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"I don't really feel like myself
Am I freaking you out?
I want that hardcore romance
Are we just toxic from the start?
You and me are caught in the middle
So will you destroy my heart?
You and me are caught in the middle
Just tear me apart" -Beach Weather ft. Ari Abdul
***
Frank has a totally normal reaction the first time Matt casually mentions having a new girlfriend. He drops Heather’s name without thinking anything of it until Frank repeats it almost accusingly.
“Who the fuck is ‘Heather,’ Red?”
“Oh! Oh, right, I never got a chance to mention…she’s just this woman I’ve been seeing.”
Frank pauses as if he’s a skipped record. His heart is thudding so loudly that it distracts Matt.
“Oh yeah?” Frank’s voice is suddenly close to his ear, all heat and whiskey breath.
There’s an awkward pause as Matt tries to ignore how Frank’s proximity and inexplicable intensity make him feel, all hot, twisted up and confused.
“Yes. She’s uh, a therapist, we met through Kirsten and –”
Suddenly, Frank bursts out laughing. “Calm down, buddy, I’m fuckin’ with you. The look on your face, I swear to fuckin’ God, you’re too easy.”
He grasps Matt’s shirt at the shoulder and tugs it maybe a little too hard, playing it off as amused and friendly. But it feels like manhandling; it feels like half-smothered frustration. Matt bites his lip a little too hard in response.
“I. I mean. Huh?” Matt can barely keep up. Which is not like him at all.
“Good for you, Red, you get yours! How long’s this been goin’ on?”
“Oh, a couple of months I guess.”
“Yeah? You guess?” Another boisterous laugh. “Fan fucking tastic. You guys serious?”
“Are we…?” Matt’s mouth feels dry. “I guess we’re just dating… it’s been good but we’ve hit a snag here and there as well…”
“A therapist, huh, Matty? Well I bet you guys’ll work it out because if there’s one thing you need, it’s a fuckin’ therapist.”
“Me?” Matt laughs, almost relaxing at last. “Me? Please. You need a damn therapist. Come on.”
“I ain’t on the market, tragically enough. It’s great for you, though. Some nice, normal girl. Bet she understands you and just fuckin’ supports you in all your wacked out shit huh?”
“Does she need to? She knows Matt Murdock. It’s not a good idea for her to get to know Daredevil.”
“Hmm. I’ll take your word for it. Interesting.”
“Frank, if you wanna say something, just –”
“Who, me? Judge you and your relationship? Perish the thought, Red. It’s just kinda intriguing that you say you like this girl, despite never mentioning her until like the fifth time we had a chance to catch up. And how you don’t want her to actually know you, but whatever works for you, man. The fuck I know?”
Frank’s warm chuckle sends an odd shiver down Matt’s spine.
“I don’t know, Frank, I’m starting to wonder if you know something I don’t.”
“How ya figure? I never even met this Amber. I don’t know a single fuckin’--”
“Heather,” Matt corrects him wryly.
“Right. It’s one of those. Sure, okay. See you round the Kitchen, Red.”
Matt stands still in the place where Frank was so close to him mere moments before and says his name into the shadows. But Frank’s already gone, as painfully casual as can be.
He was going to see if Frank wanted a beer or even one of his precious late-night coffees.
It amuses him, the way Frank can day-drink with the worst of them and then expect to be served coffee at two am as if that makes some kind of sense. It worries him, and if Frank’s going to be drinking, he’d rather be the one serving and keeping an eye on him. Which is stupid because he knows that a) Frank’s gonna do whatever the hell he wants, regardless and b) Frank can take care of himself.
If anyone was ever an actual human tank, it’s got to be the Punisher. This knowledge ought to stop him from worrying about his friend when it isn’t even like Frank’s been particularly off-balance lately, for Frank.
It hits him out of nowhere that if someone’s going to worry about Frank, he wants it to be him. He feels like it’s his job, but that’s not exactly right. His privilege?
All Matt knows is, it’s his. It has to be. The worry bleeds into a secret even deeper, a quietly thrumming wish to take care of Frank…in some other world where the man would actually let him (or anyone else).
Another world where they could take care of each other.
A strange thought that won’t seem to wash away, even in the solitude of his apartment with only the city’s lazy, almost-morning white noise for company. A thought he doesn’t necessarily want to let go of, even though being concerned about the welfare of the city’s most notoriously brutal vigilante doesn’t sound like it would be good for his already compromised mental health.
And that deeper secret? The one he’s been steadfastly holding back from his conscious thinking whenever possible? If he picks at the scab and lets those feelings bleed freely, he could very well end up breaking his own heart. Foolish dreams, revolving around a domestic yearning to be so much more to Frank than his occasional friend and fighting partner.
But they’re his feelings, so real and insistent, and they make him warm inside, following him to bed as he cradles a bottle of craft beer against his chest. The condensation soaks slightly into his white t-shirt and duets with the steady drip of careless, leftover shower water from his hair onto his neck and shoulders.
Matt still feels overly warm, despite the crisp fall weather and his apartment’s fairly reasonable temperature. The heat of Frank’s attention has always been something that felt different to getting attention from anyone else, something rarer and more important.
Now, it’s almost insufferable, especially when the weight of it tonight feels so different.
He thinks about how he’d chosen this damn beer and the new pods of coffee in the darkest roast available just in case Frank dropped by. Without ever knowing when their paths will cross, seeing Frank always seems like an unexpected gift, even when they argue, even when they get physical with the arguing, which has been far less frequently of late. And.
And…Matt has missed the contact with Frank’s body, in ways that irrationally make him almost regret the sincere regard between them that brokered the peace.
Inevitably, if belatedly, he realizes that he’s never bought Heather anything in the way of a present. He pays for meals and drinks at places she likes to go; he cooks for her and tries to be as good to her as he knows how while hiding seventy percent of his true self. But he’s never once stopped short in a store and turned back down an aisle because he’d just thought of something she’d like and suddenly needed to buy it.
What exactly has he been doing here? It’s been something like three months of just a little too serious to be casual between him and Heather, and a night that she can’t come over feels like a break. Feels like a chance to breathe and think about the stuff he holds at bay whenever she’s around.
Meanwhile, Frank’s downright indignant response to hearing the simple sound of her name with the implication of intimacy…it’s unknotted something that has been tied nice and tight and tucked away in the back of Matt’s mind.
But he’s never been able to fully conceal it; the way his heart slams into his ribcage whenever Frank comes close or says something a little suggestive, there’s no way he could remain innocently unaware of his own emotions when it comes to the man.
It’s just that…he’d never heard Frank’s heart answer him back the same way, not until tonight.
It doesn’t fully make sense; he can’t slide the puzzle pieces together rightly, no matter how many times he plays each of their interactions back almost beat-for-beat, going back years.
If Matt’s right about what he picked up on tonight, it means that without a doubt, Frank must have been stubbornly, carefully hiding this feeling every time they were within a mile of each other.
Dammit, it almost makes some sick kind of sense in retrospect. He can understand Frank’s insidious self-hatred manifesting in a desperate attempt to protect anyone rather than let them know he cared about them that much. Wanted them that way.
The extremes to which Frank would have to go around Matt, keeping himself calm physically whenever he couldn’t pass his excitement and attraction off as adrenaline from a battle with enemies or some dumbass, pointless fight between the two of them, it’s extraordinary.
