CHAPTER FOUR
HE’D THOUGHT IT WOULD HURT more than it did.
Amani slouched over his desk, mouth and chin buried into his folded forearms, and stared at his laptop screen without really seeing it, his midterm paper for his composition theory class sitting unfinished save for the last few closing lines he couldn’t seem to work out. He’d been skirting around it all weekend, in between taking a few appointments at the parlor and helping his mother around the house. He couldn’t seem to find the right way to wrap the essay up with a definitive conclusion on why classical composition was a sibling to baroque rather than its rebellious offspring, probably because he couldn’t seem to keep his mind on it for more than thirty seconds at a time.
He stretched his right arm out in front of him and splayed his fingers. Tendons and knuckles and nails and skin and bone, just like everyone else, ridges and valleys and all the little fascinating flexions that made it move and curl and grip and stroke and do all sorts of wondrous things. He’d thought, when he’d picked up that bow, when he’d dove right into Brahms after not playing for over six years…
He'd thought it would hurt.
He’d thought that old pain would come back, that grinding and sawing between his small bones; he’d thought that despair would strike him, as trembling and cramping fingers dropped notes and raised screeches and howls instead of sweet ululations. He’d thought his heart would break, as he realized he still couldn’t play.
Victor Newcomb would never know that in that moment, he’d witnessed triumph.
Witnessed joy, too, as Amani found beauty in his fingertips again and rediscovered what he’d thought was lost forever; what he’d been afraid to try to reclaim even though it had been hovering within his reach all this time, just begging him to reach out and take it because it had always been his. It had always been his, and it came back to him as if it had never left, the moment he picked up that bow.
No, Victor might never know…but he had been a part of it, too.
Because as Amani’s entire body had swelled with the vibration and flow of the cello’s resonant song, as he’d felt it flow through him with a passion and wonder that tore him to pieces and put him back together again in the shape he was always meant to take…Victor had been there. Watching him. Watching him with a gaze that felt like worship, that made Amani feel beautiful, that struck an odd sense of communion, as though the notes he’d played had crossed the space between them until surely Victor, too, must have shared in that rapt experience, that shivering euphoria.
Victor had looked at him like…like he needed something, something only Amani could give, something he didn’t even know he was looking for but that Amani recognized so deep it struck straight to his core, when he’d felt that need and searched and searched and searched until he found who he was. Victor had that same searching look, that same unspoken recognition of something missing inside him, something that needed another person to complete, something that wasn’t about sex or love or dominance or submission but about some strange place where they met all together into this tangle of give and take, push and pull, mutual needs answered.
Amani knew a submissive who didn’t even know he was a submissive when he saw one.
And he closed his eyes, letting his hand fall to rest on the desk.
Hell no.
He was not getting tangled up with some oblivious confused rich straight boy sorting himself out at other people’s expense. Victor Newcomb could figure himself out on his own.
Even if he would look beautiful on his knees.
That was the first thing Amani had thought, when he’d stepped into that ridiculously ostentatious penthouse apartment and seen Victor standing there with his designer jeans riding low on narrow, trim hips, denim hugging strong thighs, a heather-gray Henley clinging tight to his powerful shoulders, arms, and chest but loose over his slim waist. That Victor would look beautiful on his knees, those taut thighs spread, his head bowed in submission and all that raw strength and power in his body willingly caged, subverted, surrendered to put himself in someone else’s hands.
No. No thank you, no sir, no ma’am, no mx.
Groaning, Amani buried his face against his forearm.
He had to see that oblivious confused rich straight boy in that ridiculously ostentatious apartment in a little more than an hour, and he could not be thinking about this every time Victor gave him one of those puppy-eyed looks.
And the money had come through. Before Amani had even made it home Friday night, his phone had chimed with a PayPal notification that eleven hundred dollars had been received in his account, with a little message beneath.
Ten percent tip’s just good manners.
-V
Asshole.
