Letting go of Jacob, Rasul stood in the middle of the room, or at least up against the side of the bed, arms extended and a grin on his face. The glow of thousands of string lights filled the walls, part of the ceiling, and spilled onto the floor. In several spaces, there was dark gauzy fabric behind the lights, making it feel as if….
Well, as if Jacob had stepped beyond a veil and into the stars.
Rasul beamed at the space he’d created. “Christopher helped me rig it. Gorgeous, right? It puts me in the mood when I feel like I’m losing the threads of the story. Which is sadly much easier than I’d like.”
The door was open behind Jacob, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to rush out of it or close it tightly and meld into the space. He was highly conscious of Rasul’s bed, half-made and littered with pillows. The room smelled like him, like the sweatshirts he often left behind when he worked and which Jacob would steal whiffs of as he hung them politely on the back of Rasul’s usual chair.
If you shut the door, he’ll make love to you right now.
Jacob took a half step backward, making himself a doorstop. “It’s lovely. I’m glad to hear writing is going so well.”
“Yeah.” Rasul put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “I worry a lot that it’ll evaporate. For a while there, I’d open the document thrilled at how much progress I was making, eager to push out more. Then I realized how far I was and started dreading each day would be the one when I realized it was nothing but ash.”
“I’m sure it’s not ash.”
More fidgeting. Now it was Rasul who couldn’t look at Jacob. “It’s so close to home. I feel exposed but also worry it’s too ridiculous.”
“Can you show your agent and have her reassure you?”
“Oh, she’s seen sections of it, and she likes it. But….”
Oh—Rasul was blushing.
Rasul lifted his gaze to Jacob’s. “I want you to like it.”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Jacob put his hand over his heart, trying to quiet it. “I….” He couldn’t say anything more.
“There’s so much of you in this book. So much for you.” Rasul gestured to the lights around them. “When you read my work, I want you to feel like this room makes me feel as I write. Soft and safe, slightly breathless, hopeful.”
Knees. Where were Jacob’s knees? “I… I feel that way about your work already.”
Rasul shook his head, a flare of passion kindling in his gaze. “I want you to feel it more. I want this book to blow my other two away—for you.”
Jacob gave up. He leaned into the doorway to keep himself upright.
Rasul didn’t move, but he somehow crowded Jacob all the same. His gaze was so intense. “I want to press you against the door and kiss you until you’re boneless. I want to push you into this bed and undo you until we’re both weak and spent.” His gaze softened. “You’re not ready, and to be honest, the pining and tension is fueling the book. When it’s done, though… when it’s done, I want you to read it. And I want to make love to you.”
Jacob’s fingers curled against the wall, the wood of the frame. He couldn’t answer. He could barely breathe.
Rasul’s smile made Jacob’s blood fizzle. “I’m going to go back to work now. And I’ll use your delivery service. Next week, when I feel more stable about this, I’ll call you and we’ll go on a date. You think about where you’d like to go. In the meantime….”
He crossed to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and withdrew something small. When he held it out, Jacob saw it was a key.
“I have a key to your place. You should have one to mine.” Rasul held the tip of the key by his fingertips and extended it toward Jacob. “Feel free to use it anytime.”
Why was Jacob so turned-on by a damn key? He swallowed against his dry throat, then swallowed again. “Y-you’re working.”
The smolder in Rasul’s gaze could have lit a blaze in a rainstorm. “If you use this to let yourself into my bedroom, I won’t be working for very long. And I won’t mind.”
Jacob shouldn’t take the key. He knew this. He should make a polite refusal, give a smile, and depart. Under no circumstances should he take the key from Rasul. He absolutely should never use it.
Shaking, Jacob took two steps forward, feeling as if he were in a dream. For a second, when he closed his fingers on the metal, he swore he felt a jolt of electricity, a sharp current connecting the two of them, running through every inch of his body.
Shut the door and you can stay. Shut the door, and he’ll pull you into his arms.
Jacob drew back, stumbling, then hurried out of the room, through the house to the door, swiping up his jacket and shoes on his way out. Once he was down the stairs in the foyer, he dropped his shoes and wrangled his feet into them.
With a shaking breath, he tucked the key into his pocket and left the building.
Chapter Ten
VEIL OF Stars was either the best thing Rasul had ever written, or the worst, and not knowing which it was drove him up the wall.
He didn’t remember feeling this way about his first two novels, or any of the short fiction he’d managed to churn out while he spun his wheels. The first one had been… well, lightning, really. His father had nagged him the whole time he’d been writing, telling him how novels never made any money and no one would read it. He’d written The Sword Dancer’s Daughter full of defiance and a determination to make his dad eat it even as Rasul battled a crippling depression telling him he and everything he did was garbage. The book hadn’t been garbage. People had read it, and there’d been that movie option too. No movie was ever made, but still. He’d been paid, enough to feel smug.
Book two had been slightly different. There was a lot of expectation on him, and weird jealousy from people he didn’t even know, everyone ready to watch him fall on his face. So he’d made sure he didn’t fall. And this was enough, apparently, for everyone to leave him alone. The movie for Carnivale was indeed in the works. His dad bragged about him now. His mother gave his books to her friends. The critics eagerly awaited his next offering, certain it would be a hit.
That, for some reason, was when Rasul had pancaked, and he hadn’t been able to recover. Not until now.
Not until Jacob.
The day before Jacob had shown up with meals on wheels, Rasul had decided. He didn’t care what else happened with the story, but Jacob was going to like it. Every critic could laugh at it, his publisher could throw it out the window—none of it mattered, so long as Jacob thought it was good. This mantra had carried him over a dangerous impasse, and after he’d seen the way Jacob melted inside his bedroom, clearly longing to come inside, equally terrified and needing to stay away—that had sealed the deal. He would please Jacob with this story. Maybe he wouldn’t win his heart and get him into bed, but piercing him with story would be enough.
It wouldn’t. He wanted Jacob more every day. But that was fine. It made him work harder.
The protagonist, Adam Hasan, was a pretty serious self-insert, but it was his adolescent self-insert, so no one would know except his dad, who might actually not see it anyway because he didn’t read Rasul’s stuff. He wouldn’t continue past the first kiss, at least.