It’s also that goddamn, hard-headed, military insistence on shutting down when he should be opening up, it’s Frank’s most infuriating quality. Little had Matt ever known that Frank had been using it to fool him – he wants to know how long, he needs to know.
He rolls over onto his side, shoves the half-empty beer bottle across the bedside table and then hugs himself, tears burning in his eyes. He has a right to know.
It makes his head spin with that same thoroughly unfamiliar, disorienting sense of not being able to tell up from down that he’d been bowled over by when Frank was in his living room repeating Heather’s name like he was describing some previously unknown strain of a deadly plague.
It’s certainly nothing new for Frank Castle to take Matt’s equilibrium and mess with his confidence, his ability to feel solid floor beneath his feet and make the right call in any given moment. He’s already compromised his morals more times than he can count to make excuses for Frank’s absurdly dangerous, masochistic “code.” Frank’s murders. He’s forgiven Frank for things he’d have put anyone else away for life over, like it was nothing.
It never seemed to matter if he was breaking his own code because when it came to protecting Frank or putting Frank first, it always felt so natural, inevitable. Absurdly, secretly, wildly good.
And that all means one thing if his feelings for Frank are unrequited. That’s a version of reality Matt can deal with; it’s predictable, reliable, the sort of situation which has allowed him to fall into a shapeless, anticlimactic, quasi-relationship with someone else.
He can’t regret being with Heather, not even now, when he can see it was probably a bad idea from the start. But if this is how he finds out that Frank feels the same, if this is how he’d unintentionally pushed the right buttons to finally, finally force the truth out of the man, it’s more than worth it.
It’s a selfish feeling but there’s nothing he can do about that. Right now, he’s too caught up in raw emotion to give his conscience the reins.
He swallows painfully, angry with Frank for lying to him all this time, mad at himself for being a clueless idiot who couldn’t conceive of his feelings being returned, an idiot who fell into the arms of someone else just because it was convenient, because Heather could seemingly tolerate the version of him he let her see, and he was so fucking lonely most of the time that it ate him alive.
Maybe, no matter how bad the loneliness got, only one person could heal it. Being with the wrong person just made the wounds fester even more.
It’s been slowly killing him even when he’s been with Heather, but he never wanted to deal with that until now. Now, he doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring it anymore. He’s so pissed off that he forces himself to choke back the tears of confused heartbreak, all tangled up with hope that hurts even more than how much time he has wasted never knowing he wasn’t alone.
If Frank’s really as jealous and almost unhinged about it all as he accidentally let slip earlier, then he’s a dick. How dare Frank make some executive decision to feel all that for Matt and never let on? Just hide it and lie, and let Matt suffer?
Did he think Matt didn’t want him? Why – how could anyone not want Frank? He is…everything.
This is exactly the kind of bullshit a person only thinks when they’re head over heels for someone, and from the day Matt met Heather it’s never been remotely possible that someone could be her. He was already long gone over Frank, whether he saw the guy all the time or didn’t see him for months.
The irony of Frank’s jealousy is a flimsy bit of dark comedy that doesn’t hold back the tears. Matt only fights off the temptation to cry himself to sleep by staying mad at Frank for lying. For leaving him tonight still lying, preferring deception and abandonment over just coming out with it already and saving Matt from this all-encompassing, needy aloneness.
A better reason for Matt not to cry over Frank would be that he’s still Heather’s boyfriend. But just like Matt’s tried to tell everyone for so long, it might be true that he works really hard to be a good man and do the right thing, and sure, he’s always wanted to be that proper Catholic boy he was raised up for. It doesn’t mean that he actually succeeds, though, and as bitterness finally drags him into restless slumber, he’s never felt any less like an angel.
***
Afterwards, he can barely sleep for almost a week. He has recurring, suggestive, borderline erotic dreams about Frank. In bed with Heather, he can’t focus on her and all he can think about is the bizarre and foolish theory that Frank is jealous.
Things get so crazy that Heather blows up on him again about being checked out and inattentive. And he can’t bring himself to care. His mind even replays Frank’s glib, silly comments about how he won’t show his true self to Heather. But Frank wasn’t being funny, and Matt knows it.
Finally, he tracks Frank down on a rooftop a week later, opening with a gruff “you got something you wanna tell me?”
Frank chuckles and stays infuriatingly calm on the surface. But he must realize that Matt can hear his quickening breath and staggering heartbeat.
Ah, finally. Oh my fucking GOD. Yes.
Even as his stomach seems to be mounting the steep upward journey to the top of the rollercoaster, Matt takes satisfaction from Frank’s confirmed inability to hide his reactions. All it took was Matt getting involved with someone else at the right time or the wrong time or however the hell Frank sees it. But whatever the details, Frank’s body is now betraying him. It’s downright sloppy.
He feels the moment when Frank looks over his shoulder to discover that his friend is not decked out in red leather. Instead, Matt’s dressed plainly in all black, making it obvious that he didn’t hear any crime or sounds of potential trouble that made him come out there. He’s only there for Frank. Even his glasses are tucked away in his pocket.
Frank’s breath catches, but he tries – and fails – to make it sound like a short laugh.
“Somethin’ to tell you? Nothin’ I can think of at the moment, Red. Say, how’s Heather doin?”
“Oh, like you really care about how she’s doing.”
“You think I’m so heartless, Red? Aww, that hurts.”
Matt just knows that Frank has a hand laying over his heart in a mocking gesture, so he strides right towards him and rips it away like a bandaid, tossing it down by Frank’s side. Enough of these useless, insulting defenses, these walls between the two of them.
“Hey–”
Matt’s voice comes out in a hiss. “I think you’re lying, Frank, and I think if you didn’t want me to know how you actually feel, you would try harder to hide it. You’re too smart not to know better.”
The snide attitude rolling off of Frank’s aura no longer does a thing to cover up his possessive fury.
“I got nothin’ to hide. I’m not in a relationship, I’m a free fuckin' agent, just tryin’ to keep you honest with yourself is all.”
“Is that so?” Matt steps back from Frank a few paces, lets out a breathy, impatient laugh. Puts his hands on his hips. “Mr Honesty. You’re not holding something back from this discussion?”
Frank steps forward, refusing Matt the chance to reduce their physical nearness just as Matt is now barring his attempts to avoid emotional intimacy.
That sexy, deep voice of Frank’s is so over-the-top pushy and obnoxious, it gets Matt half-hard just listening.
“I don’t know, Matty, what exactly do you think I’m holdin’ back from you? It’s nothin’ you can’t have if you care to come take it, that much is pretty indisputably fuckin’ obvious.”
This is too much. Can’t Frank understand that he’s turned Matt’s memories and whole understanding of the last few years into a chaotic storm where nothing makes sense anymore?
“Can you make it more obvious, please?” Matt is exhausted and it shows. It’s pure emotional bafflement, too deep for a “friendship.”
He’s never been particularly talented at pretending to have merely platonic feelings for Frank, and that had been when he was trying. Now, he hopes that his total lack of defenses or artifice will strip the same from Frank.
A few moments pass, punctuated by stuttering breaths from both of them. Then, Frank takes pity on him. Matt knows why — he can hear how Frank’s heart skips a beat at him saying ‘please.’
