January 22, 2022
Luisa says, “Max liked watching you today.”
“What,” says Lando, panting, watching her mouth, hands careful in her hair.
She pulls off again and clarifies, “At breakfast.”
Lando pushes the side of his face into the fold of the duvet and giggles.
She takes his cock back into her mouth and the giggle turns into a whimper. “Oh, god, Luisa, you can’t say — you can’t talk about that while — ”
“Sorry,” she says with a hum, licking the underside of the head like she knows he likes. His hips move up and he twists to still them with a visible effort.
“You’re such a show off, babe,” she says, replacing her mouth with her hand. Lando jerks up into the air. “I love it.”
Lando’s face is doing something complicated. Luisa can’t parse it. He throws his arm over his eyes. “Please, I’m — can you stop teasing — ”
She ducks her head and smiles into his inner thigh, overcome by fondness, or — something like it. She loves making all the words fly out of his head. “Yeah, babe.” She kisses the tip of his cock wetly, just a slick press of her lips, and goes back down.
It doesn’t take much longer before he comes in her mouth. She swallows because she knows what the fuck she’s doing with her life. Lando lies still for a full minute, like his soul has completely left his body, and then drags her up to cuddle. She rests her head on his chest, thinking scattered thoughts.
//
January 4, 2022
Lando doesn’t want to try sandboarding. He stays in the dune buggy, fiddling with his phone. She can see Max talking to him quietly while she’s strapping her boots in on the board. Max seems to be able to get through to Lando when he's moody and closed-off in a way she hasn’t yet figured out. Lando had just smiled at her coaxing, squeezed her hand, and hadn’t moved, but he’s at least actually talking to Max.
It might be the Instagram post. She’s already had an influx of new followers; so many she had to turn off her notifications. Some kids, some fans, some weirdo creeps (lots of weirdo creeps), but also a surprising amount of just genuinely nice messages. She’d archived a lot of old posts when they’d decided to make things public, but people are going back and liking and commenting on stuff from like a full year ago.
It might also be the heat. Or the long day. Whatever. They’ll get back to driving soon enough; she’s here to enjoy herself.
The sun is past “pleasantly hot” and well into “roasting.” She’s grateful for the goggles. Once the board is on and her scarf is over her face, she ends up going down the dune right alongside Max.
It’s slow and not very steep, but she still falls on her ass near the bottom.
Max comes over to her and reaches out a hand. “I have to say, I thought it would be more like snowboarding.”
She takes his hand and ends up having to clasp his wrist with her other hand to get to her feet. She can see tendons standing out in his forearm as she shifts her weight to balance in the sand. They’re almost exactly the same height.
“Yeah,” she says, dropping his hand. “No chair lifts.” She tilts her head back dramatically to look up at the top of the dune and breaks into a laugh when she looks back over at Max. He’s laughing too, sun glinting off his goggles.
“Just have to hike back up,” he says. “We should have gone to that indoor ski hill instead.”
“No, we wouldn’t have to drive far enough to get there,” she says. “Lando would never go for it.”
She bends over to unstrap the board. She’s already chipped a nail today; another one catches in the bindings and she hisses. Max shoots her a little concerned look. It’s nothing, so she gives him a little smile. “Not sure I can even carry this board all the way up,” she says. “Think they’ll give us our deposit back if I just drag it in the sand?”
She’s joking, but he considers it seriously. “Sure, why not? It’s just plastic.”
It’s been odd, this trip to Dubai. Fun, too, obviously, with every day piling on something new to see or do, but she’s never travelled with so many people. Half of them she’d never even met before they came here. She always gets along with new people, but it’s tough to genuinely get to know anyone when they all already know each other and she’s just someone’s girlfriend, on the periphery, an interloper into a tight-knit group.
Max had still been a fairly new person in her life before they came here; someone she liked but hadn’t considered herself close with yet. In this huge crowd, he might as well be her old childhood friend. She’s come to appreciate his quiet thoughtfulness in a way she never had before. And, of course, Lando can’t seem to spend more than five minutes without either of them, keeping them close like they’re two planets orbiting the same sun.
There’s sand pooling around her boots. She hoists the board under her arm and turns to start making her way back up the hill. It was hot and sweaty work for five seconds of eating sand, but she’s game to try it again.
“Wait, Luisa, you’ve got — ” She turns and Max is gesturing to her back. “Sand.”
“Oh.” Of course. She twists to try to see behind her. The jean jacket might have been a mistake.
“I can get it, if you want,” he says. She nods and he sweeps the sand off of her with a few efficient strokes. “All good,” he says, in that low, calm, steady voice.
“Thanks,” she says. “Come down with me next time — bet I’ll need that again.”
//
January 19, 2022
“Have you ever… thought about Max?”
“About what?” asks Lando. They’re in the enormous hotel shower. He’s trying his best to sculpt her hair into a tall pile on top of her head and is laughing helplessly at his utter failure. A pile of foam drops onto her shoulder.
“Um.” She really hasn’t thought through the best way to bring this up. “We always have fun together,” she says, “and I — I want you to be happy.”
“Me too,” he says, still distracted. “What are you talking about?”
Luisa bites the inside of her cheek for a second and says carefully, “I’ve just never dated anyone before with such a close friend. Who’s… around all the time.”
Lando’s looking confused, brow furrowed. “Are you… are you — do you want to spend more time just us? I thought you said — ”
“What? No, no.”
“Then what do you mean?” He’s worrying his lip between his teeth, focused on her now. Her hair unspools and falls onto her neck.
She tries another approach. “Do you think maybe you’re closer than most friends?”
