Chapter 5: The Second Claim
The silence in Matthew’s own apartment was absolute, and it pressed in on him like a physical weight. He’d showered, the hot water sluicing away the evidence of Diego from his skin, but it did nothing for the feeling deep in his muscles, the tender, overstretched ache that pulsed with every heartbeat. It was a brand. He stared at his reflection in the steamed-up mirror, his hazel eyes wide and unfamiliar. He looked like himself, but he didn’t feel like himself. He felt split open.
Jack wasn’t home. A curt text said he was “out with Leo,” a name that meant nothing and everything. Matthew threw on gray sweats and a tight black tee, but he couldn’t sit still. His body was a live wire, humming with a restless, angry energy. The memory of Diego’s hands, his mouth, the crushing fullness of him, played on a loop. It wasn’t just physical. It was the way Diego had looked at him—like he was the only thing in the world. After feeling invisible, it was a narcotic he’d only had one hit of. The craving was immediate, vicious.
He paced the living room, the argument with Jack from days before echoing in the empty space. It’s just physical, Matt. It doesn’t change what we have. Bullshit. It changed everything. Because now Matthew knew what it felt like to be wanted with a singular, consuming focus. And he wanted to feel it again.
And he wanted to feel it again.
The decision was a physical jolt, propelling him out of his apartment and into the cool night. He didn’t think about Jack, or rules, or the fragile shell of his old life crumbling behind him. He just walked, the city’s sodium glare painting his path, each step a drumbeat towards that sandalwood-scented room. That man was a god in bed, a truth so primal it overrode every other thought.
He took the stairs two at a time, his heart hammering against his ribs. He knocked on Diego’s door, not Jack’s, a sharp, decisive sound. It opened almost instantly, as if Diego had been waiting. He was shirtless, wearing only low-slung sleep pants, his curls damp. His dark eyes widened, then heated with unmistakable victory.
“Couldn’t stay away, cielo?” Diego’s voice was a low rumble, his lips curving into that infuriating, gorgeous smile.
“Shut up,” Matthew breathed, pushing past him into the familiar dark wood room. The single candle was lit again, casting its restless shadows. “Don’t talk. Don’t say a damn word.”
Diego closed the door softly, the click a period ending the outside world. “Okay.” He leaned against it, a statue of coiled patience, watching Matthew stalk the room’s perimeter. “What do you want, then?”
Matthew stopped, facing him. The ache between his legs was a demanding throb. “I want what I had. I want to not think for an hour.”
“You’re in charge,” Diego said, spreading his hands. “Tell me.”
The permission unlocked something fierce and wounded inside him. He didn’t speak. He pulled his shirt over his head, let his sweats drop, standing naked and pale in the flickering light. Diego’s gaze was a physical touch, scalding in its appreciation. Matthew walked to the bed, the emerald silk cool under his knees. He looked over his shoulder, a silent command.
With a soft chuckle, Diego obeyed, settling back against the headboard. His already substantial length was thickening rapidly under the thin fabric. Matthew crawled over him, bracketing Diego’s hips with his thighs, their skin meeting—fair against bronze, smooth against coarse hair. He could feel the tremendous heat of him.
“You feel that?” Diego murmured, his hands coming to rest lightly on Matthew’s waist. “All for you. It’s all yours.”
Matthew took the bottle of slick from the nightstand, his hands steadier than he felt. He prepared himself quickly, desperately, the earlier stretch making the initial pressure a sharp, welcome burn. He lined Diego up, notching the broad, slick head against himself. He looked into Diego’s eyes, saw the raw hunger there, and sank down.
It was slower this time, a conscious, torturous conquest. He took inch after devastating inch, his body singing in protest and glory. The stretch was unbelievable, a filling so complete it blurred his vision. Diego’s jaw was clenched, a tendon flexing in his neck, his grip tight on Matthew’s hips.
“Dios mio, look at you,” Diego groaned, his voice shattered. “Riding me like you own me.”
