Page 36 of Cocky Bastard

I laughed again and tugged him in for a kiss. “That’d be fucking awful.”

“I know, right? They might think I like you.”

“How dare they.”

He grinned against my mouth as I kissed him again. “It’ll be fun,” he said. “I’ll let Miles know so he’s not totally caught out, but he helped Jason Lu with all his coming out stuff, so I don’t think it’ll faze him.”

“Wait, do you share an agent with Henry’s brother?”

“Yeah, because it’s a small world. And I picked Miles deliberately because of what he did for Jason.”

I frowned, racking my brains for information about Jason, but nothing popped up. “You can explain that to me later,” I said, giving him another kiss before sitting back in my chair and reaching for my coffee. It had started to go cold and I was debating being a heathen and warming up the dregs in the microwave. “I’m guessing I’ll need a nice suit for New York? And to book some plane tickets? What about a hotel room?”

“I have a room already booked, so you can stay with me,” Kane said brightly. “And I can give you my flight information if you want to book your own, or I can get you added to my booking.”

“Yeah, that works. I’ll send you all my passport stuff. And just let me know how much I owe you.”

He waved his hand. “It’s fine, trust me. You’re coming as my date. The least I can do is pay for your flight. Especially since it’s such short notice.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” He looked genuinely surprised by my question and it reminded me that we’d never really talked about money before, which was such a rich asshole thing to do I almost snorted. And even though it was obvious that neither of us was hurting for money, it needed to be something we talked about in case one of us had random expectations.

“Okay, we’ll call it even,” I said. “Since coming as your date is going to be such ahorribleexperience for me.”

He grinned. “I’m sure you’ll suffer through it, especially if there’s a bar at the afterparty.”

“Well, if there’s a bar…”

“Imighteven put out afterwards. If you’re lucky.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” I said with a wink before draining the last of my coffee. I tried not to pull a face at how grimly cold it was. “In all seriousness, though, are you sure about going public with everything?”

“Yeah, I am.” He nodded. “I want everyone to know how I feel about you.” A frown folded itself into his forehead as he looked at me. “Are you?”

“Yeah, I mean it’s been a long time coming. But I guess…” I thought for a second, wondering how to put my thoughts into words in a way that didn’t make me sound like a complete wanker. “You’re okay with being in a public relationship with a porn star? Because I’ve never shied away from what I do, and there’s a lot of video evidence of my work all over the internet. It’s not exactly hard to find a picture of my dick. And I want you to know what you’re getting yourself in for. Because people are gonna have opinions, and it’s not going to be pretty. You’re working so hard to carve out this place for yourself, and I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

It was hard admitting that, but if we needed to keep our relationship a secret for a while to keep Kanan’s career safe, then I’d do it. It wasn’t like we hadn’t been doing it for ten years already.

Kanan sighed and looked out at the garden, watching a robin hop across the back wall, a cup of tea clutched in both hands and one leg crossed over the other. “I don’t want to hide,” he said. “I’m not ashamed of you or what you do. And I don’t want you to stop doing what you love either—porn is your thing, and it’s not like you have feelings for the people you work with. It’s justa job, right? The same as if I ever film sex scenes… which I think I’ll have to do forLlewelyn.”

“We can talk about that if you’re nervous,” I said. “I know it won’t be the same as what I do, but I can give you some pointers about feeling comfortable being pretty much naked in front of other people.”

“I’d like that.” He looked over at me and smiled. There was a warmth to it that felt much deeper than casual affection. This wasn’t the start of some new relationship where we were trying things out to see if they worked and whether we’d get on. This was so much more… the solidifying of something we’d known all along but had just fought and denied until we couldn’t run away anymore. “But I mean it, Austin. I want everyone to know about us. We’ve waited for long enough, and I’m not hiding. And if people don’t like it… I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“As long as you’re sure,” I said, my heart swelling with emotion. I’d never been ashamed of what I did, but I’d always accepted there were a lot of men who wouldn’t want a relationship with me because of it. And to have Kanan accept me meant more than I’d ever imagined. “And you’re sure about the work shit too? You’re happy for me to keep filming. I know we’ve never talked about exclusivity but I always assumed we kind of were? And with my work…”

“I assumed we were exclusive too. I don’t think I could cope with dating you and someone else, far too much stress.” He shot me a teasing wink and grinned. “And yes, of course I’m happy for you to keep filming. Would it be weird if I asked to meet some of your porn friends, though? I know some of them aren’t just guys you work with.”

“Yeah, we can do that.” I grinned and then shook my head with a chuckle. Theo was going to be so fucking insufferable when I told him.

“What?” Kanan asked, tilting his head to one side as he looked at me.

“Just… one of the guys I film with, Theo, he called me out on my shit recently. Told me it was obvious how I felt about you and that I should talk to you… Anyway, he’s going to be so fucking smug when he finds out. And if you think you can be a brat, then Theo’s elevated it to a fucking art form. His boyfriend needs to give him a good spanking, honestly. Although he’d love that, so…” I chuckled again. “You’ll love him, though. He’s sweet as fuck.”

“I can’t wait,” he said and there was a genuine excitement in his voice that made me want to keel over because fuck, could this man get any more perfect? “And the next time you’re in London I’d love to take you out for lunch with Luke.”

“Is that your ex?” I asked with a grin. I remembered Luke from the days when Kanan had snuck out of hotel rooms to be with me just hours after a press event with his supposed boyfriend. I was glad he and Kanan had kept in touch because they’d been good together, even just as friends.

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