He shifts his weight between his feet. “I don’t know? I mean, we spend a lot of time together, and we like all the same things. And I’m just… happy that he’s in a better place now, after last year.”
“Yeah. You’re just a bit…” She hates to use a word she’s just seen earlier that morning in a colourful Instagram infographic, but… “Codependent.”
“Maybe,” says Lando. “Is that bad?”
Luisa says, “No, I like Max. I really like Max.” Nowhere to go but forward. She brings her hair over her shoulder for something to do with her hands. “I think just… sometimes I see you look at him like — like the way I look at you. If there’s something you want, if there’s something that’s missing… I really like you, and I really like him.”
“I’m not going to like… leave you for Max,” he says. “Are you crazy?”
“That’s not what I mean,” she says. “There’s just — there’s lots of ways to be in a relationship.”
She kisses him on the temple, careful not to get shampoo in her mouth, and scratches the back of his neck gently.
“Huh,” says Lando, after a blank second, and ducks his head entirely under the spray.
//
January 16, 2022
Luisa, somewhat reluctantly, finds herself playing mini golf with Lando and Max on a Sunday night. It’s one of those horrible blacklight situations that make her feel a tiny bit stressed about whether or not her teeth are white. This first room they’re in is ocean-themed, with glowing neon jellyfish and rays floating along the walls in swirls of paint.
Lando’s already finished the fourth hole and has moved on to the next. Luisa can’t get the ball over the fourth hole’s luminous little bridge and is working out all her petty frustration on the ball. It’s currently wedged in beside a glowing obstacle that’s painted to look like a block of coral. She’s resigned herself to having to dig around to retrieve it, but Max bends down to get it for her.
She smiles at him. “Thanks.”
He nods at her, eyelashes making shadows on his cheeks. They’re very close. The music is pounding. He’s wearing a patterned hoodie with some little suns on the shoulders. The white parts of the fabric glow subtly in the blacklight. She’s seen that same hoodie on Lando and has no idea whose it originally was. It’s a little looser on Max. He’s short, pretty, compact; built a lot like Lando, but just a bit smaller.
She takes the ball from him. She’s not completely oblivious; she knows it’s pretty weird to have a third wheel for most of the time she spends with her boyfriend, but “third wheel” implies… unwanted, unwelcome, useless. If Max is a third wheel, they’re a tricycle. Something about it works. She feels comfortable with him. The other day, he opened a noodle cup for her just so she wouldn’t ruin her nails. He doesn’t make jokes that verge on slightly too mean or inside jokes that exclude her, like some of her old boyfriends’ friends did. It could definitely be a worse Sunday night.
From the fifth hole, Lando yells, “Look!” He’s winding up the club like he’s going for a trick shot.
Luisa and Max turn towards him. Lando pulls back, swings, and misses the ball entirely.
They look at each other and both burst out laughing.
“Okay, that was my practice shot,” says Lando, and trots off to get the ball, which has gone god knows where, over in the direction of a hole with a fake painted whirlpool. Luisa takes half a step to go help him find it, but Max is quicker.
“Here, you muppet,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I'm done with this hole. Just use mine.” Lando does an about-face, twisting on his back foot, and Max hands him the neon pink ball from his pocket.
Luisa comes over to them. “What are you trying to do?”
“I think I can get it in by lifting the ball a few inches and bouncing it off the side of this block,” Lando says, pointing, “instead of having to go under and around.” Luisa nods. He takes his time lining up again, leaning down to examine the lie of the completely flat floor and doing practice putts like his life is on the line. She and Max stand and watch.
Lando crows with victory as he makes the shot on his second try. Luisa gives him a high five.
Max gives him an exaggerated polite golf clap. “It’s all in the ball,” he says. “You’re welcome.”
Lando tilts his head back with a laugh. “Sure, mate.”
Max says, “Luisa, want to try?”
She’s ambivalent about golf at best, and has never been particularly good at mini golf, but she shrugs and lines her feet up at the paint at the start of the hole.
Lando scrambles over the side of the block and crouches down, lining his hand up with where he angled the ball. “Aim for here,” he says.
It's completely unhelpful, but Luisa humours him, lines her putter up carefully, locks her elbows and wrists and moves from her shoulders, and shocks herself by making the shot. The ball rolls to a stop just a few inches shy of the hole.
She slings her putter over both shoulders behind her neck and gives Lando an astonished grin. Lando looks absolutely delighted, his whole face scrunched up. She can hear Max giving her real claps. She bows, twirling her hand, and Lando sweeps her into a hug. When he lets go, she steps over and gives the ball a light kick with her toe. It tips easily into the hole.
She turns back. Lando is leaning forward on his club, resting his weight on the top of the shaft with both hands. Max is frowning at the block. “You got this,” says Lando. “Don’t overthink it.”
Max takes a deep breath and swings. He makes the shot, but overcooks it a little, and his ball bounces off the low barrier at the far end. They watch as it rolls erratically back towards the hole, balances on the edge, swirls once, then twice, around the rim, and finally clatters in.
Lando throws his arms in the air. “Mini golf kings! Kings of mini golf!” He looks at Luisa. “And queens! Queen of mini golf!”
Luisa snorts and shakes her head.
“Rulers… of mini golf?” Max tries, grinning. “Mini golf royalty?” Luisa see-saws her hand in the air.
“Yes!” says Lando.
“Okay, king,” says Luisa, rolling her eyes. She points with her chin at the other side of the room. “I think your ball's all the way over there, sinking into the ocean.”
