the cushions with a grunt, Max already braced over him, knees caging his hips, hands planted by his head like he owned the space, the moment, him.
George blinked up, dazed.
“Max–”
“Shut up,” Max muttered, using George’s words against him, breath hot on his cheek.
He looked feral. Thrilled. Like he’d just won a race nobody else knew they were in.
George’s chest rose and fell, shirtless and marked up, eyes bright with challenge. He tried shifting his hips up out of pure instinct, Max’s weight held him down.
“I’m going to take a wild guess,” Max said, voice low and dry, “and say you don’t have anything on you.”
George stared, “Do you think I planned any of this?” he shot back.
“Right,” Max snorted. “So no protection. Typical.”
He let his expression flatten into something smug and dangerous, “Which means you get what you get, sweetheart.”
George opened his mouth to argue–
Max silenced him by pressing three fingers to his lips.
“Open,” he ordered.
George’s eyebrows shot up, but his lips parted anyway, because of course they did.
Max pushed his fingers in just enough to sit heavy on George’s tongue.
Not intimate, not gentle. A dare disguised as a command.
George’s tongue curled automatically, habit, instinct, experience he’d never admit to out loud. His eyes fluttered half-shut, lashes low, cheeks warming, Max watched him like he was memorising every twitch.
George slipped into it too easily, too familiarly, jaw relaxing around Max’s knuckles. He knew exactly how to make it look like he’d done this before, because he had.
Max’s breath caught, just once, he covered it with a scoff.
“And you act like you don’t know what you’re doing.”
George smirked around his fingers.
Max pulled his hand free slowly, leaving behind a slick shine across George’s lower lip, the faintest string catching the light before it snapped.
Then, deliberate, cruel, Max dragged those damp fingertips down the centre of George’s chest, tracing over every ridge and scar and mark he’d put there moments before. George shivered, muscle twitching under him.
“See?” Max murmured, “You’re already halfway gone.”
George tried to shove him.
Failed.
He gripped Max’s forearms instead, nails digging in.
“Tough talk for someone sitting there like a prize,” George spat, hips shifting up despite himself.
Max hissed as their bodies met, not fully, never fully, but enough heat to make both of them forget how to breathe for a second.
George did it again, slow, deliberate, grinding pressure disguised as a wriggle.Max dropped lower, chest pressed to George’s, breath ghosting his ear.
“You don’t get to pretend you’re not enjoying this.”
George moaned before he could swallow it down, a bitten-off, humiliated sound.
Max’s grin was devastating.
“Thought so.”
George glared at him, eyes blown, cheeks flushed, pinned and furious and aching.
“Let go,” he ground out.
“Not a chance,” Max replied, voice all razor-wire softness. He nudged George’s thighs wider with a shift of his hips, claiming space he hadn’t been given permission to take.
“You wanted a fight?” Max whispered, “You’ve got one.”
George surged up again, this time Max met him halfway, mouth crashing back to his, both of them caught between hate and hunger, grinding, tugging, teeth clashing.
Two rivals burning alive on a couch, still pretending they hadn’t crossed a point of no return.
Max shifted his weight, hands sliding to George’s hips with a grip that said don’t move. George blinked up at him, heart hammering so hard he could hear it in his teeth.
Then Max leaned back just enough to get space and, hooked his fingers under the waistband.
George’s breath stopped.
“Max–”
He didn’t know if it was warning or plea.
“Relax,” Max said, voice silk-wrapped steel.
In one smooth drag, Max pulled the fabric down, letting George’s hard cock spring out, his whole body seized as cold air rushed in against suddenly bare, heated skin.
George jerked, instinct more than choice, a strangled sound escaping his throat.
“Cold?” Max asked, feigning innocence, eyes burning with anything but.
George swallowed hard, “Obviously,” he muttered, except his voice cracked, which ruined the effect.
Max grinned like he’d just won another championship.
“Sensitive today, aren’t we?”
George tried to glare, but his face flushed so fast it betrayed him. He couldn’t stop the thought that crashed through his skull: holy–okay, Max.
Bigger than he expected.
Way bigger.
He didn’t say it out loud, not at first.
