Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Aren’t you reading it?”
“I know it already.” Vic shrugged blithely. “I’ll read it again when you give it back to me.”
Just in that, simple and direct was the question of whether or not Amani would be seeing Vic again. Whether he’d be back here Wednesday night, tumbled into Vic’s bed and watching him strain and gasp and struggle against both his need to submit and his need to rebel, his entire body a work of art in constant and tense conflict, pulled out taut to every extreme until he fell apart into this lax, entrancing, dissolved mess he was now. A mess who read children’s books; who gave himself over so willingly to everything Amani asked; who laughed in a way that melted away all the sternness around his eyes to leave him boyish and sweet and yielding and warm. Amani worried at his lower lip, then looked away, wiping the last of the lotion on his thighs and tucking his hair back.
“…I’ll give it a shot.”
Vic only looked at him, winter-blue eyes drawing on him, that small, thoughtful smile playing around his lips an unspoken enticement. One Amani told himself to pull away from, one he told himself to ignore, as he slid back from Vic and unfolded himself to stand.
“I should go,” he said. “I need to get home before it gets too late.”
But Vic reached out, lightly snagging the hem of his caftan in blunt fingertips, arresting him in his tracks. “Stay,” Vic pleaded softly. “Stay the night.”
Amani swallowed, closing his eyes and steeling himself. Some Dominant he was, when one quiet request could make his resolve weaken so quickly. “You only paid for a session, Vic. Let’s not confuse this for anything but what it is.”
“C’mon. Don’t make me Richard Gere this. Do I have to bargain out a rate?” With a sly, self-assured grin, Vic twisted over onto his back, sitting up against the headboard, so shamelessly bared with his cock resting against his thigh. Mock-innocence radiated from him as he stretched one arm out across the bed. “It’s a big bed. Very comfortable. And you won’t have to limp home to…where do you live, anyway?”
“Queens.” Amani rested his hands on his hips, compressing his lips. “And I most certainly would not be limping.”
Vic smirked, a heated glance raking over Amani. “You sure of that?”
Amani eyed him, then sighed and flumped down onto the bed. “I’ll stay, but not because of that pathetic reasoning.”
Sounding far too smug and self-satisfied, Vic draped a warm, heavy arm over Amani’s shoulders and gathered him close—and Amani, damn him, let him. “Then why are you staying?”
“Because,” Amani grumped, and wiggled a hand into his caftan until he found the hidden inside pocket and fished out his phone. “I’m sleepy, it’s cold, and I don’t want to put clothing on.”
“Good enough.”
Amani just grumbled and scrolled through his contacts until he found his mother’s and tapped out a quick text. Staying at a friend’s tonight to study. Will be home in the morning.
Lying to her again, but she didn’t need to know he was curled up in the arms of one of the richest men in New York, after earning more than he normally made in half a year through twenty minutes of pleasure and pain and gasping, sighing perfection—and he wasn’t actually feeling too bad about that.
He waited until his mother’s response popped up—just a few emojis, a heart and smiley and thumbs up, she hated actually typing out words—before he put his phone away again, leaving it on the nightstand.
“Letting your mum know where you are?” Vic asked.
“Giving her a reasonable approximation of where I am. She’ll worry if I don’t.” After a tentative moment, he settled to burrow a bit closer against Vic’s side, tucking his head into the crook of his arm. “I suppose I really won’t fly the nest until I graduate, so she’s used to me being there. Honestly, I think she’d keep me at home until I’m married.”
“I’m almost jealous. I think my mother checked out of parenting ten years ago. Doubt she’d even recognize my face.”
“Where is she? Off sunning in Bora Bora with your father?”
“Probably skiing the Alps just to be contradictory,” Vic replied flatly. “Fire and ice, those two. They really hate each other, but when it’s easier to live separate lives than negotiate a multibillion dollar divorce settlement…”
“I can’t fathom that. Divorce looks a little different in Islam, though, and I suppose that’s what I’m used to.”
“Even though you don’t practice?”
“I still grew up surrounded by the teachings. It’s still part of my way of life in little ways that I never really let go of.” Curling his hand against Vic’s chest, Amani let his eyes drift closed. He could hear Vic’s heartbeat like this, as if setting time and tempo for his words. “My mother is Muslim. Malaki Sunni. I don’t…know what I am. Here, I suppose. I’m here.” He didn’t mind, when Vic’s arm tightened around him as if encouraging him, supporting him. He didn’t mind it at all. “I love her. I respect what she respects. I understand the beauty of her ways, I just…wanted time to find out if her ways are my ways, too. And I needed to be able to learn who I was without being pulled between interpretations that call who I am a sin, or say that I cannot be sin because I am loved by Allah, and what is loved by Allah cannot be wrong.” His eyes slipped open, lingering on the plane of pale sinew stretching before him. “I need to explore and choose for myself. Perhaps, one day, I will be Muslim, too.”