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)
Vic tried to bite back his laugh, earning him a mock glare. “So this is normal coffee table conversation for you?”
“Not quite.” The beginnings of a smile played around Amani’s lips, as he rolled his eyes. “There’s this thing called bystander consent. When you talk about your sex life with people who haven’t invited it, you’re essentially inviting them into your bedroom and making them a passive witness to your sexual activity without their consent.” Another shrug. “So I only talk about it with people who consent.”
“I’m consenting,” Vic said. “You can say anything. Feel free.”
Amani blinked, then blinked again. “Now I don’t know what to say.”
They just looked at each other. Vic glanced to one side, then back at Amani again, before lifting his brows; Amani’s mouth twitched at the corners, and Vic’s tried to follow suit no matter how he struggled to stop it—and when the first snicker burst out, he clapped a hand over his mouth, only for a light, husky laugh to slip past Amani’s lips. Then the dam broke, and they both broke out in helpless laughter, Vic’s rolling so deep he felt it in his chest, like this storm sucking up his every breath to make charges through him. That was how it felt, laughing with Amani, as the air cleared between them and the heaviness lifted.
Like he was run through with electric charges, lightning striking every time Amani smiled.
He finally managed to stop when his breath gave out on him, pressing a hand to his chest and taking a few deep inhalations. Amani quieted after a few more moments, wiping his knuckles against his eyes.
“There,” Vic said, grinning. “See? I’m not the devil.”
Amani flashed him an amused look. “Yes, you are.”
“But I’m the devil you know.”
Swaying in, Amani reached out and prodded one slender finger against his chest. “I still don’t know you.”
Before he could pull back, Victor caught Amani’s hand. It was small and warm inside his own, and yet there was such strength in it, captured in every slender bone. “I’m inviting you to.”
Amani’s smile faded, something flickering through his eyes as he looked down at their clasped hands, something uncertain—before he gently disentangled, pulling back until his hand slipped free. Uncurling himself, he rose, dipping to catch up his glass before turning to glide toward one of the glassy walls on drifting strides, coming to a halt near one of the thick marble corner supporting pillars. “Where is this confidence coming from all of a sudden, hm?” floated over his shoulder.
“Oh, I’m not confident at all.” Vic let himself linger on Amani, watching his every move, how he carried himself with such languid ease, such composure; how the light from outside fell across the angles and slopes of his features. “I’m just fascinated, and that’s overwhelming the fact that you completely and utterly terrify me.”
Another soft burst of gilded laughter. “How do I terrify you?”
Vic rose to his feet, unfolding from the couch and slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans, making his way toward Amani. He stopped a few feet away, looking not at Amani but at their reflections in the glossy floor, before turning to face the panoramic glow of the city skyline.
“You have flayed my entire existence raw from the moment I met you,” he murmured. “I’ve seen you face to face three times now, and every time you’ve bluntly and pointedly destroyed my preconceived notions about myself to leave me floundering without any solid ground, reaching for you to pull me back up before I sink—and you’re four years younger than I am. That’s unfair.” He half-smiled. “Any man would be afraid of someone who can hold a mirror up to him and make him see himself in the light of reality, instead of his own self-image.”
Amani tilted his head toward him, watching him sidelong with a sort of veiled, silent laughter in feline eyes. “So how do I make you see yourself, Victor Newcomb?”
“As a weak man,” he admitted, and there was nothing to laugh about now. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the city lights, their lavishness, nothing but people stretching as far as the eye could see, and on the surface it was all glitter and gold but underneath…
Underneath was where it got truly dirty, and he doubted he’d ever seen once past the gilded surface of the world he knew.
“Even if I have power,” he continued, “even if I control wealth that nations would envy…I only do it because it’s what I’m told to do. And I follow the plan of what I’m told to do, maintaining the company as an institution as if, just because it’s always been there, it’s always supposed to be there. I use that money to make more money, and make even more money after that, in a company that feeds on itself to grow larger and larger so it can eat other things. Even the help we try to offer through charity and sustainability programs…” He tore his gaze from the skyline, looking up at the waning November moon. “It’s just swallowing other things into that feeding organism. And there I am, riding so high up on its back, out of the reach of its devouring teeth yet thinking that just because I hold its reins, I can control its direction and rein it in before it harms anyone.”