Chapter 7
seven
. . .
The night was a blur. A wild, hot, throbbing blur. As sleep slowly left Nikky, dropping a massive headache in its wake, bits and pieces of the club and the ride home tore at his mind.
There had been noise and thumping bass that had made his ears hurt.
There had been masses of half-dressed male bodies that had excited and intimidated him.
There had been alcohol that went down smoother than it should have.
Plenty of it. There had been the searing, magical pain of the nipple clamps he’d tried on and liked so much it scared him. And there had been Harry.
There had definitely been Harry.
Throughout everything Nikky had experimented with in the pulsing club, Harry had watched out for him.
Nikky had been aware of the man at all times, even when he’d been dancing with other guys or standing aside and letting Nikky get into all the trouble he’d craved.
The only reason Nikky had been brave enough to talk to other men or let them buy him drinks was because he knew Harry was just a few feet away and would step in to rescue him if he needed it.
Nikky could count on one hand with fingers left over the number of times he’d felt as if someone genuinely had his back.
Pamela and Brad had looked out for him better than anyone else, but there was something different, something very much non-parental, about the way Harry’s eyes had been on him all night.
Those dark eyes had been intoxicating. Even more than the drinks.
Those eyes had undressed him, liking what they saw.
He’d performed for those eyes, eager to give Harry what he wanted so that he might end the night in Harry’s bed, their bodies twined together, their mouths devouring each other, their—
Shit. He’d kissed Harry. In a fit of drunken lust, he’d thrown himself at the man who was just trying to help him, right there in the middle of the club.
Nikky groaned and rolled to the side…in the unfamiliar bed where he had probably spent the night.
Spent the night in nothing but his underwear.
He whimpered and buried his face against the cool pillow.
That action helped the throbbing in his head a little.
Mostly because it meant he could hide from the slicing sunlight that cut through the window off to one side of the bed.
He could hide from the massive fool he’d made of himself at the club and when Harry had taken him home.
He vaguely remembered a taxi, climbing a dark set of stairs, throwing himself at Harry again once they’d made it into the eclectic apartment, his tight trousers coming off—
Fuck. How hard had he thrown himself at Harry once they’d made it home? Had the two of them had drunken sex? The idea hit Nikky as a disappointment more than anything else. He wanted to have sex with Harry, more than a little, but he wanted to be cognizant enough to remember it the next morning.
He closed his eyes and did a quick mental assessment of his body.
His nipples ached like the devil and his back was sore for some reason, but he didn’t feel any of the lingering effects of being fucked.
Harry definitely would have topped him, which was more than fine by Nikky.
Even if he’d been unconscious. In fact, the thought of being fucked while he was unconscious sent blood pumping into his already half-hard cock.
But the sensations in his body made it pretty clear nothing had happened.
At least not like that.
The distinct ping of his phone somewhere nearby stopped Nikky from falling into mental spirals about whether his fantasy of being fucked while he was unconscious was sexy as hell or fucked up.
He quickly pushed that debate far out of his head and forced himself to move his sore body to reach for his phone on the bedside table.
It was probably Albion cursing him out for being late for the day’s session, although from the clock that glared too brightly from the table beside his phone, it was still shockingly early.
The text that had pinged Nikky’s phone wasn’t from Albion.
And it wasn’t the only message waiting for him.
There were so many notifications lighting up Nikky’s phone with messages when he rolled to his back to study it that a queasy feeling filled his stomach.
The text that had just come through was from his manager, Charlotte, but he ignored it and opened the one that had come from Drew several hours before.
“Nice work, baby,” Drew’s text said. “Looks like you had a great time.”
That could mean only one thing.
Pushing himself to sit up against the pillows and headboard of Harry’s bed, head throbbing, Nikky tapped frantically through to his go-to social media app. Everything he needed to see was right there, front and center, as soon as he opened it.
Pictures. A lot of pictures. Some of them grainy, some of them crystal clear.
Pictures of him dressed in the skin-tight leather pants with the mesh shirt.
