Mr. Hollywood’s Secret by Adora Crooks
Nico
It’s Eric’s last meal.
His last meal as a gay man, anyway. Tomorrow, he’ll go to Paris for a conference and then hop across two more cities for interviews with his fake fiancée on his arm. Tomorrow, he’ll be Eric North, the most heterosexual man in Hollywood.
He’s certainly eating as though it’s his last meal. And drinking. I haven’t been counting—I try not to count; best not to micromanage these things—but I’m pretty sure he polished off two very expensive bottles of pinot noir all on his own.
The night drags on, his sentences begin to slur, and one by one, our guests politely bow out before things get ugly. All but one.
“Do you need a hand with that?”
I glance up from my spot at the sink. Alex, our lingering friend, rolls up the sleeves of his button-up.
“No,” I tell him, “but since you made the mistake of volunteering, you’re welcome to dry.”
Alex steps in beside me, takes the dish towel, and starts patting the dishes dry as I pass them over. He’s a trans man, and he’s butterflied quite beautifully, with bulky biceps, a handsome beard, and a couple of facial accessories: a bottom lip piercing and eyebrow ring. Long before I met Eric, Alex and I dated for a couple of months. I’ve never dated on a binary—men, women, and everyone in between…it doesn’t matter how you identify, as far as I’m concerned, as long as the connection is there. Alex and I shared a warm, placid relationship and ended on good terms.
Eric only got prickly about me being friends with an ex once. He can get possessive, and it came out in a bad flare. “I don’t know that I like the idea of eating across from a guy who’s seen you naked,” Eric had said.
“Well,” I’d responded, “I don’t like the idea of you flirting with your co-stars for the camera, but I suppose we both have to make sacrifices.”
He’d shut up about it after that.
Our relationship only works as long as we have rules—outlined and carefully observed. I respect his boundaries: I never ask for more than he can give. He, in turn, respects mine: he doesn’t get to tell me who to be friends with.
This is the precarious structure that keeps our house of cards upright.
“Eric is sloshed,” Alex comments as he stacks dishes in the rack.
“I’ve noticed.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“He’s built like a horse. He’ll metabolize it soon enough.”
“No—I mean the woman.”
Ah. The woman. As though she is some evil force to be reckoned with. She-who-must-not-be-named.
“Chrys. I think they’re a good match.” Scrub, scrub, scrub. Steak sauce refuses to leave the plate. “We were friends in college. She’s fun. Who knows, maybe she’ll even loosen him up.”
Alex lets out a heavy sigh. “How much longer is he going to put you through this?”
I feel my bones stiffen. How many times have we had this conversation? “It’s not easy for him, either.”
“No. It’s not good for either of you,” Alex presses. “It’s toxic to deny who you are. I should know. He’s miserable. You’re miserable. Something’s got to give.”
“Alex.” I turn off the faucet, forcing him to look at me. “Yes. The situation is complicated. But Eric loves me. Deeply. And I love him. No matter what, we have that.”
“Is that enough?” Alex asks.
Before I have time to respond, the porch door slides open. Eric’s bare feet slap on the tiled floors. “What’s going on here?” he asks. As though we’re building bombs or something.
“Dishes,” I respond. “Would you like to help?”
Alex dries his hands off on the dish towel. “It’s getting late. I should head out.”
I tell him to drive safe. We embrace briefly, and he clasps Eric on the shoulder. I hear the front door open and close behind him. I turn back to the sink, rinsing off the last plate. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Eric reach up to grab a glass from the top shelf. His shirt slides up as he does, and I can’t help but sneak a peak of his bare midriff. The well-defined lines of his abdomen. That perfect V steaming from the loose fit of his pants across hips.
I don’t normally consider myself shallow, but he is proof that we are all sculpted in the image of the gods. He is molded after Ares, maybe, the god of war and mischief.
He tilts the glass to the filter on our fridge and fills it with water. He isn’t as young as he used to be; his hangover will level him tomorrow if he doesn’t take care of it now.
“Did you have fun tonight?” I ask.
“Mmhm.” He drains the cup.
I’m not a proponent of getting sloppy drunk, but there is something nice about the way he looks right now. His hair is mussed. His eyes are warm. My warrior has taken off his armor for the night.
“Sadie and Penny seem cute,” I venture. Scrub, scrub. Lather, lather. “What do you think?”
“It won’t last.”
“Someone’s cynical tonight.”
“It’s true. Sadie will eat her alive.”
“I thought that was a good thing in lesbian culture.”
“Speaking of eating.” He’s behind me now—I can feel the warmth of his body. He puts down his glass and latches his strong fingers in the waistband of my pants. “You’re a snack,” he murmurs in my ear.
I chuckle. “You’ve been drinking.”
“And I just downed a glass of water.”
“I don’t think it works quite that fast.” His lips tease my throat. The sharpness of his teeth makes me gasp. “You should go to bed.”
“Only if you come with me.”
“I will. In just a minute.”
“Can’t wait a minute.”
Eric North is used to getting what he wants. And why wouldn’t he be—he’s rich, famous, and his body is so attractive, he’s contractually obligated (I’m not kidding about this) to have at least one shirtless scene in every one of his movies.
He turns me around to face him. The counter bites into my rear as he presses me into it, and he kisses the corner of my mouth. My hands are wet, but I loop my fingers into his jeans, holding him in place. I like his weight on me.
“You’re aggressive tonight,” I notice.
“You like it.”
He’s not wrong about that. I get weak in the knees when he gives me that look—when his blue eyes go sharp and hard. Dominant doesn’t even begin to describe Eric North.