“I guess I ain’t spelled it out in excruciatingly apparent detail enough times for you, Red. You need some other form of fuckin’ communication, I take it.”
Matt shoots him a sardonic smile that’s still a little too close to begging. He doesn't care. “If you would be so kind.”
“I ain’t gonna be kind, Red. And I’ll tell you what, fuckin’ Amber ain’t gonna like it either.”
“Heather,” Matt snaps irritably, but a second later Frank’s mouth crushes against his, hard and insistent.
Hot, wet, rough. Frank kisses him like he owns him and he’ll do whatever the hell he pleases with Matt, anytime he wants. It’s only the first fucking kiss, which makes this insane on his part. It feels so perfect that Matt responds with a broken little moan, immediately opening up and welcoming Frank in.
Frank licks into his mouth and Matt is helplessly electrified, burning up. He’s drowning in the scent of Frank’s cologne, all amber and pine, blended with notes of sharp, insistent desire.
This has never been one-sided. Matt is wanted, oh, God, how Frank wants him. He feels so awash with it all, he would've collapsed under the powerful sensations if Frank hadn’t been holding him with that vice grip.
“Who?” Frank demands, backing Matt against the nearest wall.
He’s still fucking jealous. He’s still thinking about Matt being with Heather, as if that’s something that has ever mattered.
“I- I don’t know,” Matt falters as his hands helplessly grab onto Frank’s sweater, seeking more contact at any cost, any way he can get it. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
“Now you’re talkin’ Red.” Frank’s relief is as palpable as his pleased amusement, which makes Matt’s face flush as his heart squeezes in aroused embarrassment. “Just in time for me to shut you up.”
“Frank, please,” Matt says faintly, the cement seemingly falling away under his feet.
All the cacophonous racket of Hell’s Kitchen fades away, drowned out by Frank’s raging heart pounding right against his own.
He’s tugging on Frank’s shirt and he’s digging his nails into any bit of exposed skin on the man’s forearms or shoulders that he can seem to get to.
“Okay, okay, calm down, Red,” Frank soothes, but his way of soothing is also to take Matt’s wrists and pin them to the wall above Matt’s head. “I’m gonna take care of you but you gotta trust me, baby.”
The pet name, combined with Frank’s effortless dominance, makes tears spring into Matt’s eyes as his body trembles all over.
“Can’t do this here,” he says, mortified to discover that he is whining. “I’m falling apart, Frank, please–”
“Gonna need you to be a lot more fuckin’ selective with that word,” Frank mutters right beside Matt’s ear. He licks the shell and tugs the lobe just short of too sharply, groaning when Matt bucks automatically against him, hard and ready. Desperate.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, you’re gonna be the death of me. Can I take you home?” Frank shoves a leg between Matt’s to make his intentions clear, and clucks his tongue when Matt tries to rut against him.
“Calm down, I said – you gonna behave or what?”
“Are – are you going to make me?” Matt knows how his tone sounds when he uses that particular good-boy voice and it earns him the reaction he wants.
“I asked you a goddamn question, Matthew. Can I take you home and fuck you into your bed until dawn, or are we not gonna be alone?”
Matt has to breathe so hard he’s panting, just to stop himself from trying to ride Frank’s thigh at the dirty talk. He feels his cock throbbing, trapped in briefs that are suddenly much too tight and getting soaked with precum. It’s pathetic and he doesn’t give a damn.
“Don’t be an idiot, Frank. Of course we’ll be all alone. You can’t really think otherwise when I’m — like this with you, here tonight. Talk about painfully obvious.”
Matt hears the smirk in Frank’s voice: “Oh, I’m an idiot, huh? You sure don’t seem to mind that, anyway, do ya?”
He lets go of Matt’s wrists and then immediately reaches down, cupping the thick bulge in the other man’s jeans.
“Fuck, oh, God, Matty…”
“No, I don’t mind — you being a jealous fool…you’re real lucky that way.”
“I guess I must be. Especially if you’re tellin’ me that tonight you’re mine and nobody’s gonna get in between us. I’m gonna take you apart every way I know how, baby.”
Matt takes Frank by the arms, firmly massaging his biceps. He can be damn possessive too and knows it’s apparent in how he touches and takes what’s his.
“I’m telling you that I’ve always been yours, I’m telling you that if you want me, it better be for a hell of a lot more than one night. But I’m also telling you that either way, I want you inside me, between my sheets, and nobody’s ever getting between us again. Not even you.”
***
Matt barely manages to get the door open before Frank pushes him into the dark apartment and then slams it behind them.
“Christ, I can’t believe this is happening,” Frank mutters, although it doesn’t stop him from yanking Matt’s shirt off and throwing it aside.
He also doesn’t seem at all deterred by the lack of light in the place, just navigating by memory and the mild illumination of the animated billboard outside the living room windows.
“Me either,” Matt admits hoarsely, fumbling with Frank’s belt in ways that have nothing to do with blindness.
His entire body seems to be in a state of revolt, rendering him a nearly-drooling, lustful airhead. He feels like he’s floating so high that Frank has to hold him down or he’ll be long gone before they can come together all the way.
Another halting whine erupts from his throat at his unusually inept fingers just tugging and pulling without getting anything done. Frank is wearing far too many clothes and it is a matter of unacceptable torture.
“Shhh-shhh, aww, goddammit, Matty, you’re makin’ me so fuckin’ crazy– here, I got it.” He whips his belt off with what seems like an unfair extent of competence and then does the same with his shirt.
Still, that’s about all either of them can manage as far as waiting to get their hands and mouths on each other again.
“You feel so good,” Matt says, almost sobbing with it, the heated rhythm of their hearts and the hectic wildness of their heaving breaths, the warm, solid might of Frank half-guiding, half-shoving him into his bedroom like if they don’t lie down together and rub against each other for all they’re worth, they’ll both die in seconds from sheer deprivation.
“So good,” he repeats when Frank gets him down on the bed and climbs on top of him, rolling his hips and rocking his huge erection against Matt’s own needy hardness. “Frank, plea– fucking – God, I–”
“I didn’t mean you couldn’t say ‘please,’ baby,” Frank informs him in a rasp, reaching down to undo Matt’s jeans and his own, “I just meant that if you’re gonna keep sayin’ it, there’ll be fuckin’ consequences. You might even like ‘em.”
“I’d – ah!” Matt squeezes his eyes shut as his head tilts back on the pillow. Frank’s sinful mouth has trailed from his own down to his neck with a series of sucking kisses and wicked little bites and he’s – melting – “Oh, I’d call that a safe bet,” he says weakly, around a moan.
“That’s good, baby,” Frank says in that unforgivably soothing tone that makes Matt feel impossibly safe and out of his mind all at once.
Frank takes his time mapping out Matt’s upper body with his big, strong, calloused hands. His stubble brushes beguilingly over Matt’s much-too-sensitive skin as he makes his way down, biting Matt’s pec, licking a nipple, then clamping his teeth down on a bicep. Matt whimpers, knowing damn well that Frank’s marking him with savage intent to claim, as much as he’s giving and taking pleasure with the painful nips.
