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)
How strange, to feel so connected to a stranger. To feel as though that person had touched him in ways deeper than any other, and he’d reached back and found those same depths…and yet one day it would mean nothing, an invoice paid, the deal done. But if he asked Amani to stay…
What would he even be asking for?
What could even come from this sudden wild and utterly surreal storm of impulsiveness and reckless decisions?
His phone vibrated quietly on the nightstand, warning him it was time to get up. Because for today, his world still waited, his mask his shield.
Sighing, he leaned down and pressed his lips to Amani’s brow, lingering there, breathing him in, vanilla smoke and sweetness and everything Amani.
Then, his heart flirting between gravity and such soaring heights, he gently disentangled and left Amani to sleep, as he rose to start yet another day that was killing him one strained, struggling heartbeat at a time.
l
AMANI WOKE SORE, TIRED, AND very, very confused.
Mainly by the fact that there was an alarm ringing, and when he flailed one arm out sleepily to silence it he instead hit only bed. And more bed. And more and more bed, as if the thing was neverending with no edge in sight. He opened one eye groggily, peering across a tangle of rumpled, dark gray sheets toward a nightstand that was at least five feet away, a digital clock flashing four forty-five AM.
Not his bed.
Not his bed, not his house, and the reason his ass was currently sore and he hurt inside like he’d been impaled on a steel pylon was nowhere in sight.
He groaned, rolling over and over and over until he could smack at the alarm and shut it off, then sprawled out on his back and stared up at the colors of sunrise melting in panoramic view across the ceiling panes. The night before came rushing back in on him: Vic, trembling and willing and fighting with everything in him to be obedient, gasping in that hoarse, growling way, arching his body with such erotic abandon. And Amani, thrilling to every responsive moment, his entire body nearly singing with the pleasure of teasing Vic to the break point, drawing him in, coaxing him to open for Amani and give him every willing part of himself until they touched as naked in soul as in body.
He'd never thought it would be so intimate. So much. Too much. Nothing in his past experiences had prepared him for that.
Was it because it was a private arrangement, a mutual agreement between them instead of strangers flirting with a chance encounter…
Or was it something about Vic himself?
And speaking of which…where was he?
Amani pushed himself up, leaning on one arm and rubbing at his eyes sleepily. “Vic…?” he called, before a piece of paper on the nightstand caught his eye, folded to stand next to the alarm and his name scrawled on the outside in elegant script. He plucked it up and flipped it open, scanning the neat lines of rolling handwriting flowing across the heavy linen paper.
Had to go into the office, and didn’t want to wake you. Hope I set the alarm for you to get to work on time. Use the bath or shower if you need to. The apartment concierge can bring you breakfast if you’d like. Just call down. Menu’s in the kitchen drawer. Let them know if you need a ride. Call me if they give you any trouble.
-V
P.S. Check your PayPal.
“Really?” Amani whispered, then shook his head with a smile. “Really.”
He probably didn’t have time, when even if he managed to catch the right trains it would be an hour to work—but he couldn’t help but be curious anyway, and he rolled out of bed, fishing around a minute for his underwear and shimmying it back on underneath his caftan before padding across the cool black tiles to the kitchen. A few moments’ rummage later and he unearthed a laminated parchment menu, listing dishes he’d never even heard of and a few things he’d never touch in his lifetime. Propping his elbows on the marble kitchen counter, he turned it over, shaking his head with a laugh. His life was so different from Vic’s they practically lived on separate planets.
“Who lives in an apartment that treats you like a hotel guest?”
There was no one to answer but himself, his voice a quiet haunt. Setting the menu down, he tugged his phone from his inside pocket and swiped to the PayPal app—and promptly sucked in a breath, covering his mouth, his throat constricting.
Ten thousand dollars.
They’d agreed to it, he’d known it would happen, he had no reason to believe Vic would go back on his word or the contract…but it wasn’t quite real until it was right there and irrefutable and his.