But Max read him like telemetry.
His smirk sharpened, “What?” he purred. “Something catch your attention?”
George tried for composure and missed by a mile, “You–” he stammered, eyes darting away. “You’re just–I mean–”
Max leaned down, nose brushing George’s, “Say it.”
George clenched his jaw.
“No.”
Max dragged the waistband one more fraction lower.
“Say it.”
George broke.
“You’re huge, okay? Happy?”
Max glowed. Absolutely basked.
“Ecstatic,” he murmured, smug dripping from every syllable, “Always nice to impress a rival.”
George groaned and covered his face with one hand.
“I take it back.”
“No take-backs,” Max said, pinning the hand to the cushion.
“And you should see your expression right now.”
George’s pulse was everywhere, throat, fingertips, spine.
“Shut up.”
Max laughed, low, knowing, wicked, “Not a chance.”
He wordlessly started rimming George’s pulsing hole with two fingers, purposely avoiding the plunge, and George vibrated with a hungry-sounding whine.
“You’re–” George tried again, panting, “fuck–you’re doing this on purpose.”
Max finally looked up, eyes bright with wicked amusement.
“And you’re only just figuring that out?”
He skimmed his thumb in a slow circle, too gentle to satisfy, too focused to ignore, and George arched up with a bitten-off curse.
“Just–stop teasing and–” He bit down on the sentence like he could chew it back, cheeks flushing scarlet as he slapped a hand over his own mouth.
Max had pushed in a finger. Not withdrawing, just pausing long enough to enjoy the reation.
Max grinned like it was Christmas morning, “And here I thought Mister ‘I’ve done this before’ had all the experience.” He chuckled low in his chest.
“Funny how fast that goes out the window when you actually want something.”
George made a sound, half groan, half snarl, and tried to glare, but his eyes were blown wide, pleading without meaning to.
Max brushed his nose along George’s jaw, teeth grazing skin.
“You really are awful at hiding things,” he murmured, “One touch and you’re begging without even meaning to.”
George shoved at him weakly, more token than threat. “Shut up.”
Max’s grin sharpened.
“No,” he breathed, deliberately dragging his hand back into place, “I think I’ll enjoy this a little longer.”
George sucked in a breath, back arching. His eyes darted everywhere except Max’s face, ceiling, wall, anywhere but those impossible blue irises burning straight through him.
Max dipped down, nose brushing George’s cheek.
“Look at me.”
George swallowed.
Fought it.
Lost.
His gaze dragged upward until it locked with Max’s, helpless, furious, desperate.
“There we go,” Max whispered, pleased. “Much better.”
He leaned in, claiming George’s mouth again, a kiss that started sharp and smug and turned molten within seconds. George’s hands came up automatically, one tangling in Max’s hair, the other sliding down his own chest, lower, lower–
He was seconds from finding his cock when Max’s entire body changed. His shoulders squared, his mouth broke from the kiss, and his hand shot down like a trap, closing around George’s wandering wrist.
“Really?” Max growled, voice thick with disbelief and satisfaction at the same time, “You’re that desperate already?”
George froze, breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t even realized how obvious he’d been.
Max pinned George’s wrist to the couch cushion, never taking out his finger, only pushing in another.
“Am I not enough for you?” Max asked, tone rich and cruel. “You look like you’re seconds from begging.”
George tried to glare and only managed a quiet, humiliating whine.
Max’s smirk was lethal, “That’s what I thought.”
He let go of George’s wrist only to tap two fingers against George’s shoulder.
“Hands behind your head,” Max ordered.
George blinked at him, stunned.
Max raised an eyebrow.
“Unless I should tie you up? That’s what you want?”
George’s breath stuttered. “N-no,” he muttered.
“No?” Max echoed, amusement curling around the syllable, “So you can listen all by yourself.”
After a long, shivering moment, George lifted both arms and laced them behind his head. The position exposed every line of his torso, every twitch, every tremble.
Max sat back slightly, appreciative.
“Good boy.”
George nearly lost it at that, the humiliation, the thrill, the feeling of being completely seen.
