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)
“No wonder you’re stressed.”
“Is it that different for you?” Vic risked a glance at Amani again, but Amani wasn’t looking at him. He still held his cello like a lover, but he was once again staring pensively out through the glass walls, at the glittering city skyline. “I mean, you’re working your way through uni, too.”
“For my own goals. Not to run a major company.” Amani shrugged with forced diffidence. “I’m the only one putting pressure on me. Not that I don’t do a lot of that.”
“So what do you do to relax?”
Those soft, dark pink lips quirked almost sadly. “Nothing you’d be interested in.”
“You sure of that?”
“I am.” When Amani finally looked at him, it was with wry cynicism, but at least it was some kind of honest emotion instead of the cold façade of before. “You’re straight, remember?”
“Oh,” Vic said—then when it hit him, repeated “Oh.” He meant…oh. Well then. Vic grinned. “Okay, but you can’t tell me that and then expect me not to be curious.”
And just like that, Amani closed over again. He set his bow down gingerly, then lifted the cello to lay it with tender care across the case so he could begin working at the endpin. “You’re still prying into my personal life, Mr. Newcomb.”
“…sorry. I really am a louse.”
But rather than a cutting look or a stern command for him to mind his posture, that only earned him a faint smile, a slight gentling of those fierce and hawklike eyes. “It’s fine.”
Amani slipped the endpin back inside the cello, then flexed his hands, opening and closing them several times before stretching his fingers out into the points of a star and rotating his wrists. Vic leaned forward, watching him with concern.
“Are you all right after…?”
“Playing again?” Amani finished, curling his hands once more. “I’m not in any pain, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You sure of that?” Vic lingered on the set of Amani’s mouth, the melancholy that seemed to haunt his eyes, turning them liquid as bottomless wells of deep golden whiskey. “Not all pain’s physical.”
Amani stilled, and gave him another of those looks. “Please don’t try to be deep. It doesn’t suit you.”
Vic was prepared to retort with a laugh—but Amani continued on smoothly, diverting the subject with such abruptness that he left Vic fumbling for words.
“So you’re really curious about what I do to relax?”
“Um.” Now how was he supposed to answer that without sounding like a massive bloody pervert, when Amani had hinted his particular form of “relaxation” had something to do with sex? Vic looked away, trying to be casual about shrugging. “Curious, nosy, same difference.”
“And if I said it involves collars, cuffs, and chains?” Amani tossed back.
“I’d say everyone’s got to have a hobby,” Vic answered. “So you’re a sub?”
“I can confidently say there’s nothing submissive about me, and I’m a little offended you’d assume that.”
Yet if anything Amani sounded amused, and suddenly Vic felt like the mouse once more with a cat who liked to play the long game with his food before he devoured it. Amani was stringing him along, he realized—keeping him at a distance by maintaining control of what they talked about and why. And if he was a Dom, if this pretty, femme, slender little thing with his graceful elegance and regal ways liked to dominate and control people…
Heat crept up his throat, his jaw. He glanced back at Amani to find those half-lidded eyes watching him with a predator’s patient calm. Was…Amani enjoying this? Flustering Vic, throwing him off-kilter? Was that why Vic had been such a mess since the day he’d walked into that parlor, because Amani had just been casually pulling his strings and he’d unconsciously responded to it?
“So you…dominate people,” he said carefully. “You’re a Dom.”
Amani shrugged one pretty bare shoulder. “You could say that. Personally, I don’t really like words like ‘Dom’ and ‘sub,’ though I’m often stuck with them for simplicity’s sake.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated. And I don’t think you’re interested in hearing a master’s thesis on why the BDSM community as a whole is rather unfriendly to people of my pigmentation.”
“I’d listen, but I doubt I’d understand it,” Vic admitted.
“You’re fairly nonplussed, though.”
Is that what I am? When my mouth is dry and you’re looking at me like you want to eat me, but you want to bleed me a little first?
“I haven’t gotten around much, to be honest, but I’m not a complete nit,” Vic deflected. “People have kinks. It’s normal.”
“Not a bad way to look at it,” Amani conceded, draping an arm along the back of the sofa and curling his knuckles against his cheek, regarding Vic thoughtfully. “You don’t date?”
“I don’t have time. And…” Vic looked down, tangling his fingers together, tapping his thumb against the side of his finger. “I tend to meet high society women either on the hunt for a husband of appropriate status to fit into their social circles, or social climbers who know exactly how much I make per year and where my company’s assets are allocated. Maybe some of them are genuine, but I have no way of knowing. I can never tell if people want me for my money, or myself, so it feels…one-sided, when I start to fall for these women and don’t know if they’re just humoring me or if the feelings are real. So I don’t bother dating.” He laughed briefly, humorlessly. “At least you’re honest enough that you despise me for my money.”