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)
“If that’s what you want,” Victor whispered, “that’s what I’ll pay.”
Amani’s breaths stilled. Was…this really happening? Was Victor Newcomb really offering ten thousand dollars a night just for permission to touch him, know him, bend his knee to Amani’s will?
His head swam. He breathed in deep, easing the constriction in his chest, rushing oxygen back to his brain quickly enough that his vision blurred. He closed his eyes, turning away. Control. Control. If he prided himself on control, then he couldn’t lose it here, now, with this man looking at him like he wanted to be eaten whole and would beg for another bite.
“I’m going home,” he said coolly, gathering his hair back and twisting it up to pin it in place. “You are not to contact me until Wednesday.”
“What happens Wednesday?” Vic asked, voice husky at his back, promising.
“I’ll come at our appointed time.” Tying his hair off with one last twist, Amani leaned over the back of the couch to pick up his cello case and coat. He needed air. Air, and time to clear his head, because right now he was acting on heady intoxication and anticipation of something he shouldn’t want, and that wasn’t good. He glanced over his shoulder at Vic. “Whether we have a cello lesson or another kind of lesson is up to you.”
“Why wait?”
“Because I said so,” Amani replied firmly. “Because you need to learn patience.” Because you need to learn obedience, if this is what you really want. “And because I want to give you—and myself—time to think, and to decide if this is what we really want.”
Amani wasn’t expecting how quickly Vic moved—the space between them vanishing, one long, rough-knuckled hand curling to brush against his cheek, catching a stray hand of his hair and tucking it back behind his ear. Pale blue eyes looked down at him as if to see was to worship, a small smile playing about his lips.
“And if it is?”
“We’ll discuss a contract.” Amani pulled back, out of Vic’s reach, before he could allow more than the tiniest hint of breathless tremors from that wordlessly begging touch. “For one night only.”
“What if I want more?”
More? More with Vic. More of this strangeness, this feeling like Amani was tumbling and no matter how he tried to grasp on to something solid to pull himself back up, he only fell faster and faster toward an inevitable broken crash. He didn’t like feeling this way. Didn’t like feeling like someone else could command and compel his reactions with a single hot-eyed look, rather than the other way around—even if everything Vic seemed to command and compel from Amani would end with a collar around that pale throat and Vic straining and trembling with the denial of pleasure. Amani darted his tongue over his lips and took a few more steps back, then turned away and strode firmly for the elevator.
“That,” he said, as the elevator door opened, and escape spread before him, “is not something you get to decide alone.”
Vic said nothing to call him back. Nothing to stop him.
He only let Amani go, and Amani couldn’t breathe again until the doors closed and shut away the sight of those pleading lips, softly parted on unspoken words.
l
AMANI DIDN’T STOP MOVING UNTIL he’d let himself into their little Bedell Street brick cottage and shut the door behind him. Gasping to himself, throat raw from the frigid night air, he slumped against the door, then sank down it, staring blankly across the living room.
Oh…oh shit.
Had he really just agreed to sleep with Victor Newcomb, dominate him, teach him submission, let him explore both his own body and Amani’s…
For ten thousand dollars a session?
And Vic hadn’t even batted an eye. Was ten thousand dollars—multiple installments of ten thousand dollars—so little to him that it didn’t even make him blink? Was he that hung up on the idea of seeing Amani again?
Or was it just that Amani was convenient, already there, and—to Victor Newcomb—easily bought?
Amani didn’t even know how to feel. Flattered, that anyone thought an hour-long session with him was worth that much—or disgusted at the profligate wastefulness, offended that Vic was once again offering him charity in the most bizarre form, defiant when he had every right to use any means necessary to survive and he needed that money.
He buried his face in his hands, breathing through his fingers. Calm down. It was only sex. The most intimate, personal kind of sex, requiring mutual trust and vulnerability, but it was only sex and it wasn’t as though he hadn’t met more than one sex worker in underground clubs. They were generally highly respected when often they’d come to sell their skills by developing a unique talent that served specific needs, then recognizing the value in it when demand for their services grew. Many Doms and Dommes were almost revered as royalty, their entire lives paid by willing submissives who happily gave what was needed to experience the things that left them feeling whole and right in their skin.