//
January 19—22, 2022
Luisa thinks vaguely that the Max question might come up again the next night, when they’re all blasted out of their minds watching fire dancing at White until three in the morning, but Lando doesn’t bring it up that night, or the night after, or even the night after that, as the rest of their friends slowly leave one by one and it’s just the three of them left at their hotel.
//
January 23, 2022
They come back to it, eventually, in a roundabout way.
Luisa’s drowsy and comfortable, nestled in the king-sized hotel room bed. She’s spent the day at the spa while the boys were out golfing.
Lando wriggles in under the covers behind her and noses at the back of her neck. She can smell the hotel body wash — he must have just gotten out of the shower.
He slides his hand to her waist and makes a tiny, high surprised sound when he feels that she’s not wearing any pants, pajama or otherwise. His bracelets rub against her skin, a bunch of now-familiar textures.
“Hi,” he says.
She laughs a little into her pillow. “Hi.” She rolls over onto her back, feeling languid and more than a little turned on. “How was it?”
He doesn’t respond, because he’s staring at her tits, but jerks his head up after a second. His hand is still warm against her waist. “Good,” he says vaguely, a bit spaced out like he sometimes gets. “We were just playing best ball today, so. A lot of easy putts. Max broke a club.”
She wrinkles up her face in a surprised laugh. “What? How?”
Lando’s just wearing boxers and a soft t-shirt. He moves his warm thigh in between hers and she lets out a soft sound, feeling relaxed and good. He leans in to kiss her neck, his curls tickling her jaw.
“I don’t know. He just hit a ball in a really shitty way. I thought maybe he hurt his hand, but he said it didn’t hurt, so. Had to lend him my five iron on a few holes. We ended up winning, too.”
“Mmm, nice,” she says, rolling her head to the side. She reaches her arms around his back to give him a happy squeeze. “Glad you had fun. The spa was good. They had this nice honey face mask, and a foam massage, and one of those ice fountains you can use after the sauna.”
Lando giggles against her collarbone. He’s not fully hard but he’s definitely less sleepy than she is, twitching slightly against the crease of her hip, breathing a little heavily.
“Did you use it?”
“Yeah. It was freezing. Awful idea.”
He nuzzles into her temple. “Now you know how I feel when I have to do an ice bath after races.”
“You don’t just pout and then Jon lets you go?” she says.
He grins against her neck. “Okay, not every race.” His hands are moving restlessly around her waist and hips. She arches up into him, feeling melted inside. She traces along the tip of his ear with her nails and he shudders against her a little bit.
“You’re so soft,” he says.
She hums. “Must be the foam.”
Her nipples are sensitive against the thin silk of her slip. She arches up against him again, feeling the slip of the sheets against her sugar-scrubbed legs, and reaches down for his cock, fitting her hand into his boxers.
Lando lets out a little noise. He’s leaking a little, on his way to fully hard. She loves feeling him get harder in her hand. She rubs his precome carefully around the head, timing it with her breaths.
He says suddenly, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
She has no idea what he’s talking about. “That I wanted to ride you?” It had been an idle suggestion that morning before he’d had to run out for his tee time.
“No — fuck.” She can feel him leaking a little more against her thumb and raises her eyebrows in a smile. “But yes, please, let’s do that.”
She leans up and kisses him. It’s slow and warm. His hands haven’t stopped moving.
“Can I see you?” He’s so endearingly polite. She nods, and he sweeps out an arm to pull down the duvet. She takes her hand back and his hips chase her a little. She wipes her fingers on the sheets under her pillow. He stares at her tits as she moves, and then braces himself on one arm and reaches under her slip to lift it up, fully concentrating.
She’s still feeling easy, languorous, a little sleepy. The dry hotel room air is cold on her exposed skin, but his hands are warm. She murmurs a little, not sure what she’s saying, as he pets over one nipple and traces his fingers down her side. She closes her eyes and slides her nails along the back of his neck. Her silk slip is around her shoulders now, and she pulls her arms up to take it off.
He’s nosing at the underside of one of her breasts, sucking lightly and less lightly on her nipple until she has a little red mark on her skin.
“Is that good?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says, on an exhale. “Do you want to — do what I said?”
“God. Yeah.” It’s like she can see his brain switching focus. He slides both arms under her back and flips them — she lets out a little “Oh!” and laughs. She flips her hair out of her eyes and can’t help rubbing herself a bit against his chest as she sits up. He has a smug little grin on his face. It’s somehow very sweet.
She pokes his dimple, and he turns his head to the side and smiles at her. She uncomplicatedly likes making him feel good. She can feel him hard against her between her legs, knows she’s getting his boxers wet.
He twists his hands to spread his palms against her stomach, petting with his thumbs at her hipbones.
“You good?” he says, slides one hand down to touch her clit with his middle finger. She’s soaking wet. “Luisa,” he says, taking a sharp breath. “Shit.”
She looks down at the golden tan of his wrist and lighter palm against her bikini tan line, and grinds down onto him a little. His hand is warm against her. She looks back at his face. The way he’s looking at her makes her cheeks heat.
She slides her hair over to her other shoulder and reaches for the band of his boxers. He awkwardly wriggles them off. When she settles back down, she slides his cock between her legs and shifts forward. He jerks. “Oh, god.”
She does it again, feeling the blunt press of his head against her clit. She braces herself with a hand on either side of him, her hair brushing his chest, and bends down a bit more to kiss his neck.
They’ve only been fucking without condoms for a little while, and it still feels new. She’s only ever been like this with one boyfriend before.
Lando’s hips are moving a little. “Luisa,” he says again. She looks back at him, feeling flushed, aflame. He brings his free hand to her hair, running his fingers through it and brushing it over her shoulder. On her next slide, she lifts herself up and brings a hand down to guide him inside her.