Max leaned forward, chest brushing George’s, lips ghosting the corner of his mouth.
“Eyes,” he reminded softly, ”I didn’t give you permission to look away.”
George obeyed, wide-eyed, breathing too fast.
Max let one hand roam up his side, slow, deliberate, tracing ribs, pausing just beneath his arm.
George’s whole body jolted.
“There it is,” Max murmured, satisfied, “That raw edge. Right where I want you.”
He pressed in closer, his knuckles flush, the friction maddeningly not enough.
George gasped, half pain, mostly want. Max held him there, just enough pressure to drive him wild and nowhere to put it.
“You really thought you were running this?” Max taunted softly, “All those hookups making you cocky.”
George swallowed hard, throat bobbing.
Max’s smile widened into something viciously gentle.
“Turns out all that experience disappears the second I touch you.”
George’s voice cracked into a helpless groan.
“Such a slut for me”
Max kissed him again, slow this time, deep and claiming, without loosening the grip on his control.
George’s whole body locked up as Max pushed his teasing hand farther along the inside of his walls, slow enough to make it torture, firm enough to tell George exactly how little control he had over any of this. A strangled, humiliating sound tore out of him, half-moan, half-warning.
“More,” George hissed, hips jerking uselessly under Max’s weight, “I don’t care if it hurts.”
Max went perfectly still, fingers digging into George’s hip like claws.
“Oh?” Max drawled, voice dropping to a sinful low, “Begging for pain already?”
George sucked in air, trying to look bored, failing spectacularly, “Don’t flatter yourself,” he muttered. “It’s just your fantasy, right?”
Max laughed, sharp, derisive, delighted.
“You think I fantasize about you whining under me?” He leaned down, lips grazing George’s ear.
“Actually, I do.”
George bit his lip hard.
God help him, he liked that too much.
Max abruptly pulled his hand back, not gentle, not soft, leaving George clenching around nothing, body twitching as though it could chase the pressure.
The absence was torture.
“Max,” George groaned, cheeks flaming with humiliation he couldn’t swallow down.
Max lifted his hand, fingers slick with heat and sweat from where they’d been.
“Open your mouth.”
George stared, breathless, flustered, then scoffed on instinct, “You’re unbelievable.”
Max tilted his head, waiting. No impatience, just pure command.
Reluctantly, or maybe too eagerly,George parted his lips.
Max dragged two fingers over George’s tongue and lower lip, not pushing in, just hovering with obscene precision.
George spat deliberately, defiantly, like he meant to ruin Max’s dominance and only fed into it.
Max’s grin was feral, “There we go.”
He rubbed his hand together lazily, spreading the dampness across his cock, then dropped his hand to press against George’s hole, right where he was already throbbing.
He swiped his palm there once, slow, firm.
George’s back arched clean off the couch, a broken noise ripping free before he could swallow it.
“Look at you,” Max purred, “One swipe and you’re already losing your little mind.”
George gasped, chest heaving. Max didn’t move again. Just held the pressure steady, cruelly still.
Then George made the mistake of glancing down at Max’s cock, at the length and thickness of it, and his throat bobbed in a hard swallow he couldn’t hide.
Max saw every micro-reaction.
“Oh, now you’re nervous,” he said, absolutely delighted.
“All that attitude, and suddenly you’re remembering what I’m working with.”
George tried to glare. His voice cracked instead.
“You’re–insane if you think I can–”
“You’ll take exactly what I give you,” Max cut in, smug and certain, “And you know what’s really pathetic?”
He leaned down until their noses brushed.
“You want it from me.”
George trembled, fury, need, fear, all of it mashed into one molten mess.
Max hooked his fingers under George’s hip and dragged him closer, the friction now impossible to ignore.
“And if you think I’m even close to done teasing you–”
Max pressed his cock to the rim of George’s hole, slow grinding pressure sending sparks everywhere.
George choked on a moan.
“–you’re dumber than I thought.”
George’s fingers threaded into Max’s hair before he even realised he’d moved, pure reflex, pure need.
Max froze.
Not with confusion.
With decision.
