Chapter 9: Secret Rendezvous
The drive to Ryan’s was a blur of sun-bleached concrete and low-slung palms. Matthew’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, the memory of Dan’s quiet, defeated exit from their hallway playing on a loop behind his eyes. He’d left without a word, a note on the kitchen counter stating only, ‘Gone to campus early. Have a class to prep.’ The silence in the house had been louder than any argument.
Ryan’s house, a modern box of glass and steel perched in the Hollywood Hills, felt like a world away from Matthew’s own cozy bungalow. The door swung open before he could knock. Ryan stood there, backlit by the morning sun streaming into the stark living room. He wore faded jeans and a tight grey t-shirt that stretched across his chest, a casual look that felt intensely calculated.
“You came,” Ryan said, his voice a low rumble. He didn’t step aside, forcing Matthew to brush past him in the doorway. The brief contact was like a static shock.
“You said we needed to talk.” Matthew moved into the center of the room, putting space between them. The place was too clean, all sharp edges and cold surfaces, a testament to a life without the clutter of a shared existence. It smelled of lemony cleaner and, faintly, of the same expensive soap from the shower.
“We do.” Ryan closed the door, the click of the latch final. “About the tour. About us.”
“There is no ‘us,’ Ryan. There’s a tour. That’s it.”
Ryan gave a slow, disbelieving smile, the same one that had melted a million teenage hearts—and once, Matthew’s. “That’s not what it felt like in my shower. That didn’t feel like ‘that’s it.’” He took a step forward. “That felt like twenty years never happened.”
Matthew’s heart was a frantic bird against his ribs. He could feel the pull, the same gravitational force that had drawn him in two decades ago. It was terrifying in its potency. “It was a mistake. A massive, catastrophic mistake. I have a husband.”
“A husband who you didn’t bother to discuss a multi-month international tour with before signing on?” Ryan’s gaze was sharp, perceptive. “Kelly might be a bulldog, but she doesn’t make moves you don’t authorize. You said yes because you wanted to. You want this.”
He was right. That was the rotten core of it. Matthew had wanted the chaos, the escape, the dizzying high of being wanted by the first person who had ever truly seen him. He wanted to run away from the quiet, stable love he had built and straight back into the storm.
“I don’t know what I want,” Matthew whispered, the confession tearing out of him.
“Yes, you do.” Ryan was in front of him now, close enough for Matthew to feel the heat radiating from his body, to see the flecks of gold in his blue eyes. He brought a hand up, his fingers hovering just beside Matthew’s jaw. “You’re just scared to take it.”
Matthew’s breath hitched. Every cell in his body was screaming for that touch, for the obliteration it promised. The memory of Dan’s hurt expression flashed again, a spike of guilt so sharp it made him flinch backward.
“Ryan, don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Ryan’s voice was a soft challenge. His hand dropped, but his eyes held Matthew’s, unwavering. “Don’t remind you that you’re alive? Don’t remind you what it feels like to be wanted like this?” He leaned in, his lips a hair’s breadth from Matthew’s. “You’ve been playing it safe for so long, Matty. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to burn.”
Matthew’s resolve was crumbling, the facade of the responsible husband turning to dust. He was back in the hallway, trapped and desperate. He was back in Ryan’s shower, water and sweat and sin. He opened his mouth to protest, to summon one last shred of willpower, but no sound came out.
He hesitated.
Seeing the crack in his armor, Ryan didn’t press with a kiss. Instead, a slow, wicked smile touched his lips. He held Matthew’s gaze as he slowly sank to his knees on the polished concrete floor.
Time slowed, stretched, snapped. Matthew could only watch, paralyzed, as Ryan leaned forward. He felt the gentle, insistent pressure of Ryan’s face against the fly of his jeans, the warm puff of his breath through the denim. Then, with a precision that was both shocking and intensely skillful, Ryan gripped the metal zipper pull with his teeth and tugged it down in one smooth, silent motion.
The sound of the zip was deafening. The cool air hitting his exposed skin was a shock. Ryan looked up, his eyes dark and triumphant.
“See?” he murmured, his voice husky. “You remember.”
And as Ryan’s mouth found him, hot and knowing and utterly devastating, Matthew’s head fell back, a broken gasp escaping his lips. His hands came up, tangling in Ryan’s blonde hair, not to push him away, but to hold on. The guilt, the fear, the crumbling remains of his marriage—it all dissolved into a white-hot static, drowned out by the brutal, undeniable truth of physical sensation. He was remembering, and he was utterly, completely lost.
Ryan’s mouth was a furnace of wet, relentless skill, his tongue mapping every sensitive inch of Matthew’s cock with a familiarity that bypassed two decades of silence. Matthew’s fingers clenched in Ryan’s hair, a painful grip that only spurred him on. “Fuck, Ryan,” he gasped, his hips buckling forward uncontrollably, driving himself deeper into that hot, tight throat. The world narrowed to this single, brutal point of pleasure, shame burning away under a sharper, more urgent fire.
