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)
“Because it makes me remember lying on your table, freaking out with my cock tenting up a towel, and you trying not to laugh in my bloody face. That’s enough to break the mood.”
“I wasn’t trying not to laugh!” Yet Amani laughed now, soft and warm, eyes glittering as he delicately covered his mouth with his fingertips. “Not at your…ah…particular state, anyway.”
“What were you trying not to laugh at, then?”
“How flustered you were.” Amani regarded him over the curve of an insolently shrugging shoulder, the slipping caftan promising temptation when it bared part of his flat, smooth, lithely tapered chest. “Like you’d never had an erection in front of someone else in your life. It was cute, but I didn’t want to embarrass you more by laughing.”
Vic groaned, letting his head fall back against the couch. “…bloody hell.”
“What?”
He grit his teeth, then forced out, “Maybe I never have had an erection in front of anyone else.”
“Oh.” Amani’s softly indrawn breath was barely a whisper between them, but it fell as loud as a striking hammer. “Victor Newcomb…are you a virgin?”
“I told you I don’t really date,” he said stiffly. “It’s just never seemed important.”
“Don’t.” Once again that soft hand against his, covering his fingers against the page, warmth soaking into his skin. “Don’t get defensive. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s never something you have to do until you want to.”
Vic tried to focus on the feeling of that gentle touch, the assurance in Amani’s voice, rather than his own embarrassment. “To most men it’s some kind of rite of passage. A symbol of manhood.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not overly interested in symbols of manhood.”
Vic let his head fall to the side so he could take Amani in, drifting over him from head to toe—the juxtaposition of masculinity with femininity, hard angles and softness meeting in delicate balance, and couldn’t help smiling. “You wear defiance well.”
“I told you flattering me won’t get you a discount.” In the dark it was hard to tell…but was that a tinge of crimson against dusky cheeks? Amani briefly squeezed his hand, the pulled back with a teasing half-smile. “But it might make me think you’re more than some brute who only thinks with his cock.”
“Only recently,” Vic answered. “Maybe you don’t have me completely figured out.”
“I almost hope not.”
Amani’s gaze dropped to Vic’s mouth, lingering like a kiss. As if the air that dwelled between them was a silken ribbon teasing from Amani’s lips to Vic, connecting them with a touch transmitted across that distance to stroke and tease in caresses of breath, in sighs of contact. His heart jerked in a single arresting burst, then soothed into steady rhythm, seeming to count the seconds that passed, seconds that made that space between them warmer and warmer with anticipation.
Yet abruptly Amani looked away, drawing in an audible breath, and glanced down at the contract again. Right. Vic forced his focus back, skimming down the last page, then tapping the pen-point above the signature line, below where Amani’s tightly curling handwriting scribbled his name.
“There’s one clause I don’t see in here,” he said.
“And what’s that?”
“Exclusivity,” he said. “Think of it as a typical non-compete for freelancers.”
Amani arched a brow with a pointed look. “You don’t want me to sleep with anyone else?”
“Not as long as you’re with me.”
“You’re not allowed delusions of ownership.”
“Not ownership. If we’re going to treat this as a give and take, I need room to figure out how I feel about this without also maybe finding out I have unexpected feelings I don’t know how to handle about you sleeping with other men. It’s just temporary, until I’m used to this. And it’s a request for consideration, not a demand.” He flicked the pen between his fingers thoughtfully. “If thirty thousand a week in ten thousand intervals isn’t enough to ask for short-term exclusivity…”
“It is. Write it in.” Amani shook his head, lips quirking. “You really do negotiate like a CEO. Honestly, at three times a week you’re going to wear me out. I won’t have time for anyone else.”
“Is there anyone who’ll miss you?”
“No one whose name I remember.”
Vic slashed in two short sentences outlining the terms of exclusivity below the last clause, then dashed his signature and the date in the proper space and passed the contract back to Amani. “I hope you’ll never forget mine.”
Amani took the contract from his hand and flipped through it, pausing briefly on the page with protection/no protection, eyes widening subtly, and there was definitely a flush of darker red against his cheeks. “We’ll see,” he said a touch thickly, and turned to tuck the contract back into his cello case. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“I suppose as a submissive, I’m supposed to be humble.”
Then Vic stopped, his tongue thick, as he realized what he’d just said.