summary: you love your boyfriend, but there's a problem. matt is your best friend, and every time you're with him doing something silly, it feels like you're cheating on your boyfriend. why does every time you're with matt it feel like you're almost crossing a line? why does being around matt feel like the closest thing to home you've always longed for?
warnings: +18 unprotected sex. cheating. rough sex (in a moment, i suppose?) brief, very brief, orgasm restraint. p to v. CHEATING. couch sex (yeah). swearing. infidelity is present throughout the one-shot and there's no regrets at the end, so read carefully if you don't like that kind of thing in fiction, i guess lmao.
content: reader cheating on her boyfriend with her best friend matt.
word count: +15k (yeah...)
a/n: i know this is really long, but i really couldn't stop writing lmao. apologies in advance for any mistakes; i didn't edit this because it exhausted me. :P
clarification: english is not my native language, so i apologize in advance for any mistakes.
You loved your boyfriend.
Maybe that was what made everything hurt so much.
He was kind in all the quiet ways that mattered. He remembered your birthday without needing reminders, kissed your forehead every morning before leaving for work and never forgot that you hated pickles in your burgers. He knew exactly how you took your coffee, always texted you when he got home safely and, whenever you complained about having a long day, he would already be looking through takeout menus before you had even asked.
He loved you with the sort of steadiness people spent years searching for.
The kind your mother used to tell you to never let go of.
If someone had stopped you on the street and asked whether you saw a future with him, you would have answered yes without hesitation. Marriage didnât scare you when you imagined it with him. Growing old didnât either. You could picture the apartment, the dog he kept insisting on adopting, Sunday mornings spent grocery shopping together and the inevitable argument over which movie to watch every Friday night. It was a beautiful future.
Which was precisely why you couldnât understand why guilt always settled in your chest every Tuesday afternoon.
It had become routine years ago. Lunch at one oâclock with Matt whenever your schedules allowed it. Sometimes it was Josieâs, sometimes the little Italian place three blocks away from Nelson, Murdock & Page, sometimes nothing more than two paper cups of coffee balanced on the edge of a rooftop while Matt insisted the city sounded prettier from above.
It was never supposed to be.
Matt was your best friend.
The first person you called whenever life became too loud, too confusing or simply too much to carry alone. Somewhere along the years heâd quietly become the constant against which you measured every other relationship in your life, though you never meant for that to happen. It wasnât intentional. It was simply... Matt. He had slipped into your days so naturally that imagining a week without seeing him felt strangely incomplete.
You told each other everything.
Because there was one thing you had never admitted to him or to yourself.
Every Tuesday, as you stood in front of your bedroom mirror wondering whether the sweater looked better than the blouse, your reflection asked a question you had grown very good at ignoring.
Why are you trying so hard?
You never thought that much before having lunch with Karen.
Yet somehow, every time you were about to see Matt, you caught yourself changing earrings at the last second or smoothing imaginary wrinkles from your clothes. Youâd even started wearing the perfume heâd once absentmindedly told you suited you because, according to him, it smelled like apple pie, that sweet cinnamon mixed with baked apple that went so well with you because you were sweetâthose were his exact words. It was ridiculous, but Mattâs opinion always stayed with you; you knew that he could smell things more strongly than others and you wanted... everything about you to be pleasing to him.
He had said it years ago. He probably didnât even remember saying it.
But you did. You remembered everything.
You remembered which coffee order meant heâd had a rough night. You remembered that he always tilted his head ever so slightly whenever he was genuinely amused, that he absentmindedly tapped his fingers against the table while thinking through legal arguments and that, whenever he laughed hard enough, his whole face softened in a way that made him look years younger.
You remembered things a best friend probably shouldnât notice.
And every time you noticed another oneâŚ
Not because you wanted to kiss him.
Not because you fantasized about running away together.
It was subtler than that.
Whenever something wonderful happened, your first instinct was to tell Matt.
Whenever something terrible happened, your feet somehow always knew the way to his apartment before your mind had caught up.
Whenever you found yourself laughing so hard you couldnât breathe, more often than not it was because of something heâd said.
Home had never been a place to you.
It had always been a person.
And somewhere along the years, without asking your permission, that person had quietly become Matthew Murdock.
It was the unbearable realization that every time you left lunch with your best friend, you went back to the man you loved carrying the strange, aching certainty that youâd just left home behind.
And you hated yourself for it.
Because your boyfriend deserved someone whose heart didnât hesitate every Tuesday at one in the afternoon.
The rain had started just minutes before lunch, and by the time you stepped off the subway, it was pouring down with that Hellâs Kitchen-esque persistence, as if the city had decided to empty the entire sky onto its streets.
Youâd sent a quick text while running under a narrow awning: âIâm soaked. Going straight to your apartment instead.â The reply came almost immediately. âDoorâs unlocked. Donât drown before lunch.â You smiled involuntarily. Youâd done it so many times you didnât even need to ask if you could show up; Mattâs apartment had become one of those places your body found before your head did.
When you pushed open the door, the smell of coffee and damp wood greeted you before his voice. Matt was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a mug in his hands, and he barely turned his head toward you the exact moment you walked in. You were always amazed by the precision with which he knew where you were. There was no cane beside him, no gesture to remind you of his blindness; he simply listened to the world with an attention that made the rest of your senses seem clumsy.
Then you remembered that he was your best friend, your defense attorney, but that he was also Daredevil, the devil of Hellâs Kitchen. That made you feel ridiculous because he was so capable, but that was just you. Matt never made you feel ridiculous; he made you feel⌠safe.
âYou were supposed to meet me downstairs,â you said as you took off your soaked coat.
âYou texted me forty-seven seconds ago,â he answered with complete naturalness. âI figured if I came down, youâd already be halfway up the stairs arguing with the weather.â
You let out a laugh and hung your coat over a chair. Water immediately dripped onto the wooden floor. Matt grimaced almost imperceptibly at the sound.
âThat coat weighs as much as a body.â
âItâs called fashion.â
âItâs called pneumonia.â
He approached slowly, guided by the sound of your footsteps and the rustle of the wet fabric, until he stopped in front of you. He extended a hand with a familiar gesture, reaching for the edge of your coat to gently pull it away from your arm before reaching for a towel he had placed on the back of the chair. The movement was so domestic, so habitual, that for a moment you forgot that things shouldnât feel this way with your best friend.
âHere,â he said, handing it to you. âDry your hair before you drip all over my kitchen.â
You grabbed the towel and started drying yourself as he returned to the counter. His fingers searched for the mugs with the confidence of someone who knows every inch of his apartment, and the sound of the coffee maker filled the silence between you. It was a comfortable silence, dangerous precisely because of that. You had spent too many years learning each otherâs rhythm: you knew when Matt was tired by the way he shifted his weight to one leg, and he knew when you were lying by the speed of your breathing.
âSo,â you said, leaning against the kitchen island, âour incredibly sophisticated lunch plans are officially ruined.â
âI had reservations,â he replied with such exaggerated seriousness that it made you smile.
âDonât mock my connections.â
âExactly. Powerful people.â
Mattâs smile appeared slowly, almost involuntarily, and your heart did that silly thing it always did when you managed to make him laugh. He leaned over to pour the coffee, and as he handed you a cup, his fingers brushed yours for just a second longer than necessary. Neither of you pulled away immediately. It was a fleeting moment, so brief that anyone else would have missed it, but you both felt it.
Matt withdrew his hand first and cleared his throat before placing the other cup on the counter. His eyes, open but unfocused, remained fixed on your voice.
âYou shouldâve called me,â he finally said. âI wouldâve come to get you.â
You took a sip of coffee to buy yourself some time. âIt was only a few blocks.â
He didnât insist. He never insisted when it came to things like this. But there was something about the way he uttered that single wordâlow, restrained, too sincereâthat made the warmth of the mug feel insufficient in your hands.
Outside, the rain pounded against the windows with a hypnotic persistence. Inside, the apartment smelled of freshly brewed coffee and the familiarity of too many years shared. Matt leaned one hip against the counter, listening to you dry the remaining water from your hair, and you watched him silently. You thought, with a clarity that almost hurt, that this scene was exactly the kind of memory a person holds onto when they talk about home.
And that was the problem.
Not the brush of hands, nor the easy jokes, nor the tension that appeared and disappeared between you like a distant flash of lightning. The real problem was that you were soaked, standing in Matthew Murdockâs kitchen, laughing at silly things while the rain poured down on Hellâs Kitchen, and a part of youâthe part you tried hardest to silenceâfelt exactly where it had always wanted to be.
The rain continued to pound against the windows with infinite patience, turning the apartment into a kind of refuge suspended from the rest of Hellâs Kitchen. You stood there for a few more seconds, holding the mug in your hands, enjoying the warmth that was finally beginning to return to your fingers. However, your clothes still clung uncomfortably to your skin, and a shiver ran down your spine.