“Uh-huh, ‘sokay, I know, I know, Matty…” Frank licks the bite mark he’s just left on Matt’s upper arm, igniting the mild soreness with arousing attentiveness. “Shit, you’re so sensitive, you need it so bad, don’t you, baby?”
“Yes,” Matt whispers, hands wandering all over Frank’s back, dragging nails down the terrain of smooth, hot skin and scars.
He grasps hard at Frank's hair and drags him into another fierce kiss.
It’s a real struggle, but they both somehow shimmy out of their jeans and throw them resentfully off the bed with the hatred owed to any fabric blocking the joining of their naked bodies.
Frank curses again, profusely, at the sight of Matt’s half-wrecked briefs, soaking wet and distended by his hard cock. The head is poking out of the waistband, and as he stares down at it, Frank groans, a low, animal sound.
“My God, you’re fuckin’ perfect, it ain’t even fair,” Frank declares, tugging Matt’s underwear off with what feels like the utmost mercy he’s shown to his lover yet tonight.
The relief of feeling his cock spring free, slapping heavy and wet against his stomach immediately, the freedom and the cool air roving over his hard-on and making it twitch – Matt has to put all his strength into not pushing Frank’s head right down between his shaking thighs.
Frank does hesitate, but not to be some teasing bastard about it. Not at all.
“You been with a man before, baby?”
His baited breath makes it clear how hard it is for him to hold back from just devouring Matt where he lays. There’s a modicum of comfort stroking Matt’s state of complete overwhelm, just in hearing how honestly wrecked Frank already is, too.
“A couple times – a long while ago – in college.” Every few words, Matt has to let out a shaky breath, barely staying in one piece as Frank hovers above him, drinking in the sight of him totally bare. “You?”
“Never,” Frank admits, and he rubs his knuckles gently over Matt’s cheek, then drags them softly down his jaw. “But I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem. My body is fuckin’ hardwired to want you so bad, I’ll go all out to make you feel as good as I know how. Plus, you got no fuckin’ idea how many gay pornos I’ve had to jerk off to, just to hold myself back from pouncin’ on you all this time.”
“You really are crazy,” Matt laughs incredulously. “How could you not tell that’s what I wanted you to do?”
“Even if I let myself, Red…I never really thought it’d be a good thing for you if we did this. Not till tonight. Now, I wish I’da been real with you from the first time I felt it.”
“It’s alright, Frank.” Matt cups his face in both hands and gives him a sweet, soft kiss, but still a deep and wet one, lovingly insistent. “We’re here now. I’m…I’m happy.”
Maybe it’s his words or the tremble of tears in his voice, but Frank almost shatters right then.
“I just wanna make you happy, baby, it’s all I ever want,” Frank whispers, so vulnerable, against his lips, it makes Matt’s heart throb.
The painful yearning that finds its expression in so many different parts of Matt’s body at once, his feelings, his arousal, it’s the world spinning around them while they remain the still point. As if they can stay in this moment forever.
Matt nuzzles up into Frank’s neck and kisses him, dropping a few tears, but he tries to cut the tension with a small hint of genuine humor.
“All that porn, really? Should I be worried about measuring up?”
“You know better than that, or you damn well oughta…” Frank kisses Matt’s tears and his laughs off his lips and then runs his hands over Matt’s body with hungry reverence. “Nobody’s got any business lookin’ like you do. None of those actors, nobody else on the planet compares. The way you drive me right up the fuckin’ wall, just showin’ up with your gorgeous face and this unreal fuckin’ body of yours…”
“Are you complaining?” Matt gives him a smug smile.
Frank takes the incentive to bite down on Matt’s nipple, then swirl his tongue around it while he toys cruelly with the other, slowly twisting it between two rough fingers.
“That feel like a complaint?”
“Fuck,” Matt pants, feeling like an animal in heat, his spine arching as his cock leaks, so achingly hard it defies belief. “Fuck-fuck-fuck–”
Frank caresses him all over his stomach, feeling the hard, lean muscle of his abs with a cut-off groan of approval. “You’re tellin’ me.”
“I don’t seem to have much of a choice…can’t shut myself up when you touch me…”
“I know I said somethin’ ‘bout shuttin’ you up before, but I was just playin’. I wanna hear every little noise you make for me.”
“I’m aware I sound like…a wanton whore,” Matt says, hiding his face just to get his hands pulled back by Frank a second later.
“My wanton whore. My good little slut, just mine, right, baby?”
Frank chooses this moment to wrap a hand around Matt’s cock, giving it a long, firm stroke. It isn’t even too dry, not with how copiously Matt’s dripping all over the sheets, it’s just fucking perfect. Matt could honestly scream; he lets about half of his desperation out in a bruised moan and puts the rest into a feral, possessive tug on Frank’s hair.
“Ahh!” Matt cries out, hips bucking again, seeking, trying to thrust into Frank’s warm, exquisite grip, realizing he’s finally right where he belongs, in those big, battle-worn hands.
“Fuckin’ beautiful,” Frank murmurs, disbelief coloring his tone. “Every single inch of you’s even prettier and sexier than I ever imagined. And I fuckin’ imagined it a lot.”
“You – did?” Matt asks, still needy for praise even as Frank goes on slowly stroking him, wrapped up in fascination at the hot, silky texture of the sensitive skin in his hand, the rock hardness of Matt’s erection and the pearly precum easily slickening the glide.
“‘You did?’ he asks,” Frank chuckles accusingly. “Like you ain’t whippin’ your goddamn shirt off all the time showin’ off for me, or wearin’ all that tight red leather.”
“If I took my shirt off it was because I was injured and needed you to patch me up, and - and, I assure you, the point –” Matt struggles to breathe as his pleasure mounts, “fuck, God – the point of my battle attire is util – utilitarian, not to show off my ass to you.”
“Liar,” Frank accuses fondly. “Want me to suck you?”
“Y-yes, but I” —
Matt swallows hard. The mere thought of Frank’s mouth on him is something he barely ever lets himself picture, it’s so earth-shakingly erotic. But he knows he would come almost immediately and he wants to wait for that—
“I know, baby, I get it. Me too.” Frank laughs softly, “You can’t imagine how many times I’ve dreamed about being inside those pretty lips of yours, that soft, pillowy fuckin’ mouth, full of all those fancy words and high ideals and the fuckin’ ways you tease me. But I wouldn’t last more than a few seconds.”
“Oh. I’m so glad it’s not just me.”
“Matty, it’s my fault you didn’t know this for a long fuckin’ time already and I’m sorry about that. But baby, it’s never ever been just you. And it never will be.”
“Will you show me, then?” Matt asks tremulously and hearing the soft, vulnerable note in his voice, he’s amazed how completely real it is.
Matt knows how to use his supposed “choir boy,” “innocent” qualities to get what he wants. He knows how to blend it with his sleek, legal savvy and his tough side, but he’s never felt himself let go of this control over how others see him.
He can’t help it, at all, now, which is disorienting and weird but it feels right. He realizes how deeply he trusts Frank, and how desperately he needs him. Needs him more than anything and a hell of a lot more than he’s ever let himself understand until now, when there’s no turning back.
Thank fucking GOD there’s no turning back.
“Here, let me,” Frank says huskily, sliding a pillow under Matt’s ass.
