Rules of the Game • Daniel Ricciardo

It's The Thought That Counts

Monday, February 20th, 2017- Monte Carlo, Monaco

Daniel spent far too much time looking down at the world from a top a podium, wearing navy fireproofs that were soaked clean through by an intoxicating combination of his own sweat and sprayed champagne, heralded on by cheering crowds and much to the delight of his triumphant team, to waste his time caring about such trivial, inconsequential things as his reputation.

So, if people wanted to say that he fucked anything that walked and was willing, Daniel wouldn't stop them, partially because that was true and partially because he had too good of a time doing it to be bothered with stopping just because a few strangers had a problem with it. And he wasn't ashamed of his predilections, just as he was unrepentant in regard to any other of his tendencies, chief among him the habitual way in which he fell into bed with whoever he pleased, whenever he pleased, for as long as he pleased.

It suited Daniel just fine how fleeting each of his flings were, how all the time it took him to catch fire and to burn himself out was a matter of hours at the very least and a night or two at the most. He was content with things exactly the way they were, his life beholden only to himself, dictated solely by racing and his own desires, unencumbered and uncomplicated by anything else.

He knew himself better than most people ever come to know themselves, knew the way his mind worked, knew how his attractions arose, knew what he liked and what he detested with the thoroughness that rivals his knowledge of anything else, confidently priding himself on being a man who deludes himself about absolutely nothing.

And yet, that February morning, waking in the moment just before his alarm went off to find he was drenched in a cold sweat thanks to a dream he couldn't remember, his naked body wrapped up in a twisted mess that told him he'd spent the entire night tossing and turning, his dick painfully hard beneath his sheets, Daniel somehow managed to fail to put together what was different about the day in particular, to figure out what it was about today that made it different from all the rest.

It's only once Daniel wraps his hand around himself, intending to quickly take care of himself before he does anything else, knowing the issue won't go away on its own, and finds that the faceless, unidentified woman in every scene of every fantasy has been replaced by a face he knows, by a body that's no longer unidentified, that it finally occurs to him why things feel irrevocably changed this morning.

Fully cognizant of the fact that this is all likely to come back and bite him the ass, simultaneously aware that this might work out in his favor, so that by the time Daniel's coming in his own fist, spilling across his fingers and onto his stomach to thoughts of your hand where his is now, to your lips wrapped around his cock, to your legs wrapped around his waist while he buries himself to the hilt inside of you, he's already accepted the unexpected turn of events and unabashed about the realities of what, of who, he wants.

And accordingly, Daniel's unsurprised about where he finds himself a few hours later, standing in front of your doorway, his hair still damp from his shower and his packed suitcase lingering behind him in the hallway. He knows that he should turn himself around, take himself and his packed bag back upstairs to his own apartment, and find something else to fill the time before the car arrives to take to the airport, but he doesn't.

Not when he'd already made his mind up about it somewhere between waking up and getting out of the shower, the decision solidifying itself into his itinerary for the day as concretely as the time of departure for the private chartered flight he was sharing with Max and Michael out of the airport in Nice at noon was, and all by the time he was finished packing.

So, Daniel reaches out and knocks three times before his thoughts can get any further out of hand than they already are, consigning himself to seeing this through whether he's ready to or not.