[Soren’s POV]
I watch them leave together and something detonates—an implosion, collapsing inward toward a white-hot point of fury I have no right to feel.
Nico and Julien crossing the ballroom, Julien's hand on the small of Nico's back. They move through the crowd like they belong together—easy, unashamed—and every step drives something jagged deeper between my ribs.
I push through the ballroom doors. They're twenty metres ahead, walking toward the elevators. Julien leans in to say something, and Nico smiles—not the media version but something softer, given freely to a man who hasn't earned it through eleven years of wreckage.
"Nico." My voice comes out sharp, carrying the authority of a man who's just invented an emergency. "Henrik needs us. Strategy debrief for tomorrow. Both drivers, now."
They stop. Julien looks back, eyes moving between me and Nico with an assessment so quick it would be impressive if it weren't infuriating. His expression settles into something knowing—and the fact that a rival driver can read me this easily makes my skin crawl.
"Of course." He steps back with a grace that suggests he's been expecting this. Touches Nico's jaw and presses a kiss to his cheek that lasts exactly long enough to be a message. "I'll text you," he says, and walks away.
As soon as Julien rounds the corner, I grab Nico's arm. "What the fuck are you doing with Marchand?"
Nico looks down at my hand, then up at my face, and the temperature drops ten degrees. "Since when do you have any claim on who I spend my time with? We're not together, Lindqvist. We're not anything. You have no right."
"He's a competitor. A rival team!" I'm grasping and I know it. "You're sharing setup philosophy with a man who'd use every—"
"To what? Beat us on track?" Nico's laugh is devastating. "We talked about rear-axle geometry and his grandfather's vineyard."
"It's about team image. If the press sees you leaving with a rival driver—"
"They'll what? Assume I'm sleeping with him? The way half the paddock assumes you're sleeping with every woman you perform for? Strange how that's never a team image problem."
Every excuse collapses. But the way Nico stands there—hip cocked against the corridor wall, jaw set, collar open at the throat—triggers something I can't rationalise.
My pulse isn't racing from anger. Anger doesn't pool low in your stomach, doesn't make your mouth go dry while your palms go slick. I have wanted women before. I know that wanting—familiar, manageable, filed under normal.
This is the same chemical cascade aimed at someone with broader shoulders and a jawline sharper than mine, and the realisation hits like a wall at two hundred kilometres per hour: I am attracted to this man. Not incidentally. The pull is specific and devastating and has probably been there longer than I'm ready to examine.
"So tell me, Soren." His voice drops, intimate and ruthless. "Would you rather I go back to Julien's suite tonight? Or come to ours?"
Either answer requires admitting something I've spent twenty-eight years avoiding. I shove him through the nearest service door instead.
The linen storage room is cramped and dark—industrial shelving, towels, bleach sharp in the close air. The door barely closes before I slam his back against the metal rack hard enough to rattle bottles.
My hands fist his shirt and tear it open, buttons skittering across concrete. Brown skin over hard muscle, abdominals clenching as my mouth finds his throat and my teeth sink in. The groan vibrates against my lips, his Adam's apple rolling under my tongue.
I pin his hips with mine, grinding forward. His cock is already hard—the thick ridge straining through his trousers against my thigh. My own erection presses back, the friction through fabric agonising and nowhere near enough.
My hands work his belt, yank his zipper, shove fabric down. His cock springs free—flushed dark, the swollen head slick. I wrap my fist around the shaft and stroke upward with a roughness that arches his spine off the shelving. "Soren—" My name comes out wrecked, feeding something feral in my chest.
I drop to my knees on the concrete. His cock stands level with my mouth. Every encounter before this, Nico was the one leading, taking care of me. Every time, I recieved it like a coward—like a man who could pretend passivity meant innocence, because th alternative was, as he showed me our first night, to stop completely.
Not tonight. Tonight Julien Marchand's lips touched Nico's cheek and something fundamental snapped. If another man can worship him publicly, without shame, then I can at least do this.
I take him in without preamble, lips stretching around the girth, tongue pressing flat against the underside as I swallow deep.
"Fuck—" His hand fists in my hair, hips bucking. "You've never—ah—you don't have to prove—"
I hollow my cheeks in answer, pulling back to tongue the sensitive ridge below the crown before swallowing him deeper. His thigh muscle jumps against my shoulder. "Okay—caralho, just—your teeth, careful—yes, like that—"
I work him sloppy and aggressive—fist twisting at the base, jaw aching, saliva flooding over my knuckles. His fingers tighten in my hair, each thrust pushing deeper until tears blur my vision.
I pull off before he can finish. Yank my own trousers down, my cock springing free, aching and flushed.
I turn him around. His chest hits the shelving, metal edges biting skin. My hand presses between his shoulder blades and his back curves instinctively—spine dipping, hips tilting back, offering without being asked. Something savage and possessive roars through my bloodstream: my turn to win.
I spit into my palm, slick myself and press forward. Nico's hand shoots back, gripping my hip. "Wait— like this? No prep, nothing? You'll tear me apart."
"Tell me what you need." The words come out raw, barely human.
"Fingers first. Slow." His voice is steadier than mine, even now—commanding from the shelving the way he commands an apex. "And listen to me when I say I'm ready."
I obey. Spit-slicked fingers pressing in, reading every sound for permission—one, then two, his body opening in increments until his hips move back against my hand. "Now," he says, and the word is a green light I feel in my spine.
I push in with one slow, relentless stroke. The tight heat swallows me completely. Nico's moan reverberates off concrete, fingers white-knuckled around the shelf's edge.
The rhythm builds—each thrust driving him into the shelving, the metal frame slamming the wall. Bottles topple and shatter on concrete, and neither of us flinches.
My hand reaches around his cock—I stroke in counterpoint, thumb smearing precome over the swollen head, and his whole body shudders. I bite the nape of his neck, driving into him at an angle that makes his voice break.
"Mine," I growl against his skin—involuntary, absolute.
Nico comes first—body clenching around me in spasms that drag me over the edge. The orgasm tears through my spine, hips grinding flush as I spill deep, each pulse wrenching a sound from my chest I don't recognise.
Stillness. Our breathing echoes off concrete. We're both bruised—shelf-marks across his ribs, my knees raw, his neck marked by my teeth.
Nico speaks first, voice rough and steady. "You can't have it both ways, Soren. You can't claim to be straight and then act like a jealous boyfriend. You don't get to fuck women for show and then drag me into closets when someone else touches me."
I say nothing. The words require a truth I haven't assembled yet—pieces scattered across shelving and shattered glass, too sharp to handle. But when Nico moves toward the door, my hand catches his wrist.
Not gripping. Just holding—fingers circling bone where his pulse hammers against my thumb. He looks down at the contact, then up at my face. Waiting for words I can't produce.
Tystnad. Fuck.