Lando says, “Oh, fuck.”
She closes her eyes as she settles down. He does his best not to move.
“Can — what can I — " He slides his thumb to her clit. “Is this good?”
She nods at him, eyes still closed, and concentrates on moving. He’s rubbing his thumb in slow circles.
“Can you, um,” she says. There’s no sexy word for what she wants him to do, which is thrust up against her. “…move?”
He tries, but doesn’t have any leverage, and then moves his legs so he can jerk his hips up. She opens her eyes to see his abs flexing. She hums and reaches down to stroke along his stomach.
“Oh, you like that?” he says, in his ridiculous joking voice.
“Hmm, yeah,” she says, frankly, and he blushes. She can’t help but smile at him. She’s maybe blushing a little herself.
She rocks against him, squeezes her inner muscles a bit, and he lets out a tiny whimper. She brings her hands over to brace against his chest instead of the bed as they move. He’s breathing heavily. “Wait for me, babe,” she says, and he slows obediently, squeezes his eyes shut. “Yeah. I can. I — ”
She leans down to kiss him. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s really good.”
She brings her finger down over his to silently ask him to speed up a little, and he does, tongue poking out of the side of his mouth briefly.
“Just like that,” she says with a sigh, and then wonders if that was too porny. She shoves the thought out of her mind. Lando looks at her, face open, and — thank god — keeps doing exactly the same thing, not speeding up, just firm pressure, slightly sliding around.
She loses track of time for a minute or two. Everything is wet and slippery and good, and if she just closes her eyes and feels — her thighs shaking a little, his slightly rough fingertip, her hands on him, the head of his cock dragging inside her… She tips over the edge.
She doesn’t think about anything for a blissful five seconds, and then remembers that she always loses control of her hips in this position, and wonders if she looks like she’s scooching in a chair at a desk — why is she thinking about school? —
“Luisa,” says Lando. “Fuck, I. You’re so fucking beautiful.” She laughs a little, because he’s so corny, but only a little. She moves his hand off her clit. She’s a little sensitive, but he still feels good inside her. She shifts her hips again.
“Yeah, babe,” she says. “Come on. That was so hot, come on, I want to feel it.”
He thrusts up again, hips moving up into her rhythmlessly. She moves with him, arms braced on the mattress, until his hand clenches on her hip and he comes with a little groan.
She curls down onto him, and he strokes through her hair and over her back, up and down. “Fuck, that was a good idea.”
“Of course it was,” she says.
//
She’s settled back down, ready to try to go to sleep, when she remembers.
They’re spooning. Lando’s still moving his hands, slowly and aimlessly, stroking her hip, cupping her tits, curling around her waist, circling her nipples.
“What was the other thing I said that you wanted to talk about?” she says.
He stops moving. “Max,” he says succinctly, and she’s pleased. She reaches for his hand and interlaces their fingers. She can feel him taking a deep breath.
“I was thinking about what you said. I — yeah. I do see him — looking. And it’s not — just him.” He lapses into silence for a few seconds.
She’s almost convinced he’s done talking, but then he says, “I kind of figured I feel — more — about him than other friends. This whole thing of, like. Wanting to, like, protect him. And be around him. All the time.”
“Okay, babe,” she says. “That’s good. I’m glad.” Her eyes are pricking a little. Her brave, sweet, caring boy.
Lando noses at her hair, blowing out a hot breath when a strand gets in his mouth. He seems to be waiting for her to go on.
Luisa squeezes his hand again, not sure whether to throw herself fully into the deep end. Well. Fuck it. She knows how to swim. “Maybe this is weird. I don’t know. No, it’s definitely weird. But I would be okay with — I’m open to the idea of this — us — being — all three of us. If you want.”
“Oh,” says Lando, and hides his face in her neck.
//
“How the fuck do you go about proposing that,” he says, about ten minutes later. She’s almost asleep. “Pro — propose — propositioning. That.”
She blinks her eyes back open. “I’ve had a — like, a threesome — once, before,” she says. Her voice is a little hoarse. “With my friend Camila, in uni, and her boyfriend. But it wasn’t — I don’t know, I was just curious to try it. It wasn’t anything like… like a relationship.”
“How did — did they ask, or did you… offer?”
She laughs. “Yeah, I just went up to her in line at Starbucks and said ‘I want to fuck you and your man.’ No, she asked me. She said she always thought I was hot, and Martim was interested, if I was.” She shifts her hips a bit, remembering. “It was fun, but… a one-time thing. I haven’t seen them in a couple years.”
Lando moves to hover over her. She looks up. He’s looking at her curiously.
“You’re so — you’ve done so much,” he says.
She scrunches up her face. She doesn’t know what to say.
“Oh, god. I don’t mean that like — in a bad way. I think it’s just — you’re really cool,” he says, and winces at himself.
She laughs and squeezes his hand.
“Do you want — are you like, into Max?” His eyes are on her.
She’s not sure what to say. “I’m not thinking about leaving you for him, if that’s what you mean.” She thinks about joking that Max doesn’t make enough money, but that’s kind of only funny to her and would probably just sound rude.
“No, I mean… Is this just something you think I want?”
Luisa’s had a fair amount of hookups with people she didn’t know very well and didn’t necessarily even like very much, just because they were hot. It is more about what Lando wants, for her, but the fact that it’s Max they’re talking about certainly doesn’t hurt.
“No,” she says. “That’s not it. Yeah. He’s… I like him. And he’s hot.”