Matthew did. He set a punishing, cathartic rhythm, using his strong thighs to drive himself up and down, controlling the depth, the angle, the sheer force of their joining. Each downward plunge punched a sound from his lungs—a grunt, a gasp, a shattered curse. He was chasing the feeling of being utterly possessed to forget he’d ever been disposable.
“That’s it,” Diego urged, his own hips rising to meet each fall. “Use me. Take what you need.”
Sweat sheened Matthew’s chest, catching the candlelight. He rode through the burn, through the overwhelming fullness, until it melted into a shocking, radiant pleasure. His head fell back, tendons cording in his neck. The room dissolved into sensation: the slap of skin, Diego’s guttural praises, the creak of the bed, the scent of them both mixed with sandalwood.
His climax built not as a trickle but as a seismic wave, starting deep where they were joined and radiating outwards. He came with a ragged, broken cry, his body seizing, clenching rhythmically around Diego’s impossible girth. He shook through it, vision whiting out, untouched.
The violent squeeze pulled Diego over the edge. With a roar, he drove up, burying himself to the hilt, his release pumping into Matthew in hot, endless pulses. They collapsed together in a slick, tangled heap, Matthew’s ear pressed to Diego’s thunderous heartbeat.
For long minutes, only their ragged breaths filled the room. Matthew felt hollowed out, purified by the fire. Diego’s fingers traced lazy patterns on his back.
A key scratched in the front door lock. The sound was distant, mundane, and utterly world-ending.
Footsteps in the hallway. Jack’s voice, cheerful and oblivious, called out. “Diego? You up? I brought tacos.”
The bedroom door was slightly ajar, a slice of yellow hallway light cutting across the floor. It pushed open with a soft groan.
Jack stood there, a grease-spotted paper bag in one hand, his keys in the other. His smile was a casual, leftover thing from the hallway. It died. His eyes moved from Diego’s face, calm and defiant against the headboard, down Matthew’s sweat-slicked back, to where their bodies were still joined.
He froze.
The bag of tacos hit the floor with a dull, wet thud. Jack’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He just stared, his face leaching of all color, at the obscene, intimate connection before him. At Matthew’s body, split open and sheathing the titanesque bronze cock of his roommate. The air, thick with sex and sandalwood, seemed to solidify.
Matthew didn’t move. He should have scrambled, covered himself, felt shame. A wild, hot wire of panic shot through him, but beneath it, something harder solidified. He felt Diego, still mostly hard inside him, give the faintest, possessive pulse. A claim. Matthew didn’t break the stare. He held Jack’s shattered gaze from over his own shoulder, his breath coming slow and deliberate now.
“You’re home early,” Diego said, his voice a low, unconcerned rumble against Matthew’s spine. His hands remained on Matthew’s hips, grounding him.
Jack made a strangled noise. “What… is this?”
“You seeing it usually helps,” Diego replied, not unkindly, just stating a fact.
“Matthew.” Jack’s voice cracked on the second syllable. It was a plea, an accusation, a complete unraveling. “Get off him. Get off him right now.”
Finally, Matthew moved. He shifted, a slow, deliberate roll of his hips that made Diego suck in a sharp breath. He didn’t disengage. He simply turned his head further, his expression flat. “Why?”
“Why?” Jack echoed, hysterical. “Because you’re my boyfriend! Because this is… this is disgusting!”
“You wanted open.” The words left Matthew’s mouth like stones, cool and heavy. “You forced the open status. So it’s open.” He pushed back against Diego, feeling him swell again in response. “I’m open.”
Jack flinched as if struck. He looked from Matthew’s defiant face to Diego’s smug, satisfied one, to the visual proof of their coupling that he could not unsee. His betrayal was a physical atmosphere. “With him? With my roommate? In our apartment?”
“Your apartment,” Matthew corrected, the finality chilling. “Your idea. Your rules.” He finally, slowly, lifted himself off Diego, the separation audibly wet. He reached for his sweats, pulling them on with a calm he didn’t fully feel, his movements unhurried. He left his shirt off. “You don’t get to be shocked by the game you invented.”