Matt barely raised his head when he heard you holding your breath.
âYouâre cold,â he said with certainty and without doubt.
You looked down at the damp fabric of your sweater and smiled resignedly.
âI think my clothes finally realized theyâre completely soaked.â
He let out a small laugh through his nose before nodding to himself. âIâve got something you can change into.â
He got up from the counter and walked straight to the bedroom without even looking along the walls. You heard him open the second drawer of the closet, move a couple of hangers, and return a few seconds later with a folded t-shirt in his hands.
âI think this oneâs clean.â
âThink?â you said, squinting with an amused smile.
âIâd bet my life on it,â he said with a fake drama that belonged to the intimacy of the two of you.
âComforting,â you said.
Matt reached out until he found yours. The fabric passed from his fingers to yours with a barely perceptible touch.
You picked up the t-shirt. â...Are you sure?â you asked.
âUnless you want pneumonia,â Matt said, with a smirk.
âNo, I meanâŚâ You let out an embarrassed laugh. â...your clothes.â
Matt tilted his head slightly. âTheyâre just clothes.â
But you two knew they werenât.
You thanked him quietly and disappeared down the short hallway that led to the bathroom. You closed the door behind you and leaned your back against it for a moment.
And yet, as you peeled off your soaking wet sweater and let it fall onto the edge of the bathtub, you couldnât shake the feeling that you were doing something wrong. Your boyfriend had lent you clothes countless times. Youâd worn his jackets during the winter, his sweatshirts to sleep in, even an old T-shirt to paint the walls of your apartment when you decided to redecorate your room.
It had never felt like this.
You tried to ignore that feeling; you had to ignore it. So you focused on your current state: your jeans were still wet, and your socks were probably damp, so you took them off. Goosebumps rose on your skin at being more exposed, and you grabbed a towel that was lying in Mattâs bathroom, not knowing if heâd used it or not. You wanted to dry off, you wanted to distract yourself and focus on something else.
The cotton fabric fell over your shoulders with unexpected softness. It was too big, as youâd imagined, and the sleeves reached almost to your elbows. It smelled faintly of the soap Matt used for laundry, mixed with coffee, leather, and that indescribable scent that always seemed to accompany him.
You closed your eyes for a second, which was a mistake. A huge mistake. Suddenly you realized you werenât just wearing a borrowed t-shirt. You were enveloped in Matt Murdock. You were enveloped in his scent, in the fabric he specifically chose to keep with the rest of his clothes.
You allowed yourself a few seconds to embrace that feeling even though you knew it was wrong, you knew that warmth in your chest was wrong and shouldnât belong to the ghost of Mattâs scent.
âEverything okay there?â his voice came muffled from the other side of the door.
You opened your eyes suddenly.
âYeah,â a pause. â...Your shirtâs comfortable,â you blurted out without thinking.
There was a brief silence on the other side.
â. . . Iâm glad,â the answer came too slowly.
Matt leaned against the counter, his hands wrapped around his coffee mug, motionless, listening to the faint murmur coming from the bathroom.
He didnât want to listen, he knew he shouldnât, and even God knew he didnât want to. But heâd never had the privilege of choosing what sounds reached him, least of all when it was you.
I have heard your damp clothes rustling against your skin. He could feel the rhythm of your blood and how your skin got goosebumps, suddenly exposed. Your breathing, calm at first, then a little slower, as if you were lingering in there, thinking about⌠about something he wasnât allowed to know.
And then the touch of dry cotton replacing the soaked fabric.
Matt closed his eyes tightly. He didnât imagine your body; he didnât need to. His mind was infinitely crueler.
He knew the difference between the sound a heavy sweater made when it hit the floor and the sound of a cotton t-shirt being slipped over someoneâs shoulders. He knew the perfume youâd worn for yearsâthat sweet perfume that reminded him of a freshly baked apple pie, of the cozy feeling you gave him; your scent always brought the same scene to mind, that time years ago when you were both talking nonsense and you were blushing for some reason.
Matt had felt the warmth in your cheeks, the rhythm of your heart beating beneath your chest, and the melody of your laughter. It filled his chest with a quality that belonged only to you, and without thinking, he mentioned the perfume, because you reminded him of something as mundane and sweet as a baked apple mixed with cinnamon. Sweet, sweet you.
Matt also knew his own scent. He was a man of sensations. Not having his sight allowed him to fully experience his other senses, and his sense of smell was one of the ones he exploited most.
Unfortunately for you, now both scents were beginning to mix. Yours and his.
Matt could smell the aromas even from the kitchen. It was so absurdly intimate that he had to grip the mug tighter.
He shouldnât care, but sadly, he did. He cared about this combination of your sweetness with his natural scent because it allowed him to imagine, if only for a few moments, that it was your skin mingling with his. It was an intimate deception, one where the line blurred in his mind.
It was dangerous because it led him to a place he only allowed himself to visit on nights when his willpower wasnât so strong. Nights when the heat that settled within him had nothing to do with the temperature, but rather with the storm of emotions you unknowingly stirred within him.
It was just a t-shirt, he told himself.
You were wet, you needed something to keep you warm and replace your wet clothes.
That was all. That should be all.
Because you had a boyfriend. There was another man in your life. You belonged to another man.
He repeated that phrase like a prayer.
As if saying it enough times could convince her heart to obey where her reason had been doing so for years.
Matt didnât know how long heâd leaned against the counter before he heard your footsteps returning down the hall. He didnât need to count them to know you were moving more freely now that youâd left behind the discomfort of your soaked clothes; the fabric of his t-shirt brushed against your thighs differently than your sweater, lighter, and the sound of your bare feet against the wood replaced the annoying squeak of your wet sneakers. It was incredible how much a person could learn about another without ever seeing them. Or maybe it wasnât that. Maybe he just knew you too well.
He barely raised his head when you stopped in front of the kitchen island. The aroma of coffee still lingered between you, but now there was another scent, one that easily shattered the calm he had managed to rebuild in the last few minutes. Your perfume was still there, faint, mingled with the dampness of the rain; however, beneath it was the soap he used to wash his clothes, the same one Foggy insisted on buying when they went to the supermarket together because it was the only one that irritated Mattâs nose. Both perfumes mingled on your skin in a way Matt wasnât prepared to endure. Not to mention his own natural scent, which seemed to want to cling to yours.
It was devastating, utterly devastating for a man like Matt.
Itâs a t-shirt. He forced herself to repeat it silently. Nothing more.
The problem was, it didnât feel like anything more.
âWhat?â you suddenly asked, amused.
Matt frowned slightly. âWhat what?â
âYou havenât said a word in about thirty seconds. That usually means youâre overthinking things⌠or Foggy convinced you to defend a client you donât like again.â
He chuckled softly, grateful that you had broken the silence before his own mind did. âNot everything revolves around my terrible professional judgment,â he said.
âI didnât say it was terrible. You thought it,â you defended yourself, laughing.
Matt shook his head as he brought the cup to his lips. The coffee wasnât as hot anymore, but he didnât care. Heâd learned long ago that conversations with you had their own rhythm; one that didnât need to be constantly filled with words.
âSo?â you persisted, resting both elbows on the counter. âWhat were you thinking about?â
He could have lied to you. He was good at lying, even though it wasnât something he was proud of. Heâd built an entire second life on that skill. But heâd never been able to do it with you, which is why you were the first to discover he was a vigilante. You always knew, which is why you kept pressing him.
He took a slow breath before answering.
âI was thinking you were going to catch a cold anyway,â Matt muttered, not entirely evasive, but enough for someone like you to know he wasnât telling the whole truth.
He heard you laugh immediately. âYou were worried about that?â you said, incredulous, as if he had said something stupid.
âIt had been raining for half an hour when you got off the subway. You walked four blocks in the rain, your breathing was heavier when you went up the stairs, and youâre still shivering.â Matt paused almost imperceptibly before adding, with a nearly imperceptible shrug, âYeah⌠Iâm worried,â he said, and this time he meant it, despite having chosen those words so you wouldnât notice the maelstrom that lived inside him as you were enveloped in his scent.
The words hung suspended between them.
Matt felt them even before they finished leaving his mouth. They were dangerous precisely because they were simple. They held no hidden meanings, no irony. They were a stark truth.
He cared about you. He always had.
She heard you exhale slowly. It wasnât an uncomfortable breath; it sounded more like surprise, as if a part of you had forgotten that someone existed who could notice such small things.
âMy boyfriend would have been worried too,â you finally said, though your voice lost a little firmness at the end of the sentence, as if you had said those words more to yourself than to him.
