Chapter 6 #2
Harry was so caught up in watching his young friend let go and so turned on by the sight of Nikky’s svelte body moving to the pounding music, that he almost forgot to fish out his phone to take the pictures that they’d come there for.
As he snapped away, going for shots that would make Nikky look as hedonistic as possible, a part of him hoped he was doing the right thing.
He still had more than a few reservations about allowing Nikky to destroy what could be an incredible career.
His photography exercise was interrupted as a guy he vaguely knew from other sojourns to Crushed, waved to him and gestured for him to join the dance.
Figuring he had enough pics for the moment, Harry tucked his phone away, then caught Nikky’s eye.
Nikky craned his neck a bit to show he was paying attention, and when Harry gestured to the guy who wanted him to dance, Nikky gave him the thumbs up before throwing himself back into dancing with even more abandon.
Harry grinned at him, then headed for his friend, what’s-his-name, and lost himself in the spirit of the night as well.
He wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed before he looked for Nikky again.
He’d been keeping an eye out for his golden boy while dancing with half a dozen different guys.
Each time he’d looked, Nikky was dancing his heart out and seeming to have a good time.
The second Harry checked in and didn’t spot Nikky on the dance floor, his fun and games were over.
He stepped out of the heart of the dancers and looked around, heart pounding from more than just exercise as he looked for his too-innocent charge.
He was supposed to be Nikky’s boyfriend, the guy who looked out for him and protected him from the snakes of the world.
He shouldn’t have let Nikky go off on his own.
Those feelings of guilt intensified when he spotted Nikky at the bar with two of the rougher regulars pressing in on either side of him as they watched him down a shot.
Harry wasn’t having any of that.
He marched straight over to the bar, not caring how big the guys moving in on Nikky were, and said, “Everything good here?”
The two guys glared at Harry, but Nikky finished a second shot, smiled like it was the best day of his life, and said, “Yeah, this place is great.” His eyes shone enough to make Harry wonder how many shots he’d downed, other than the two empty glasses on the bar, and whether Nikky was used to drinking.
“You don’t have to spend it all in one place,” Harry advised him, resting a hand on his arm, mostly to signal to the two oafs trying to lay some sort of claim on Nikky that he was taken.
“Okay,” Nikky said, though Harry wasn’t sure if he understood what he’d meant. “John and Gerry here are going to show me around some of the stuff,” he went on, his grin way too wide.
Just like that, Harry wanted to leave. But he also didn’t want to be a killjoy or get in the way of Nikky exploring something he might actually like.
“They can show me, too,” he said, smiling threateningly, first at one guy, then the other.
Nikky had come in with him and he would leave with him as well.
“Come on,” one of the guys said, pushing away from the bar and nodding for Nikky to follow him.
The other guy grabbed a drink off the bar and handed it to Nikky as they all headed toward the corner with the St. Andrew’s cross.
Harry stuck to Nikky like glue, watching him like a hawk for any sign that one of the two brutes had slipped something into Nikky’s drink.
It wasn’t likely, since Crushed had a strict code of conduct and people had been banned for life for trying shit like that in the past, but anything could happen.
Anything could happen, like Nikky’s glassy eyes going wide as he watched a man being flogged for what had to have been the first time in his life.
The more Harry got to know Nikky, the more he was convinced that, despite living in L.A.
and being part of the entertainment industry for the past several years, Nikky was way greener than he let on.
Nikky’s education continued when he spotted a wall that held a display of various floggers, whips, restraints, and clamps. “What are these?” he asked, stepping over to run his hand through the flails of a particularly long and soft flogger.
“You want to give it a try?” one of the arseholes trying to woo Nikky away from Harry asked with a hungry grin.
Harry stepped in, wedging himself between Nikky and the guy. “This is mostly for display,” he said, speaking loud enough to be heard over the music. “The club doesn’t really get into the serious shit.”
“But there are some rooms upstairs, if you’re interested,” the second of the arseholes told Nikky with a lurid wink.
Nikky glanced to Harry, the first indication that he’d slipped in over his head shining in his eyes.
Harry grabbed Nikky’s hand immediately and pulled him away from the wall. “Come on,” he said, shifting to block the two predators as he steered Nikky away from danger. “If you want to give something a try, I’ve got just the thing.”