Before you can retort, Matty grows quiet. He lays down, nuzzles his head into the pillow and lets out a long sigh. His eyes flutter closed. “Mmm,” he hums.

Your smile falls, the silence heavy as you almost feel tears brimming your eyes. You tried to fight it. You tried to ignore the butterflies he gave you in small moments like this, but you weren’t sure how long you could keep doing this. He treated you well. This is what you signed up for. But you were always left wanting more.

Frankly, you were tired of being the cool, detached girl who let things roll off her shoulder. For this moment, you let yourself indulge in these forbidden feelings you had. You slowly reach over towards him, all but tracing the outline of his chest tattoo. The ink you usually saw while he was buried deep inside of you, muscles tensed and sweat trickling down his skin. Or when he was onstage, his shirt either totally off, or when he unbuttoned his shirt just so, the very top would be barely peaking through.

You watch his chest rise and fall with each breath. In and out, he falls deeper into his sleep.

You swallow thickly past a sudden, tight ache in your throat. You knew better than to read into it. He was just exhausted, and probably had nothing better to do after he had you. Though a part of you waited for him to jerk awake and pull his boots on before gives you a peck goodbye off to do whatever he does.

He didn’t.

—

“Morning, darling,” Matty grumbles, voice deep and thick with sleep. Your eyes flutter open.

"Morning," you whispered, forcing a sweet smile that didn't reach your eyes.

He didn't ask you how you slept, instead, he slid his hand up your waist, his thumb brushing beneath the hem of your oversized t-shirt, tracing the curve of your hip. Matty leaned in, burying his face in the crook of your neck, pressing a lingering, insistent kiss right below your ear.

"You feel good. Warm,” he mumbled, hands wandering, pulling your hips flush against his. He was already hard.

A tiny: wave of sadness washed over you. Here you were, laying next to the rockstar you had agreed to be easy breezy friends with benefits with. After all, this is what you wanted, right? He was waking up, and you were the convenient, willing body laying next to him.

You felt a sting behind your eyes and quickly blinked it away, staring up at the padded ceiling. Your body wanted him, but your heart, your foolish heart, wanted him to wrap you in his arms and hold you. Part of you wanted to push him away. The nagging thoughts were loud.

But the fear of the alternative, of losing even this version of him, was louder. You wanted him to be happy, satisfied. You wanted to be the one who gave him whatever he needed, whenever he wanted it. Even if it meant giving away pieces of yourself you weren’t sure you’d ever get back.

So, like every time before it, you indulge him. You press your ass into him, a low grumble leaves his throat. He has a bruising grip on your hip, rutting into you.

“Fuck, baby, I want you,” Matty whispers, nibbling on your earlobe before sucking it into his mouth. You could feel your heart beating out of your chest, your blood ran hot and desire was pooling in your lower belly. That’s all it took, really. Those simple worlds and the feeling of his stubble across your hot skin.

"Matty," you breathe, his name slipping out like a sigh, half-plea and half-protest. You want to tell him to slow down, to ask if he actually means that or if you’re just the easiest place to land before his world starts spinning again. But the heat of his hands gripping you, up your sides, across your breasts, it makes it hard to think straight. You reach back and grab a handful of his curls, a small tug elicits a sharp breath out his nose. You tilt your head back, giving him better access to your neck, a silent beg for his teeth and tongue.

He shifts his body until he’s on top of you, hands on either side of your head. His eyes are dark with desire. You felt him throb against your core and you start to squirm.

“You look so beautiful like this, my girl,” Matty says, running his thumb along your bottom lip before replacing it with his mouth. All before you could respond.

The kiss is devastatingly slow and deep, thorough, like he’s exploring every inch of you. His tongue flicks against yours, and you let him in, but it’s hard to catch your breath. He moves against you at a torturous pace, slow, heavy, hard. His hard cock under his boxer briefs slowly dragging across your aching cunt and the thin fabric of your now soaked underwear. Your pulse is hammering in your ears, so loud you swear he could hear it. You buck up against him, unable get enough, feel enough.

“I want to be yours, Matty,” you pant, the words slipping out before you can wrangle them back in.

He pulls back, looking inquisitively at you. His raises his brows, smirk across his lips.

