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 regarded him coolly, arching a brow, as if he’d anticipated Vic’s reaction: standing stone-still, his mouth dry, his cock pulsing in anticipatory response, his fingers clenching with the urge to reach for Amani and frame slim hips in his hands and kiss the soft dark rose gleam of full lips. He’d never known attraction could feel like obsession, rather than what he was accustomed to: a vague diversion, a thing he bothered to pay attention to now and then, barely shifting half his focus to acknowledge it existed. This…this was something different. Something consuming—and it was almost unnerving, how deeply he responded to the coy, knowing amusement in those tawny eyes.
“Yes,” Vic breathed, without even thinking. He knew his answer, had known the moment Amani stepped off the elevator, beautiful and strange and confusing and… “Yes.”
Amani quirked that mocking brow and stepped closer—then past, brushing lightly around Vic, the flow of his hair washing against Vic’s arm. “Good evening to you too, Mr. Newcomb,” he lilted sardonically, as he lowered the cello case dangling from pewter-glossed fingertips and set it on the couch, laying his coat over it. “How are you?”
“Sorry.” Vic closed his eyes, raking both hands through his hair, and squared his shoulder. The fuck kind of prepubescent numpty was he? “Fuck. God damn it. Why am I like this?”
“I don’t have the psychiatric training to answer that.” Amani settled primly on the sofa, crossing his legs, one foot in its little strappy leather sandal pointed with the arched grace of a ballet dancer. He laced his fingers together over his knee, tilting his head at Vic. “I take it you’ve made up your mind.”
“I have. I want to…want to try this. With you,” Vic admitted roughly, and held his breath for the answer as he asked, “Do you?”
He could hear his own heart pounding, in the silence that answered. Just silence, and one of those measuring looks that seemed to know his every crime, his every kindness, his every flaw, his every strangeness—and it drove home just how much he wanted this when that silence left him wondering, needing, craving an answer from those subtly parted lips.
Until Amani looked away with a small, almost secretive smile. “I think we can come to an arrangement,” he said.
It took all of Vic’s willpower to keep from grinning like he’d lost the damned plot. “Okay,” he said carefully, clasping his hands together, then letting them drop as he stepped tentatively closer and sank down on the far end of the couch from Amani. “How do we do this, then?”
“We talk a little. Relax. You’re wound tighter than a spring. We don’t have to dive right into negotiations, or right into bed.”
“Right. Um. How was your day?”
That prompted a soft trill of laughter, almost delighted. “It was like every other day. I went to school. I worked. I did homework. You really are nervous, aren’t you?”
“A little.”
“That’s normal.” Amani shifted his gaze back to Vic, watching him curiously. “I saw your company on the news this morning.”
Fuck. That was one way to settle the butterflies in his stomach. Vic curled his upper lip, bowing forward to prop his elbows on his knees. “The harassment suit. Yeah.”
Discerning eyes flicked over him. “You seem rather upset.”
“Hn.” He laced his hands together, pressed his interlocked knuckles to his mouth. “It’s something I take seriously, and we fell short somewhere. I may have people who are supposed to handle that, but in the end overall responsibility falls on me.”
“…Vic.” Soft, sympathetic, and Amani let one slender hand fall to rest on the sofa between them. “If you don’t want to do this…”
“No.” He closed his eyes and breathed in deep, trying to reorient himself. “My head is pounding and I’m angry and tired and I just…” Vic opened his eyes, looking at the beautiful young man sitting on his sofa so calmly, as if he hadn’t somehow whipped into Vic’s life like a hurricane and crashed everything apart in a tempest. Tentatively, he reached into the space between them, and let his hand fall to rest atop those slim, warm fingers. “Distract me. Please.”
Another of those searching looks, and for a moment something vulnerable flickered in Amani’s eyes. Something that said for all his taunting poise and aloof enticement, he was just as nervous as Vic, and in its own way that was just as reassuring as the small smile and the brief, warm squeeze that Amani offered before pulling his fingers away and unlatching his cello case to lift the lid and retrieve a stapled sheaf of paper from the inside pocket, a pen clipped to the top.
“All right,” he said softly, tucking his hair behind his ear; silver teardrop earrings, just slender looping threads, glimmered against his jaw and throat. “I took the liberty of drawing this up. It’s probably a little overly detailed, but I’d rather cover everything. If you want to look through and make sure the terms are satisfactory…”