16. Matty
Matty
Iwas burning up, and the only cure was Peter Diaz.
Sadly, time was not on our side. It had taken us more than half of the Bundt’s baking time to tour the first floor, most of which had been spent just in the sunroom turned reading nook.
Diaz had insisted on going through every single shelf of my built-in bookcases, flipping through pages and teasing me mercilessly about my weird mix of romance novels and thrillers.
“Interesting taste, Alabama,” he’d said, holding up a particularly spicy why choose romance with a raised eyebrow. “Are you a kinky fucker or a serial killer?”
“Why not both?”
By the time we finally made it upstairs, I was equal parts flustered and turned on. Diaz had been complimentary the whole time. Running his hands along counters and doorframes, asking questions about finishes and layouts, genuinely impressed by the work I had done to make this house my home.
I saved my bedroom for last. Call it wishful thinking. Now, standing in the doorway, I felt strangely exposed.
This room had always been my sanctuary. I could count on one hand the number of people who had been inside it, and three of them were family members.
But now, watching Diaz wander the dark wood floors, barefoot, while taking in every knickknack and tchotchke, it felt like we were nearing the edge of something big.
“This is really nice,” Diaz said, running his hand along the footboard of my platform bed. “Let me guess. You built the frame yourself?”
“Took two weeks and a lot of swearing.”
He grinned. “I can imagine.”
Fuck, it was so easy to picture him here.
Waking up tangled in my sheets, his shaved head buried in my pillow while he grumbled about the blinding morning light.
Padding downstairs in nothing but a pair of sweatpants—or better yet, bare ass naked—to start the coffee before I even got out of bed.
Standing at the kitchen island sneaking bites of breakfast to Mo.
Damn, she’s going to abandon me for him.
And I wouldn’t even blame her for it.
It was a kind of . . . ordinary future I had never really allowed myself to imagine with another man. With anyone, really.
Diaz caught me staring when he turned away from the window.
A slow smile spread across his face. “What?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head, unable to stop smiling back. “Those windows were the biggest pain. I ripped out the originals because they were way too small. I wanted to bring the outdoors inside.”
“They’re nice. You know, assuming you enjoy getting blasted by the sun in the morning.”
I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Believe it or not, some of us don’t live like vampires.”
Diaz barked out a laugh. The sound filled the room in a way that made my chest feel too tight.
He knew exactly what I was talking about. I’d spent enough time at his place to know he kept it like a cave—blinds drawn, lights dimmed, and thermostat permanently set somewhere between a walk-in freezer and polar vortex.
Diaz wandered further, completely at ease. He trailed his fingers along the edge of my dresser, then moved toward the walk-in closet. I stayed leaning in the doorway, watching him with a mix of amusement and nerves as he rifled through my shirts with zero shame.
“Organized by color,” he mused. “I should’ve known.”
“And occasion.”
“Do you even own a normal T-shirt?” he asked, holding up a button-down with a raised eyebrow. “Or do you just live in dress shirts?”
I scoffed. “Some of us like to look put together.”
“And some of us don’t want to die from heat stroke,” he shot back, still digging. “Please tell me there’s at least one band shirt from the early 2000s buried in here.”
I was about to tell him about the Green Day T-shirt in the bottom drawer, the one that I saved for yard work, when he stilled.
Oh, fuck.
Diaz pulled something out from the very back of the closet. I knew what it was before it even cleared the wall of shirts.
The candle.
The three-wick Peter Diaz-scented candle.
Fuck my life.
He turned the sleek, black jar over in his hands, eyebrows shooting up in genuine surprise. “Is this—”
My face went nuclear. I pushed off the doorframe, suddenly wishing the floor would swallow me whole. “It’s not what you think.”
“You bought my candle,” he said, voice full of disbelief.
“Okay, it’s exactly what you think.”
“And hid it in your closet.”
“I’m not hiding it,” I muttered, my ears on fucking fire.
“It’s buried behind your coats.”
“Yeah, for . . . safekeeping.”
Diaz stared at the jar for another second, then looked back at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Surprise, maybe. Amusement, I hoped.
Defending myself was a lost cause, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
“Would you have preferred I just leave it out in the open? On my nightstand, next to a photo of you, like some kind of stalker shrine?”
“Of course!” he roared, breaking off into laughter.
He rolled the jar over in his hands, brushing his thumb over the label.
“You lit it?”
