Chapter 11
eleven
. . .
It was ridiculously cliché, but Nikky slept better naked in Harry’s arms that night than he’d slept since arriving in London.
Possibly since his star had started its dizzying ascent to the top of the Hollywood constellation.
It wasn’t just the sex and how loose and worn out he’d felt after, though there was something to be said for that, too.
Harry was an amazing lover who knew when to be tender and when to give Nikky what he really needed.
That was the point, though. Harry somehow just knew what he needed.
He knew without Nikky having to say anything that a big part of him was terrified by the way the Hollywood machine had swallowed him whole.
He knew that despite his age, Nikky had far too many gaps in his knowledge of the world and his experience that he needed someone to help him fill.
He knew that it was about more than paying for a fake boyfriend to ruin his reputation so the world would turn down the intensity of its gaze on him.
Harry sucked in a deep breath and stretched his firm, fit body against Nikky’s back as they lay together in the dawn light. He then slung an arm around Nikky’s side to reach a hand up and squeeze his pec.
“Good morning,” he said, groggy and content. “You must be awake. You’re too tense to still be sleeping.”
Nikky let out a breath and as much tension as he could with it. He hadn’t realized he’d been clenched, but Harry was right. For Nikky, being awake meant being constantly on the alert.
“I was just thinking about things,” he said, muscling himself to roll over and face Harry.
It was the right thing to do. Their bodies fit together perfectly.
They were close to the same height, but Nikky was lean whereas Harry had more muscle.
Harry’s torso was a bit longer, but that just meant when Nikky lifted his leg over Harry’s hip, everything lined up perfectly.
He was already half hard with morning wood, and as the two of them moved together, ostensibly getting comfortable, things perked up even more for both of them.
Harry grinned heatedly, his gaze sweeping over Nikky’s face, which was probably puffy and pink from sleep. “You think too much,” he said, stroking his fingers over Nikky’s cheek, then scratching his fingernails gently over his scalp. “Stop it.”
Nikky huffed out a bashful laugh and lowered his eyes.
“I love your eyelashes,” Harry went on, his voice as gentle as mist rising on a pond in the early sunlight. “You really are beautiful.” He played the pads of his fingers over Nikky’s brow and cheekbones.
Nikky glanced up at him, heart pounding.
“No one has ever called me beautiful,” he practically whispered.
When Harry’s face pinched in disbelief, Nikky rushed on with, “I mean, the media and producers and things call me beautiful all the time, but that doesn’t mean much.
When they say it, it’s like they’re listing my assets. When you say it—”
He didn’t know how to put the depth of his feelings into words.
“I mean it,” Harry finished for him, brushing his fingertips across Nikky’s cheek and down to trace his lips.
It was the sexiest and most intimate thing anyone had ever done to him, and the focus was miles above his waistline. That didn’t mean that his dick didn’t appreciate every touch and hungry look Harry gave him. The attention was extra potent because it wasn’t a front for more.
“So what were you thinking about that had you all clenched up first thing in the morning?” Harry asked when the silence between them and his touch threatened to put Nikky back to sleep.
The question woke him right up, and his eyes widened a bit before he forced himself not to tense up all over again. “Just…everything,” he said on a sigh.
Harry laughed low in his chest. The sound was amazing, and the vibrations it sent through Nikky were intoxicating. “Everything, eh?”
“Not everything everything,” Nikky said, heat flooding his face.
He felt about ten years younger than he was, stuck in the age when pleasing the people around him and praying that someone might love him someday, despite his faults and perversions—Brad’s words, not his own feelings—was constantly at the forefront of his mind. “Just—”
He paused again, mind suddenly racing over the mountain of problems he faced, Albion and the image the man wanted to create for him, the fans, Hollywood, Holberg…especially Holberg.
Harry brushed his face again as he went silent and looked down. The tenderness of that touch kept Nikky from falling into anxiety and despair. It gave him courage.
“I’m starting to feel like a coward for pushing away from all the luck and good fortune that’s come my way instead of embracing it,” he confessed.