Pictures of him dancing with large, sweaty guys.
Pictures of him downing a shot at the bar, of him wearing nipple clamps with BDSM stuff in the background, of him clearly drunk.
But the pic that appeared the most times with the most comments was the one of him making out hardcore with Harry.
“Nikky Smith is a freak after all.”
“Nikky Smith wearing nipple clamps wasn’t on my bingo card.”
“He looks like he’s having a ton of fun, and good for him.”
“Wow, I thought Nikky was hot before, but he’s blazing!”
“Nikky Smith and Harry Bayonne? I love it!”
“If I had known he was this cool, I never would have written him off as Hollywood’s flavor of the day.”
Nikky frowned as he scrolled through comments and all the pics.
He looked thoroughly debauched in nearly every image splattered all over the internet.
He wasn’t the happy, shiny, gracious, good boy that he couldn’t help but mold himself into any time a camera was pointed at him. He looked out of control and sinful.
He did kind of look cool, though.
“That wasn’t the point,” he sighed, scrolling through a few more pics and reading more comments.
The point had been to tarnish his image to the degree where people recoiled and pushed him aside. The point was to tank his image so the fans and paparazzi would lay off him.
But there it was. Nikky didn’t even have to look hard to find it. The comment he dreaded most was near the top of one of the more salacious pics of him dancing.
“I always knew you were a very bad boy. Thanks for proving me right. We can work with this.”
Nikky didn’t stare at the comment as much as he stared at Holberg’s name beside it. A sick chill swept through him, and he closed the app and tossed his phone aside like it was burning. Then he covered his face with his hands and tried in vain to breathe.
Of course Holberg would see the pictures. Of course he would make that kind of comment. Holberg was just sick enough to think Nikky had gone to the club specifically to bait him.
A much more terrifying thought struck him.
Holberg would know where he was now. The club had been identified in a few of the posts.
Not that it would have been difficult for Holberg to tap his sources to find out Nikky was recording in London, but having his location splashed out all over social media made it that much easier for Holberg to track him down.
The man wouldn’t fly all the way out to London just to menace him, would he?
Following him constantly in L.A. and trying to force his way into being the source point for any and all gossip about Nikky was one thing.
Stalking him across the Atlantic in his continued bid to be the one to bring down the golden boy was just creepy.
A gentle knocking followed by Harry pushing the cracked bedroom door open all the way and stepping into the room with a gentle, “Hey,” surprised Nikky to the point where he nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Oh, God,” Nikky replied, dropping his hands from his face and looking forlornly up at Harry as he came all the way into the room.
Harry laughed softly. “Yeah, the morning after can make you feel that way,” he said, assuming, probably correctly, that he knew everything Nikky was feeling.
Nikky sank down in the bed, hiding his face and his throbbing head behind his hands again. “I’m so sorry.”
Harry chuckled and came to sit on the side of the bed.
He had a glass of water in one hand and what turned out to be a couple tablets, hopefully paracetamol, in the other.
“You’re not the first twenty-five-year-old guy to get drunk in a club,” he said, resting a hand on Nikky’s knee under the covers.
A zing of electricity coursed its way up Nikky’s leg, settling in his groin and causing his already plump cock to twitch. That was absolutely the last thing he needed. It also made him lower his hands until one covered his mouth for a second as he stared at Harry, a horrible suspicion filling him.
“We didn’t—you know,” he asked, lowering his hands all the way and clutching at the bedcovers, ready to throw them over his head and hide, depending on Harry’s answer.
Harry seemed entirely too amused by everything. “No, absolutely not,” he laughed, thankfully not teasing Nikky by pretending maybe they had. “I’m not that kind of guy.”
Nikky let out a breath of relief. It was true.
Harry wasn’t the kind of guy who would take advantage of someone who was drunk.
Nikky had definitely known men like that.
He was still upset about losing his virginity to a guy exactly like that, who had mistaken drunken giddiness for consent back in high school.
Too much silence passed between them before Harry reached for the glass of water and tablets. “Here,” he said. “You’ll probably need these.”