Page 36 of Not Your Golden Boy

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.

He didn’t want to let Harry go. The power of that realization had him tensing up all over again. He wanted to be with Harry. He needed Harry’s strength and influence as he worked with Albion, but he would need it after as well. After, when he was supposed to return to L.A. to work on an indie film and to record a soundtrack for the pilot of a new TV show, both jobs his agent had lined up for him right as Cooked had ignited the rocket of his career.

“Hey,” Harry said, concern back in his voice. “Tell me what brought this on.”

The fact that Harry had sensed the change in him was deeply wonderful.

“I want to be with you,” he confessed before he could shrink back into himself and become the rudderless people-pleaser that he’d always been. For a change, he wanted to please himself. “I’m only in London for a limited time, and I know we only just met, really, but I want to be with you. I want this to be more than a fake arrangement. I want⁠—”

Harry silenced him with fingers to his lips again, but this time, it made Nikky panic instead of soothing him. Did Harry not want the same things?

“It’s okay,” Harry said, his voice as calm as ever and his eyes soft with caring that was totally unlike the persona the man projected to the world. “We can’t worry about the future before it gets here.”

“But—”