He saved his term paper, shut his laptop down, then rose to change—and told himself he wasn’t making himself look pretty for some blue-eyed straight boy. He wasn’t sweeping his hair half-up, half-down, and weaving it with interconnected bits of thread-fine golden chain that mingled in glimmering strands among the dark locks. He wasn’t picking out his favorite pale golden thigh-length caftan, natural muslin almost white, with thick borders in shimmering geometric gold silk and a front slit that went almost down to the bottom of his ribs, the sides completely open save for short bands of muslin that held it together into a single garment, letting his waist show through on either side. The matching pants were simple white muslin, straight-legged, designed to flow easily, nearly covering his feet and the plain, simple leather-strapped sandals he wore nearly everywhere. A slick of eyeliner along the edges of his lids, a sleek layer of transparent gloss with subtle gold shimmer on his lips, slim gold bangles chiming on his wrists, his coat, and he was catching up his cello and slinging it over his shoulder to head out the door into the chilly, breezy night.
He was just stepping off the 6 line at Spring Street when his phone rang in his pocket. As he strode down the sidewalk, ducking around busy pedestrian traffic, he fished it out and glanced at the screen. Overbearing Prick, the contact name showed.
Oh. Victor.
Amani should probably change that address book entry.
He swiped the call and lifted the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Amani?” Victor’s voice sounded tight, strange—aloof and calm, nothing like the affably awkward mess he’d been before; that same change Amani had heard last time he’d called. “I’m sorry, I’m running a little late. Meeting ran long at the office. I’ve called the front desk at the apartment to let them know to ring you in and unlock the elevator for you. I promise I won’t keep you waiting long, and I’ll double your fee for the session to make up for wasting your time.”
“Of course,” Amani said dryly, cocking his head and looking up at the tall, glass-walled spear thrusting up into the sky, the penthouse apartment on the top floor waiting for him and apparently empty of its owner. “You trust me in your apartment?”
Victor made an amused sound. “What are you going to do? Trash the place to stick it to the one percent?”
“I might.”
“I’d let you.”
“I’m not catering to this bizarre little phase of masochistic rebellion you’ve found yourself in,” Amani retorted, struggling not to smile. The man was so damned irritating it was almost charming. “I’ll see you in…?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Victor promised. “Ta for now.”
The line went dead, and Amani looked down at his phone. Ta for now?
Asshole.
Rolling his eyes, he tucked his phone back into his pocket and pushed the glass front doors of Victor’s building open, stepping into the lobby. With its broad marble reception desk, gray-veined white marble floors, and black, gold-lined columns everywhere, it looked more like a hotel lobby than an apartment building, complete with uniformed staff waiting behind the reception desk and a security guard by the elevator. Amani always felt uncomfortable in places like this—like everyone who looked at him was wondering what he was doing here, as if he could ever possibly have any business somewhere this expensive.
At least the staff on duty were the same two women and one man who’d been here Friday night, and apparently they even remembered his name. One of the women offered him a saccharine, overly bright smile. “Mr. Idrissi,” she said, over-pronouncing his name with exaggerated care, turning it to Eee-dreee-seee. “So good to see you again. Mr. Newcomb let us know to send you up, but do call down to the front desk if you need anything.”
“Of course,” Amani replied with an equally forced, bright smile, using that voice he hadn’t realized he hated until Victor had told him that when he spoke as himself, he sounded real.
He stepped from the lobby quickly, avoiding eye contact with even the security guard as he slipped into the elevator and some semblance of privacy. Enough, at least, to let him breathe, despite the red light of the security camera blinking in the corner.
When he stepped off on the penthouse floor, he walked into a world of gleaming shadows; with the lights dimmed the entire apartment was nothing but obsidian and glass, three walls and the ceiling completely open to the night, the wall with the elevator a mass of gold-veined black, the enormous room scattered with thick black gold-veined pillars. Even as he tread quietly across the floor, the high corners overhead picked up echoes, and made ongoing whispers and whispers and whispers of his steps.
The space was so massive it seemed there was hardly enough to fill it, separate areas defined less by the subtle raised or recessed terraces and more by the vast gulfs of emptiness in between. The kitchen was a raised island near the far wall, only for steps to lead down into a recessed dining area with elegant seating arrangements; the living room was just the center of the expansive floor, with a few white leather couches and chairs scattered about, minimalist modernism complemented by black glass tables. A massive bed that had to be twice the size of a California King, a carved ebonwood platform with gray coverings, stood on another dais to one side, positioned for a view of sunrise in the east, while the bathroom was separated off behind a standing screen of what looked like fragile obsidian shaved into a semitranslucent sheet, half-masking the massive sunken recessed bath. A few minimalist decorations hung about, clearly priceless paintings and prints in black and white, potted plants with subtle sprays of perfectly tended white flowers, a lacquer vase here and there.