“Once,” I stressed, utterly mortified. It wasn’t every day the teammate you were head over ass for discovered a him scented candle buried behind your Canada Goose coat. “Okay, maybe twice.”
Before I could shove my foot any further into my mouth, Diaz reached back into the closet, brushing his hand against something else.
My stomach dropped when he pulled out a familiar manila folder. The edges were frayed, the cover slightly bent from being handled too many times. When he flipped it open, I watched confusion creep across his face as he realized what was inside.
Pages and pages of printed stories.
His stories.
The stories he’d written about the team, about us. They were all there. Every last one.
“Oh my god.” I groaned, stepping forward quickly. “Peter—”
He looked up at me slowly. “You kept them?”
“I . . . Yeah.”
Diaz didn’t say anything else. He simply carried the folder over to the bed and sat down on the edge, flipping through a few more pages with careful fingers. After a second, I followed and sat beside him, close enough that our thighs pressed together.
“I couldn’t just ignore them,” I said quietly, staring at my hands.
“Even after I found out it was you. They were . . . really good. And they made me feel things I didn’t understand at the time.
I kept telling myself I’d throw them away, but every time I tried, I’d end up rereading one instead.
They made me feel seen in a way I didn’t even know I needed. ”
Diaz was quiet for a long moment, thumb resting on one of the printed pages.
“They, uh, also turned me on. I definitely jerked off to them.” I quickly added, “More than once or twice.”
That had him spinning in his seat. When he finally looked at me, the heat in his eyes was so intense, it stole the breath from my lungs.
It wasn’t just lust.
It was hunger. Possession.
Like he wanted to devour every inch of me.
Eat up, Diaz.
“Fuck, Matty.” He groaned. “You’re telling me that all this time, you’ve been fucking yourself while reading my words, imagining my mouth on you, my cock in your ass?”
I met his gaze head-on. “Well, sometimes it was my cock in your ass, but yeah—”
He surged forward.
In one fluid motion, Diaz crawled onto my lap, bracketing my thighs with his and settling his full weight on me. He took my lips in a quick, punishing kiss. Though, if that was his idea of punishment, I was ready to commit every sin he wanted.
I groaned into his mouth at the feeling of him, solid and hard against my stomach.
He kissed like he was starving for me, greedy and rough in the best way.
His teeth nipped at my bottom lip, and I tangled my fingers in his shirt to pull him closer, chasing the taste of lemon batter and pure want on his tongue.
“Tell me you thought about me when you read them,” he rasped against my lips.
His hands slid under my tank top, palms hot against my skin as he rocked his hips once, twice.
“Tell me you got hard thinking about me bending you over in the dugout, in the locker room. Tell me it was my name on your lips when you came.”
I dug my fingers into his thighs, holding him to me. “Every damn time.”
Diaz made a low, satisfied sound and kissed me again. My hands slipped around his back to grip his ass, grinding him against me in a way that made my head spin.
I was about ten seconds away from throwing him down on the bed and reenacting my favorite story with him when the kitchen timer went off downstairs.
We both froze.
Diaz pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against mine, breathing hard. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face.
“Saved by the cake,” he murmured, voice rough with arousal. “Sacrifice Bundt.”
I let out a frustrated groan, dropping my head back. “Fuck me.”
“We’ll get there.”
He chuckled and pressed one last lingering kiss to my lips before climbing off my lap. He stood and offered me his hand, pulling me up with him.
“Don’t worry, tesoro,” he said, thumb brushing over my bottom lip. “We’ve got all night.”
The words sent a fresh wave of heat through me. I nodded, still a little dazed, and let him tug me toward the door.
All night.
Yeah, that was a good start.
After we demolished nearly half the lemon Bundt cake straight from the pan like heathens, we ended up sprawled on the living room sectional, watching Moonstruck.
Apparently, Diaz had watched the first part of it earlier at his place, and even though he had seen it a million times, he “couldn’t bear to give up on Cher that way. ”
His words, not mine.
I didn’t mind. I was blissfully drifting in and out of consciousness while he played with my hair.
As it turned out, sugar comas were the ultimate cockblock.
Neither of us had felt much like fooling around after stuffing our faces with lemon cake. And some of Abuelita’s pastelón. And some of Abuelita’s pastelón layered with lemon cake.
I should’ve trusted my gut on that one, and now my gut was paying the price. If the show Friends had taught me anything, it was that beef and cream did not mix well.