Matt knows Frank has paused to look up at him; he can feel it as surely as any one of the man’s addictive touches. Frank’s attention is so uniquely enveloping, it never fails to throw Matt for a loop, historically in some fucked up, wildly infatuated, pissed off, and-or confused ways, but at the moment? In such a sweet way.
“Hey, you gotta breathe for me, baby,” Frank says gently, stroking Matt’s legs and thighs, treating him with complete adoration. “Can you do that?”
“I am, I will. Promise” Matt laughs nervously. “This is just totally not what I’m…uh. Being with you is not like being with anyone else at all. I don’t normally get so…overwhelmed and forget to breathe. Being with you means something so much more…uhm…”
“My famous, brilliant attorney is at a loss for words?” Frank kisses each of Matt’s knees and then runs those calloused fingers down Matt’s thighs again.
This time, he finishes with a reassuring, highly arousing squeeze to each one that makes Matt bite back another moan. What is that, moan number seven hundred and eight since their first kiss less than an hour ago?
“It means more to me, Frank. You’re the one I’ve wanted to be with since…always, I guess. Not to be melodramatic.”
“It ain’t melodramatic, it’s beautiful. Just like you. I don’t care what you say, you’re an angel in my eyes–”
Matt laughs much more darkly and shakes his head.
“I said what I said, Matty, end of fuckin’ story.”
Stubborn bastard.
He pauses in thought; Matt reaches down to cup his face and trace his lips because he misses them. He feels Frank slowly smile like he can’t help it anymore than Matt can.
“You, uh, got lube around here somewhere?” Frank sounds for all the world like he tried to say that so smoothly and failed to adorable effect.
“You know, it’s just like neither one of us have gotten laid in…ever. We’re talking like a couple of sixteen year olds. It’s in the drawer there, right beside the bed, left side.” Matt is almost giggling like a teenager now; his laughter sounds lighter and more youthful than he can remember it being for ages.
“You got a point, and as such, I think I better ask you before I go any further and get fuckin’ revved up past thinkin’ about rational matters…”
Matt’s cheeks flame as he hears Frank flip the lid on the tube of lubricant and squeeze some onto his fingers – generously.
Oh, Jesus.
Just from his thoughts, Matt would be in confession for hours from this encounter if he was getting judged by taking the Lord’s name in vain. He’s engaged in a whole other type of religious ritual tonight, that’s for damn sure.
“I’m clean and I know you are,” Matt blurts awkwardly, “I, well. Haven’t gone past first base or so with Heather in a long time. To be honest, we were barely even spending any time together recently. Don’t know what I was thinking…”
“You been thinkin’ too much, angel, it’s time to let go and just feel with me.”
Matt smirks. “You really like the idea of doing it like this, don’t you. I can hear you glowing.”
“You’re hittin’ me with a lotta good information at once. First, I hear that it ain’t all been sunshine and roses with what’s-her-name, and then you’re sayin’ you want me to give it to you raw ‘cause it’s me. If I’m not mistaken, that is.”
“Oh, you’re not at all mistaken, that’s exactly what I want. Only with you.”
Frank curses under his breath and tosses the lube down on the bed before shimmying between Matt’s thighs and doing something a little unexpected – he takes Matt’s legs and puts them over his shoulders. Matt gasps at the feeling of being held up and open like this, and has no time to process that surprise before Frank lavishes his mouth over his hole.
The tight entrance immediately quivers as Matt reacts with a shuddering cry. One of his hands flies up into his own hair while the other shamelessly lands on his nipple, circling it firmly as Frank opens him.
“You’re killin’ me, baby, got no fuckin’ idea how goddamn hot you look right now, fuck. This tight little hole, all pink and sensitive, ready for me to do whatever I want with you. And you can’t help but touch yourself either. Yeah?”
Matt’s face turns so hot he’s sure it must be bright crimson. “Frank, for God’s sake, fuck, yes. Please, please, I w-want–”
“What you want, angel, huh?”
“I love your mouth and your hands. I need you to touch me, taste me, so badly, I can’t take it.”
“Just leave it up to me,” Frank says thickly, in awe of Matt’s desire for him. “Told you, I got you.”
It’s almost like Frank suspects there simply must be some misunderstanding, that there is no actual way that Matt would choose him and need this more than air. But he has no plans to object if it means he might break this spell.
Matt can relate to that feeling. This is all surreal, a fantasy come true. Seemingly too delicate and perfect to keep, and yet, everything feels rough, urgent, vital. Unstoppable. Emotions and sensations bursting too many seams for the word “delicate” to survive.
Before they’re done here tonight, Matt knows Frank will never question it again, won’t wonder if Matt sees him for something more than he is, or if he doesn’t deserve to have this with Matt.
Matt might not be feeling up to his usual level of sexual confidence, which in fairness would be near-impossible as he’s so madly overwhelmed, but that, he’s positive about.
“Frank,” Matt moans, clamping his eyes shut. “Oh, Christ” —
Irrationally, as Frank slowly laps at his entrance and then dips tentatively inside, Matt thinks if he closes his eyes, pulls his hair, and yanks at the sheets until he almost rips them, he’ll be able to handle this onslaught of pleasure. Not even close.
“Oh, my god, you’re so good, don’t – don’t stop, please–”
“There you go again,” Frank grins audibly, rubbing his thumb over the wet hole he’s now rendered a bit more slack and welcoming. “Such a good boy, lettin’ me know just what you want and askin’ politely…”
But Frank can surely feel the vice grip of the muscles and must know Matt is not that experienced in this area. Matt wasn’t exactly sure when he would get around to mentioning it, but his body speaks for itself…
“Beggin’ me so fuckin’ pretty, baby,” Frank breathes out, his feathery puffs of disbelief and adoration adding to the sensation on Matt’s fluttering hole. It’s tormentingly pleasurable, and it’s a hideous tease. “Like I got a chance in hell of ever even considerin’ sayin’ no, no matter what you ever want from me. Never mind what I been dreamin’ of doin’ to you since we fuckin’ met and had our first dumbass fight.”
He dips his thumb in, gently experimenting to make sure things feel good to Matt. The lube on his hand is warm and thick, having been carefully held off to the side during those first few languorous, savoring swipes of Frank’s tongue. Now, he slides the pad of his thumb back out and switches to his index finger, hissing in heated desire at the way Matt takes him in.
Matt can feel the way his body simultaneously tries to lock out the sweet intrusion even as he invites Frank in deeper. Irrational and all over the place, messy, Matt’s instincts – he starts panting, fisting the sheets in both hands as Frank holds his thigh tightly and presses his finger in further.
Sweat trickles down Matt’s brow as his voice sticks in his throat. “H-how many damn pornos? You’re really great at that, Frank, goddamn…”
His chest rises and falls so fast. The rasping sound of his own breaths in his ears and the raging tumult of his heartbeat are such that he thinks he’s drowning again, and then Frank crooks his fingers, taking an educated guess as to his target. He gets it right the first time.
Matt utters a spontaneously creative series of profane remarks so impressive that Frank laughs softly.
“A lotta fuckin’ porn, Matty. You made me downright studious, lemme tell you. But you gotta level with me, baby, tell me if it hurts and I’ll try it a little different. I won’t hurt you.”
