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)
Only to find the man staring at him with his lips parted and breathless, winter-blue eyes warmed to summer’s heat with what could only be described as admiration, desire, and some breathless and wondering emotion Amani could not bring himself to give voice to.
Yet within him it was bright, and whispered like the notes of a duet sung with one voice.
Vic drew closer as if drawn by a lead, and captured both of Amani’s hands. “I don’t need anything else,” he whispered. “Just to see you like this.”
“Oh?” Amani tilted his head up to him, lacing their fingers together. “So all it takes is one pretty dress, and I have you in the palm of my hand?”
“You’ve always had me. But tonight…” Vic pressed a kiss to Amani’s palm. “The pull you have on me is inescapable.”
A soft breath caught in Amani’s throat, and didn’t leave. This…this was one reason why deep down, some part of him craved to be around Vic, he realized. Vic had never once treated him like an oddity. Never stared at him as if trying to figure out which he was or what was wrong with him or why he had to do something so simple as be himself. No mockery, no scorn, no disgust, no hesitation, no fumbling through he-she-you-um. Nothing of the deep misunderstandings that Amani had come to know as a painful yet everyday normal.
Vic simply accepted him as he was, purely and without question. Accepted him, and looked at him as though he was the most beautiful star in Vic’s orbit.
And he didn’t know if he would ever find that again, once they came to their senses and this was over.
He couldn’t breathe with the weight of that; with the weight of the longing in Vic’s gaze, and he looked away, gripping Vic’s fingers tighter. “We’re drawing attention.”
“I’m such an embarrassment, I know.” Smiling with a sort of gentle, wordless understanding, Vic offered his arm. “Shall we brave the filthy rich and moneyed hordes, then?”
“We shall,” Amani said, and slipped his fingers around Vic’s forearm.
Together they stepped forward into a grand ballroom made all of golden stone columns and great arching ceilings, majestic and strung from wall to rafter with dangling motes of light, as though constellations had been plucked from the sky one by one and rearranged into the shadows of these vaulted heights. People in gold and silver and crimson and black, encrusted with jewels and gleaming with silken edges, moved everywhere—dallying at tables placed along the edges, swirling across the central ballroom floor to a piped-in waltz, lingering in little conversational clusters.
And before Amani could even wholly take it in, a rather loud, syrupy voice crested the general murmur of noise in the room, shrill enough to hurt his ears.
“Vic!” cried a woman who was half human, half piled up tower of golden curls. “I was wondering when you would show your face.”
Vic clenched his jaw, and covered Amani’s hand with his own. “Brace yourself,” he muttered from the side of his mouth. “Here we go.”
The human fountain of ringlets was only the first in the assault. Suddenly everyone wanted to talk to Vic, simper over Amani, who might you be, oh darling who made your dress, names flying by him and false, cloying smiles nearly drowning him in their stickiness. It was overwhelming, and yet…
Vic navigated it smoothly, practically holding court as one after another tried to curry him with platitudes, maneuver him with slyness, pry for information, drop hints. This was political in more ways than one, Amani realized, a complex game of negotiating alliances that could make or break international businesses, and what nearly everyone in this room wanted access to was what Vic had.
And yet Vic was impenetrable—smoothly deflecting attempts to manipulate the conversation, sallying back veiled insults with tart yet cutting politeness, more than once sidetracking anyone who attempted to ask Amani anything inappropriate by baiting them with some tantalizing line of conversation about secret mergers or scandals on Wall Street before leaving them hanging as he moved on to the next group. He was cool, in control, utterly sure of himself and his place here, and Amani realized…
Vic only bowed his head for him.
Outside of the nights they shared together, this was who Vic had learned to be, and who he had now learned to shed when Amani whispered in his ear and called him sweet boy.
Finally, as a lull came in the barrage, Vic drew him off into a shadowed niche just to the edge of the main ballroom floor, resting a hand to the small of his back to guide him. “That was exhausting.”
“Very,” Amani admitted. “No wonder you’ve got high blood pressure.”
“It’s normally worse.” Vic slipped an arm around his waist with a gentle squeeze. “I only had to fend off the greedy guts this time, and not the propositions.”