He eased back just enough that every place he’d been touching George felt suddenly too cold, too empty. George blinked up, confused, his hands slowly unclenching from the dark strands. Max watched the movement, his jaw ticking, the heat in his eyes darkening from desire into something far more dangerous.
Hands behind your head. George remembered it a beat too late.
“Max, I–”
Max cut him off with nothing more than a look. Disappointment wrapped in delight. Predator pleased its prey had run.
“Forgot?” Max asked, voice low and velvet-scorched. “Or you thought you could just… take what you wanted?” He clicked his tongue. “You disobey so fast. It’s almost insulting.”
George opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Air, maybe. Panic. Want.
Max leaned closer, nose brushing George’s cheek, breath warm against his ear. “That’s fine,” he murmured, tone turning sharp and summer-hot at the edges. “If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, I’ll take them away.”
He leaned down to the floor and reached for his belt, slow on purpose, letting the leather whisper through the belt loops, the sound slicing straight into George’s spine. George’s breath hitched, something between anticipation and dread.
“Wrists up,” Max said, not loud. Not gentle. A command dropped like a weight. Then he added, almost amused, “Come on. Don’t make me manhandle you, sweetheart.”
George raised his arms, wrists touching.
He hated how quick he complied.
He loved how quick he complied.
Max threaded the belt around them, the coil tightening in practiced, deliberate pulls. It wasn’t painful, yet, but it was snug enough to make it clear who owned movement now. The leather settled, firm, marking George as held.
He tugged the end lightly, testing the bind. George felt it everywhere.
“Better,” Max hummed, satisfied. “Now you can’t forget a thing.”
He tipped George’s chin up with two fingers. “Feel like a pretty fuck toy yet?”
George swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly and absolutely useless. He didn’t trust it not to betray him.
Max smirked at the silence, loving it, feeding on it.
“No answer?” he cooed. “Sweet. Means it’s sinking in.” His voice dipped lower, almost fondly cruel. “You get one job now, lie there and take whatever I decide to give you. Nothing else.”
He leaned down, brushed his lips over George’s jaw, not quite a kiss, more a claim. “Eyes open,” he whispered. “I want you watching. You don’t deserve to miss a second.”
George nodded, wrists bound, breath uneven, pulse too loud in his ears.
And Max smiled like this was exactly how the universe was meant to line up, George pinned beneath him, quiet and wired with anticipation, and him above, calling every shot.
Max didn’t ease up. He didn’t soften. He dragged the moment out with almost petty precision, circling George’s opening touch after taunting touch, every sweep designed to make him flinch.
George twisted against the restraint, chest rising too fast. “Max–just–” He couldn’t even form the command. His body was begging louder than his voice.
And then Max stopped teasing.
He pushed in, slow, deliberate, unrelenting. No warning. No cushion. No mercy.
The world went white at the edges.
George arched sharply, breath breaking out of him in something between a gasp and a curse. “H–hell–!” It hit like fire, wrong and right in the same unbearable flash. His muscles seized against the intrusion, every instinct fighting what his desire had already chosen.
Max’s grip clamped down on his hips, iron-hard, staking a claim with just his hands. “Oh look,” he drawled, sounding thrilled with himself, “found your volume button.”
George couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think. He couldn’t get air that wasn’t trembling.
Max pressed in the last inch, settling deep enough that George felt pinned from the inside out. “Thought you were experienced,” Max murmured against his throat. “That what you said?”
George managed half a nod, more a jerk of the head than agreement.
“Funny,” Max continued, voice razor-slick, “because right now you’re shaking like no one’s ever fucked you properly in your life.”
George shuddered under him, every nerve lit up, torn between pain and hunger and something terrifyingly close to relief.
It hurt, yes–but the part of him that hated Max was shouting that it was worth it, that it was perfect.
For a long, burning beat, all George could do was breathe. Not evenly, ragged, startled pulls of air that barely got past the ache still coiled deep in his gut.
Then something eased. His body stopped bracing against the invasion, stopped fighting instinct, stopped trying to outrun the stretch. Muscles softened; tension untangled; his hips rose a fraction without permission. His voice cracked around the first sound that wasn’t pain.