But this is different. When he kisses me fully on the lips, I taste how frantic he is. He’s desperate. Manic. Wound tight by all the pressure of everything that’s on his shoulders.
And he wants to fuck it all away. Well, I’m happy to distract, but if my body is going to be used, it’ll be on my terms.
“Open your mouth,” he says, so I do. He cups my face in his hand and presses his thumb past my teeth. His hands are huge, and I feel the digit explore my teeth, grip my jaw. I wrap my lips around it and swirl my tongue around his thumb suggestively.
The act draws a growl from him—a sound that always makes my toes curl. “Be a good boy and get on your knees,” he demands.
I put my hand on his wrist and remove it from my face. “No,” I tell him simply.
His eyes flicker with confusion at the foreign word. “No?”
“No,” I repeat firmly. Then I draw my fingers through his hair—through the salt-and-pepper, down to the greying bits on the edge. “Be a good boy and get on your knees.”
I rarely take control. Those aren’t the roles that we’re familiar with. I expect a protest from him, maybe. Instead, the look in his eyes shifts. I deepen the pressure on his head, and he lets me, lowering himself to the floor.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, Eric is a gargoyle—stone-cold and assertive. But every now and then, in the safe quiet of our relationship, he’s a complete puppy dog. Just for me. He needs this as much as I do—I can tell by the way he grips my hips and nuzzles my crotch. The friction draws a lengthy sigh from me. His large fingers fumble open my pants, and he pulls my cock out, already half-hard for him and growing in his hand. Those eyes—grey blue and stormy—meet mine as he takes me in his mouth.
My breath goes ragged as my cock swells to full mast between his lips. It’s the look in his eyes that gets me, that hungry, ravenous look—he’s the wolf that could devour little Red in one bite but nibbles her toes instead.
“Good boy,” I murmur, knowing that this feral man is domesticated only for me. I rake my fingers through his hair, nails on his scalp, and the noise that leaves him is somewhere between a growl and a purr. He swallows me into the velvet warmth of his mouth, and my head falls back as I moan.
God bless Eric North. I’m well-endowed, and yet he takes me without complaint, swallowing me to my hilt.
It’s good, it’s very good, and my self-control breaks. I’ve forgotten about the dishes, the party, the cleanup, the closet, Eric’s twisted manager, and the deal they made with Chrys—nothing matters except me, him, and the pleasure that twists deliciously through my entire body with every contraction of his throat and swipe of his tongue.
“Fuck,” I swear, words tumbling from my lips, “God, you’re so good…I love you…I love you, I love you, te amo…”
His head bobs underneath my fingers; he reads my body impeccably, knows exactly where to lick and suck to draw me to my precipice. I’m there, hanging on the edge when he pulls back. When I leave his lips, I’m throbbing and coated in his saliva, and the air feels too cold.
He rises to his feet—and he’s my Eric again, and I’m his—and when he pulls me into a crushing kiss, I know I’ll do whatever he wants.
“Take off your clothes,” he demands, his voice low and hoarse.
I do, quickly unbuttoning my shirt and pushing my pants the rest of the way off my legs. He yanks his shirt over his head and leaves his jeans in a heap on the floor with mine.
And—God. He’s a sight. Broad chest, smattered with dark curly hair that drops like sand from an hourglass down his middle. Those tight abs, bulging biceps. His cock is stiff, meaty, and the sight of it makes my own mouth water.
He guides me onto the kitchen island—the very island that, not hours ago, I was slicing bell peppers on for dinner—and hoists me on top of it. We kiss as he positions me how he wants me, on the edge of the table, underneath him, my legs hooked around his hips.
He stalls, though, and I notice him glancing around the kitchen.
“What are you—?”
My question is answered when Eric grabs the bottle of olive oil, shakes it out into his palm, then sets the bottle back down and lubricates his shaft with oil.
I laugh. “What am I now, a salad?”
“Call me Caesar,” he murmurs as he hovers over me, one hand planted beside my head, the other positioning himself at my entrance.
“Hail—” I start, but that’s the only word I get out before my breath leaves my body in a sharp gasp.
Eric is big, and no matter how many times we have sex (which is a lot), he always makes me see stars with the first thrust. I grip his arm tightly, and my legs fall to the side, forcing myself to relax into it. The muscles of his bicep flex against my hand as he rolls against me, moving in and out of me. He kisses my throat, nibbles my collarbone, my chest. The first jolt of pain quickly dissolves into pleasure, and I begin to moan.
He picks up the pace, thrusting over me, diving in deeper. Just when I think nothing can feel better, he wraps his oil-slick fingers around my dick and begins pumping me. My thighs tremble, hooked onto his hips, and there’s nothing I can do now to stop the pleasure bursting from me.
Eric kisses me right as I cry out. My whimpers are lost inside his mouth as he strokes my orgasm from me; I coat my chest, my stomach. I’m a mess, panting and licking the inside of his mouth as he gives a final shuddering thrust, a deep groan, and spills over inside of me.
Pleasure ebbs and flows between us, and we lie here for a moment, catching our breath. I love him like this, blissed-out, his heavy weight on top of me, all of his worries—for a moment—gone.
My thigh is starting to cramp around his waist, but I don’t want to move, not yet. I hold him against my chest, my fingers deep in his hair, and he scoops me into his arms, his hand on the back of my neck.
We’re tangled, sweaty, spent. But we can’t stay here forever.
“I love you,” he murmurs. When he says it like this—his voice heavy and thick—I know he means it.
I twist his hair between my fingers. “I love you too.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Je sais, mon amour,” I urge into his ear. “But it’s France.”