“W-when I said that I had been with guys back in college, I…it was just a couple of v-very confused fumbles,” Matt sighs, his breath starting to ease into the rhythm Frank sets, slowly finger-fucking him and teasing his prostate. “Blow – blow jobs, not –”
“You sayin’ that you’re a virgin for me, baby?” The rough tremor of excitement in Frank’s deep voice lances right through Matt, sharp and irresistible. “I get to be your first?”
“I mean…” Matt blushes, turning his face to the side, half-burying it in the pillow beneath his head. “I never got around to touching myself t-there till after we met and I…that’s been the extent of it.”
“You are gonna end me,” Frank marvels. “You fucked yourself with those beautiful hands of yours, because of me? Are you for real?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t like – like this – your hands are so – big and strong…” Matt’s breath picks up speed again as his hapless, flattering words make Frank swear again and carefully press a second finger in alongside the first. “Feel so good inside me…”
“You feel incredible,” Frank says with total sincerity, sounding blown away. “Wanna fuck you so bad, you can’t even – baby, there ain’t even words to say how much.”
Matt’s hips arch up and up as Frank starts fucking him harder with two thick fingers. Frank’s a fast learner and he’s turning Matt inside out like it’s his new obsession.
“Hot and smooth like velvet, so perfect and tight for me, such a good, good boy, takin’ me so brave like this…” Frank’s words begin spilling all over each other, loving and sincere but reflective of a man who’s losing his ability to think, mental fuses fried by pleasure.
And yet, the pleasure is all Matt’s…Frank is falling into constant, praising comments and sounds breathless, invigorated, wonderstruck, from nothing more than giving this to Matt.
He’s not had more than a few brief brushes of their groins ten minutes ago to offer relief for his own erection, and it makes Matt wonder if he’s touching himself.
But Matt can’t detect any such thing – albeit, he’s basically writhing on the bed and focus is swiftly becoming more of a concept than an attainable goal, but Frank’s hands stay on him. One, scissoring him slow and firm, deeper, then harder, while the other is steady on his thigh, caressing and squeezing.
Genuinely, all other firsts and new depths of emotion aside, Matt has never been with such a selfless, devoted lover. And he’s been in love, but this is like spinning out, dissolving. If Frank doesn’t keep holding him together, he might just disintegrate on these sweaty silk sheets.
“I don’t ever want to forgot this,” Matt confesses breathily, “the way you feel, your body and your hands, your mouth. How your voice just consumes me, the smell of your aftershave, the rasp of your beard on my skin. Our sweat mixing together. The skip in your heartbeat.”
“I ain’t ever gonna let you forget it, Matty, I swear. I made you wait too long. And that’s all over now. I’m yours as long and as often as you want me to be.”
“Come here,” Matt says with heaving breaths, overcome by blissed-out reactions of so many kinds it makes him beyond dizzy. “Please. Here.”
Frank does just as he asks. Matt never doubted it but he isn’t ready for the endearing confusion that briefly follows.
“Wait, before I kiss you again, I mean because I just ate you out and all, I don’t wanna…if you don’t wanna…I don’t mind, but if you mind...I mean, I totally get it.”
Matt laughs. And kisses Frank so hard he can be sure they are both equally dizzy. Kisses the raunchy taste of himself off those delectable lips, kisses out of pure, all-in, fucked-up- crazy-needy love like he’s never felt.
“Frank, are you – trying to be…polite. Towards. Me?”
“For fuck’s sake, Red. I love you. I’m tryin’ to do right by you, whatever the fuck that is. It’s all that matters. From the big stuff to the small, can I put my mouth there when it was just there kinda stuff, you know? You know?”
Matt’s laughing and crying so hard he can’t find the line in between anymore and he doesn’t fucking care either. “I love you, too.”
Matt grabs his face and kisses him with bruising force. He just barely gets himself to let Frank go for long enough that it can be physically possible for them to fuck.
But he makes himself loosen his grip a little just because he needs Frank inside him that much.
Frank’s wild against his lips, panting like a beast unchained. Petting at Matt’s sweaty hair and sighing, “sure you’re ready?”
“You got me ready, so perfectly, and after all this time. I need — Please, give it to me if it’s really mine.”
“Of course, baby,” Frank groans, gripping Matt’s body tight against his own.
Hard muscle on hard muscle; full-hearted and once-in-a- lifetime feelings raging out of fucking control.
Control was never more than an illusion.
The first press of Frank’s hard, hot, thick cock against Matt’s entrance feels like heaven. Matt’s whole body vibrates with shimmers of ecstasy while the heat of the two of them together threatens to engulf them, destroying every tiny little remnant of boundaries between them.
Good.
Commitment doesn’t seem like hell anymore, and Matt finally knows what it means to truly belong to another person, knowing neither will ever let go.
“God, baby, so perfect,” Frank moans, burying his head in Matt’s neck.
He tries pulling his hips back a little and then slowly, firmly thrusts in again, giving Matt another few slick, rigid inches. Every single one of those inches is rubbing against all the right nerves and sensitive places in Matt.
Matt has never been fucked by a man before, and Frank is just as much a virgin to this act. It bonds them together even more, with a mutual overwhelm that neither needs to put words to. They both just know that they’ve wanted this, exactly this, all along, in every one of their aggressive confrontations, each surprisingly tender time they patched the other up after a bad night, every supposedly off-hand comment with loaded meanings brimming under the surface.
“You feel unbelievable,” Frank’s throaty, muffled voice intones, his breath pooling hot and wet against Matt’s neck as he kisses his lover.
He licks over a few love bites that Matt really should’ve stopped him from leaving, seeing as they’ll be almost impossible to hide under a suit collar. But in this moment, Matt can’t possibly bring himself to care.
“You, too,” Matt says, voice broken and quickly devolving from chaotic, punched-out little breaths to sobbing moans. “Frank! Oh, God, please, more, right there - right-there–”
“There you go, angel,” Frank mutters in a voice that’s wrecked by passionate pleasure, but Matt also hears a hint of pride in his tone that’s far, far too cute for the circumstances.
Somehow, for all their mutual learning-on-the-fly, Frank has eased in to the hilt.
It shouldn’t be so easy; Matt’s muscles should freak out more at the new experience of having this genuinely (like, holy-shit- wow, what?!, genuinely) huge dick in him so deep that he can’t even breathe without feeling small, potent tingles of shock in his belly.
But Matt’s body knows what it wants and Matt knows who he trusts. The idea of waiting more, of getting nervous or worried now, is an impossibility.
“Good– good thing you’re finding out that you like this,” Matt manages to joke, although the humor might hit better if he sounded less like he was about to black out from sheer euphoria. “That’s – oh, FUCK, ah-ahh - th-that’s a relief–”
“It ain’t a surprise, baby. You happen to have the hottest body on the planet. I know you weren’t lyin’ there thinkin’ I’d be any less crazy about fuckin’ you.”
“The whole planet?” Matt says, meaning to do so in a light tone, but it comes out in the barest whisper because Frank is slowly, deeply fucking into him and now he’s whimpering. Loudly.
It feels like he’s being inundated in the most marvelous, life-changing way by every little thing about Frank that makes him this frustratingly deep soul, this voice of authority and comfort one minute and a hot mess the next.