“Yeah,” Lando says, as if to himself. “Okay. Okay, I’ll ask him. No idea what the fuck I’ll say.”
//
January 25, 2022
Lando and Max are out all day golfing again. Luisa spends the afternoon shopping, video chats with a friend to try everything on when she’s back at the hotel, and then lies on her stomach on the bed to get caught up on Instagram. She orders room service for dinner — they have a nice goat cheese salad — and then after some consideration gets some food for Lando too, just chicken and vegetables, stuff his trainer might approve of, in case he hasn’t had dinner. She puts it in the mini-fridge when the cart arrives.
She’s just finishing her salad, balancing the tray on her knees in the comfy armchair, and is idly thinking about showering when the lock on the door clicks. Lando and Max come in, still in their golf clothes.
They’re not chatting like they usually are; there’s some strange tension between them, Max looking at Lando and then back at her. Lando’s biting the inside of his cheek. Max is blushing faintly. Either something very weird and uncomfortable just happened — like, someone flashed them in the elevator, or…
She swallows. “How was it today?” Her throat is dry and she’s covering her mouth in case there’s stray arugula on her teeth, so it comes out a bit muffled.
“Um,” says Lando. “Good.” He pushes at his hair to fix his curls.
Luisa nods. “Did you get a new club?” she asks Max. “I heard one of yours broke.”
He meets her eyes for a second, then concentrates on scratching the inside of his elbow. “No. Uh, not yet.”
“Ah, yeah,” she says, nonsense noises, and stands up with the tray. She heads to the kitchenette to put it down and get some water. Mostly, she’s just turning her back so the two of them can do… whatever it is they need to do. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see them trying to communicate silently, making wide eyes at each other.
The water from the tap is cool against her hand as it fills the glass. They’re out of ice. She doesn’t especially feel like going down the hall to the ice machine right now.
She comes back to sit down on the bed, crossing her feet at the ankles. The boys have dropped their bags. Lando has taken off his shoes and is slightly bouncing from one foot to the other, just a few steps from the bed. Luisa wonders how long they’re all going to go on pretending things are normal.
“Should I maybe… go shower?” says Max, looking at Lando.
“I don’t know,” says Lando, looking at Luisa. He’s rubbing at his mouth with his hand.
The possibilities seem endless. Her mind is completely blank. She takes a sip of water.
Lando sometimes likes being told what to do, gently, so she reaches out a hand and says, “Or, maybe you could come over and kiss me?”
Lando comes over and kisses her.
She reaches out blindly to try to put the water on the nightstand, and feels Max take it from her, hears the little clunk as he sets it down.
Lando’s hand is a little sweaty on her neck. He sucks on her lip, not showily. She opens her mouth against his. A little thrill goes through her. They’ve kissed briefly in public before, but they’ve never kissed for this long in front of other people.
She lets out a little sighing sound and scritches her nails lightly between Lando’s shoulderblades. They’re not touching anywhere else.
Lando breaks off and looks back at Max, almost compulsively. Luisa looks at Lando’s blush, mostly hidden by his tan. Max is looking at them both, standing very still.
Luisa pushes herself up and looks at Max. “Can I?”
He looks a bit taken aback, but nods.
She stands up, comes close — he doesn’t move — and kisses him softly. He makes a noise in the back of his throat and stays frozen for about a second, but then seems to focus in. He tilts his face and brings both his hands up to her ribs. He’s a surprisingly confident kisser. It’s nice — more than nice. Luisa presses against him, sucks on his tongue a little, feels him take in a shaky breath.
“Oh,” says Lando, quietly. Luisa looks over. He’s palming himself in his joggers, one hand on the back of his neck. His mouth is just slightly open.
“Come here, babe,” she says.
In the dreamlike way Lando sometimes moves, like the air is liquid, he comes over to them, eyes glued to Max. He takes Max’s head in both his hands and kisses him.
Luisa can’t take her eyes off of them. The kiss is a little sloppy, inexpert, both of them trying to take the lead and then relaxing. Lando makes a muffled noise. Max grips his waist, rucking up his shirt. Luisa moves behind Lando and puts her hand on top of Max’s, kisses the back of Lando’s neck, and pulls his shirt up a bit. She feels him shiver.
She feels jittery, flushed, molten. She’s incredibly turned on. She has no idea what to do.
“Should we, um,” she says, and both boys turn to her. She thinks, fuck it, and pulls her shirt off over her head. Before she can overthink it, she reaches back to unclasp her bra too, tossing it to the ground and sweeping her hair out of her ponytail for something to do with her hands.
“Oh my god,” says Max, in a shocked little voice, staring at her. “You — ” He clears his throat, and Lando waggles his eyebrows at him, horribly smug. Luisa rolls her eyes, smiling a little.
It’s far from the first time she’s taken her clothes off in front of a new person, but something about Max so frankly finding her hot makes her feel warm. She reaches for her belt, but Lando is there first, palming her sides a bit protectively.
“Are you sure?” he says.
She smiles at him, feeling happy. “Yeah, babe. Take your clothes off.”
“Oh my god,” says Max again.
Lando nods at her and yanks his horrible athletic polo off over his head with one hand, messing his hair up slightly. He has a stark farmer’s tan. She wants to circle her hands around his biceps and squeeze.
Max is unbuttoning his own shirt with slow fingers, watching them. Lando goes over to him and kisses him again, takes over the buttons. Max blinks and then closes his eyes.
Luisa takes off her belt and leather trousers. She hesitates over her panties and decides to keep them on. The trousers were skin-tight. She has little red marks on her legs from the seams all down the front.
