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)
Amani smiled wistfully. “So I’m part of your healthcare plan?”
“Something like that. Promise I won’t kick over right in the middle of the deed. I’m fine.” Vic’s broad palms slid slowly up Amani’s back, smoothing his caftan against his skin, as if now Vic was trying to soothe him, remind him that he was here and fine and nothing would happen. “You worried about me?”
Sniffing, Amani lifted his chin. “Mildly.”
“Liar.” Vic chuckled. “Your voice changed.”
“It did?”
“There’s something different. Just this little thing, but it tells me maybe, just maybe you don’t hate me as much as you say.”
“I told you I don’t hate you. I just hate what you are.” And he hated how warm his face felt, too. Vic was staying as Overbearing Prick in his phone. Lightly, he pushed at that firm, solid chest. “Go get back into bed and let me take care of you.”
“What about taking care of yourself? Aren’t you sore?”
“I will in a minute. Go.”
Laughing, pulling his arms back and holding his hands up in surrender, Vic drew back and turned to stalk his powerful body back toward the bed, every movement defined in a thousand individual articulations of chiseled muscle coming together into one sleek, beautiful machine. Shaking his head, struggling not to laugh himself, Amani caught up the bottle of lotion again and followed, climbing onto the bed after him and nudging Vic’s side.
“On your stomach. Just like on the table.” While Vic obliged, stretching out on his stomach and leaving the taut dips and rises of his back and ass and thighs invitingly bared for Amani, Amani pumped out a little dollop of lotion into his hand and rubbed his palms together. “I need to take care of you first,” he said. “This is important, for me. What comes after. Making sure that once everything’s done, you’re taken care of, comfortable, and safe.”
Vic turned his head to look at him, propping his chin on his shoulder, this great lazy beast. “I never thought being a dominant involved so much nurturing.”
“It’s mostly what it’s about. For me, at least.” Shifting to his knees, Amani leaned over Vic to begin kneading at his shoulders, working at the points he knew would be sorest from holding his arms in that position while straining and arching for so long; Vic rewarded him with a melting, shuddering groan. “There’s pleasure in sadism and control, in the adrenaline rush of rougher play…but I think deep down it’s about a desire to care for people who want to be cared for.”
“Mm…what about me says I want to be cared for?”
“Everything,” Amani answered softly, as he coaxed one of Vic’s arms out from beneath him to begin working down its length, pushing and circling against tense muscles. “Just…everything. How do you feel?”
“Better,” Vic murmured drowsily. “It’s not burning quite so much in my shoulders.”
“I don’t mean your body.” As he reached Vic’s forearm, his wrist, Amani stroked down to circle his thumb in the center of Vic’s palm, then uncurled his fingers to kiss his fingertips. “You just lost your virginity to a man in a dominance session when two days ago you hadn’t even realized you were bisexual, or possibly submissive.” He peeked at Vic over his own fingers. “How do you feel after that?”
Vic shifted half onto his side, looking up at Amani, pale blue eyes so stark, so clear. Amani hadn’t even realized how much knots of tension had defined Vic’s brow until they’d unraveled to leave it smooth, his expression relaxed.
“Empty,” Vic said after long, thoughtful moments. “In a good way. It’s like…” His eyes unfocused, even as he shifted his captured hand to cup Amani’s cheek, then threaded those rough fingers into his hair. “All the frustrated things I’d been carrying around inside me melted, and just bled out of me. It’s quiet and simple inside my head, and I feel…refreshed. Like I hadn’t realized I was out of air until I could breathe again.”
“Was there anything you regretted? Anything that bothered you?”
“No. Though I…I understand now why you said I might be afraid.”
Amani curled his hand against Vic’s wrist, gripping gently. That catch in Vic’s voice, that hesitation… “Were you? It’s all right if you were.”
“For a minute,” Vic admitted roughly. “For a minute I felt like I was in freefall, and I couldn’t catch myself.” His thumb stroked gently, almost reverently against Amani’s cheek, a shivering touch, fingers working and playing deeper into his hair. “Then I realized I didn’t have to, because you had me…and suddenly I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
That shouldn’t hit Amani so hard, shaking him down to his bones—not if this was everything he said it should be, strictly business, no attachments, no complications. Yet in that quiet, heartfelt confession was everything he’d been missing in every casual one-night encounter; every staged session between strangers just trying to find their way in the dark. Those words…they felt like a light in his dark, just a tiny flicker of candle flame that if he’d let it, could grow until it became as bright as the sun, as gentle as the stars.