Matt felt the blow with the precision of a boxer who already knows by heart where the next punch will land.
He nodded once. âOf course, I know.â
And Matt meant it. Heâd never doubted that that man loved you. He saw itâor rather, heard itâevery time you spoke, in the way you pronounced his name or how you smiled when you told a story about the two of you. Your boyfriend was a good man. Probably better than him in many ways. There was nothing to criticize.
So why did it hurt so much?
He placed both hands on the edge of the counter to distract himself. Your footsteps drew a little closer, just enough for the warmth of your body to replace the heat of the coffee between you.
âDo you know what the worst thing about you is?â you asked with a gentleness that hinted at a smile.
Matt raised an eyebrow. âI have a list. Youâre going to have to be more specific.â
You laughed, and that sound filled the apartment again with disconcerting ease. âYou never make a nice comment without disguising it as something else.â
He tilted his head slightly. âOh, really?â
âNo. If Karen comes to work in a new dress, you tell her the fabric must feel nice. If Foggy gets a haircut, you tell him it was about time while laughing. But with me itâs alwaysâŚâ you paused, mimicking him in a ridiculously deep voice: âYouâre going to catch a cold. Or your shoelace is untied. Or you skipped breakfast.â
Matt couldnât help but smile. âThose are helpful observations.â
âNo, Matthew. Theyâre compliments on terrible social skills,â you said, stating the obvious. âWhich is weird because youâre usually charming, but hey, itâs good to know youâre human!â
A laugh escaped him before he could stifle it. Matt shook his head as he placed the mug on the counter, and for a momentâa dangerously long oneâonly the sound of your laughter and his mingled with the rain outside the window.
Because that was the version of himself that only appeared with you. The one that wasnât Daredevil, or the lawyer, or the Catholic who argued with God every night. With you, he didnât need to wear any masks. A silly conversation about colds and poorly phrased compliments was enough to make the weight of the world seem, if only for a few minutes, a little lighter.
And maybe thatâs why it was so hard to remind himself, again and again, that this peace would never be his.
Not while at the end of the day you were still going home with someone else.
The conversation drifted into that strange territory it always seemed to end up in when you spent enough time together. You two had started talking about the rain, an impossible client Foggy insisted on taking, and the restaurant youâd no longer be going to that lunchtime, but, as almost always happened, the words began to unravel, becoming something much more personal. It was an old habit between you: neither of you knew exactly when a joke would turn into a confession.
Matt had settled on the couch, a cup of coffee in his hands. Outside, it was still raining with the same intensity as an hour ago, and the constant murmur of the water seemed to envelop the entire apartment in a tranquility that didnât belong in Hellâs Kitchen. You remained seated across from him, still wrapped in that oversized T-shirt that belonged to him. Every now and then, you absentmindedly tugged at the hem to cover your legs a little more, a completely unconscious gesture that, unfortunately, Matt registered from the very first moment.
Matt could hear the rustle of the cotton against your skin. The garment heâd lent you, which had been his and now covered your body.
He hated how easily his imagination filled in what his eyes had never seen.
He decided to focus on coffee.
It was a mediocre strategy, but heâd been surviving for years thanks to mediocre strategies.
âDo you remember the first time you came here?â Matt asked suddenly, carefully placing the cup on the table.
You smiled even before answering. âYour apartment was a mess, which is pretty weird now that I think about it.â
âIt was functional,â he defended himself.
âThere was a pizza box on the coffee table for⌠two weeks?â
âI was studying it,â he said, laughing.
You chuckled, that low laugh that always surfaced when he managed to surprise you with an absurd answer. âStudying what? You literally hate that kind of smell, you only did it because... I donât know, you were dumber and younger?â you said, laughing.
âI was studying how long it would take Foggy to get tired of looking at it and throw it away himself,â Matt said, laughing.
You shook your head as you looked down at the cup in your hands. âYou always do that.â
âWhat?â he asked with a smile, but his tone betrayed his curiosity.
âYou wait for someone else to solve the problem,â you said gently. âThe little things, I mean, obviously in the grand scheme of things, you like to solve everything yourself, but in the private sphere? In what might seem like the silliest things? You allow yourself not to solve things, to let someone else do it.â
Matt barely smiled. âNot always.â
âNo⌠not with me,â the words escaped your lips with a naturalness that both parties regretted as soon as they were uttered.
The silence that followed was no longer comfortable.
Matt barely leaned his head toward you. He heard you shift your weight from one leg to the other, your fingers circling the cup again and again without lifting it. They were small sounds, almost insignificant to anyone else. To him, they were the difference between a calm conversation and one that had just taken a turn.
âWhat do you mean?â he finally asked.
It took you a few seconds to answer. âThat⌠I never feel like I have to fix anything when Iâm with you.â
Matt let out a slow breath.
Because he understood all too well what youâd just said.
And because, if he spoke before heâd sorted out his own thoughts, he risked saying something heâd been trying to keep quiet about for years.
âItâs weird,â you continued with a smile that didnât sound entirely happy. âMy boyfriend always wants to find solutions. If I have a problem, he immediately starts thinking about how to solve it. You never do that.â
Matt frowned slightly. âOf course I do.â
âNo, I mean, yes⌠but you donât do it the same way. You⌠you,â you shook your head. âYou just⌠you stay.â
The words seemed to get lost amidst the sound of the rain.
âWhen my grandmother died, you didnât try to reassure me that everything was going to be okay. When my brother was suspended from college, you didnât tell me heâd surely find another chance. Not even whenâŚâ You paused briefly, âwhen I had that anxiety attack last year.â You smiled sadly. âYou just sat with me for four hours, saying almost nothing, not trying...â
Matt remembered that night with unbearable clarity. He remembered the trembling of your breathing, the way you had ended up falling asleep on the sofa without realizing it, and how he stayed awake until dawn just to make sure you were resting.
He never told you. He never thought you knew.
âI didnât know what to say,â he admitted quietly.
âExactly,â you said, glancing up at him, though you knew his eyes could never meet yours. âYou never try to fix me.â
The words landed on you with an unexpected weight.
Matt remained motionless.
He had defended murderers, lied behind a mask, and faced armed men without flinching.
Yet, in that moment, he felt an infinitely greater fear.
Because he understood what was happening. It wasnât a confession, not yet, but it was heading in the same direction. And the worst part was that a part of himâthe part he was most ashamed ofâhad been waiting years to hear something like this.
He tightened his fingers around the mug until he felt the heat pierce his skin.
âYou should go home before the rain gets worse,â he said, almost pleadingly.
Not because Matt wanted you to leave.
But because he was starting to suspect that if you stayed much longer, youâd both end up saying something neither of you could take back.
Mattâs words hung in the air with a calmness that didnât belong to them.
You should go home before the rain gets worse.
You heard them clearly, but there was something in his tone that made it impossible to obey. It wasnât a goodbye. It was a desperate attempt to put distance between you before either of you said something you couldnât take back later. You knew him too well not to recognize when Matthew Michael Murdock was on the run.
You slowly placed the mug on the coffee table. The soft thud of the ceramic against the wood broke a silence that was becoming unbearable. For a moment, you watched the rain lashing against the large window of his apartment; the water trickled down the glass in endless rivulets, distorting the lights of Hellâs Kitchen into golden patches. You thought that if you went out now, youâd arrive soaked again. You thought about your boyfriend, probably convinced you were having lunch with your best friend like any other Tuesday. You thought about the message youâd surely send him later, telling him the rain had ruined your plans.
Everything was perfectly normal.
So why did you feel like the world had just tilted a few degrees? Why... Why didnât you want to leave? Why did you want to insist despite knowing what could happen?
âNo,â your own voice surprised you.
Matt barely raised his head. âNo?â
He didnât answer right away. His fingers remained resting on the rim of his cup, motionless, though you caught a glimpse of his thumb idly tracing the surface of the ceramic. He always did that when he was trying to organize his thoughts.
âI think you should.â
âNo,â this time the word came out more firmly.
You stood up and took a step toward him, just enough to be closer in the small space between you. Matt must have noticed from the sound of your feet on the floor, because he straightened his back slightly. He didnât move. He remained exactly where he was, as if any movement could upset a balance that was already hanging by a thread.
âWhy?â The question was so simple it was almost cruel.
âWhy do you want me to leave?â you asked, staring at him, studying every single one of his features.
He exhaled slowly, as if searching for the right answer among too many wrong ones.
âBecauseâŚâ The word died before it could be finished. He barely shook his head. âIt doesnât matter.â
You felt a pang of frustration. Matt always did that. He always found a way to hide behind half-answers, carefully chosen silences, a smile that deflected the conversation before it reached the point that truly mattered.
But youâd known him for too many years.
You knew when an evasive answer was really a plea.
