Page 110 of Wear It Like a Crown

Leo looked away, presenting Joshua with the clear line of his profile. His answer was barely audible. “Not now you wouldn’t. But maybe in a fight. Maybe you would one day, if we don’t handle the public stuff right and it all blows up and you hear all those insinuations about me, about how I’m using you…”

“I wouldn’t believe some nasty strangers over what I see with my own eyes,” Joshua told him, already reaching out again. “Ever.”

Leo sagged like a balloon that had been pierced. All the fight went out of him and he fisted his hands into the sheets, bunching them up. He didn’t shy away from the hand Joshua wrapped around his elbow, instead lifted his head to meet Joshua’s gaze, his tone serious and heavy. “Still. You can’t buy me expensive gifts. It wouldn’t be right.”

After a quiet moment, Joshua nodded. “Okay.” He paused to gather his thoughts, continuing slowly, like taking steps on thin ice. “But there will be expenses that you’ll havebecauseof me, expenses you wouldn’t have otherwise. Like, when you accompany me to an event, for example, and you’d be expected to wear expensive bespoke clothing. Or travelling on official Crown business. I don’t do that often because it’s mostly Ems, but still, it will happen. And it would be unfair if you had to cover things like that.”

“Oh, I thought I’d just show up in a ratty old T-shirt and a cap,” Leo put in lightly.

Joshua shot him a tiny smile and stayed silent, waiting. He kept his fingers loosely clasped around Leo’s elbow, and after a long, lurching beat, Leo sighed. His eyes narrowed in consideration, and when he spoke again, all humour had drained from his voice. “I see your point. And I guess I could—things like that. I could accept them from you. But you willnotjust go out and buy me stuff, got it? You will run everything past me first, and then we’ll decide together.”

“Together,” Joshua echoed. Weirdly, it felt as though he had just swum ten miles, his muscles a little shaky. He hesitated before he squeezed Leo’s elbow, leaning in a little. “Hey. Do I please, please get permission to spoil you once in a while?” He continued quickly to head off Leo’s protest. “No expensive gifts, I promise. Just things like cooking you dinner, or a trip to one of our country homes, which doesn’t cost me anything but fuel. A generous stock of your favourite cereal and tea at my flat. Scented toilet paper.”

When Leo gave a soft snort, Joshua knew it was half the victory already. They’d be all right; they’d figure this out.

Still Leo took his time examining the idea from several angles before he gave a slow nod. “That works for me. But as for other things, such as… luxury resorts in exotic locations, that sort of thing. I’m not poor, for the record. James pays me well enough. Just maybe not quite enough to afford your jet-set lifestyle.”

Joshua bit back his first, thoughtless impulse to extend his offer to paying for whatever holiday they spent together. “Then I’ll adapt,” he said instead. “Within the constraints of security requirements, that is.”

“Fair enough.” A smile flitted over Leo’s face. “Seriously, you’d be willing to go camping? Not saying I’d even want that, but if I asked, you’d go, right? Christ, you really are completely gone for me.”

“Save the smug,” Joshua told him, smiling back. It quickly grew into a smirk. “Hey. This reminds me that I’ve always wanted to own an island. Maybe something in the Caribbean Sea? I should talk to my mum about investment in property. And, I mean, camping on a deserted island sounds plenty romantic to me.”

Leo’s expression was a cross between disbelief and amused indulgence. The latter won out after only a second. “Romantic? Yeah, I’ll remind you when you’re whining about insects in the tent and your back not being used to sleeping on a camping mat.”

For a moment, Joshua considered pursuing that further—Leo must have slept outside on a camping mat numerous times, sheltered only by a bridge or some doorway. Joshua wanted to whisk Leo’s younger version away to a safe place that provided him with a hot meal and a soft bed whenever he needed it, a place that would ask for nothing in return.

Joshua’s questions could wait, though. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to preserve the gentle glow of happiness in Leo’s eyes.