Everything is coming together, Matt feels it with a certainty in his heart that anchors him in the here and now, stopping him from giving into waves of panic at how powerful their lovemaking is and a fear of losing this.
“Hottest in the whole damn universe,” Frank breathes against his ear, then licks it. “So fuckin’ close, baby, you want it?”
Matt nods eagerly. So what if they never make it out of missionary position the first time? If simple and traditional feels this good, he can barely fathom how kinkier positions might feel with Frank.
“Yes,” Matt pants raggedly, God knows how many times. Is that his voice still moaning “yes- yes-yes” now, or just the echo of the first few times?
He loses track because of the thundering of their heartbeats in his ears, almost in sync, and the feeling of Frank’s powerful body blanketing him, with Frank’s mouth raining demanding kisses down on him.
Their scars, familiar to both and covering each of their torsos in a cascade of battle remnants, rub together in a bout of sweaty friction that ought to be too sensitive and painful, but it’s beautiful.
Knowing each other down to every old bullet hole or stab wound that they had to get the other to stitch up and bandage for them, it’s easy to sense how much pressure will be over the line. They just follow that instinct in the same way Frank doesn’t crush Matt, giving him enough of his weight on top to comfort and claim without hurting.
The heat surges between them along with a stabbing, sweet thrum of emotion, as Matt kisses back for all he’s worth, one hand in Frank’s hair and the other dragging down his lover’s broad back, leaving more scratch marks.
“Fuck, yeah, baby,” Frank moans between messy, mutually obsessive kisses, “harder—“
Matt grins and rakes his nails harder down Frank’s back at the same time he pulls his hair. His legs are wrapped tightly around Frank’s waist, giving him the perfect angle to fuck into him deep and hard, blocking out all sound and sensation that isn’t this, the rush of their bloodstreams as dizzy and wild as if they’re drunk or high or both, and Frank gasping hoarsely when Matt’s rough hands suddenly send him hurtling over the edge.
Matt feels Frank’s hips stuttering as the delicious rhythm he’s been pummeling with starts to unravel, knows what’s coming and lets out a sob of ecstasy when Frank fills him, deep, irrevocable, hot, wet and so much, Matt can tell it’s going to be leaking out of him before Frank’s done.
Maybe it’s that filthy, marvelous realization or maybe it’s the grind of Frank’s abs against his shockingly hard cock, but he comes then, too, with a shattered cry.
Frank rides out his orgasm and prolongs Matt’s, not with the knowledge of experience and skill, but with an animalistic hunger that makes Matt’s cock twitch right after splashing Frank’s belly with his release. Another wave of pleasure rips through Matt, too sensitive for sure by now, and even better for that. He wants to be lost in every deliriously intense layer of feeling they can bring out of and give each other.
He’s shivering and mumbling nonsense, his mouth most likely hanging open, and he probably looks absurd, especially considering that his hair has been tugged and thoroughly messed up by Frank’s wonderfully greedy hands. But Frank doesn’t care, or more accurately, he’s delighted to have wrecked Matt so completely.
“God, you’re amazing, so fuckin’ good for me, Matty,” Frank’s telling him in a voice about as punched out as Matt’s whole body feels.
He pulls out gently, and Matt guesses that the low, groaning thread of swears that follow have to do with the sight of his hole, reddened, puffy, used and dripping with Frank’s cum. It’s hard for Matt to say whether Frank’s body or his voice have a more narcotic effect on him, but in either case he hears himself making a shapeless, pleading noise in reply.
He wishes Frank could stay inside him forever, and he’s amazed with the scathing intimacy of how totally owned he’s been by this man, echoing in Frank’s profane sentiments. His rough voice feels to Matt like a massage, pressing into every sore place in his heart where he ever feared that they would never get here.
“I’m right here, angel, I’m gonna take care of you, okay?”
Matt barely manages a ragdoll nod before Frank demonstrates by kissing his lips, then his neck, running his tongue over all those unprofessional and exceptionally pleasing love bites.
His hands roam over Matt’s quivering body and it feels like there has to be some strange aphrodisiac on his fingertips. Because Matt swears to God he almost gets hard again, it’s that good. And Frank can’t seem to stop, either.
Hot, restless lips travel firmly down his chest, licking and softly biting his nipples before finding the warm mess on his belly that’s gotta be just as evident on Frank’s own. Then Frank groans in approval and licks at Matt’s cum, and Matt can’t even stop his hips from valiantly attempting to buck up against the man, like he’s seriously gonna go for round two less than five minutes later.
“Jesus Christ,” Matt whispers, laughing and close to tears again, exhausted, giddy and way too happy.
“You’re insatiable, baby,” Frank chuckles sensuously, moving up to brush soft kisses all over his face, then his lips, sharing a lingering, salty trace of Matt’s own cum. “You can’t get enough, huh? So fuckin’ hot…”
“Yeah I — I know we should probably — no, definitely rest, but my body apparently didn’t get the memo,” Matt smiles, clasping Frank’s face and mapping it to his heart’s content.
He runs his fingers along the stubble of Frank’s jawline and blushes to realize how he’s probably got beard burn on his skin in some interesting places. Frank’s mouth is as kiss-swollen and overheated as his own, and their chests are pressed together, heart to heart, feeling each other slowly come down from the pounding-racing and heavy-breathing of it all.
He takes his time tracing Frank’s nose and then his cheeks, his brow, and back down again, committing every inch and supposed imperfection to memory. Frank closes his eyes and lets Matt do this with a certain reverent gratitude, though Matt feels fresh warmth blossoming as his fingers wander back down his lover’s face.
“You’re blushing,” Matt grins.
“Well, I ain’t exactly as pretty as you, Red, not uh…not by a long shot. But if you don’t mind…”
“If I don’t mind?”
Matt laughs and uses what little strength he has left to flip their positions. Hovering over Frank, he enjoys the huff of self-conscious but relieved laughter this provokes in the man, and then he kisses him soundly.
“I happen to think you’re upsettingly gorgeous exactly the way you are,” Matt begins, only to be playfully swatted on the arm.
Frank hugs him tightly and buries his face in Matt’s chest. “Oh, shut up with that, c’mon…”
“You’re cute when you’re bashful.”
Frank raises his face, and Matt knows he’s getting an amusedly stern glare. “We haven’t discussed spanking, Matty, but you’re earning yourself a real good one right now.”
“I’m certainly open to that discussion,” Matt smiles, “Although you should probably know that will only encourage me to act out.”
“That’s my wanton little brat.” Frank gives Matt’s ass a swift, light slap, and Matt has to bite his lip to avoid moaning at an embarrassing volume. “thought you’d like that. Consider it a sneak preview.”
“I’ll consider it a promise,” Matt retorts.
“You better. You wanna grab a shower with me?”
“Sure,” Matt agrees, laughing again when they both groan at how sore and tired their bodies are all over. “We’ll get there eventually. I think.”
He switches the lamp on for Frank’s benefit.
“That helps,” Frank chuckles and they assist each other in getting up, managing not to outright stumble to the nearby bathroom.
Frank makes it to the halfway point of their shower, as he’s rubbing soapy hands all over Matt under the increasingly dubious pretense of getting him “clean,” and then he asks, “So, does this mean it didn’t work out after all, with you and that lovely”—
“Oh, God, shut the fuck up with that,” Matt groans, “if you call her Amber one more time…”
“What? I’m not great with names is all.”