âDonât do that,â you said, a hint of frustration in your voice.
Matt frowned. âDo what?â
âTalk to me like I canât understand you.â
The rain continued to pound against the windows with its usual relentless force. The apartment still smelled of freshly brewed coffee, clean laundry, and the cotton of the t-shirt that still rested against your skin; the mingled scent of you and him lingered. Everything was the same.
You took a deep breath before continuing.
âYouâve been doing this for weeks⌠no, months. Every time weâre alone, every time the conversation starts to feel too much like us, you change the subject. You make a joke. You ask me about work. About my boyfriend. About anything,â you had to pause to gather your courage. âAnd I want to know why,â you confessed. âWhy⌠why do you have to stop every time itâs just us?â
You knew it was absurd to be demanding an answer. Part of you knew why, but you needed⌠you needed Mattâs voice to resolve whatever was keeping that something inside you from resting.
Matt remained motionless.
Youâd never seen anyone so still.
His eyes were still fixed on your voice, open and calm, yet there was a tension in his jawline that only appeared when he was holding back.
âThere is no reason why.â
The lie was so obvious it hurt.
You smiled sadly. âMatthew.â
You couldnât remember the last time youâd said his full name.
He did. You knew it from the almost imperceptible way he held his breath.
âDonât lie to me,â you whispered.
Silence settled between you again, this time heavier, more intimate. You felt guilt throbbing beneath your skin like a second heartbeat. You knew you shouldnât be asking that question. You knew there was a man who trusted you, who had never given you any reason to doubt him, and yet, there you were, searching in another for the answer you already suspected.
Perhaps because a part of you had been living on suspicion for too long.
Matt lowered his head a few inches before speaking, and when he did, his voice sounded weary, as if those words had aged inside him long before finding their way out. âBecause some questions donât make anyone happier once theyâre answered.â
You held his gaze, even though he couldnât return it.
âMaybe not,â your voice was barely a whisper. âBut they stop you from wondering for the rest of your life.â
And, for the first time since youâd arrived soaking wet at his apartment, Matt Murdock had no response. Only the sound of the rain filling the space between you and the uneasy certainty that youâd both stopped pretending this conversation was still just between two best friends.
Words hung between you in an unbearable stillness. Outside, the rain continued to fall on Hellâs Kitchen with its usual relentless force, sliding down the windowpane in long lines that distorted the city lights into patches of color. It was a familiar sound, almost comforting, and yet it had never seemed so distant. All that existed in that moment was the silence that Matt had allowed to grow between you.
Not because he hadnât heard.
Because he had heard too well.
You knew that kind of silence. It was the same silence that fell when a customer said something that made you question things, when Foggy made a joke that masked an uncomfortable truth, or when Father Lantom asked a question Matt still couldnât answer. It wasnât a lack of words; it was resistance.
And, for some reason, that resistance hurt you more than a simple refusal would have.
You took a deep breath before speaking again, trying to keep your voice steady.
âYou keep asking me to leave.â
Matt barely tilted his head toward the sound of your voice. His hands remained motionless around his mug, though you caught a glimpse of one of his fingers almost imperceptibly tapping the rim, a gesture he only made when he was trying to hold something back.
He took a few seconds to answer. âBecause itâs the right thing to do.â
You couldn't stop a bitter smile from appearing on your face. âYou didnât answer my question.â
âNo, Matthew,â you said slowly, holding his gaze even though you knew he could never return it the way you wanted. âYou answered like a lawyer.â
That elicited a breath from him that sounded almost like a tired laugh. âOccupational hazard.â
âThen stop being a lawyer for five minutes,â your comment wasnât harsh. If anything, it sounded like a plea.
Matt lowered his head a few inches. For a moment he seemed to search for the words somewhere on the floor, as if the answer might be found in the wood grain. âIâm trying.â
âNo,â your voice came out lower than you expected. âYouâre hiding.â
That statement struck him with a precision he couldnât have anticipated. You knew it from the way his breathing changed for just a moment, too brief for anyone to notice. You werenât just anyone. Youâd spent years learning Matt Murdockâs secret language: the language of silences, pauses, and half-truths.
Matt set his cup down on the coffee table and decided to stand, straightening before you.
You moved a little closer. It wasn't a conscious decision; it just happened. The space between you narrowed until you could feel the heat radiating from his body, mingling with the warmth of the coffee cup he'd completely forgotten about.
âLook at meâŚâ The words escaped your lips before you remembered they were impossible.
You felt a lump of embarrassment rise in your throat.
Matt smiled slightly, with a touch of humor this time. âIâm trying my best, itâs difficult when Iâm blindâŚâ
The response was so typical of him that, against all logic, you ended up chuckling.
âYou know what I mean,â you murmured.
âYeahâŚâ His smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. âI know.â
You fell silent again. There was something deeply unfair about that man. He always found a way to smooth things over just before they became unbearable. It was a quality you had admired for years, and now it was beginning to drive you to despair.
âDo you know what I think?â
Matt didnât answer. He waited.
It was another one of his habits. He never interrupted a confession.
âI think youâve been deciding things for me.â The words came out slowly, one after the other, as if they had been locked away for too long. âYou decide when itâs time to change the subject. You decide when a joke is enough to end a conversation. You decide when I should go home.â You paused. The guilt was still there, throbbing in your chest, reminding you that there was a man waiting for you on the other side of that afternoon, a man who trusted you completely. But, for the first time in a long time, the guilt wasnât enough to silence you. âAnd now youâre deciding what I need to know.â
âIâm trying to protect you.â The answer came in a whisper.
It didnât sound heroic.
Then something happened that youâd never heard him do before.
Matt let out a laugh. It wasnât a cheerful laugh. It was the laugh of a man who had just run out of arguments, which was unusual, because Matt never ran out of arguments with you.
He slowly shook his head and let out a breath before speaking again. âYou already know the answer,â he murmured softly.
Those words didnât have the force of a confession.
Thatâs precisely why they were so much more dangerous.
Because, as you listened, you realized he wasnât trying to convince you of anything anymore.
He was trying to convince himself.
Matt didnât respond immediately.
The rain continued to pound against the windows with the same relentlessness with which it had begun that afternoon, but it no longer sounded like an outside noise. It had become the very pulse of the room, a constant presence that filled the spaces where words failed. You stood before him, not daring to break the silence again. You had pushed too far. You knew it. Every rational part of your mind told you to stop, apologize, take your still-damp coat, and leave before you turned that afternoon into something from which neither of you could return.
You thought of your boyfriend.
You pictured him at work, completely oblivious to the conversation taking place in Mattâs small apartment. The mere image was enough to send a pang of guilt through your chest. He hadnât done anything. Not a single thing that justified what you were doing. He loved you with quiet honesty, without games or uncertainties, and yet there you were, seeking answers from another man with a desperation you could no longer disguise as curiosity.
You were aware of how unfair this situation was. How absurd it was that someone who had a partner, like you, was asking these questions, seeking answers from their best friend as if he⌠as if he were something more. It was confusing, a web of emotions tangled in your head, and after a long time, you wanted to escape that web, not ignore the discomfort it caused.
The idea came to you with almost violent clarity.
Get up. Thank him for the coffee. Tell him youâll see him next Tuesday. Do the right thing.
Your legs, however, remained still.
Because there was another truth, a much more uncomfortable one, that had been silently growing for far too long.
If you left now, you would keep asking yourself the same question for the rest of your life.
And you were no longer sure you could bear that kind of doubt.
Matt slowly exhaled. The sound was barely perceptible, but it was enough for you to understand that he had stopped fighting with himself. Not because he had found a way out, but because he was beginning to accept that perhaps there wasnât one.
âDo you know whatâs unfair?â he said.
You shook your head slowly.
He offered a tired smile, one of those that never reached his eyes. âYou think Iâm protecting you,â he paused, searching for the words with a patience that seemed to pain him. âThe truth is⌠Iâve been protecting myself.â
That confession fell upon you with a devastating gentleness.
It wasnât grandiose. It didnât have the intensity of declarations that happened in movies. It was worse precisely because it sounded like a truth that had been waiting years to be spoken.
You felt your heart pounding against your ribs.
âEvery Tuesday, I tell myself todayâs just lunch,â he smiled humorlessly. "Just coffee. Just catching up. Just... my best friend." The last expression seemed to cost him more than all the previous ones. âAnd every Tuesday I go home wondering why spending two hours with you is enough to make the rest of the week feel... quieter.â His throat moved before he continued. âI keep telling myself thatâs all it is. That itâs supposed to feel that way because weâve known each other forever,â he shook his head very slowly. âI stopped believing that a long time ago.â
The world seemed to run out of air.
You didnât remember stopping breathing.