Diego leaned back, making no move to cover himself, a king on his silk sheets. “He’s got a point, man.”
Jack’s hands were shaking. The violated, wounded look in his eyes would have gutted Matthew a week ago. Now, it fueled that hard, new thing inside his chest. He felt unapologetic. This wreckage was built on a foundation Jack had chosen to dynamite.
“You just… you fucked him,” Jack whispered, the crudeness ugly in his mouth.
“Yeah,” Matthew said, zipping his sweats. He met Jack’s eyes again. “I did. And I’m going to do it again.”
The words hung in the polluted air between them, a declaration of war wrapped in casual cruelty. Jack’s face completed its journey from shock to a sick, gray understanding. He looked like he might vomit. The smell of greasy meat from the spilled tacos began to mix unpleasantly with the scent of sweat and sex.
Matthew buttoned his sweats slowly, watching him. A terrible, exhilarating freedom cracked open in his chest. “You should be happy,” he said, his voice dangerously light. He grabbed his shirt from the floor but didn’t put it on, just held it. “I’m following the rules. Your rules.”
“Happy?” Jack choked out.
“Yeah.” Matthew took a step closer, his bare feet silent on the wood. He gestured back at Diego with his chin. Diego hadn’t moved, a portrait of indolent satisfaction. “Look at him. He’s your friend, right? Trustworthy roommate. Handsome. It’s less risk than some random hookup from an app. You said you wanted me to be safe.”
He let that hypocrisy hang, let Jack feel its edges. Jack’s jaw worked, his eyes darting to Diego’s naked, formidable form and then away, as if burned.
“And besides,” Matthew continued, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial murmur that was somehow louder than a shout. He leaned in slightly, close enough to see the flecks of panic in Jack’s eyes. “Fuck, Jack. He is exceptional in bed.” He let the adjective land, specific and devastating. “I mean, historically exceptional. You have no idea.”
Diego’s low chuckle from the bed was a punctuation mark. Jack flinched.
“Stop it,” Jack whispered, his voice brittle. “Just stop.”
“Why?” Matthew pressed, a predator circling wounded prey. “You asked for this. You unlocked the door. I just walked through it.” He finally pulled his shirt on, the cotton sticking to his damp back. “With someone you know. Someone you live with. It’s practically considerate.”
Jack’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. He looked from Matthew’s defiant calm to the devastating proof of the act still glistening on Diego’s thighs. The image was searing itself into his retina, a permanent tattoo of his own making. His grand, liberal idea had curdled into this visceral, humiliating reality in his own hallway.
“Get out,” Jack said, the words raw and quiet, directed at the room, at both of them.
“It’s my room, bro,” Diego said, not unkindly, as if pointing out a minor traffic law. “You’re standing in my doorway.”
The finality of that, the sheer legalistic truth of it, broke something in Jack. A sob escaped, a harsh, ugly sound he tried to stifle. He turned on his heel, a clumsy, broken movement, and staggered down the hall toward his own room. A second later, his door slammed shut with a force that shook the wall.
The echo died, leaving a silence thicker than before. Matthew stood very still, the adrenaline beginning to recede, leaving a strange, hollow tremor in its wake. He could still smell the tacos.
From the bed, Diego let out a long, slow breath. “Well,” he said. “That happened.”
Matthew didn’t turn around. He stared at the empty hallway, at the closed door. He had wanted to hurt Jack, to make him feel a fraction of the betrayal. Mission accomplished. So why did his hands feel cold?
Diego’s weight shifted on the silk. Matthew heard the soft pad of his feet on the floor before he felt the heat of him, a solid presence at his back. Diego’s hands settled on his shoulders, fingers kneading the knotted muscle there. He didn’t speak. His touch was neither a celebration nor an apology. It was just there, an anchor in the sudden, quiet wreckage.