She sits back down on the bed. The mattress is so high up that she’s basically still at eye level with the boys. They seem precociously comfortable with each other, now that the dam’s been broken. Max has his hands at the back of Lando’s neck; Lando has Max’s shirt open and is framing his waist with his hands. They’re both half-hard already in their fancy golf joggers.
Luisa presses her thighs together and leans back on her hands. Her heart is pounding. She says, “Max,” and they both stop and look at her, flushed. Max comes over to the bed. His eyes flick down and quickly back up to her face. She reaches for his hand and says, “Kiss me.”
He kisses her. His mouth is hot. He brings his hands up behind her back and sweeps his palms over the fall of her hair.
Lando comes up behind Max and pulls his shirt the rest of the way off his shoulders.
“What do you — want to do?” says Max, quietly, into her ear. “Lando just said — I haven’t completely wrapped my head around what he said, to be honest.”
“What are you two whispering about?” says Lando.
“Just be patient,” says Max. Lando furls his mouth into a little moue of pique.
Luisa takes a second. “Well, I thought maybe…” She pushes past her urge to blush and chicken out. She sits back. It feels uncomfortably new and adult to be plainly asking for what she wants. It helps that she knows both of them are eager to give it to her. “I thought maybe you could suck Lando off and then fuck me?”
“Jesus,” says Lando. Max seems to be struck dumb.
“Only if you want,” she says.
“Are you… good with that?” says Max slowly to Lando, in what Luisa thinks of as his Lando voice.
He swallows. “Yeah, okay. Fuck.”
Luisa takes Lando’s hand and tugs him towards the bed. “You good?”
He nods, looking a little shocked, like the first time she’d knelt on the floor of their hotel room in Monaco and pulled down his shorts and got her mouth on him. He sits down. Luisa crouches over him and kisses him again as he leans back, just a soft brush of lips.
Lando looks up at Max. “Have you ever — ?”
“No, mate, never,” he says. “Hope I don’t, uh. Suck.”
Lando giggles. Luisa kisses him, longer this time, and runs her nails along his chest. He shivers a bit.
She rolls over onto her side, one thigh still over Lando’s. “I feel like even a bad blowjob is still okay,” she says. “Although — I wouldn’t know.” What on earth is she saying. Is she fishing for compliments? She shuts up and strokes Max’s back as he leans down tentatively. He has a little dent along the base of his spine. She circles her fingers around it.
Max carefully pulls down Lando’s joggers. Lando’s still wearing his socks and is struggling awkwardly to take them off with his opposite toes.
“Stop squirming around,” says Max, concentrating, and Lando stills.
Max gently applies his tongue to the head of Lando’s cock. Lando breathes out heavily, veins standing out in his wrists as he presses his hands against the sheets.
“Fuck, that’s hot,” says Luisa. She didn’t entirely intend to say that out loud. She’s maybe blushing. It feels like there’s just… a lot of blood running through her. More blood than usual, somehow.
Max closes his eyes and softly — slowly — gently — goes down as far as he can, which isn’t very. Luisa’s suddenly overwhelmed with affection. She shifts down beside him and says in his ear, “That’s so good.” She can smell them both, a tiny bit sweaty from their day in the sun. She likes it. “Just relax a bit. Use your hand, too, however you usually like.”
She licks her palm and strokes gently along Lando’s cock as Max pulls off. Lando whimpers. His hips twitch. Max looks sideways at her and nods. He slides his hand over hers as she pulls back.
“Oh, fuck,” says Lando, very quietly. “You can’t both…” He trails off.
Luisa looks up and waggles her eyebrows in a joking imitation of him earlier. She rolls back to lie down alongside him, pressing her chest to his ribs and tilting her face up to kiss him. He kisses her messily, distracted, one hand tangling in her hair, the other on his thigh beside Max’s head.
“Can I — ” he says.
Max looks up at him, eyes watering just a little. Lando tentatively strokes his fingers along Max’s scalp, very lightly. Max relaxes into it and goes back down.
Luisa kisses Lando again, traces her nails over his chest. She can feel every movement that Lando’s trying to suppress. It doesn’t take long before Lando pulls back from kissing her and says with a gasp, “Max, stop, stop, stop — I’m close.”
Max hums and pulls back. “Not gonna stop, if that’s okay.” Lando nods at him, eyes wide. Max is still moving his hand. He focuses back in and speeds up slightly, until Lando shakes and comes on his own stomach with what Luisa can only describe as a squeak. He looks stunned, hair mussed beyond repair. She’s so — fond of him that her chest hurts.
“Good,” says Max. He clears his throat. Luisa feels inexpressibly happy. Her two boys. She stretches down to kiss Max.
“What do you like,” Max murmurs into her mouth quietly.
“Um,” she says, opening her eyes.
“I could go down on you?” He looks up at Lando. “Do you — ? What do you usually … ?”
Lando squirms uncomfortably. It had come up once, early on. Lando had been very hesitant, but not unwilling. Luisa hadn’t pushed him. A past boyfriend had been kind of… rude. She doesn’t love to think about that. It’s not something she’s usually dying for.
He says, “We don’t, usually…”
Luisa says, “I don’t mind.”
Max says, “Well, it’s — I like it. It can be really nice.” It’s a visceral jolt in her chest. She looks at him. He says, “Only if you want.”
She twists her fingers together. What’s another slightly uncomfortable, possibly good thing to try, in the avalanche of slightly uncomfortable, mostly good things so far. She swallows. “Okay.”
Max is still down by the edge of the bed. He leans closer to her and folds his arms on her thighs to look up at her. She can feel his breath on her skin. She feels a bit — nervous? Definitely something fluttery. “Okay,” she says again, and clears her throat. “Yes.”