You didnât remember taking your eyes off him.
All you knew was that Matthew Michael Murdock, the man who found a way out of everything, had just run out of options.
âI didnât tell you because you have a life that doesnât include me that way,â the phrase was spoken without bitterness, only with immense sadness. âI respect that,â he fell silent again. âSo I learned to live with it.â
Guilt settled in your chest with an unbearable weight. You wanted to answer him. To tell him he shouldnât have carried it alone, that it wasnât fair, that you would have preferred to know rather than see him smile every Tuesday as if nothing were wrong. But the words refused to come.
Because, deep down, you understood exactly why he had kept quiet.
You would have done the same.
Matt tilted his head slightly, orienting it toward your breath.
âThatâs why I wanted you to leave,â Mattâs voice broke again for just a moment. âBecause if you stayed... I wasnât sure I could keep pretending this was only friendship.â
The room fell into absolute silence.
There were no more excuses.
Just two people who had spent years calling friendship something that had long since ceased to fit within that word.
âWhat if I canât leave?â
The question left your lips with a serenity you didnât feel.
All the way to uttering those words, you had hoped that guilt would find the strength to stop you, that common sense would force you to silence you, or that, at the very least, the image of the life you had built over so many years would appear before you with enough clarity to make you back down. None of those things happened. The guilt remained, settled beneath your ribs like a constant weight, reminding you that there was a man who trusted you completely, a man you loved sincerely and peacefully, someone who had never deserved to become the silent antagonist of a conversation he didnât even know was happening. Thatâs precisely why it was so unbearable to discover that, even knowing all this, you were incapable of turning around and walking out the door.
Matt remained motionless. You didnât need to see his eyes to know that your question had struck a nerve. You sensed it in the ensuing silence, a silence unlike any before, heavier, as if even the rain had lost its force, unable to hear the answer neither of you seemed willing to utter. His hands remained at his sides, his fists clenched. It was a small detail, almost imperceptible, and yet you knew Matt well enough to understand that this stillness was the equivalent of a tremor.
While you waited, your gaze drifted for a moment around the apartment youâd walked through so many times. There was the old globe lamp resting on one of the shelves; youâd given it to him to decorate his space, even though heâd never turn it on. The bookshelf held law books alongside other novels in Braille that youâd bought for him. The coffee cup lay forgotten on the table, still giving off a faint warmth. Youâd been there so many times that the place had become as familiar as your own apartment. Perhaps even more so.
Thatâs when you understood something youâd been denying yourself for years.
Youâd always thought of home as a place. An address written on an envelope, keys in your pocket, a window lit at the end of the day. However, as time passed, that definition had begun to crumble without you even noticing. Home had stopped resembling a specific location and had become a feeling much harder to explain: the absurd tranquility you experienced every time you heard Mattâs voice on the other end of the phone, how easily your chest stopped feeling heavy after talking to him for ten minutes, the almost childlike certainty that, no matter how much the rest of the world changed, he would still be there.
And that was precisely the part you were most afraid to admit.
Not because it meant ceasing to love the person you shared your life with.
But because it meant accepting that there was a part of you that had been seeking refuge in someone else for far too long.
You had tried to rationalize it in every way possible. You called it friendship because friendship was safe; because it didnât require asking uncomfortable questions or rethinking the course of a years-long relationship; because the word had the power to justify intimacy without forcing you to explain why the rest of your friendships never felt that way. It worked for a long time. It worked until that afternoon, until that rain, until Matt stopped hiding behind half-answers and you discovered that you were no longer capable of hiding behind half-truths.
He took a slow breath before speaking, and when his voice broke the silence it sounded so tired that for a moment you wondered how long he had been carrying that weight alone.
âDonât say that,â Matt asked you.
There was no reproach in those words. Not even concern. They sounded, rather, like the plea of ââsomeone who knew all too well where that conversation was headed and still hoped to stop it.
You smiled without joy. âWhy?â
Matt let out a slow breath. âBecause once you say something like that... neither of us gets to pretend we didnât hear it.â
That answer finally tore down the last barrier youâd erected over the years. You realized you werenât the only one whoâd been pretending for too long. Youâd both survived by calling friendship a bond that had long since begun to overflow that word, and perhaps thatâs why it hurt so much to remain there, facing each other, neither of you finding the courage to take a step back. It wasnât the fear of an answer that kept you immobile. It was the vertigo of discovering that, after so many years, you already knew the answer long before youâd even asked the question.
The rain continued to fall with the same infinite patience with which it had begun that afternoon. The water trickled down the windows in long, silvery streaks that blurred the lights of Hellâs Kitchen, transforming the city into an indistinguishable watercolor. For a moment, you clung to that image, as if the world beyond the glass could offer you a simpler answer than the one youâd just left hanging between you.
All you found was the faint reflection of two people who could no longer hide.
Matt stood before you, his head tilted slightly toward the sound of your breathing. His stillness wasnât indifference; it was effort. You knew him too well not to notice. Everything about him spoke of an almost painful restraint: the rigidity of his shoulders, the subtle tension in his jaw, the way he kept both hands closed at his sides, as if removing them would mean accepting something he hadnât yet found the courage for.
You couldnât find it either.
And yet, neither of you seemed capable of finishing that conversation.
You had often thought that guilt was enough to stop any impulse. You believed that simply remembering the right thing to do was enough to act accordingly. How naive that idea had been. The guilt was still there, alive, piercing your chest with unbearable precision, but it no longer had the power to move your legs toward the door. It remained a silent witness to it all, watching you discover a much more uncomfortable truth: desire wasnât always born of impulse; sometimes it was born of recognition. Of understanding, too late, that you had found in a person what you had believed impossible for years.
It wasnât the dizzying thrill of a new infatuation.
The unbearable, sweet, and devastating calm of feeling that you had come home.
Matt was the first to break the silence: âYou should hate me for this.â
The sentence barely reached the volume of a whisper.
You frowned slightly. âFor what?â
He let out a joyless laugh, a weary exhalation that seemed to mock himself more than anything else. âFor standing here hoping you donât leave,â Matt confessed.
The words made the air seem heavier.
For years you had imagined countless ways Matt might confess something like this. None of them were like this. There were no grand speeches or impossible promises. Just a raw honesty, so deeply his own that it was impossible not to believe it.
You smiled sadly. âYou know⌠thatâs the problem.â
Matt barely lifted his head. âWhat is?â
You took a deep breath. You could feel your racing pulse pounding in your throat, but you no longer had the strength to hide behind cautious answers. âI donât think I could.â
The confession was suspended between you.
âIâve tried,â your voice barely broke as you continued. âIâve tried telling myself this was just friendship. That eventually itâd feel like every other friendship Iâve ever had. I kept waiting for that day because... because that wouldâve made everything so much easier,â a bitter smile appeared on your lips. âIt never came.â
Matt didnât say a word.
There was something about the silence with which he listened to you that always managed to make you talk a little more than you should.
You lowered your gaze to the wooden floor, unable to bear the weight of your own words.
âDo you know what I hate the most?â You shook your head slowly before he could even answer. âI never came here looking for this,â you whispered.
Tears began to blur your vision with an unbearable slowness.
âI came here because every time something good happened... I wanted to tell you first. Every time something terrible happened... I wanted to see you. I never stopped to ask myself why because I was afraid Iâd find the answer.â
When you looked up again, Matt was still exactly where heâd been.
As if heâd decided that the only freedom he could still give you was not to encroach on the space that was rightfully yours to decide.
It was that gestureâor rather, the absence of any gestureâthat finally disarmed you.
Matt kept choosing you even in resignation.
He kept respecting a line you both knew existed, even though doing so seemed to cost him every fiber of his being.
You felt an unbearable lump tighten in your throat.
âMattâŚâ you whispered.
He swallowed hard. Matt could feel your tears; he knew you needed to close your eyes for even a split second for the salt water to adorn your beautiful face. It devastated him to know you were like this in front of him and to have to hold back, to forbid himself from touching you because otherwise⌠otherwise he wouldnât stop.Â
Your voice, the way you said his name? He was a strong man, but you were breaking down every barrier as if they were nothing. Matt wanted to comfort you, kiss you, hug you, share comfortable silences, but he was finding it hard to stay on your side, on the side of your best friend.
âSweetheartâŚâ Matt said, exhaling slowly. âDonât say my name like that, youâre killing me.â
Youâd never heard him breathe like that.
Like a man preparing to lose something before heâd even had it.
âIf I touch youâŚâ His voice sounded broken for the first time that afternoon. â...Iâm not sure Iâll be able to pretend tomorrow that today didnât happen.â
The rain continued to pound against the windows. The coffee was now completely cold. A car drove by, splashing water onto the asphalt, and the muffled sound reached the apartment.
