Page 25 of Touch In Excess

Dragging his hands down to Rami’s, he took them both and squeezed before letting go of the right one so he could punch in his door lock code. Skye had always been a very tidy person, so he wasn’t worried about looking messy when the door swung open, and he led the way inside.

“Do you have someone clean for you?” Rami asked as Skye led him into the living room. “Oh. This place is smaller than I expected.”

Skye held back a burst of laughter. “Is it? And no. I take care of everything myself.”

“Even with your hours?”

Skye turned and looked at him with a quirked brow. “Rami, do you know how expensive one night with me is?”

Rami’s cheeks darkened, and he shook his head. “A lot, I assume.”

“A lot,” Skye said. “I’m not saying that to brag or anything, I promise. Stone set the base price, and then we’re allowed to add to it based on the additional needs the client requires. I’m not that busy because the cost of booking here is prohibitively expensive for most people. I have plenty of time to get down on my hands and knees and scrub my floor.”

Rami cocked his head to the side. “If you make so much money, why is it small?”

Skye did laugh this time. He yanked Rami closer and kissed his knuckles. God, he was so sweet. “Because these cottages used to be where the nuns slept, and Stone wanted to turn them into a sanctuary for us.”

“Nuns,” Rami parroted with a frown, and then his brows flew up. “Oh.Nuns. Like—” He waved his hand over his head, Skye assumed in mimic of a habit. “They have that…that hijab thing, but it’s kind of stiff and big?”

“Yeah,” Skye answered, still grinning. He tugged Rami toward the front window, which overlooked the courtyard. “When Stone bought this place, he thought about tearing this all down and building a living complex, but the guys he’d already hired then really liked the idea of transforming these into little cottages. And I like it here. I don’t need a lot of space.”

“Oh. No. Me either,” Rami said, shaking his head quickly. “My grandfather’s house is too big.”

“The one you’re in now?”

“Mm,” Rami answered with a nod. He pulled his hand free of Skye’s and began to stim, tapping the tips of his fingers together, swaying back and forth just slightly. “It’s a lot of work, so I…two of the rooms…can help it.” Rami’s swaying made it hard for Skye to catch all the words of his sentence, but he could fill in the blanks easily enough.

“I’ve always been a simple guy. A lot of our clients think we all have these big, tragic, complicated backstories. I don’t talk about my personal life with them too much, but the few people I’ve trusted enough seemed a little disappointed that I came from middle-class parents who had college degrees and nine-to-fives.”

‘Nine-five?’ Rami signed, looking confused. He swayed a little harder.

Skye wanted to put his arms around Rami’s waist and sway with him, but he wasn’t sure how he’d react, so he kept a few inches between them. “Yeah. Office jobs, you know? My dad was a chemical engineer who worked for a paper plant. My mom taught English at the community college. We had a nice home, two cars, the most popular toy every year for Christmas. It was…normal.”

Rami stopped swaying and turned to face Skye. He braced himself for Rami to ask why. Why did he choose this life? Why did he choose this job? “What’s Christmas like?”

Skye blinked, not sure if he heard him right. ‘Repeat?’

“What’s Christmas like? I’ve never had one. I grew up in a neighborhood where most of the people there were like us. Muslim,” he added like he wasn’t sure if Skye was following. “I mean, IknowChristmas. I know Santa and presents and…ham?”

Skye laughed again. “My parents liked a brisket over ham, but yeah, that kind of sums it up. You also have extended familyand awkward conversations with people who you haven’t seen all year.”

“Oh. I know what that’s like. We have holidays too,” Rami clarified.

Skye smiled. “Shared cultural experience, then, huh?”

Rami snorted and rolled his eyes. “Probably. I think we have a lot of shared experience.” Rami reached out and touched the side of his jaw. “What’s the difference between doing this as a Sin and just being an escort?”

“The clients,” Skye told him honestly. He took Rami’s hand again and pulled him down to the sofa. He propped his feet up on the table as Rami sat almost all the way backward so he could continue looking out the window, his knees under him, chest pressed against the back cushion. “They come in with expectations. Being Gluttony, they tend to want a lot of indulgence. Or they want to be indulged. They want it slow and heavy. They want it to feel like our time together is an actual eternity and it’s going to go on forever and ever.”

Rami turned his face, laying his cheek against the cushion as he looked at Skye. “Do you like it?”

“Sometimes. And sometimes I just play a part.”

“Mm.” Rami closed his eyes as he nodded. “It’s hard sometimes, isn’t it? To split yourself in two like that? One part belongs to people, one part belongs to you. And…and it feels…a lot.”

Skye’s head was spinning. Rami had hit the nail right on the head, but how? His job as an artist surely didn’t put him in the position to understand so profoundly. But maybe it was something else. His family, his religion, his past?

He ached to ask, but instead, he reached out and brushed a curl back from Rami’s temple that had come loose from his hair tie. “You’re very beautiful.”

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