Max runs his fingers down her thigh and kisses the inside of her leg, beard scratching gently. She’s so sensitive there. She leans her head back.
Max reaches his hand up and strokes along her with his thumb. She rolls her hips and parts her legs a little more. Max swallows, looks up at her, nuzzles her thigh again, and licks her, open-mouthed.
She takes a sharp inhale. It’s so hot — like she’s in a hot bath — in a volcano. Lando’s looking at her and then at Max, back and forth, transfixed, like a cat with a laser pointer.
Max noses at her pubic bone, opens his mouth, and dips his tongue down and sucks on her clit.
“Oh, that’s — really nice — fuck.” The words come out without hitting a single filter between her brain and her mouth. “Fuck, that’s so good.”
Lando kisses her shoulder, reaches down, kisses her neck, thumbs over one nipple, then the other, then both, cups her tits in his large, warm hands. Luisa closes her eyes. She thought this would be way more awkward, but she’s just — lost in this ocean of heat.
Max brings one hand up and curls two fingers inside her, pressing gently up, and then less gently, as she moans louder than she usually lets herself. She shifts her hips, rolls them minutely, clenches around Max’s hands. She tries to breathe steadily. It’s only been a few minutes, or maybe a day, or maybe an hour. Lando moves back to kissing her neck. The heat of his hands, the sunburst heat of Max’s mouth, his strong fingers inside her — she tilts her cheek against Lando’s thigh and comes like a wave crashing over her.
Max has the broad flat of his tongue pressed against her clit through the trembling aftershocks, moving his fingers gently.
“Good?” he asks quietly. He rubs his beard against her thigh again. It’s wet. She shivers.
“Uh,” she says, unable to form a word. “Yeah.”
She feels very open, on display, edging into discomfort as she comes down. “Say something nice,” she says.
“You’re so fucking hot,” says Max. “Like, literally, it’s unbelievable.”
Lando tucks some of her hair behind her ear, and then lifts his head to stare at Max in mock hurt. “What the hell, why unbelievable! Believe it!”
“You really got lucky, mate,” Max says.
Luisa laughs. “Thanks,” she says to Max. “That was really — ”
Max shakes his head and half smiles. “Another?”
“Oh,” she says. The idea thrills through her. “Fuck me, please.”
Lando’s cock twitches against her hip.
“Yeah,” says Max. “God, if you want, yes. Do you, uh. Have condoms?”
She freezes, hand on the duvet, halfway through sitting up. “No,” she says slowly. Lando drags both his hands down his face. It would be almost comedic, except it’s kind of a gut punch.
The idea of getting up and venturing out into the night in Dubai to find a convenience store is beyond ludicrous. She imagines calling the hotel front desk to request condoms, which might be even worse. She can’t stifle a laugh.
“Wait, I might have one,” says Max.
“In your golf bag?” says Lando. “Planning on meeting someone on the course?”
“No.” Max blushes. “I just — I brought my overnight bag with me. Shut up.” He hops off the bed and heads across the room.
Lando takes his ring off and puts it on the nightstand. He leans down on his elbow beside Luisa and strokes down over her stomach with his fingers, then lower, dipping inside her. “Fuck, you’re so wet,” he says against her hair. She flushes. It’s probably not all just her he’s feeling. The thought is like a little shock up her spine.
Lando says, “I just wanted to — I don’t know. That was really hot.” She has no idea what to say. She clutches his wrist tightly and turns to kiss him.
They stay like that, kissing hot and slick, until she feels the weight of Max’s knees on the bed, hears the crinkle of a condom wrapper. Lando pulls away and kneels up, wiping his hand on the sheets. He takes it from Max with focused intent. Max doesn’t move. Luisa watches, lying on her back, as Lando rips it open and rolls it on for Max with careful hands.
“Thanks, mate,” says Max, and laughs at himself. Lando laughs too, his uncontrolled, high-pitched laugh that scrunches his face up.
Luisa’s feeling a little giggly herself. This is all very weird and new, but at the same time it’s somehow strangely comforting and familiar. Like she’s… slotting into place.
“Come here,” she says to Max, not wanting to move. He kneels on either side of her, taking himself in hand, and lines himself up. She shifts her hips against the blunt heat of him, snub against her. It’s a fucking great feeling.
Max leans slightly against her as he slides in, skin hot against her chest. “Oh, god,” he says, holding still for a second. He props himself on his elbow on the mattress beside her shoulder.
“Fuck,” says Lando, “that’s so — ”
Luisa feels sort of like she’s on fire. “Yeah. Yeah. You can move. Max. Please.”
Max snaps his hips forward and she lets out a breathy sigh. Max grabs her waist with one hand, not painfully, but not too gentle. He’s not quite hitting her right, so Luisa brings her legs up to wrap them around his waist, digging her knees into his sides and her hands into his back. He breathes out hot against her collarbone. “Fuck.”
Lando’s pushing against her hip almost unconsciously, watching them with intense eyes.
“Mmm,” she says. “Babe.” She reaches down with her right hand.
Lando breathes out sharply. “I don’t know — ”
She says, “Do you think you can come again?”
“I don’t — ” His hips jerk again. “I’m not — I don’t know?” He trails off into a high-pitched hum.
She traces her index finger over his cock, careful of her nails. “I think you can, babe.” Lando makes another high keening noise. His eyes are closed. “Yeah?” She pets his thigh.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Max mutters behind her. He’s slowed a bit.
“Max, can you — um.”