“Max–” Not a protest. Not exactly surrender. A plea-shaped whisper that surprised even him.
Max heard everything tucked inside it.
“Oh?” he purred, like that single syllable was the prize he’d been chasing. “Finally remembering you want this.”
“Please,” George exhaled, barely. “Move.”
Max… did. Technically. A shift forward that was maddeningly slow, so careful it bordered on cruel. A retreat just as slow, dragging sensation through every newly woken nerve.
George hissed, thighs shaking. It wasn’t enough to be pleasure, not yet. Just sensation, too big and too little, all at once.
He tried to drop his hips, tried to force friction, to shove himself down and meet Max halfway.
Max’s fingers dug in, pinning him back to the couch like a butterfly to glass.
“Don’t.”
One sharp word. Command, not request.
George growled frustration into the air. “Max, come on–”
“You want it?” Max murmured, moving again, agonising pace, devastating control, “you know what to do.”
George’s eyes flew wide.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Max–I’m literally–” he tugged at the belt binding his wrists, felt leather bite skin, “–you’ve tied me up, you’ve marked me like a bloody chew toy, you’re on top of me, inside me,” he rattled out, cheeks flushed with humiliation and heat, “how am I not submissive enough for you already?”
Max paused, halfway through another torturously slow thrust, just to savour that sentence.
He leaned down, lips brushing George’s ear. His smile was audible.
“Beg.”
One word, soft as silk, hard as a fist.
George swore under his breath.
His pride clawed at his ribcage.
His breath shook.
His hips twitched helplessly against the restraint.
Max moved again, that same punishing, pleasureless rhythm, all tease, no payoff.
George’s brain split in two.
One half chanting don’t give him the satisfaction
The other half drowning, starving, willing to trade anything, dignity, oxygen, his firstborn, for Max to stop torturing him with patience.
He clenched his jaw, eyes squeezing shut.
He would never–
Another unbearably slow thrust had him whimpering, whole body bowing like a string pulled too tight.
Never might not last long.
Max’s patience snapped first, but he didn’t let it show in anything visible.
He angled back in, slow, too slow, unbearably slow, and then, just once, hit something inside George that made the world tilt.
George convulsed under him.
Not a controlled gasp, not pain, not a curse, something raw and startled and honest, ripped from somewhere he’d buried deep.
His spine bowed, wrists pulling hard against the belt above his head. His hips tried to chase the sensation themselves, Max denied them immediately, retreating before George could breathe into it.
George broke.
Whatever angry pride, dignity, rivalry, or logic he’d been holding onto… slipped.
He started babbling. Not even forming full sentences, not at first. Just sounds, breathless syllables that tumbled out of his mouth faster than he could hear them.
“Please–just–don’t stop–I need–God, Max, please, please, I can’t–want you–want it–want you–”
Words he would never have admitted sober.
Words he didn’t know he’d swallowed years ago.
Words that hit Max harder than any insult ever had.
Max froze over him, shock flickering like static through blue eyes.
“George…”
Not mocking, not smug. Startled.
George barely heard him. He was too far gone, shaking, wrists straining, eyes glassy. Everything he’d sworn he’d never surrender spilling out uncontrollably.
“I’ve wanted–for so long–just give it to me–don’t tease–don’t leave me hanging–please–”
And that was it.
Max’s control shattered second.
His hands slid down George’s sides, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. Whatever slow torture he’d been committing to evaporated like smoke; he pulled back only to drive forward with the kind of force that made the couch groan beneath them.
George screamed–loud and unrestrained, nothing like the polished public version of himself.
His head snapped back, throat exposed, eyes rolling. White rushed through his vision, hot, blinding, all-consuming. His breath came out in sobbing gasps, tears pricking at his lashes without him noticing.
Max didn’t slow down now. Didn’t tease, didn’t talk.
All he did was follow through on every desperate sound George made, the rhythm brutal in its commitment, meeting need with need until George wasn’t even forming words anymore–just noise and open-throated want.
And Max leaned into his ear, voice rough with awe and hunger:
“There you are.”
Max didn’t relent.