He tasted of salt and desperation, and Ryan consumed him like a man starving. His hands gripped Matthew’s hips, nails digging into the denim, holding him steady for a deeper, more punishing rhythm. Matthew’s knees threatened to give way, his entire body trembling on the edge. “I’m gonna…” he choked out, a warning he didn’t mean, a plea for more.
Ryan just groaned in response, the vibration tearing a raw shout from Matthew’s lungs as he came, spurting hot and thick down Ryan’s throat. He swallowed every drop, his arms wrapping around Matthew’s waist to keep him upright as he shuddered through the aftermath. For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing echoing in the sterile room.
Then Ryan was on his feet, his own erection straining against his jeans, pressing Matthew back against the cool glass of a bookshelf. He kissed him, a fierce, claiming kiss that tasted of Matthew’s own release. “I need to be inside you,” Ryan breathed against his mouth, his voice ragged with need. “Now. I need to feel you.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, yanking Matthew’s jeans and briefs down to his ankles with hurried, clumsy hands. He fumbled with his own fly, freeing his hard, leaking cock. Spitting into his palm, he slicked himself roughly, his eyes locked on Matthew’s. “Turn around,” he commanded, the pop star persona melting into something darker, more primal.
Matthew, still dazed and pliant, obeyed, turning to face the shelf, his hands splaying against the cool glass. Ryan’s body pressed against his back, a solid wall of heat. He felt the blunt, insistent pressure of Ryan’s cock at his entrance, a promise of invasion. “Relax for me, Matty,” Ryan murmured, but there was no patience in the words, only a hungry urgency.
He pushed in, a slow, burning stretch that made Matthew cry out, his forehead dropping against the glass. It was tight, almost too much, but Ryan didn’t stop, working his way in with shallow, painful thrusts until he was buried to the hilt. “God, you’re so fucking tight,” Ryan gritted out, his breath hot on Matthew’s neck. “Still so perfect for me.”
Then he began to move, a punishing rhythm that had the glass shelves rattling. Each thrust was a collision of past and present, rewriting the memory of Dan’s gentle, familiar love with something raw and illicit. Ryan’s hands gripped his hips, surely leaving bruises, as he drove into him again and again. “You feel that?” he grunted. “That’s us. That’s always been us.”
Matthew could only moan, surrendering to the visceral claiming, his own body responding against his will, his cock hardening again as Ryan hit a spot deep inside that unraveled him. The pleasure was a sharp, bright pain, a confirmation of every terrible, beautiful thing he feared was true. Ryan’s pace became frantic, his thrusts losing rhythm as he chased his own climax. “Come with me,” he demanded, his voice cracking, and as if on command, Matthew’s body obeyed, spasming around him as another, quieter orgasm washed through him.
Ryan followed with a guttural shout, pumping his release deep inside, his body slumping heavily against Matthew’s back. They stayed like that for a minute, tangled and sweating, slick with the evidence of their betrayal. The silence that fell was thick, heavy with consequence.
Eventually, Ryan softened and slipped out, turning Matthew around to face him. He kissed him softly, a stark contrast to the violence of their coupling. “Come on,” he said, his voice gentle now, leading him to the large, low sofa. They collapsed onto it, limbs intertwined, the cool leather a shock against their heated skin.
Ryan traced a finger along Matthew’s jawline. “I broke up with Jonathan,” he said quietly, the words dropping into the quiet room like stones. “The day Kelly called about the tour. I knew it wouldn’t be fair to him. Not with you back in the picture.”
Matthew stared at the ceiling, the cold knot of dread returning to his stomach, tighter than ever. “Ryan… you can’t just…,” he stammered, the reality of Dan’s face in the hallway crashing down on him. “It’s not that simple for me. Dan and I… it’s a decade. It’s a life. It’s not some guy you can just dismiss.”
“I’m not asking you to dismiss him,” Ryan said, propping himself up on an elbow, his expression earnest, the boyish charm back in full force. “I’m asking you to choose yourself. Choose what you really want. What we could have.” He reached out, taking Matthew’s hand. “I know I fucked up before. I was scared, and I ran away from the best thing that ever happened to me. Give me a chance to make it right. This tour… it’s our second chance.”
Matthew looked at their joined hands, at the easy intimacy that felt both foreign and like coming home. He thought of Dan’s steady presence, the shared history, the terrible hurt in his eyes. But looking at Ryan, feeling the phantom ache of his body, he knew the awful, undeniable truth. This man, with all his chaos and charm, was the one temptation he had never, ever been able to resist.