And it all felt so…empty. So lifeless. Hardly a human touch anywhere.
He didn’t know how anyone could live like this.
He set his cello case down on the sofa and peeled out of his coat, then drifted across the room to the fireplace set into the obsidian wall, so tall and wide he could practically step into it bodily. Along the carved mantle on the top, several framed photos had been scattered about—the only things in this room that said Victor had selected them rather than some tasteful and stylish interior decorator. Amani had to stand on his toes to see, balancing lightly and gripping the edge of the mantle; he lingered on an old, faded photograph of a family in front of a sprawling Victorian mansion, the man square and stolid in a fine suit, the woman ramrod-straight and slim with a stubborn jaw and an icy sweep of blond hair tucked back severely, her mouth displeased while his was just grim.
A teenage boy stood at her side, blond and rangy with a sort of cruel sneer. Not Victor, even though he had Victor’s jaw, his angular build with narrow hips and broad shoulders. No, Amani thought Victor was the little boy on the woman’s hip, his head tucked against her shoulder and his wide blue eyes almost mournful. He’d been an adorably chubby little thing, a little pup even back then, his brown hair combed back and probably just waiting to be mussed the moment he was allowed to run off and dirty up his little sailor suit instead of being so proper for the camera.
In the next picture, there was only Victor—maybe thirteen or fourteen, but perfectly poised in a suit that made him look like a slender little adult already, standing between parents who looked exactly the same if a little bit older. The other boy was gone from the picture entirely, and something had changed in Victor’s pale blue eyes, something haunted and quiet but resolute. The next photo was almost identical, Victor just a few years older, seventeen or eighteen but already handsome.
The rest of the photos, however, weren’t of Victor at all. They showed a young redheaded woman, pretty with soft brown eyes and a laughing face; from the photo quality they were clearly recent, though it wasn’t hard to chart chronology over the course of years by the age of the little girl she often held. Her hair was as red as the woman’s, even in newborn photos with the woman sweaty and flushed in a hospital gown—but her eyes were the pale blue of a winter sky, and they glittered as she was captured laughing in so many pictures that tracked her from a tiny red-faced nugget of cuteness into a carefree little girl chasing dandelion wisps through a field with her entire face lit up with wonder. If he had to guess by the last photo, she was maybe ten or eleven, but every time she smiled it was that same sweet, carefree smile as the baby in the very first picture.
“See anything that interests you?” rumbled at his back.
Amani sucked in a breath, dropping down from his toes and letting go of the edge of the mantle to turn. Victor stood a few feet away, watching him with thinly veiled amusement. He was dressed for work, that slick waistcoat and slacks like armor, hiding him behind the man who’d spoken to Amani on the phone rather than the flustered confused thing who didn’t seem to know what to do in his presence. Pale blue eyes flicked over him, clearly taking him in, before Victor looked over his head at the line of photos.
“Don’t we make pretty pictures,” he murmured bitterly.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Amani said. “I didn’t mean to pry. I was just looking around while I waited.”
“Wouldn’t put them out if I had a problem with them being seen.” Victor offered a dry, humorless smile; he looked tired, today, as if something had been sucked out of him, leaving him as empty as this apartment. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I had a meeting to negotiate buyout and takeover of a foreign competitor, and it didn’t go well.”
Amani arched a brow. “Did you manage to offend them, too?”
“No, they just wanted to sell a niche company for half the GDP of a small European nation. I didn’t see any market value in that and it actually could have had a detrimental impact on the local economy in their home country, so I refused. They didn’t take it well.” He smirked half-heartedly. “Contrary to what you might think, I don’t like wasting money.”
“That does come as a surprise.”
Victor only smiled faintly, then turned away. “Do you mind if I take a moment to change?”
“It’s your house. Your hour.”
“Forty-five minutes, now, I suppose.” A lingering glance slid over Victor’s shoulder. “I’d hate to waste it.”
Amani said nothing, only watching as Victor crossed the room, a rather telling slump to his shoulders and weariness to his stride—yet still he carried himself with his back straight, stiff with pride. He bent to pull a few meticulously folded items from the drawer at the foot of the bed, then vanished behind that translucent obsidian screen, nothing but a silhouette of powerfully flexing muscle as he began undressing in soft rustles of cloth.