Once he broke George open to that wild edge, he stayed there, driving him past the point of thought, past pride, past anything resembling the control George clung to in daylight.
Every push stole another sound from George’s throat, rawer each time, his voice shredding itself into the cushions as if trying to hide the evidence. Tears slipped down his cheeks unchecked, soaking into the upholstery beneath his temple. He wasn't even aware of crying, just the way his face felt hot and wet and helpless.
His wrists dragged at the belt binding them, skin smarting under the pressure, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t stay still, couldn’t be silent. His hips twitched on instinct, trying to meet Max’s pace even as the grip on his sides held him down, kept him exactly where Max wanted him.
And Max–God, Max was merciless.
Focused. Almost frightening in his determination to wring every last reaction out of George’s body.
He wasn’t speaking, not at first. Just breathing hard, every exhale landing on George’s neck or jaw or shoulder, hot and consuming. Driving into him again and again with single-minded intent, like he’d waited far too long to have this and couldn’t afford to waste a second.
George shattered under it.
His words fell apart into half-formed pleas, syllables that melted into moans, promises that made no sense, declarations he would deny forever if he remembered them in the morning.
“Ma-ax–p-please–I can’t–just let me–fuck, I need–” His voice broke, completely gone to grit and strain.
Somewhere in the rush, Max’s rhythm faltered, just barely. A stumble of breath, a sharp drag of air through his teeth, his hips stuttering once, twice, a giveaway George would have gloated about if he wasn’t burning alive.
George felt it. Felt Max edging toward his own limit. Felt something coil inside himself in response, tight and desperate, too full and too close and not close enough.
Sound spilled out of him without permission, messy, soft, frantic.
“Let me–please–just let me–” He tried to form the word finish but it dissolved into a whimper halfway out of his mouth.
That was when Max finally spoke.
He slowed, just enough to make George groan in frustration, and leaned down until his breath ghosted over George’s ear.
“Not yet.”
George sobbed out a noise that wasn’t pain.
Max’s smile bent sharp and feral.
“You don’t get to finish until I say so.”
George shook his head helplessly, tears catching in his lashes.
“I–Max–fuck–”
Max cut him off, voice slick with triumph and something darker:
“Be a good girl–”
a name meant to brand, not tease,
“–and wait.”
George’s whole body jerked at the words, humiliated, undone, and aching enough to obey anyway.
George’s body made the decision before his mind did.
One second he was pinned beneath Max, shaking and begging and unraveling, and the next something fierce and furious snapped loose inside his chest, something that remembered he was not built to lie back and take anything quietly.
With a guttural sound that surprised even himself, he wrenched upward. His bound wrists looped around Max’s neck, dragging him forward hard enough that Max lost his balance and planted his hands behind George’s back for stability.
George kept going, curling his spine, engaging every shaking muscle, and hauling himself upright until he was sitting flush against Max, chest to chest, their breath crashing into one another’s mouths.
Max froze, not withdrawing, not retreating, just caught off guard, blue eyes blown wide.
George’s legs clamped around Max’s hips, ankles locking behind his lower back. His whole frame trembled with effort and overstimulation, but he held himself there, bodies sealed together, refusing to be put back down.
Max found his voice first, low and stunned, “What the hell do you think–”
George cut him off with a broken laugh that tasted like salt and adrenaline, “Thought I was done?”
His voice cracked, hoarse but laced with defiance,“You don’t get to own all of it.”
And then he moved, not gracefully, not steadily, but with raw need that drove Max’s breath out of him like a punch.
It wasn’t a rhythm at first, more a desperate clambering grind, George shifting his weight, seeking friction the way a drowning man seeks air. Every lift of his body stole a gasp from his throat; every downward press dragged out a groan that sounded like surrender and rebellion in one.
Max’s grip snapped tight around George’s hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. Reflex, equal parts possessive and stabilizing, because George’s legs were trembling, his whole body trembling, but he refused to stop.
“Oh,” Max breathed, voice breaking into a laugh that was almost disbelieving, “you think you’re in charge now?”
George’s head tipped back, throat offered up, tears glittering on his lashes, “I’m not asking anymore.”
