Page 55 of The Pleasure Contract

“Fascinating,” he says with glee, lacing his fingers together, “and, how, pray tell, do I get in on this cuddle activity? I have a feeling I would be very good at it.”

Az’s teammates all peer at me like I’m about to give some not-to-be-missed sage advice.

“I… well…” What the hell am I meant to say? “I don’t know if Xaviann women even like to-”

“What is involved, exactly?” Rykor asks. “How do you engage in a cuddle?”

Ignoring his teammate’s questions, Ral turns to Az. “Was it good? It looks fucking amazing.”

Az shakes his head with a sly smirk on his face, like he’s about to blow their minds by describing the mechanics of a cuddle. But he’s interrupted by Zek returning, looking a little flustered. “For you, Prince Az,” he says, laying a small note, topped with a golden wax seal. “People from the Central Palace dropped it off,” he says excitedly. “You should have seen their uniforms! Gilded thread embroidery with glow stone pearls!”

Rykor leans back in his seat. “Sounds exquisite,” he says, his voice dipped a little lower than I’d noticed before.

Zek blinks back at the professional athlete who is absolutely eye-fucking the hell out of him right about now, and clears his throat to compose himself. Bowing to the table, he takes his leave.

“Are you gonna go this time?” Jorren asks Az.

Sighing, Az taps the unopened note against the crisp white tablecloth, contemplating. “My father won’t be expecting me to accept the invitation to the palace, because I never do, but…” he looks over at me and gives a half-smile. “Glex may well be there. I can suck it up and make nice with the King if it helps you.”

25

Lois

The invite to the palace is for dinner in three days’ time. Az says that I might not need to wait that long to bump into Senator Glex, as he might be at the Capital’s drakball arena tomorrow. Now that word has got out that the whole Northern Principality team is down here at the Capital, they’ve been invited to play a friendly warm-up game before the big one between them both in a few weeks’ time.

“Glex has invested a lot of money into the Capital’s team,” Thax explains as he stands beside Zek, helping to polish the silverware. I say ‘helping’, but I’m not sure Zek sees it that way, as he seems to be picking up every piece of cutlery that Thax is done with to go hold it up for inspection and go over it again. “I would be surprised if he is not at the arena tomorrow, analyzing our game, and how to get the better of us,” Thax continues, completely unaware of the disgruntled staff male beside him. “Investors always like to think they know more about the game than the professionals.”

The other team members have gone to rest after their journey. Varrex briefly came back out of his room to give Az a singular grunted nod on his way to fetch some water for himself. On his way back, I was given a deep, respectful bow.

And that’s apparently how these two deal with issues.

“Are you sure he’s gonna be okay?” I ask Az as I get ready to leave the apartment.

Az folds his arms across his chest and leans his shoulder against the doorframe in an oddly attractive way. “Vex is always like this. Trust me, he’s fine.”

Twisting back around to face the vanity mirror, I try to wrangle my hair up away from my face and fix it into a high bun, praying that it looks half decent and not at all like I started building a bird’s nest and abandoned the project halfway through. Flicking my eyes to the corner of the mirror, I can see Az’s reflection watching me intently. I try not to blush and deflect by asking, “But he really didn’t like the thought of you and I-”

“You have to remember-” Az starts, pushing off from the doorframe, coming to stand directly behind me. He crouches down on his haunches so that I can see his face in the mirror as he continues. “-that Xavianns are not used to seeing things such as ‘a cuddle’ with their own eyes. The fact that you allow such touches would put a male like Varrex at ill ease simply because he is not used to it,” he says, softly stroking his knuckles down my bare arm, awaking a trickle of goosebumps as he goes.

“I… I don’t want to put anyone at ill ease,” I say, my voice raspy and unlike my own as I watch his knuckles glide up and down.

Az smiles at me and stands. “Come,” he says, holding out his hand. “Pay no mind to people like Vex. The male walks around like he constantly has a drak horn lodged up his ass.” I place my hand on his palm and let him help me up when he leans down to say, “And now that I know what being allowed to touch you is like, don’t you dare think for a moment that I’ll give it up that easily.”

* * *

Since I have half a day to kill before tomorrow’s training game – where I might finally get to meet Senator Glex – Az has decided to take me on a sightseeing tour of the Capital. So far, I’ve seen a rushing river, towering monuments, impressive glasshouses that look like they house entire jungles, and buildings that seem to shimmer in the daylight like they’re lacquered in mother-of-pearl. One of those buildings in particular looms over us as we zoom by in our city cruiser, the multicolored banners hanging outside catching my eye.

“What’s that place?”

Az ducks his head to look, careful not to get me with his horns. “That’s the Museum of Xaviann History,” he tells me, already pressing various buttons and pushing the appropriate levers to get the cruiser all parked up.

I remember going to history museums back home. I hadn’t really appreciated them when I was a kid. They were normally part of a school trip and attached to some kind of project I’d needed to complete. Mom never really had time to take me, since she was always working multiple jobs to keep our heads above water. But when I was a little older, I’d landed a job at a coffee place around the corner from the city museum. The curator, an older lady called Diane, would come in with her layered skirts, dangly beaded earrings, and a fistful of leaflets on whatever exhibition she was showcasing that week. But she couldn’t just set them down on the counter for our customers to take – oh no – Diane would insist on telling me and the other staff at least one history fact before she left. Whether it be that European Aristocrats used to mistakenly think tomatoes were poisonous after eating them off lead-laden pewter plates, or that Vikings never actually wore those helmets with the horns; whenever she stopped by, I always learned something new.

I wonder what Diane would make of this place, I think, turning slowly in place as I stare up at the cavernous entry hall of the Xaviann museum. The empty space seems to reach up to the heavens, and I can see multiple floors layered on top of one another, spiraling around the outer edge of the hall like a coiled spring.

Everything seems to be touched by gold in one way or another. Whether it’s the railings, the door handles, or the huge golden statue sitting in the middle of the space. “Who is that?” I ask, eyeing the giant, shiny metal Xaviann male.

Az clears his throat and shifts on his feet beside me. “Uh… that would be my father.”