Page 51 of Touch In Excess

That letting his parents feel disappointment in his choices hadn’t come at the price of their love and support. That they could see the world entirely differently, but that didn’t matter because at the end of the day, Rami was their son, and he was important.

“You can meet them someday,” Rami said after a long beat.

Skye pulled back. “Your parents?”

“And my brother and sister. And her husband. I also have three nieces,” Rami said.

Skye laughed, but the sound wasn’t mocking. It was surprise, and hope, and maybe a little joy. “Will they like me?”

“I don’t know,” Rami answered honestly. “But they’ll be kind as long as you don’t spit food on the table.”

“Is that…a thing that happened?” Skye asked with a frown.

Rami covered his face and groaned. “Just once. But I trust you. They speak mostly Arabic at home, and they don’t sign, so I’ll interpret if you get lost. But they mean well. It’s a lot sometimes. Loud and bright and…” He trailed off. “And it’s also very good.”

“You miss them,” Skye said softly.

Rami’s eyes cut downward. “When I make enough money, things can go back to normal.”

Skye touched his chin and lifted his gaze. “If you let me help, I can get you there faster. I don’t want to take over, sweetheart, and I don’t want to make money a thing between us. But there are things about you that I want as my own. And if doing that means I can also get you back to the life you left behind, I’d like to.”

“I know,” Rami said. “I’m…I’m not going to say no. Is that weird?”

“Only as weird as me asking,” Skye told him. “But we have this too, don’t we?” He picked Rami’s hand up and kissed his knuckles. “The moments after.”

“Yes,” Rami said, and he realized just how right Skye was. He could have both. There could be two worlds, split down the middle, and Skye could be in both of them. One didn’t have to affect the other. “You might go broke bidding.”

Skye grinned and rolled over, pinning Rami to the pillows. “I don’t care. I’m going to be working my job for a long time. I can replenish whatever I spend on you.”

“Kiss me,” Rami murmured. He wasn’t sure if Skye heard him or read his lips, but it didn’t matter because Skye understood. And he leaned in with a grin and did exactly as Rami asked.

Thirteen

He stareddown at the toy on his lap. It was still in the packaging. He was going to be using it in a few hours, so it needed to be sterilized and examined. When the user won the bid to send him the sleeve, Rami sat with it for hours, playing with it in his hands, studying the weight and feel of it so nothing would feel like a surprise.

It took him weeks to start another live to use it. Weeks, in fact, which led to the one after he met Skye and everything changed. He wondered if there would ever be another user besides Skye who won bids like this.

Surely not for the physical things he was promising. The first cock he sucked would be Skye’s. The first tongue inside him would be Skye’s. And maybe the first fingers and first dick. He shuddered at the thought as he finally tore open the plastic and lifted the dildo into his hands.

It wasn’t what he was expecting. He thought Skye would go with something complicated, full of buttons and lights and vibrations in weird colors. The flesh of it was the same color as Skye’s skin—though his cock was redder and darker when it was hard.

But there were no bells and whistles. Just thick, heavy silicone and a suction cup at the base that easily popped off with a push and twist.

He stared at his fingers holding it, at the contrast of his skin, and he thought about the way it looked when he touched his lover. He thought about the feel of Skye’s warmth beneath his palms and the way he shuddered like he wanted to be touched by Rami in spite of being touched all the time by other people.

He had a way of making Rami feel like he was the only man in the world, and that was as terrifying as it was thrilling. It was like a landslide—crashing through his life without warning or any way to stop it. It was destructive and yet oddly beautiful. Whatever was going to come after, Rami knew he would be changed, and for the first time ever, that didn’t make him want to turn and run.

Standing up, he moved to the kitchen, where he had his pot ready for the toys he was sent. It was a strange thought. Never in a million years had he thought he would be doing this in his grandfather’s house.

“Astaghfar,” he muttered quietly, though it wasn’t so much Allah’s forgiveness that he wanted than his grandfather’s. “Jiddi,” he murmured aloud, “would you want this for me right now if you were here?”

The answer was no. His grandfather wouldn’t. He knew that for a fact. But then again, if he’d been alive, Rami wouldn’t be in this position.

But he’d never really doubted this decision. He’d been given his body for a reason, and maybe this wasn’t his purpose in life, but it gave him an edge over others that drew an audience. It provided him what he needed.

He couldn’t really find the sin in that. At least not the social-moral sin. Religion had always baffled him, so he never took that into account. Of course, some days, he wished he could bethe person his parents wanted. That he could be a good Muslim boy who liked girls growing up and had a plain job that earned a paycheck. He could have a happy, quiet marriage with kids and a house and not fuss about every single tiny thing that crossed his path.

It would be less exhausting to not fight his brain every waking moment. To not be consumed when things simply felt wrong or when his routine was disturbed.

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