STORY EXCERPT

The next couple of days passed by in a fantastic, wonderful blur. Aside from the exercises he had to do with his personal trainer to maintain his physique, Rowan still had to deal with multiple interviews, and most of the questions were still repetitive. It seemed to him as if he had to provide the same answers from one person to the next. However, his nights were amazing. He and Sean spent them at his estate. On both evenings, they had dinner in the pagoda in the garden. Glass walls and door had been installed during the daytime, so the pagoda was now more or less insulated from the cooler autumn weather. It was an awesome surprise for Sean, and Rowan was excited that his boyfriend was very appreciative about it. He even promised to add a cooling and heating system within the pagoda, and they should be ready in a matter of days.

Sean also spent the nights with him. He liked the sight of his walk-in closet so much more now that some of Sean’s clothes were hanging next to his. He knew Sean must have noticed the insane amount of clothes, shoes, socks, ties, belts, and various other items in his walk-in closet. The closet itself was the size of five or even six bedrooms in his house. After all, he had costumes for his past concerts in there, as well. He was thankful Sean wasn’t a nosy person. His boyfriend never rummaged through his private things, and he was more than relieved about that since all his awards were inside multiple shelves in the library, which was still off-limits to Sean so far.

He wanted to come clean about his celebrity status to Sean, but he was enjoying the fact that his boyfriend wasn’t treating him differently from a regular man. He realized he was being unfair to Sean. A part of him believed that Sean would still look at him the same way, but there was a part of him that was terrified. It was irrational, but he couldn’t help it. Conflicting thoughts flooded through his mind as he was going through all his investments with Kelly. She was one of the most reliable people in his life, and that was the reason he trusted her to deal with the financial records from all his businesses and investments, which naturally included his earnings and taxes for his music stuff. The two of them had just finished checking through everything when Amy barged into the living room. He noticed Amy was panicking slightly, which was quite unusual. Amy was always so calm and collected. This was an unprecedented occurrence indeed.

“Amy, what—”

“They have videos and photographs everywhere.”

Rowan scrunched up his face in confusion while Kelly sat in silence on the couch across the table from him. “I don’t understand.”

Amy hurried to the empty spot next to Rowan on the couch and handed him printouts of some pictures. There was even a screenshot of a video. Rowan took one glance at the photographs, and his heart felt as if it dropped all the way down to the ground. All of them showed him and Sean chatting with each other. They weren’t scandalous, but the screenshot of the video was obviously him kissing Sean. He remembered that evening. It was at the Chinese restaurant right outside the pagoda as they were leaving the premises. This wasn’t the way he wanted to come out to the world, and he wasn’t ashamed of his sexuality, but he was more concerned about Sean. The only saving grace in the situation was that Sean’s face in all the photographs and in the screenshot of the video wasn’t crystal clear. In fact, they were all somewhat blurry.

“They’re everywhere. Some people had even created gifs of you and Sean kissing or the ones with your hand on his lower back.”

“I…”

There were a few seconds of extended silence. Then Amy gazed at Rowan, obviously sympathetic.

“Ro, I don’t want you to hide your sexuality forever, but fifteen years ago, right when your career was taking off, it had seemed to me like the prudent thing to do, especially since members of the public weren’t as accepting of the LGBT community back then. What do you want to do? We’re all behind you one hundred percent. Once you’ve decided, we can do damage control and take back the rein from those damn gossip sites. Tamara will deal with the social media stuff. Rita will handle the public relation stuff with the brands. We can ask Jamal to send a legal letter to all the sites to take down all the photographs and the few videos if—”

“No.” Rowan cut Amy off. “I should have come out sooner than this. I’m more worried about Sean. We need to hire two or three bodyguards to protect him. In this day and age, I’m sure plenty of people will be able to locate his home address and place of work within minutes. This is my fault. I need to shield him from the impact.”

Amy nodded. “Consider that done. I’ll send three new bodyguards to the high school in the next hour. What about you?”

Rowan racked his brain for a few minutes before he made up his mind on the proper course of action. “Contact Helen’s people, please.”

“Helen Deveneroux?”

“Yes. Request for her to slot me in for an interview as soon as possible. In the meantime, ignore everyone else. I’ll keep a low profile until after my appearance on Helen’s show.”