He poked Leo in the chest and raised a challenging brow. “Guess you’ll just have to make it worth my while, then.”

“I shall consider it my duty to the country,” Leo said primly. He broke character when he laughed once, loudly, and tackled Joshua into the sheets.

In theory, they should get ready. In reality, the others could wait a bit longer. Joshua figured they’d earned every minute they could steal for themselves. He shoved away all thoughts of this being the calm before the impending storm, caught Leo’s mouth in a deep kiss and yielded when Leo pressed him into the mattress.

* * *

Right as they left the hotel, Leo was hit with a bout of unease at the realisation that whatever Joshua had suspected about Leo’s past, he’d certainly shared it with Tristan and Mo. Trying to hide his uncertainty, he remarked on how the Pão de Açúcar indeed looked like asugarloaf, how it reminded him of winter in a Swiss ski cottage with his family, of soaking a sugarloaf in rum and setting it on fire so that it dripped into mulled wine. Tristan jumped on that and demanded details, then set about planning aFeuerzangenbowletheme night in November. The way he casually included Leo in his scheming—into an event that would take place months from now—eased the tight clench of Leo’s stomach.

Skipping a few steps ahead, he teased Joshua about not keeping up, which ended with both of them beaming at each other. Shortly after that, Mo sent Leo a crinkly-eyed smile, which finally allowed Leo to relax. If Mo’s approval was in part due to Nate’s hand entwined with his… Well, Leo wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He also wasn’t going to think about how he and Joshua would need to cross about half a million bridges before they could do the same in public. Nope.

As it turned out, Rio de Janeiro was board shorts and flip flops, was a mosaic of colourful tiles that lined the Escadaria Selarón. It was rhythmic music pouring from open windows and youths kicking a football over a net. It was the smell of freshly grilled meat, of traffic exhaust and piss, of concrete.

Late into the evening they were snuck in through the backdoor of a club that played live music, something calledChorinhothat sounded like a Brazilian kind of New Orleans jazz. Their table was set above the main section of the club, granting them the kind of privacy that allowed Leo to lean into Joshua, alcohol bubbling in his blood and his hand high up on Joshua’s thigh, playing with the inseam of Joshua’s trousers until he was watching him with dark, hooded eyes.

By the time they returned to the hotel, the sky was already starting to brighten. All they managed were quick, sleepy hand jobs in the shower before falling into bed, naked and loose, curled into each other.

Leo woke to Joshua’s fingers pressing into him, slick with lube, and it took his foggy mind a second to make sense of the sensation. He remembered his own words with a start—I want to wake up with your fingersinside of me—and gasped, still partially tangled in dreams. His hips twitched up when Joshua’s mouth wrapped around the tip of his cock.

Joshua lifted off a moment later, slithering up Leo’s body to smile at him with wild hair and bright eyes, a pillow crease imprinted on one cheek. He was so incredibly lovely, and his happiness was all for Leo.Joshuawas all for Leo.

“Can I?” Joshua asked in a hushed whisper, smile widening at whatever it was he must have seen on Leo’s face. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Leo mumbled, barely coherent.

Joshua brushed a kiss against his mouth, and Leo was slow to move into it, mind still hazy with sleep and the radiance of a new day that streamed in through the open windows. He parted his thighs for Joshua, shifted to let Joshua slide a pillow under his back and then melted into the mattress, accommodating the weight of Joshua’s body. After that it was all languid, drowsy movements of Joshua’s hips, nudging deep and staying like that, shifting back by only an inch before driving back in. At some point, the heat collecting under Leo’s skin became too much. Wrapping his legs around Joshua’s waist, he sought to control the pace, and Joshua let him.

Later, cooling down, Joshua raised his head off the pillow and smoothed his palm from Leo’s stomach over his ribs, up to the letters inked across his collarbones. Gently, Joshua traced the contours with the tip of his index finger. “You told me it was a sad story,” he whispered. “Are you willing to talk about it?”