He stills and looks at her. His cock jerks. He takes a deep breath. She pulls back, strokes his face, can’t quite figure out how to put into words what she wants.
“Okay,” she says to Lando, and reaches up to pat one of the pillows. “You lie down up here.”
Lando looks at her wide-eyed for a second, then squirms around to settle against the pillow. She rolls over and gets up onto her hands and knees over his legs and looks over her shoulder at Max. “Like this?”
Max blinks and strokes his hand over her hip, holds the base of his cock and closes his eyes. “God, that’s good,” he says. “You’re a genius.” He’s stroking between her legs, almost soothing.
“Okay, you can — ” she says, reaching back, blindly grasping. Max gets the idea, sinks back in, presses her forward.
Lando looks like he hasn’t blinked in about five minutes. She licks up the underside of his cock, looking at him, and sinks her mouth all the way down, feeling a sudden well of emotion. Fondness. Something else. Lando shudders.
She leans her hips up and arches her chest down to the bed, smoothing her hair over her shoulder with one hand. Lando takes it and wraps it around his wrist, pulling gently at the base of her scalp. He slides his fingers along her head. Luisa closes her eyes and moans in genuine pleasure.
“Oh my god,” says Lando. “Luisa, you’re so — ” He cuts himself off with a gasp. After a second, he takes his hands out of her hair and puts both his wrists above his head, clutching the underside of the pillow. She can see the smooth, pale underside of his upper arms.
Max reaches around with his hand and finds her clit with his index finger, spreading his palm against her. “Can you come again, you think?” he says. “Honestly, I’m close, not gonna lie.”
Luisa comes up for air. “Ah — Max — a little faster.” She’s so wet his finger is sliding around. “Can I — ”
“Yeah,” says Max, having obviously no idea what she’s asking. She bats his hand away, pulls up to lick gently at the head of Lando’s cock, then presses her face into his thigh. “Sorry, babe.”
“Don’t apologize, fuck,” says Lando.
Luisa concentrates on rubbing her clit on the side she likes. Max is at a perfect angle. She rolls her hips back against him and takes a shuddering breath. She has to fight the instinct sometimes to stay quiet, hold her breath, not make noise, like she did when she was a teenager with only tenuous privacy. She says, “Fuck, that’s so good. I want both of you inside me.”
Lando makes a strangled noise above her.
“God, Luisa,” says Max, and comes, folding over her. Luisa comes a second later as he pulses inside her, clenching around him.
She breathes out against Lando’s hip and stretches down against the mattress.
“Fuck,” says Max. He lies down beside her. Lando still has his hands pressed up above him. He looks like he’s trying not to squirm. Max wraps his hand around Lando’s cock, just loosely. Luisa sucks lightly at the head, working her tongue along the vein on the underside.
Lando’s panting. “It’s — too much.” His thigh muscles are flexing, his hips twitching, rolling helplessly from side to side. Luisa looks up at him. Sometimes he says that, but what he really means is, keep going.
“Shhh, it’s okay, babe,” she says. “You’ve got this.”
Max looks between them and works his hand a bit harder. Luisa sucks gently. Lando whines. They don’t stop.
“Hey, buddy,” says Max, a little breathless. “Close your eyes. Just focus.”
Lando swears and comes a second time. Luisa swallows and licks him clean, then licks two of Max’s fingers and winks at him, overflowing with happiness.
“You’re so fucking amazing,” Max says. “Jesus Christ.”
Lando looks a bit shy, almost, maybe embarrassed, or overwhelmed. He swallows hard. Luisa can hear his breath calming and rests her head on his stomach. He takes his arms down from above his head and plays lightly with her hair.
Max lies down on his back beside her. She holds his hand.
They don’t say anything for a few minutes, just breathing.
//
Lando’s the first to get up, maybe because he always needs to pee after sex, but maybe because he’s panicking. Luisa can’t tell.
She gets up after a minute and follows him into the bathroom. Max’s eyes are closed.
Lando’s staring into the mirror, trying to fix his hair. She comes up to him and draws him into a hug. His arms come around her back in a familiar squeeze. He’s a little sweaty. So is she, honestly.
“That was really — nice,” she says.
She can feel Lando nod. “What if I… really liked it,” he says.
“Well, I really liked it too,” she says.
“And if I wanted to do it again,” he says, into her hair. “Like, right away even.”
She laughs softly. “Me too.”
“Really?”
“I’m so fucking serious right now,” she says.
They hug for a while longer.
“I love you,” she says into his shoulder, surprising herself.
Lando stills and looks at her curiously, then smiles. “I love you too.”
Luisa ducks her forehead into his chest. Lando laughs and wraps his arms around her again. “Weird time to say it.”
She says, “I don’t know.” The filter between her brain and mouth is gone again. “That was — It makes me happy to… make you happy. And, I really like Max. I do. So, I think. Anything you want is good. It’s what I want.”
Lando tightens his arms around her. They sway for a second, and then he gives her a tiny smile and heads back out.
Luisa pees, washes her hands, and then looks at herself in the wall-length mirror over the sink. Swollen lips, red marks on her hips and tits and thighs, a hint of beard burn between her thighs. She feels tired, but good. She opens the door.
One of the boys has emptied her glass of water on the nightstand. They’re curled into each other on the bed. There’s really not too much of a difference from some of the times she’s walked in on them napping before, but now they’re holding hands, Lando’s other arm slung around Max’s waist.
She comes in behind Lando and, wrestling with the boys’ limbs, pulls the duvet and sheet up over all three of them. Lando sleepily scratches the back of her neck in thanks. Luisa settles in to sleep.