Only you two remained motionless.
It was Matt who finally closed his eyes.
Not because he needed to in order to find you.
But because he needed to gather the courage to stop fighting something that had been resisting him for far too long.
With an almost reverential slowness, he raised a hand. He didnât immediately reach for your face. His fingers first found the edge of the sleeve of the t-shirt heâd lent you, as if he wanted to make sure you were really still there. The back of his hand barely grazed your arm before moving up to your cheek, pausing with a gentleness that seemed to ask permission even after everything youâd just confessed.
His thumb barely touched your cheekbone.
Your breaths mingled in the small space between you.
An escape he still insisted on offering you.
But you couldnât find the words.
You simply closed your eyes, letting the tears fall, and slowly rested your forehead against his, letting the silence answer where language could no longer reach.
Matt let out a trembling breath, almost a surrender. For a moment he remained motionless, as if wanting to memorize that brief touch before allowing himself anything else. Then, with a caution that belied the intensity of everything he had felt for years, he barely tilted his head and brushed his lips against yours in a brief, hesitant, and deeply restrained kiss; a kiss that didnât seek to consume the moment, but to confirm that what they had both kept silent for so long was, finally, real.
Outside, the rain continued to fall with its usual obstinacy, oblivious to the silent instant in which two lives had just changed forever.
For years, the lines had been blurred, a delicate dance of friendship and unspoken longing that Matt had navigated with the practiced precision of a man walking a tightrope. But the truth, once spilled, could not be gathered back up like spilled wine.
When his lips first met yours, the world narrowed down to the singular, overwhelming sensation of you. To Matt, you were never just a visual; you were a symphony. He could hear the frantic, fluttering rhythm of your heart, a tempo that mirrored his own, and the scent of you filled his heightened senses. The kiss was tentative, a question asked in the dark, a desperate plea for you to pull away before the gravity of this act pulled them both under.
But you didnât pull away. You leaned in. More.Â
As you responded, the tentative spark ignited into a consuming flame. The shy, questioning pressure of your and his lips deepened, turning hungry and certain. Mattâs hands, usually so controlled, found their way to your waist, pulling you flush against him as if trying to bridge the impossible gap between two souls. The guilt of his life, of kissing someone elseâs partner, the blood on his knuckles, the secrets of the mask, the complexity of his faith seemed to wash away with the storm outside. In this moment, there was no Daredevil and no lawyer; there was only the heat of your breath and the undeniable truth that you were the home he had been searching for all along.
The air in the apartment grew thick, charged with the electricity of a storm that had been brewing for years. Mattâs hands slid from your waist to the small of your back, his fingers splaying against your skin, feeling the warmth radiating from you. He was a man of discipline, a man who lived by the rigid structures of the law and the unwavering tenets of his faith, but you were the one variable that always threatened to break his composure.
You let out a soft, shaky breath against his lips, a sound that was half sigh and half surrender. You reached up, your fingers tangling in the short, neat hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer as if you feared he might vanish back into the shadows of his own secrets.
âMatt,â you whispered, your voice a velvet caress that vibrated through his very chest.
The sound of his name, spoken with such raw vulnerability, was the final tether to his restraint. Matt groaned low in his throat, a primal sound of release. He tilted his head, deepening the kiss, his tongue tracing the seam of your lips until you opened for him. The kiss shifted from a desperate question to an urgent, demanding answer.
You felt the strength in him, the fighterâs build, the solid, unyielding muscle that lay beneath his button up shirt. You pressed yourself harder against him, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. As the kiss intensified, Mattâs hands wandered upward, tracing the curve of your spine, his touch both reverent and hungry. He was memorizing you, not with eyes, but with every nerve ending he possessed, drowning in the scent of you and the intoxicating realization that, finally, they were no longer pretending.
The storm outside raged, but the tempest within the apartment was far more volatile. The guilt, the heavy, suffocating knowledge of the man you belonged to was still there, a phantom weight in the back of Mattâs mind. But as his hands slid beneath the hem of your shirt, gathering the silk of your skin, the moral compass he had relied on his whole life spun wildly before finally snapping. The need to possess you, to anchor yourself to your reality, was a hunger more primal than any prayer.
You let out a soft, broken moan as his calloused palms grazed your ribs. You felt the heat of him, the sheer, overwhelming masculinity of a man who spent his nights fighting for justice and his days fighting his own demons. You didnât care about the world outside this room; you didnât care about the man waiting for you at his home. In Mattâs arms, you felt a terrifying, beautiful completeness.
You arched your back, pressing your chest against the firm plans of his; your hands sliding down to the waistband of his slacks, desperate to strip away the professional veneer of the lawyer and find the man underneath.
âMatt, please,â you whimpered against his neck, your teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below his ear. âDonât stop. Donât let go.â
Mattâs breath hitched. He was navigating you by touch and sound, his senses dialed to a fever pitch. He could feel the frantic pulse in your throat, the way your body trembled under his fingertips, and the intoxicating scent of your arousal rising to meet him. He lifted you effortlessly, your legs wrapping instinctively around his waist as he backed you toward the couch.
His lips left yours to trail a path of fire down your throat, his tongue swirling over the hollow of your collarbone. Your head fell back, your eyes fluttering shut as you melted into him, your entire being focused on the friction of his body against yours.
When his hand moved higher, cupping the fullness of your breast through the fabric of his shirt, you let out a sharp, needy cry; your fingers digging into his shoulders, pulling him closer, demanding everything he was willing to give.
The friction between your body and his was a language all its own, a frantic dialogue of skin on skin that rendered the rest of the world a distant, fading memory. Mattâs control, the legendary discipline of a man who lived in a world of constant sensory bombardment, was finally fracturing. He wasnât just touching you; he was experiencing you in a way no sighted man ever could. He felt the microscopic shiver of your skin, the heat of your blood rushing beneath the surface, and the way your very breath seemed to sync with the rhythm of the rain.
He lowered you completely onto the cushions, his body hovering over yours, a heavy, delicious weight. His hands, large and capable, moved with a desperate reverence, sliding the fabric of his and your clothes away until there was nothing left between you but the air and the anticipation.
âYou have no idea,â Matt rasped, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly register that sent a jolt of pure electricity straight to your core. He leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear, his breath hot and ragged. âHow many times have I sat across from you, trying to listen to your heart and pretend it wasnât driving me mad? How many times have I smelled you and had to pray just to keep my hands from reaching for you?â
You gasped, your hips rising instinctively to meet his. The sheer intensity of his words, the raw honesty of his desire, made you feel more seen than you ever had in your life.Â
âThen stop praying, Matt,â you breathed, your voice thick with longing. You reached down, your fingers tracing the hard, corded muscles of his thighs, guiding him toward you. âJust take me. Iâm yours. Right now, there is no one else. Just us.â
That was a statement neither of you two wanted to argue with because, in this moment, as cruel as it may be, it was the truth. There was no one else in the symphony of the meeting between you and Matt. It was him and you, no one else.
Matt let out a low, guttural sound, a mix of a groan and a vow. âGodâŚâ he whispered your name, âyou feel so beautiful,â he whispered, his hands roaming the curves of your hips, squeezing the soft flesh there. âSo perfect. Every inch of you... itâs everything.â
The air in the room was heavy with the scent of rain, musk, and the intoxicating aroma of your arousal. Mattâs senses were operating at a level of intensity that bordered on the divine; he could hear the slick, rhythmic sound of your breathing and the way the moisture between your thighs seemed to hum with its own life. He was no longer just a man; he was a predator of sensation, guided by the heat radiating from your core.
He moved down your body, his lips leaving a trail of fire across your stomach, tracing the dip of your navel. Your breath came in short, jagged hitches, hands clenching the sofa cushions as you felt the warmth of his mouth approaching.
âMattâŚâ you whimpered, your legs falling open in a silent, desperate invitation.
Matt didnât make you wait because he didnât want to wait either. He settled between your thighs, his hands sliding up the insides of your legs, his thumbs grazing the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. When he finally made contact, his fingers found you already slick and swollen with need. As his middle finger slid into the soft, wet folds of your vulva, you let out a high, keening cry, your hips bucking upward.
âYouâre so wet for me, sweetheart,â Matt murmured, his voice a dark, honeyed growl against the skin of your thigh. He didnât pull away; Instead, he began to work his fingers in a slow, deliberate rhythm, circling your clitoris with the pad of his thumb while his fingers delved deeper into your heat. âI can feel how much you want this. How much you want me.â
You were lost in a sea of ââsensation. The feeling of his calloused, strong fingers sliding in and out of you, the relentless, rhythmic pressure on your clitoris, was driving you toward the edge of madness.