ADULT EXCERPT

All of a sudden, Sean burst out laughing. Rowan turned to face Sean in astonishment. He was worried the stress from his true identity had somehow pushed Sean to the brink of insanity. He yearned to utter something calming and reassuring, but Sean was guffawing loudly and incessantly. He didn’t get the chance to say anything. Then Sean pushed him against the wall in the corridor. He was so surprised, he stumbled backward. He gulped as Sean was now pressed flush against him while grinning up at him.

“No wonder you and Catherine were so astounded during our first meeting at the coffee shop. Then there were those flashing lights from within the private dining rooms of the pagodas at the Chinese restaurant.”

Rowan was taken aback to hear that. “What flashing lights?”

“After our dinner date was over. You didn’t notice them, but I did. I thought the patrons were celebrating and taking pictures of themselves.”

Rowan gaped for a brief moment. Then he buried his face into the crook of Sean’s neck and shoulder as his whole body shuddered from holding back his amusement and relief. He was glad Sean seemed to be fine, and he could now see the hilarity of their situation.

“I honestly didn’t pay attention to the other pagodas.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wasn’t able to stop ogling the sexiest, most gorgeous man who was willing to date my sorry ass.”

Sean blushed. “Liar.”

“Truth. Remember our first meeting at the coffee shop?”

“What about it?”

“I could have chosen to sit with some of the other customers. You weren’t the only solitary customer who had an empty chair at the table.”

“No?”

Rowan shook his head. “It was love at first sight for me.”

“Liar.”

Rowan snickered. “Okay. It wasn’t. It was lust at first sight. I had wanted you so desperately the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

Sean chuckled and looked up into Rowan’s eyes. “Now, that I can believe.”

Rowan shrugged and leaned in closer to whisper into Sean’s ear with a raspy voice. “I remember my hard cock straining and throbbing inside my pants as I had slowly made my way to the table where you were seated at.”

Sean chuckled. “And?”

“I’m sure you can fill in the blanks.”

“Tell me.”

“I had this burning need to sheath my cock inside your tight ass and pump you full of my cum.”

Sean slipped both arms around Rowan’s waist and rutted against him. “Were you as hard as you are right now? Harder than my dick is now?”

“Much harder, baby. I wanted to fuck you so bad.”

“What’s stopping you?”

Rowan cupped Sean’s cheeks in the palms of his hands. “Are you sure?”

Sean nodded. “Yeah. Our test results are back, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. I got mine this morning. I’m all good. You?”

“Same.”

Rowan trembled in anticipation. “Does this mean we can—?”

“Yes!”

Rowan shut his eyes for a few seconds as he attempted to regain control of himself. “To the bedroom, baby.”

“For a nice, warm shower?” Sean teased as the two of them walked briskly toward the staircases and climbed up one step at a time.

“Fuck the shower,” Rowan half snarled because he was going insane with lust and desperation.

“Don’t you want me fresh and clean? I’d been in school the entire day.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rowan replied as he dragged Sean up the last few steps before tugging his boyfriend in the direction of the master bedroom. “You’ll be sweaty and sticky when I finish making love to you.”

Sean chuckled. “Since you’ll be marking the inside of my ass with your cum, should I rub my cum all over you?”

“Anything, baby.”

Sean chortled, and Rowan knew then and there he would never get tired of hearing that sound for the rest of his life. When they were finally inside the bedroom, he reached for Sean’s button-down shirt with both hands and tore it to shreds. Sean gaped at him with the shock written all over his gorgeous face.

“Ro, have you lost your mind? That’s my favorite shirt. You—”

Rowan shut Sean up with a demanding kiss as he led them to the bed. It was rough and dominant, and he slid his tongue into Sean’s mouth, tasting every nook and crevice within. Then their tongues battled against each other as he proceeded to rip Sean’s pants off of his lover’s lower half. Sean protested and grumbled against his mouth. However, a few seconds later, his own shirt was left in tatters when Sean pulled at it with a lot of force. That drove him even crazier, and he simply had to help Sean take his pants off. When they were both naked, he took a few seconds to admire his man’s beautiful body. He loved that Sean was openly admiring him, too.