Tearing his gaze away, Amani crossed the room to settle down on the couch next to his cello case, crossing his legs. Victor’s Ficker was still resting on its stand, the bow on its own little stand next to it, and Amani reached over to stroke his fingers over the aged wood, feeling its texture, how it had been worn and polished and worn again, the subtle places where he could feel the repetitive patterns of fingers against the wood of the upper and lower bout.
“Would you like to play it?” Victor asked softly—once again making Amani start, heart briefly skipping as he pulled his hand back. Victor moved far too quietly, with a certain lithe grace, tread likely even more silent thanks to bare feet that peeked out from the frayed cuffs of another pair of designer jeans, faded gray-washed denim sitting on him as if it had been made for him, his loose V-neck t-shirt in muted dark violet slouching against him as if trying to cling lovingly to every sculpture of his body. He’d mussed his hair, breaking it from its slick-shellacked coiffure into lazy, messy tangled sweeps.
And that awkward smile was back, almost shy, as he glanced over Amani once more before clearing his throat and looking away.
“I just,” Victor started, before trailing off and trying again. “I’ve heard unless they’re factory-assembled, no two are alike. Every one feels and sounds different. So I thought…maybe you’d like to try mine.”
“Not right now,” Amani said. “I’m not sure I’ll be playing for this lesson.”
“No?” Victor chuckled as he sauntered closer, then drifted past Amani to sink down in the chair he’d occupied last time. “Not going to show me up again and remind me how woefully inadequate I am?”
“You’re not woefully inadequate. You’re just out of practice.”
“That’s fair. I won’t be up to the level of someone who practices every day.”
Amani winced. “I don’t practice every day.”
“Oh?” Victor’s brows lofted. “How often do you practice?”
“I don’t,” Amani admitted, and wasn’t ready for the rush of shame that brought, this feeling like he was bleeding right down the center of his chest. “At all. Your first lesson, that was my first time playing in…” He lowered his eyes, looking down at his hands, curling them together. “Since shortly after my surgery.”
“I…I’m sorry.” Victor actually looked pale, drawn, worried as he leaned in, looking at Amani intently. “I’d assumed you still played to practice, at least.”
“No.” Amani shook his head. “I was afraid to.”
Because I let go of what mattered most to me. Because I walked away from a legacy I’d sworn I’d carry, as if the weight of a ghost was too heavy to bear. Because I…because I…
“Because I made myself afraid,” he murmured.
Victor said nothing for several breaths, before offering gently, “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. We don’t even know each other.”
“No, we really don’t, do we?” Amani smiled faintly, lifting his gaze from his hands to meet pale, solemn blue eyes. “Yet you managed, somehow, to force me past one of my greatest fears so I could finally reclaim one of my greatest loves—and it happened so easily that I almost didn’t notice it.”
Blue eyes widened. “How did I do that?”
“By annoying me into this,” Amani deflected with a dry chuckle, before sighing and forcing himself to just…be honest.
He couldn’t shove Victor back by accusing him of using charm and platitudes to present a false face if he was going to be defensive and careful as well—and they were going to be working together for at least a few more weeks. He could at least let his guard down a little, especially when if not for Victor’s bizarre intrusion into his life…
It might have been years, before he rediscovered the feeling of strings quivering under his fingers again.
“No, I…” He wet his lips, then continued, “It’s true that I need this for my tuition, but I don’t think any other situation would have ever made me consider playing again. I’d thought it would be a humiliating and painful experience, to touch a cello again.” He took a deep breath. “Instead it was just…wonderful.”
“I’m glad,” Victor murmured, husky and deep. “I’m glad this doesn’t hurt you.”
Amani remained silent, simply looking at Victor, at…at that intense, almost consuming way Victor watched him, as if just looking at Amani fulfilled something for him. It was like the entire night was holding its breath, drawing in to whisper something between them—and Amani looked away sharply, tucking his hair back and forcing a smile that made his mouth feel hard and cold.