“You are mine,” he punctuates with a kiss. “All mine.” He leans back down and captures your mouth again possessively, drowning out any chance you had to correct him. You want to say, to scream, to that you’re not his: not really. But as he reaches down and frees himself, ripping your panties to the side and finally sinks into you, the worried thoughts float away. He drives himself deep into you, pulling out and slamming back in at a torturous pace.

Your body betrays your heart, arching up to meet him, chasing the friction and the blinding heat that pools in your belly.

Matty tangles his fingers in your hair, tilting your head back as his pace quickens. He leans in and harshly sucks on your pulse point, before licking a bold stripe up the side of your neck. You can barely take it.

He looks down at where you two meet and oh my god you want to consume him whole. “Love this cunt, darling- shit, so wet for me.” You nod feverishly, wrapping your legs around his hips, pulling him closer. But it’s never close enough.

His breath is hot and ragged against your collarbone, his skin slick where it slides against yours. Every rut of his hips, every groan he lets out into the crook of your neck sinks you deeper into the fantasy of actually being his.

“Matty, please,” you whine through gritted teeth, as he circles your bundle of nerves with skilled and callous fingertips, his pace never faltering. He knew just what to make you do to fall apart.

“I've got you," he growls, his voice completely wrecked,. “Look at me. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

You open your eyes, your vision blurred, and lock onto his. He looks completely undone, entirely consumed by the way you feel around him. Your orgasm hits you, making you cry out his name as your cunt clamps down around him. He nods his head as he feels you, “that’s right, there you go,” he breathes, reassuringly. Cum on my cock, fuck.” He picks up his pace as you come down from your high, certainly chasing his own now. He leans back on his haunches and pulls your hips upwards, controlling your body. Using you to get off. The thought made you unbelievably hot. “Gonna make me cum, baby,” he grunts. “fuck I’m gonna cum-“ Matty lets out a choked sound, face pinched in pleasure as he follows you over the edge with a few hard, final thrusts, he unloads inside of you. His bruising grip on your hips makes you moan his name. It’s pure ecstasy, you think. “S’good, so good,” he breathes. Matty lets out a long, shuddering exhale against your neck, his forehead resting in the hollow of your shoulder. He is heavy on top of you, a warm and solid presence that you want to hold onto forever.

He shifts his weight off of you, rolling onto his side.

Before you can change your mind, you roll onto your side to meet his gaze. “But you’re not mine, are you?”

The words hang in the humid air of the bedroom, heavy.

Matty freezes. The lazy, satisfied smirk that had been tugging at the corner of his lips vanishes, replaced by slight terror. He doesn’t blink, his dark eyes locked onto yours as his mind scrambles to catch up with the weight what you said.

For a long moment, the only sound is the distant hum of traffic outside and the quiet rustle of the ruined sheets.

"What?" he asks quietly, his voice low. He pushes himself up onto one elbow, looking down at you. The hungry, possessive man who had just claimed every part of your body suddenly looks vulnerable. And incredibly guarded.

You feel the sting behind your eyes returning, sharper this time, but you force yourself to look right back at him.

"You said I'm yours," you whisper, your voice trembling just enough blow your unbothered facade. “But you're not mine, Matty. You go out there, and I stay here, waiting for the next time you're lonely enough to say you need me.”

Matty’s expression softens, a flicker of genuine pain crossing his features before he closes his eyes and rubs a hand over his face. He lets out a long sigh, running his fingers through his dark curls.

"Darling..." he starts, his tone soft. "Don't do that. Don't say it like that."

"Like what? It’s true isn’t it?" You pull back slightly, just enough to break the contact of his hand, though every fiber of your being aches to lean into it. "We agreed to this, I know. Casual. Easy. But it's not easy anymore. I'm giving you everything. Every part of me. Do you know how hard this is for me? Do you even care?”

His jaw tightens. There's a look of conflict in his eyes.

"You think this is just a convenience for me?" he asks. "You think I just... come here to empty myself out and leave? Fuck, if it were that simple, I wouldn't keep you here. There’s plenty of other girls who could be here right now. But they’re not you.”

The words leave his mouth like he thinks they’ll make you melt like putty in his hands, but they hit you like a ton of bricks. Your blood turns to liquid fire. Your face burns red hot. Not from embarrassment, but from anger. Disbelief.

