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)
She was peering over the racks, calling his name, her arms laden with bags and a few things she’d chosen draped over her arm. “Amani?”
“Here,” he called, raising his hand and stepping forward with his best smile. Damn it, Vic. “Sorry, I’d just gone to the restroom.”
His mother broke into a bright smile, but then stopped, eyeing him with a discerning look. “You’re flushed. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. It’s just a little warm in here after being outside.” He glanced down at the stack in her arms, pretty flowing skirts and a few head shawls. “Is that everything you wanted?”
“I think so, but…are you sure it’s all right to spend this much? Where did you get this money?”
“I…” If anything, it was lying to his mother again that cooled the longing burning through him, even if it was only a partial untruth. “I’ve started giving cello lessons. It pays better than Dehbi.”
Her eyes lit up, almost transforming her face as a slow, broad smile spread on her lips. She clasped his hand in both of hers, almost dropping her bags. “You’re playing again?”
“Yes,” he whispered, and wondered how such a simple thing could make her so happy, even if he shouldn’t have to wonder at all.
The look on his mother’s face was the joy he felt when strings sang beneath his fingers, bright and sweet.
And he went to her willingly, as she pulled him into her arms. “Amani…oh, baby. Your father would be so happy.”
He closed his eyes against the pang of remembered grief, as sharp as the clutch of remembered joy. “I hope so, Mama. I hope so.”
They lingered for several moments longer, before he pulled back, gathering some of her bundles into his arms.
“I need to get your things home and go, Mama,” he said. “My client texted me and he’s helpless on his own, shopping for new strings. And then I need to go to class.”
“Oh!” She patted his arm, smiling broadly. “Let me just find a shawl to match this top, and we can go.” She paused, though, eyeing him. The thing with Nahla Idrissi was that she had such bright, warm ways about her that no one ever expected the sharply skewering looks she gave, but she leveled one on Amani now that made him feel like a little kid caught stealing ghriba. “You’re sure this is all right?”
Amani cringed, but managed a smile. “I promise.”
“Your client is very generous,” she said skeptically.
“He can be.”
Amani held his smile through another long, measuring look, then slumped in relief when she turned away and slipped off through the aisles, murmuring to herself in a pleasant hum the entire time.
If anyone could cow him into submission, it was his mother.
He let his gaze drift away, just listening for her while he waited, trying very hard not to think about the fact that he’d just talked Vic through getting off at the office while hiding in a public fitting room. Vic just…made him reckless, made him want things, and the entire time he’d almost been able to see that lost look on his pet’s face again, the way his features relaxed, that raptness bordering on wonder, the only thing missing from the picture…
A collar.
You can cuff me. Collar me.
Vic. In a collar. Vic in a collar Amani had placed on his throat with his own hands, caging strong tendons in a band of leather, caging Vic as his, heart and body.
He had known Vic for a total four or five meetings, one of them a negotiated sexual encounter for ridiculous amounts of money. He should not be thinking, wondering about this.
So why did Vic have to go and put the damned thought in his head?
He wouldn’t be collaring Vic. He told himself that very firmly. But if they were going to spend the night together again, if Vic was going to beg Amani so desperately, there were things they could do that didn’t need a collar to make Vic feel owned and bound. And once he finished with class, then…
Amani needed to do a little shopping of his own.
CHAPTER TEN
IF VIC WASN’T CAREFUL, HE was going to key himself up into a hypertensive episode—and it would be entirely his own damned fault.
He felt like a teenager before junior prom, restless and pinballing around his apartment. He tried to read, tried to focus on work, tried to cook dinner, but he couldn’t focus on any one task when the only thing at the forefront of his mind was the minutes ticking down until Amani arrived.
He was being ridiculous. He was being childish. He was…he was…
He was acting like a man in love.
He stared at his drink, bourbon resting untouched, untasted on the table.
Love? No. Infatuation, maybe. Fascination with this addictive new experience. No matter how intimate these experiences were, penetrating deeper than flesh…what someone else might call love, he would call endorphins. He was riding this new high of discovery and pleasure, and once the newness wore off he’d settle into the familiar and be able to distance himself appropriately and remember his place in this agreement of theirs.