“Don’t get sentimental on me,” he said. Focus. Business. Lessons. And not this straight boy who was probably enjoying the fun little game of pretending to be as fascinated by the femme as he would be by a woman. “Show me your posture,” he ordered—then cut Victor off when Amani caught him, from the corner of his eye, reaching for the cello. “No, not with the cello. Have you been practicing?”
Victor froze, then let his arms drop and shifted to arrange his body, straightening his spine and spreading his thighs, muscle bunching against his jeans. He lifted his chin, looking straight forward, and raised his arms, one higher than the other, one lower, fingers of his left hand curled as if resting against the neck of an invisible cello.
“Every day,” he said. “Even in the office.”
“Very good.” Amani paused, wrinkling his nose as he took in the full picture of Victor’s body. “…not that good. You’re still holding your legs wrong, and your arms are like turkey wings.”
“Thanks. I feel very attractive right now.” Victor snorted. “This would be easier if I was actually holding the cello.”
“You shouldn’t need the cello to show you how to sit. Then you’re just using it as a prop, and an excuse not to develop the proper posture on your own.” Amani uncrossed his legs and stood. “Here.”
He circled Vic’s chair to stand behind him, and leaned over to curl his hands around the strong curves of his biceps, shifting his arms to the proper position based on Victor’s posture and the size of a 4/4 cello. His skin was warm under Amani’s palms, a faint brush of hair tickling as Amani stroked his fingers down to his forearms, then his wrists, gliding his touch over the backs of rough knuckles and thick yet graceful fingers to arrange them down to the minutest level. And if he wasn’t mistaken…
Victor caught his breath and trembled subtly, stomach sucking in tightly, as Amani’s fingers encircled his wrists.
When Victor turned his head, one blue eye watching Amani from the corner, their cheeks brushed, Victor’s scratching with a hint of stubble. “Posing me like a doll now?”
Amani paused, meeting that luminous eye; they were close enough that Victor’s stubble almost grazed his lips, so easy to whisper against his ear. “You don’t seem to mind it. You’re remarkably obedient.”
No, Amani definitely wasn’t mistaking it—the way Victor leaned subtly toward him, the throaty edge to that accented baritone voice. “Any more of that and I’ll start calling you Master.”
“Mm.” Amani leaned into his back, firm muscle pressing against Amani’s chest, so he could reach down and press his palms to Victor’s inner thighs. There was a touch of cruel pleasure in feeling how Victor tensed, how muscle writhed under Amani’s palms, how Victor’s breaths shuddered and turned shallow as Amani stroked toward his knees, fingers splaying—then pushed sharply, pressing his thighs apart until they were in the right position. “I’ll tell you if I ever want you to call me Master,” he breathed—then pulled back, breaking the contact between them.
Victor only sat there, frozen, breathing in quick bursts, his throat and cheeks flushed, his eyes a little wide and tracking Amani fixedly as he drifted back to the couch and sank down, curling with his legs tucked against his side and his shoulder leaning against the back of the couch.
Arching a brow, Amani met that rather shellshocked look, then chuckled, brushing his hair back. “You’re so easy, straight boy.”
Victor just stared at him for a moment longer, then cleared his throat and lifted his chin. “Er. Wouldn’t the fact that I’m straight make me not easy at all?”
“Maybe.”
Victor’s tongue darted over his lips, leaving a wet sheen against their pinkness. “So…what now?”
“You’re going to stay that way for the next forty minutes.” Amani slipped his phone from his pocket and tapped on the GDocs icon. “I have a term paper to finish.”
Victor made a strangled sound. “You can’t be serious. I’ll be sore as balls!”
“I assure you, I’m quite serious.” Amani kept his eyes on his screen, pulling up the saved document with his paper, but he couldn’t help a slow smile. “Maybe I can recommend a good masseuse when you’re done.”
“You’re a sadist.”
Amani glanced up, locking eyes with Victor. “Yes. I am that, too.”
That flash behind Victor’s eyes the moment it clicked was rather gratifying, as he sucked in another breath. “O-oh.”
“Posture, Mr. Newcomb,” Amani said, looking down at his phone again, pulling up the touchscreen keyboard and beginning to tap out sentences with his thumb-tips. “I’ll tell you when you can move.”
“But—”
Amani lifted one finger sharply. “And when you can speak.”
A few moments of silence…and then a murmur edged in laughter. “Yes, Sir.”
Amani only smiled to himself, and settled in to work.