“Sure. Well for your information, she got tired of me being a completely terrible excuse for a boyfriend, not particularly helped by my recent bout of lunacy.”
He rests his hands on Frank’s chest to punctuate his point.
“Lunacy, you say?” Frank couldn’t sound more pleased with himself.
“Yeah, she accused me point blank of being ‘obviously hung up on someone else,’ right before she suggested I wake the fuck up to my own bullshit and do something about it rather than wasting more of her time. Which is fair enough.”
“Well, who knew? Seems like this Heather wasn’t so bad after all. She practically threw you right into my waiting arms.”
Frank wraps those muscular arms around Matt under the comforting spray of hot water and effectively ends any complaints Matt could make about his own shenanigans.
“You’re such an asshole,” is the most he can gripe, affectionately, with a huge smile, ruffling Frank’s soaking hair.
“Guilty as charged, counselor. Especially since I wouldn’t have been as strong as her about lettin’ go of you. No matter what you did. I still think anyone would have to be nuts to walk out on you under any circumstances known to man.”
“That definitely makes you sound certifiable,” Matt laughs, but he’s touched all the same.
He can tell how much Frank actually means it, and it makes his heart squeeze with absolute, sentimental nonsense.
Frank shuts off the water when they’re done and wraps a towel around Matt, using another to dry Matt’s hair slowly and lovingly while he’s still standing on the bathmat naked, dripping and most likely starting to freeze his ass off.
Matt’s been quiet for a minute, leaning into every caring touch because he can’t help it. Now, he reaches behind him to get another towel, grinning and shaking his head.
“Here you go, you thoughtful, sweet, selfless man, you.”
He hugs the towel around Frank’s shoulders, then smirks when he’s tugged right up against Frank, getting a rather accusing kiss that ends with a bite to his lower lip and Frank giving his ass another experimental spank.
“Hey!” Matt declares, raising his eyebrows and batting his damp eyelashes. “What in the world did I do?”
“Oh, I take back that whole entire ‘angel’ thing,” Frank informs him, but he seems unbothered, seeing as he immediately begins lavishing Matt’s neck with another round of possessive kisses and light, teasing bites.
“They do call me the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” Matt reminds him and adds an exaggerated “shhh” before moaning at Frank’s continued assault on his sensitive, over-kissed neck, now moving to the other side.
“Uh huh, uh huh, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were accusing me of not being an entirely selfless saint where you’re concerned.”
Matt finishes drying Frank in his own highly distracted way before letting their towels both slip away to the floor.
“I think you are — to your own consternation and embarrassment — a genuine sweetheart to me.”
Frank groans in objection but is quickly silenced as Matt puts his arms around his neck and kisses him, reveling in the beyond-arousing sensation of their (temporarily) clean, shower-warm bodies coming together, totally bare.
When they stop to catch their breaths, Matt continues his speech, “I think you’ve always taken care of me, even when you were trying to prevent me from noticing it, and,” he reduces Frank’s latest grumble to a “Mmmfff”— by kissing him even more insistently and groping his firm ass.
“And I think that you are a jealous, self-deluding fool, which makes me extremely happy…”
Frank starts backing him towards the bedroom with teasing, bossy little shoves to his shoulders. “Yeah, so maybe I got slightly worked up after hearin’ about you with someone else, maybe I was like — two percent jealous, big fuckin’ deal.”
“Two percent?” Matt says, almost hysterically laughing as he lets Frank back him up to the edge of the bed. “You were livid.”
“Maybe I just don’t like knowin’ that some stranger or any-fuckin’-body’s got their hands all over what’s mine.”
“So, more than two percent.”
Matt’s deadpan reply gets him picked right off the floor and surprisingly deposited in the cozy chair near the bed.
“Stay there for a minute, smartass. The sheets are entirely fuckin’ destroyed if you recall. You got a clean set around here somewhere?”
Amused at Frank’s current behavior while knowing the other man is still buck naked (which makes everything both sexier and funnier), Matt nods, “in the closet to your right, you villain. I’ll have you know, you owe me a new set of sheets to replace the ones you defiled me upon.”
“But of course, my prince,” Frank snorts as he unceremoniously strips the bed of whatever’s left of the former sheets. “A fine set of gazillion thread silk ones, as per your preference.”
“I’ll admit, it did feel good when you fucked my brains out on those silk sheets. Lucky for you, I wasn’t too attached to them.”
“I’d say not, Matthew. Considerin’ how about a minute after I laid you down, you wouldn’t have cared if I was fuckin’ you outside in broad daylight so long as I didn’t stop.”
He says this in a damn cheeky manner while putting the new sheets on the bed with an eagerness that belies the purpose of the task. Matt has no doubt that Frank will soon be splashing out on a few sets of replacement sheets.
“Make sure the corners are properly tucked in now,” he instructs, barely keeping a straight face. “It’s the least you can do.”
“It’s the least I can — you do realize that if you don’t stop pushin’ all my buttons, you won’t be able to walk a straight line or sit down without your cute little ass smartin’ for days, right?”
Matt shrugs. “I don’t know, I guess I was just hoping for a clearer explanation on that whole matter of me being yours and nobody else is allowed to touch me thing, and maybe I’m not quite as concerned about the consequences to my bodily autonomy as I most likely should be.”
“Knew you were nothin’ but trouble from the start,” Frank retorts, deftly closing in on Matt and scooping him up with disorienting ease.
He’s obnoxiously happy when this move makes Matt’s next quip come out as a shameless moan. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, you wanton cock-tease.”
Frank tosses him on the bed and mounts him, easily subduing Matt’s playful pretense of “pushing him away” for the latest “slut” allegation.
“I take issue with that, great issue,” Matt insists, gasping with pleasure as Frank holds him down and grinds against him. “Yes, I am wanton, which — pot, kettle — but I am no tease where you’re concerned.”
“That’s true. You couldn’t have been anglin’ harder to get literally fucked past daylight from the second I shut the damn shower off.”
“Do you mind fucking me again? If it’s not too much of a hassle…”
“Oh,” Frank says with another of those gloriously carefree smiles in his voice, so unusual and new for him. “I think you’ll find me entirely willing to help you out with that. If you weren’t so damn hot and annoyingly fuckin’ charming, maybe I could resist spoilin’ you. But I can already see this is gonna be a problem.”
“There are worse problems to have,” Matt smiles into their next kiss, and his dreamy tone marks the moment their flirtatious jokes turn into no-holds-barred passion.
Matt’s lost in a mist of nearly incomprehensible joy without the fear of it going away, which is the part that makes it so weird and has him kissing Frank even more fiercely, unafraid to let the man hear every moan and whimper he doesn’t even try to hide.
He’s making Frank happy, too, and that’s the aspect that makes him want to cry, to keep surrendering all he has, just like this, and to devote his life to ensuring that never changes.
And that reminds him -
“Frank, I have something great for you to look forward to in the morning,” he manages to say between thrusts and moans. “Or -- whenever it is that we wake up…”
“Better than this?”
“Well, maybe not better than this, but…I bought you some fancy dark-roast coffee…”
Frank laughs and kisses him, then shakes his head. “I knew you were an angel.”