Page 23 of Not Your Golden Boy

Nikky peeked up at Harry. He felt sheepish and was just trying to focus on the man, but the way Harry took a quick breath and flushed slightly hinted that Nikky looked less than innocent.

“They’re not supposed to be good,” he said quietly, pushing a hand through his curls, then rubbing his eyes. “They’re supposed to shock people and make them stop paying so much attention to me.”

They were meant to wreck his image before Holberg could jump in and do it for him. They were supposed to take away the thing that held Holberg’s interest so he would get bored and find another celebrity to stalk.

Harry shrugged one shoulder. “They’re changing the narrative, which is exactly what you wanted.”

How Harry could be so calm about things was a mystery to Nikky.

“I don’t know about any of this,” Nikky sighed, rubbing his face again and praying that the paracetamol would take effect quickly. “I don’t know if it will work.”

“Hey.” Harry squeezed his knee, causing Nikky to freeze, even though the gesture was supportive and not a prelude to more. “You had fun, right?”

Nikky bit his lip and met Harry’s eyes. There was so much confidence and humor in those dark depths that Nikky couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah,” he said, blowing out a breath.

“Good.” Harry clapped his knee, then stood. “Why don’t you pop into the shower. Your clothes from yesterday are on the bureau over there.” He pointed to the side of the room where Nikky spotted not the clubbing clothes, but his jeans and shirt from earlier in the day. “We probably have time to run back to your hotel before today’s recording session if you want fresh clothes, or there’s about a dozen shops within a stone’s throw that sell vintage clothing. But you’d have to borrow a pair of my underwear, since I doubt they sell that.”

He was teasing, Nikky was sure. There was too much of a glimmer in Harry’s eyes for it to be anything else. But the prospect of wearing Harry’s underwear was so intimate that it had Nikky’s cock taking notice again.

That was not anywhere close to what he needed. Harry was a friend, a savior, someone who he’d technically hired to help him accomplish a mission.

He was also Nikky’s fantasy, hot as hell, and seemingly dedicated to looking out for him in a way that turned Nikky’s insides to mush and made him miss the leather collar he’d worn to the club the night before.

Never in a million years would he have pegged himself as kinky, but after last night, after the way Harry was so intent on taking care of him, the prospect of wearing a collar and kneeling at Harry’s feet didn’t feel as farfetched or wrong as it should have.

He shook his head, which was a bad idea, all things considered, to push the uncomfortably tempting thought away. “I’ll wear what I wore yesterday,” he said, shuffling like he would get out of bed, but not wanting to stand up and show off for Harry in just his underwear.

Actually, a deep part of him was dying to stand up and show off for Harry in just his underwear, especially since he wasn’t exactly soft. But that part was too scary to let loose just yet.

“Okay,” Harry said. He nodded to the open door. “The bathroom is across the hall. I’ve started breakfast, so I’ll keep going with that. You’ll have something to eat once you’re dressed.” Nikky made a face at the idea of food. “You have to eat something,” Harry admonished him like the caretaker he was. “You need fuel to beat a hangover.”

“Fine,” Nikky sighed.

His light petulance put a broad smile on Harry’s face. “See you in a second, baby,” he said, then left the room.

Nikky sighed and flopped back against the headboard, psyching himself to get up and move. He searched inside, looking for embarrassment and shame, but ended up smiling instead. He’d spent the night in Harry Bayonne’s bed. Harry had taken care of him and rescued him from the club in one piece. He’d introduced Nikky to half a dozen things he never would have seen or done otherwise.

It felt good. It felt like the two of them were connected for real instead of because Nikky had hired an agency to provide him with a fake boyfriend.

That was how things had started for Drew and Lee.

Thinking of his friend spurred Nikky to action. He got up, grabbing his phone, and opened the message from Drew as he gathered up his clothes from the night before to head to the bathroom.

“Harry took me to that club,” he typed to Drew. “It was more fun than I thought it would be. I thought people would turn against me for not living up to their expectations of being the perfect, good celebrity.”

He went to put his phone down and leave the room, but three dots appeared right away. He hung back and waited for Drew’s message to come through.

“Are you kidding?” Drew typed. “You looked super-hot. And like you were having a great time. People love a celebrity bad boy.”

Nikky gaped at those words. “Celebrity bad boy,” he murmured. That wasn’t him. That had never been him.

But that could be him.

The idea vibrated through Nikky’s entire body as he put his phone down and took his clothes across the hall to shower. That was the point, after all, the whole reason he’d gone to Rent-A-Boyfriend in the first place. He’d set out to destroy the image that had sprung up around him after the success of Cooked, an image he hadn’t planned on and didn’t feel comfortable with. He’d wanted to erase the character Hollywood had created for him, but he hadn’t given half as much thought to building up his own character, who he really was.

What if he actually was a darker character who got off on pain and wanted to kneel at the feet of an older, bolder man? A man who took care of him. What if he really did have something jagged in his soul, something bigger and more encompassing than the sweetness and amiability he’d worked hard to cultivate so someone in the foster system would want him and give him a stable home?

What if he had more of his mother’s brokenness in him than he’d ever let himself see?