Max’s responding growl rumbled from somewhere deep and primal. He didn’t try to push George off, didn’t force him down, he met him. Matched every desperate motion, driving up into him with brutal precision, the two of them colliding in raw, reckless sync.
Their foreheads knocked together, sweat smearing between them. George couldn’t control the sounds escaping, high, desperate whimpers pulling loose with every clash of movement.
Max muttered curses in dutch against his jaw, his neck, anywhere he could land his mouth while breathing hard enough to shake.
The couch protested beneath them. The couch creaked with the bouncing and the pace, as his tied wrists kept Max trapped close, no space to breathe, no space to think.
George’s voice dissolved entirely, reduced to helpless noise, every exhale a plea without words, every inhale a stuttered shiver of too much sensation.
Max wasn’t far behind, George could feel it in the way his rhythm faltered for a heartbeat, in the sharp inhale at the base of his throat, in the way his fingers clawed harder into George’s hips.
Both of them were spiraling, chasing the edge, meeting it headfirst, no control left anywhere in the room.
And for the first time that night, they moved as equals, wild, fevered, and breaking together.
George didn’t even try to hide it anymore.
His voice cracked, shredded raw by the pace, by the pressure, by everything Max was doing to him. Words tumbled out of him in gasps, pieces of sentences that didn’t quite land.
“M-Max–shit– I… I’m right–I can’t–god I need–”
He barely recognized his own voice, thin, desperate, soaked in need and something close to panic. Every time his body rocked against Max’s, he felt himself teetering over a cliff, dragged back just enough that it hurt to stay upright.
Max heard it. Felt it. Smirked with his mouth against the hinge of George’s jaw.
“Oh, I know you do,” he murmured, hips snapping up to meet George’s movement, “you’re shaking like you’re starving for it.”
George let out a sound that was almost a sob.
“Please,” he managed, the word dissolving on his tongue.
Max’s breath stuttered against George’s skin, another hint he was close, too, but he still held that last inch of control like a knife.
He jerked George’s hips down, locking their bodies together, and breathed into his ear, low and devastating:
“Go on,” a whisper sharpened into a command, “come for me, princess.”
George shattered.
It hit him so hard his vision burned white around the edges. His body arched tight as a bowstring, every muscle clenching, and then he went slack all at once, a choked cry ripping out of him as pleasure tore through him in waves.
Something warm hit their chests, cum pooling between them, proof enough of what had just happened even if George couldn’t see straight. He froze mid-motion, gasping like the air had vanished, eyes rolling back, entire body trembling from the release.
Max didn’t pause.
The moment George slumped, Max bucked up once–twice, a sound tearing out of his throat, lower and rougher than anything he’d made the whole night. He pulled George down hard against him, burying himself to the hilt, and came with a guttural noise that sounded like triumph and surrender at once.
George felt the shudder of it, deep and full and claiming, and a tiny broken whimper left him, too wrung out to care what it meant.
His strength gave out completely.
He collapsed against Max’s chest, arms sagging behind his head, belt still binding them together. His forehead pressed into Max’s shoulder, lips parted as he tried to remember how to breathe.
Max caught him before he could slump sideways, arms winding around George’s back, supporting his entire weight with surprising gentleness. He held him there, buried against his body, still shaking with the aftershocks.
Something in Max’s posture melted. His grip turned softer, supportive instead of possessive, cradling instead of controlling. His nose brushed George’s temple, his mouth pressing slow, absent kisses into sweat-damp hair.
“Good boy,” he whispered, almost tender now, “did so well for me.”
George couldn’t answer, his ears rang, his eyes wouldn’t focus, his throat felt scraped raw. But Max kept talking, voice lower than it had been all night; soft, fond, threaded with something he’d deny until death.
“That’s it… breathe for me,” he murmured, rubbing slow circles at the base of George’s spine.
“So pretty when you fall apart.”
Another kiss to his hairline.
“So sweet,” another breath, “my perfect slut.”
George didn’t catch every word, he was adrift, floating on what was left of himself, but the tone wrapped around him as securely as Max’s arms.
And for the first time all night,
hatred felt a lot like devotion.