You felt liquid, melting, your entire world reduced to the point where his skin met yours. âYes... oh god, Matt, right there,â you gasped, your head tossing back, your eyes rolling as the pleasure began to coil tightly in your gut.
The friction of Mattâs fingers inside you was relentless, a masterful orchestration of pleasure that had you spiraling toward a precipice. Every time his thumb swirled over your clitoris, a fresh wave of heat crashed through you, making your inner muscles clench and pulse around his digits. You were drenched, the slickness of your juices coating his hand, making a soft, wet schlick schlick sound that echoed in the quiet room.
âMatt, please! I canât... itâs too much,â you cried out, your voice breaking. Your hips were moving of their own volition now, thrusting upward, trying to grind yourself against his hand to find the release that was screaming to be let loose. The tension in your lower belly was a tightening coil, a frantic, heavy pressure that demanded an end. âIâm going to... oh god, Matt!â
Just as you felt the first tremors of an orgasm beginning to ripple through you, Matt shifted. He slowed the pace of his fingers, his touch becoming agonizingly light, teasing the very edge of your peak without allowing her to cross it.
Matt said your name, in a tone youâd never heard before. âNot yet,â he commanded, his voice a dark, authoritative rumble that vibrated through your entire body. He leaned over you, his chest brushing your sensitized tits, his eyes though unseeing fixed on the beautiful, desperate expression on your face. âDonât you dare come yet. I want to feel you break when Iâm inside you. I want to feel your walls clenching around my cock, squeezing me as you lose yourself,â he almost groaned in your ear when he heard you whimpering beneath him. âI want to feel your pussy around me during the first orgasm Iâm going to give you.â
âBut... fuck... donât... donât be like that,â you gasped, your legs trembling violently, your toes curling into the fabric of the couch. The frustration was a delicious torture, a hunger so sharp it was almost painful.
âI know,â he whispered, his hand moving faster now, a sudden, aggressive rhythm that drove you right back to the brink. He used his other hand to reach down, his fingers finding your clitoris again, pinching and rubbing with a precision that made your vision blur. âStay right there on the edge for me, baby. Stay right there... because when you finally come, youâre going to do it all over me.â
You couldnât think of anything else. You couldnât think of the immorality of the act, of the fact that you were letting your best friend touch you in a way he shouldnât.
Not because you didnât want to.
Not because Matt didnât want to.
But because you were with someone else. You had a boyfriend.
Even that fleeting thought, the memory of your partner, was overshadowed by the ocean of sensations Matt was stirring within you at that moment. You truly belonged to him now.
The tension in the room was so thick it felt like a physical weight, a heavy, humid atmosphere of pure, unadulterated lust. You were a wreck of sensation, your body twitching with the desperate need to explode. Your pussy was a swollen, dripping mess, the nectar of your arousal coating Mattâs fingers so thickly that every thrust of his hand made a loud, slapping, wet sound that drove them both closer to madness.
âMatt, please... stop playing with me,â you sobbed, your voice a ragged plea. Your tits were heavy, your nipples hard and dark, straining against the air as you arched your back, your hips bucking wildly against his hand. You were so close, the pressure behind your clitoris feeling like a dam about to burst.
Matt, however, was a man possessed by a singular vision. He could hear the frantic, wet squelching of his fingers deep inside you, the sound of your pussy opening and closing around him. He could feel the heat of you, the way your internal muscles were already pulsing in rhythmic, desperate contractions. He was rock hard, his cock stuck directly against his abdomen showing how the tip was decorated with precum, his balls heavy and tight with the need to sink into you.
âLook at you,â Matt growled, his voice thick with a primal, dirty hunger. He pulled his fingers out of you with a slow, sucking sound, only to immediately replace them with the hard, pulsing length of his cock. He didnât go in all at once; he teased the tip of his head against your soaking wet slit, dragging it through your juices. âLook how much youâre leaking for me. Youâre absolutely dripping, sweetheart. Youâre a fucking mess, and youâre all mine.â
His words, in the legality of couples, were erroneous. The act was wrong and sinful, disloyal and deceitful, but Matt had desired you for so long, had loved you silently for years, that this moment, this span of time where it was just you and him, was heavier than any relationship title.
It was a cruel act against your boyfriend, but even so, Matt couldnât deny it, couldnât deny you. He could cleanse his guilt later, not at this moment? You were his, and he was yours.
He gripped your hips, his fingers digging into your soft flesh, and with one powerful, decisive thrust, he buried himself deep inside you. Matt couldnât take it anymore; he didnât have to.
You let out a scream that was half sob, half ecstasy. The feeling of him filling you, stretching you wide, was more than you could bear. You felt his thick, hot cock sliding against your most sensitive spots, hitting your G-spot with every deep, punishing lunge. Which was devastating, because you never imagined a man could complete you so completely, both emotionally and sexually.
And so, so unfair to your poor boyfriend, whom you didnât even remember now that you were filled with Matt.
âOh god, Matt! Fuck, yes!â you cried, your legs locking around his waist, pulling him even deeper. You could feel his heavy balls against your skin, so full, ready to release inside you.
The sensation of him filling you was a revelation, a violent and beautiful collision of two souls that had been orbiting each other for far too long. Matt was a force of nature, his thrusts deep and punishing, driving his thick, hard dick into the very depths of your soaking pussy. Every time he slammed his hips against yours, the sound of your skin and his meeting was a wet, rhythmic slapping that echoed the frantic drumming of the rain outside.
You were lost to the madness of it. Your head thrashed against the cushions, your tits bouncing with the force of his movements, your nipples chafing deliciously against his chest. You felt stretched, filled, and utterly possessed. âFuck, MattâŚâ you moaned, needing more of him, all of him. âHarder, please!â you almost screamed, your voice raw.
You wanted to feel every inch of him, wanted the friction to burn the memory of anyone else out of your mind.
Matt leaned down, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his teeth grazing your skin as he let out a low, animalistic growth. âYou like that, donât you?â he rasped, his voice a dirty, gravelly command. âYou like feeling my dick stretching you wide? You like how much youâre fucking squeezing me?â He pulled back just enough for you to look at him. He could feel your internal muscles clenching around him like a vice, a desperate, rhythmic pulsing that told him you were right on the edge.
Youâd never allowed yourself to think about a moment like this, youâd never imagined hearing such words coming from Mattâs lips, but hearing them made your pussy tighten even more around him. It turned you on to hear him talk to you like that, to feel how he wanted to dominate you in a way that made you feel dirty in the best way.
âYeah,â you answered, breathless and panting.âGod yeahâŚâ you said, because you wanted to answer him, you wanted him to know the intensity of the force he had within you.
âYouâre about to come, arenât you, sweetheart? Hm?â Matt said, his hips swaying as he buried his nose in your cheek. âTell me you want to come, let me be the one to make you come. Me and no one else. Only me,â he commanded, panting.
Your eyes were rolled back in your head, your breath coming in frantic, shallow gasps that hitched every time Mattâs heavy balls thudded against your soaking wet slit. The sheer friction of his thick dick sliding in and out of you was driving you into a frenzy of pure, unadulterated lust. You felt like you were melting, your entire consciousness narrowing down to the point where his pelvis met your clitoris with every deep, punishing lunge.
âYes! Only you,â you said, not caring about the weight of those words, because you knew that, at this point, they were full of truth. âGod!â you screamed, your fingers digging into the muscles of his back, your nails leaving red crescents in his skin. âI want you to fucking break me... make me yours, Matty, please,â you asked needily in a sinful whisper that made Mattâs hair stand on end.
Matt let out a guttural roar, his control finally snapping like a taut wire. He gripped your ass, his large hands squeezing your cheeks and pulling your hips upward to meet his brutal, rhythmic thrusts. He was fucking you with a primal desperation, his movements becoming faster, harder, and more unhinged. He could hear the wet, slopping sounds of your pussy being absolutely drenched by his dick, the sound of your juices splashing against his skin as he hammered into you.
âThatâs it, baby... take it all,â Matt growled, his voice a filthy, commanding rasp. He leaned down, his chest crushing her bouncing tits, his mouth finding yours in a kiss that tasted of sweat and despair. âFeel how hard my cock is inside you? Feel how much youâre fucking tight? Youâre so wet, sweetheart... youâre fucking swallowing every inch of me.â he groaned. âGod, Iâve dreamed about this, baby, you have no ideaâŚâ he whispered to you breathlessly.
He shifted his angle, his dick rubbing intensely against your G spot with every stroke, driving you toward the precipice. Your internal muscles were spasming, your pussy clenching around him in frantic, rhythmic waves that signaled your impending explosion.
âAhâplease, god, Iâm close,â you almost stammered, your body arching off the couch, your entire being vibrating with the force of your climax.