It might not have meant much to literally anyone else, but saying those words felt like a colossal step for Nikky.
“Maybe this whole thing was a stupid idea. Maybe I should learn how to engage with the public eye instead of running from it.”
Maybe he should tell Holberg to fuck off and see whether the man followed through with his threats or if he was all bark and no bite.
“So you’re saying you never should have engaged with Rent-A-Boyfriend or met me?” Harry asked playfully.
Nikky’s eyes went wide. “No! I’m definitely not saying that. Meeting you is the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered if he should have blurted them like that.
Dammit, he was supposed to be a cool, powerful celebrity, not a horny young guy who had finally ended up in bed with his older crush.
Maybe the role of innocent, painfully adorable teen idol really was the right persona for him.
Harry laughed, then leaned in to slant his mouth over Nikky’s.
The kiss managed to be hot and reassuring at the same time, despite their morning breath.
Nikky didn’t care about how badly they needed showers and toothbrushes.
He kissed Harry back, so grateful that Harry wanted him and full of promise about what they could have together.
Harry must have been thinking something similar.
He hummed deep in his throat and rolled Nikky to his back, keeping Nikky’s one leg over his hip so that it brought their cocks into even closer contact.
He gyrated enough to cause friction that had Nikky sucking in a breath and way closer to coming than he wanted to be so quickly.
“I’m glad Javier called in a favor to get me to pretend to date you,” Harry said with a possessive growl. “I might not even be pretending anymore.”
Nikky gasped, but the sound and the emotions raised by Harry’s confession were immediately drowned, maybe deliberately, as Harry dove in for another raw kiss.
Nikky was helpless under the power and surety of the way Harry kissed him, the way Harry seemed to own his soul as he devoured his mouth and moved his hands possessively over his body.
Nikky loved it. Maybe he should have been less of a pillow princess, but being able to let go completely and surrender himself to the control of a man who knew a hell of a lot more about the world and life was incredibly freeing.
He wouldn’t mind if Harry wanted to take him back to that BDSM club and—
A sudden thought threw Nikky completely out of the moment. He gasped and pushed Harry back.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked, instantly full of concern.
“Shit. We made a sex tape,” Nikky said, eyes wide and heart pounding.
Harry blinked down at him, then nodded slowly and said, “Yeah.”
They didn’t need words. The way the two of them looked at each other was all the communication needed.
“We’re not releasing that,” Nikky said, blood racing through him and skin prickling with anxiety and embarrassment that the recording even existed.
“We’re definitely not,” Harry laughed, then dipped down for another careful kiss.
Nikky let out a breath in relief. Thank God Harry was on the same page as him. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Harry insisted on releasing the recording.
“It was just an excuse,” he admitted once they broke their kiss long enough to come up for air. “The recording, I mean.”
Harry smiled down at him like Nikky was the most adorable thing in existence. “Yeah, I kind of figured,” he said.
“I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to ask for the things I want,” Nikky blurted, feeling more than a little like a bottle of soda whose lid had just blown off.
Or maybe like an overfull trashcan that had just been knocked over by raccoons, spilling junk everywhere.
“I’ve always struggled to stand up for myself.
It’s not that I don’t know what I want, but when you grow up in foster care, when you see kids being moved on, whether they want to be or not, you learn fast to shut up and put up.
You’ll do anything not to be sent to another home, and even though Pamela and Brad kept me, they never talked about adopting me, so I had to—”
“Shh, shh. Baby, it’s okay,” Harry silenced his verbal explosion, pressing two fingers to Nikky’s lips. “It’s okay. I get it.”
Nikky wasn’t sure it was fully possible for Harry to really get it, but at least he was trying. “You don’t get over things like that,” he said, sighing and forcing his body to relax. Feeling Harry’s weight on top of him really helped to calm him. “They haunt you forever.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” Harry said, back to stroking Nikky’s face. He was doing it deliberately to calm him, and Nikky loved that. It did calm him. Everything about Harry calmed him and filled him with confidence.