"You think that makes me feel better?" you hiss, your voice dropping. "You think telling me that I’ve won the audition to be your exclusive backstage fuck is supposed to bring me comfort?"

The image flashes in your mind, too vividly. Matty in some random hotel room, with some random girl, some fan from the front row or some hot model he met at an afterparty. The thought of him looking at someone else the way he looks at you, running his hands down someone else's body just to pass the time, makes you want to throw up.

"Don't throw other women in my face to prove how much you care about me. All that tells me is that you've thought about it. You’re basically saying, ‘Don't worry, darling, I like your body better than the others, so that should be enough for you.’ It’s fucking insulting.”

Matty’s face darkens, the defensive panic in his eyes instantly hardening into sharp, defensive irritation. Before he even gets up from the bed, his entire posture goes rigid.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he snaps, sitting up abruptly on the edge of the mattress. He rests his elbows on his knees for a second, his knuckles white as he stares at the floorboards, body tense.

"So now I’m the villain?" he fires back, his voice rising, sharp and cruel and defensive. "Now I’m the asshole exploiting you? Fuck off with that! You knew exactly what this was when you got on that bus. You agreed to this. This was the whole fucking point!”

Then, stands up on his feet. He throws his hands up in the air, pacing.

"It is too much! It’s just too much. All of this.”

Your heart feels like it’s in your throat, thudding and threatening to burst.

"I'm managing a crew, I'm writing, I'm playing for thousands of people every single night, and then I come back here and I have to choose every single word like I'm walking through a fucking minefield!" Matty shouts, his voice cracking.

"I didn't kidnap you and put you on a fucking tour bus," he spits, the words cutting right through you. "You chose to come. I thought we were in this together. But now you’re throwing my lifestyle in my face like I tricked you into it. It’s not fair. You can't punish me for keeping the promise I made you."

You get off the bed, meeting him where he is. The words spill out before you can stop them.

“No. You didn’t kidnap me. I chose this," you say back, fighting back the tears that threaten to spill. You step forward, into his face. "But your endearment, your words, your manipulation made me fall for you and you know it! You did it on purpose! Don’t act dumb! I know how it gives you a fucking power trip.” You spit meanly, and instantly regret it.

Matty flinches, face turning pale. The word manipulation seems to echo off the walls. He opens his mouth to immediately deny it, but the conviction and pain in your eyes stops him dead in his tracks.

The silence that follows is suffocating.

He stands there, chest heaving, staring at you as the weight of your accusation sinks in. You watch the gears turning in his head, watching the realization dawn on him. He looks down at his hands, then back up at you, his eyes wide. Because deep down, he knows you're right. He knew exactly what he was doing every time he called you darling, every time he whispered ‘my girl’ while buried inside you, anchoring you to him just enough to keep you from walking away.

"A power trip?" he whispers, his voice suddenly sounding hollow, stripped of all its previous anger. He takes a shaky step backward, running a hand aggressively through his hair. "You think I'm, you think I'm pulling your strings for a fucking ego boost?"

"Aren't you?" you ask, a bitter, laugh escaping your lips as a fresh tear cuts through the heat on your cheek. "You get to feel wanted. You get to feel loved and safe whenever it suits you, knowing I'm at your mercy because of how you talk to me. And then you get to throw your hands up and say 'I warned you' the second it gets too real."

"And the worst part? The sickest part of this whole fucking thing?" You step even closer, your breathing ragged, your chest heaving against his. You slide your hand up his chest, your fingers digging into the back of his neck, pulling his face down toward yours. "The worst part is that I still fucking want you. I want you to throw me onto this bed and wreck me until I forget my own name. I want your hands on me, I want your mouth on me, I want to feel you inside of me until the pain goes away. It’s so sick, it’s pathetic the way I am willing to let you destroy me just to feel you, to feel something. And knowing what I know now, I would do it over again, and again. Just because it’s you.”

Matty drops into the desk chair, the fight completely draining out of him. He looks incredibly small, his elbows resting on his knees as he stares blankly at the floor.

"I didn't... I didn't mean to do that to you," he says, his voice low. “I swear to God, I didn't think it was manipulation. I just... when I'm with you, I feel it. I mean it in the moment. But I'm so fucking broken, I didn't want to hurt you like this. I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm so sorry."