The tension in your body reached a breaking point, a violent, electric crescendo that made your entire frame shudder. Your pussy was clenching around Mattâs dick in frantic, rhythmic spasms, your internal walls pulsing with a desperate, hungry heat that threatened to pull him under with you.
You were right there, hovering on the razorâs edge of total annihilation.
âMatt,â you gasped. "I... Matt... please" you whimpered, your voice cracking as your hips began to jerk uncontrollably. The sensation was too much the feeling of his thick, hard cock hammering into you, the friction of his balls slapping against your slit, and the sheer, overwhelming weight of his body was pushing you over the cliff.
Matt felt the change in you, the way your pussy suddenly tightened like a vice, the wet, rhythmic contractions of your orgasm beginning to ripple through you. The sensation was intoxicating, the heat of you clenching around him driving him into a frenzy. He didnât pull back; Instead, he drove himself even deeper, burying his dick to the hilt, his hips slamming against you with a brutal, final force.
âThatâs it, sweetheart,â he growled and then moaned your name. âCome for me. Fuck, come for me,â Matt moaned, his voice a primal, filthy command. He could feel your climax exploding, the torrential waves of your orgasm pulsing against his cock, milking him with a desperate, beautiful intensity.
Your world turned to white light. You let out a long, keening wail of pure ecstasy, your tits heaving as your body bucked wildly against him. You felt like you were shattering, your entire being dissolving into the sensation of his dick filling you as you came.
The feeling of your pussy convulsing around him was the final trigger for Matt. He let out a guttural, needy groan, his body tensing as he reached his own peak. He thrust one last time, burying himself as deep as possible, and felt the hot, thick jets of his cum erupting from his dick, flooding your pussy with his heat. He groaned, his head falling onto your shoulder as he pumped load after load of hot semen deep inside you, his entire body trembling with the force of his release.
The silence came slowly, as if even you two understood that any sound would be an intrusion.
The rain continued to pound against the windows with infinite patience, muffling the distant hum of Hellâs Kitchen traffic until it was a barely perceptible murmur. The apartment smelled of cold coffee, damp cotton, and that unmistakable warmth that lingers in a room after two people stop pretending; that scent of intimacy, of sweaty bodies mingling and becoming one, at least for this moment. Neither of you said a word. It wasnât necessary. Some conversations ended when voices fell silent, and others were just beginning in the silence.
You lay beneath him, your breath still searching for a rhythm that had long since ceased to obey you. You felt the pleasant weight of weariness spread through every muscle of your body, but it wasnât exhaustion that kept your eyes fixed on the ceiling. It was certainty.
Part of you expected the regret to hit immediately, as violent as a wave crashing against the shore. You expected to feel nauseous, afraid, the desperate urge to get dressed and leave before reality could fully catch up with you. After all, thatâs how it went in the stories people told about bad decisions. First the impulse; then the guilt.
It had stayed with you all afternoon and remained nestled beneath your breast with the same stubbornness. You thought of the man who trusted you completely, of the promises made over the years, of the peaceful life you had patiently built together. None of it had vanished. It still existed, untouched and painfully real.
And yet, regret never came.
You closed your eyes tightly, almost hoping to force it to appear.
All you found was a peace that felt as unjust as it was incomprehensible.
It was a quiet, profound tranquility, like the feeling of coming home after walking for hours in the rain. A calm that didnât come from having done the right thing, but from having stopped lying to yourself for the first time in years.
Now you realized that, before, if a stranger had asked you on the street if you would marry your boyfriend, you would have said yes. That was your mindset. But now, in this moment, you realized that if it had been Matt asking, you wouldnât have given the same answer, not even before this moment. Anyone else might have gotten a confirmation from you, but Matt⌠You couldnât have lied to Matt, not even before the confessions you shared today, before you lost yourself in your best friendâs body.
The couch cushions dipped beneath Mattâs weight as he shifted above you. He didnât pull away immediately. That hesitation was so unmistakably him that it broke your heart all over again. Even now, with nothing left standing between you, he seemed to wonder how close he was allowed to remain.
Matt remained above you, careful not to let his full weight rest against your body, one arm supporting himself against the back of the couch while his breathing slowly settled into a steadier rhythm. His sightless eyes, open and distant as always, were turned toward nothing you could name, and yet they seemed fuller than you had ever seen them. His dark hair had fallen messily across his forehead, the sharpness that usually defined his features softened by exhaustion, and there was something in his expression that caught you completely off guard. It wasnât relief alone, nor happiness, nor even peace. It looked remarkably like a man who had spent years carrying something unbearably heavy and, if only for a moment, had finally allowed himself to set it down.Â
As if heâd spent too many years holding a door shut with all his might, and suddenly, heâd stopped pushing.
You felt a lump tighten in your throat.
âAre you... regretting this?â you whispered, which was ironic, because you were the one who had betrayed someone.
The question barely managed to form.
Matt took a long moment to answer. You heard him breathe, gathering his thoughts with the same patience he always displayed when an answer was too important to improvise.
Finally, his face met yours; you could almost swear his eyes lingered on your lips.
âI regret a lot of things,â his voice sounded hoarse, exhausted. âI regret the people I couldnât save. I regret every lie Iâve told Foggy. Karen.â He managed a tired smile that vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. âI regret every time I thought I had to carry the world by myself.â
His free hand found yours. He didnât take it immediately. He barely touched your fingers, as if even that gesture were still a question.
Then, seeing that you didnât pull away, he intertwined your fingers with his.
âBut not this,â he finished.
The simplicity with which he said it finally brought tears to your eyes. Once again, you found yourself vulnerable in his presence, exposed in more ways than one.
They werenât tears of joy.
Nor were they tears of sorrow.
They were the inevitable result of discovering that two emotions could coexist without canceling each other out. You could feel guilt and, at the same time, immense peace. You could know that you had crossed a line from which neither would emerge unscathed, and yet understand that what you had experienced wasnât a mistake born of mere whim, but the consequence of years spent suppressing a truth.
Matt slowly raised his free hand until it found your cheek. His thumb traced the path of a tear with infinite gentleness before stopping next to your temple.
âIâm sorry... for how complicated this is,â Matt whispered.
He wasnât asking for forgiveness for having loved you.
Nor for what had happened.
He was asking for forgiveness for the pain that inevitably accompanied that truth.
You rested your forehead against his, closing your eyes.
âI know,â you whispered.
For a long time, you had confused love with the tranquility of not questioning the course of your life. You believed that loving meant choosing someone and staying with them for the rest of the journey. It was a beautiful idea. It was also incomplete.
Because there were people who didnât come into a life to alter its course, but to reveal the course that life had been trying to follow from the very beginning.
Not a fleeting temptation.
Not a fantasy born on a rainy afternoon.
He was the answer to a question youâd never had the courage to ask.
And perhaps that was the most terrible part of the whole story.
Not that youâd found each other too late.
But that, in doing so, you both discovered that, for the first time in many years, the feeling of being whole bore the name of the other.
The rain didnât stop when you and him finally stopped talking. It continued to fall on Hellâs Kitchen with its usual monotonous rhythm, oblivious to the silent revolution that had just taken place within those walls. You two remained motionless for a long time, as if either of you feared that simply standing up would be enough to place the weight of the world back on your shoulders.Â
Matt was still inside you, as if he didnât want to break the connection that now existed between you, however silly it sounded. He was close enough for you to feel the quiet warmth of his body, and you discovered, with a mixture of tenderness and melancholy, that you had never felt him so human. He wasnât the vigilante who returned battered every night, nor the lawyer who found the right words even for the most difficult tragedies. He was simply Matt, a tired man who had spent too long believing that love always had to hurt to be true.
Without saying a word, you raised a hand and gently brushed aside a strand of hair that had fallen across his forehead. The gesture was so small it almost went unnoticed, but you felt a barely perceptible smile curve his lips.
âYou keep doing that,â he murmured, his voice still deep, soft for the first time all afternoon.
âPretending you donât take care of me.â
You couldnât help but smile.
âIâve never been very good at pretending,â you said, unable to wipe the smile off your face.
Matt let out a low laugh, the kind of laugh that seemed to rise from deep within his chest, in some corner only accessible to those he truly knew. Then he tilted his head slightly, his forehead brushing against yours, a gesture infinitely more intimate than any word spoken that afternoon. Matt and you remained like that for a few seconds, breathing the same air, letting the silence finish saying what language had never been enough to convey.
For the first time in a long time, neither of them felt the need to fill the void with explanations.
Because, sometimes, home wasnât the place where you found answers.
But rather, it was the only person with whom the silence ceased to feel empty.
notes: yeah, this is extremely long lmao.
i know cheating is a sensitive topic for many people, but⌠i love it in fiction, idk. i needed to write about this and i got a lot off my chest.
