Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Fallow
This is fucking incredible. Security here is a joke, so it took us just a few minutes to break in, and now we have the whole place to ourselves.
It’s not a huge facility. About the size of one of those creepy roadside zoos you see in middle America, but it looks like it’s an actual sanctuary, not a tourist trap.
If we’d come in here and found some Joe Exotic shit, I would have been very tempted to free all the animals and burn the place to the ground, but silently exploring is much more satisfying.
It’s peaceful. Not in a passive way, but like the smells and soft sounds of critters in the dark are combining to reach their tendrils inside me, wrap around my bones and squeeze in reassurance. I feel like I can breathe.
Colm is quiet beside me. He hasn’t said anything, but I can tell he feels the same way.
There’s an ease and grace to his movements that I haven’t really seen in him before.
Maybe he’s just relaxed now that I finally confessed all my dirty little secrets to him.
I don’t really care about the reason; I’m just content to soak up the atmosphere.
We keep all the lights off and move through the walkways like we’re also creatures of the night.
It’s almost all open air, with little bits of cement buildings and various rooms between the exhibits.
And the exhibits are huge. Everything’s filled with native plants, and it seems like the animals have more places to hide and live than they would at a regular zoo.
It means we don’t see much face to face, but I’m okay with that.
Just the atmosphere is enough for me right now.
I whisper little tidbits about each of the animals to Colm as we move through.
He doesn’t say much, but every time I catch him looking at me, he seems almost fond?
Warm? It’s not something I’ve had a lot of experience with.
Or really thought I needed. Even Ellery—who is not the warmest person in the world, just like me—looks at me with fondness sometimes, but nothing like this.
He practically has cartoon hearts in his eyes.
I should make fun of him and shut the whole thing down before we get into dangerous territory, but I can’t bring myself to.
There’s absolutely no doubt that if Colm and I parted ways, my life would continue just fine without him.
But having him around… it’s nice. It feels like a little treat that I’m giving to the softer, more hidden sides of myself, and I’m beginning to come to terms with that.
Maybe I’ll keep him around for longer. I had planned to find Ellery, beg them to come home with me, or otherwise abandon Murphy to follow Ellery wherever they wanted to go.
But I bet I can shoehorn Colm into that plan.
If only I could just shrink him down and put him in my pocket for convenience, that would do wonders.
Also, it would be nice to have a consolation if things go sideways with Ellery. Colm is more than just a consolation, obviously. I’m not sure exactly what he is, but whatever it is, he’s definitely more. Losing them both at the same time would hurt, though. More than I’m willing to face.
Eventually, we find a glass-fronted enclosure with a Gila monster sitting on a rock in full view. It’s absolutely massive, with dark skin mottled with orange. It watches us approach but doesn’t run away, obviously content to be quietly watched for a minute.
It’s beautiful. One of those things that makes you wonder how many different pieces of the universe came together in just the right way to make something so cartoonish but so elegant at the same time. Colm comes to a stop beside me, and he’s so close that I can hear him breathing.
His arm brushes against mine. His is bare, because he’s just wearing a t-shirt with all those ugly tattoos on display, while I’m wearing an unbuttoned flannel that we picked up at a service station a few days ago.
I should step away, or at least scold him for breaking the rules, but it seemed like an accident.
In the entire time I’ve known him, Colm has respected my rules with a shocking kind of diligence, and it’s one of the things that makes him different from almost any man I’ve ever known.
He makes me not want to care about my rules, for once.
Even if the closeness is making my skin itch and a little hum of anxiety make itself known beneath my skin.
I focus on anything else, so I don’t have to confront what this man is doing to me.
Or before I get so stressed out that the only distraction I can use will be fucking him right here in front of the lizards.
“Did you know that Gila monsters are one of the only lizards in the world that’s truly venomous?” I ask him, leaning into this distraction.
“Honestly, I think I did. You’re not the only one with facts, for once.”
He turns and gives me a small, teasing smile, and I can’t stop myself from smiling in return.
“What a clever rabbit. Well, their venom is mostly for defense, not hunting. But a lot of the really big lizards of the world—the kinds that would swallow a chicken whole right front of you—have developed to have so much bacteria in their mouths that it basically acts like a venom. So they can bite something much bigger than them and then run away. The deer or cow or whatever will slowly get septicemia and get weaker, and only then will the lizard move in for the kill.”
Colm is nodding slowly, like he’s absorbing all that information and storing it for later.
“So, the opposite of your attack style, basically,” he says in a hushed voice.
I can’t help but chuckle at that, because he’s not wrong.
“Yeah, but you love my attack style. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how hard you got watching me kill your captors. Sitting there all trussed up and bloody with a fucking erection waving in my face.”
Colm smiles again, but doesn’t deny it. The back of his hand grazes against the back of mine, feather-light, and for a split second I almost understand why some people like to hold hands.
I’m so lost in it; I almost don’t hear the noise. But a few seconds later, it penetrates the fog of Colm that’s wrapped around my mind.
“Shh,” I hiss. “There’s someone here.”
“Oh shit, maybe there’s a security guard. We should bounce.”
Colm is whispering, but he doesn’t sound as concerned as I am right now. I don’t have a reason for it; it’s just a sense. Something feels wrong, like that peaceful atmosphere from before has been pierced.
Clearly, the Gila monster senses the same thing, because they abruptly scurry off the rock and back into their hidey hole.
“I don’t think it’s a security guard, little rabbit.”
Just as I say it, the sound of low voices reaches us, and it’s clear that whoever it is, there’s several of them and they’re also sneaking around. I’m not overwhelmed with concern, but I am listening closely, and that’s when I hear them say my name.
“Shit. It’s them,” I whisper, grabbing Colm’s sleeve to tug him in the opposite direction.
My timing is perfect, because I can just see booted feet appearing around the corner as I do.
And there’s more boots than I was hoping.
I can take down a very respectable number of people in a fight, and Colm isn’t as much of a wet blanket as I like to pretend.
But even though this place is open air, the spaces between the enclosures are long and narrow.
If we get into a firefight right now, there’s no way for it not to become a bloodbath.
I’m assuming they were expecting to have the advantage of both numbers and surprise, but once again, they underestimated us. It must be difficult to grasp that everyone else in the world isn’t as incompetent as they are.
Colm and I move quickly and quietly until we’re in one of the squat buildings between exhibits. Colm tries the door, and when it opens steps inside. It’s too dark in there to see how much space there is, but it looks very small. Barely a closet.
I shake my head, because I am not about to walk in there with him so he can breathe all over me, but the Aryans are getting closer by the second.
Maybe he can hide, and I can kill them. I could try to take on six of them. I have my butterfly knife in my pocket, still.
There’s a tense pause before Colm frowns and huffs. I think he’s about to shut the door between us. Finally cutting me loose, like he should.
Instead, he reaches out, snags my sleeve and yanks me so hard that I practically stumble into the tiny room.
It’s pitch black, cold and empty, and it feels like there’s a drain under my feet.
It’s also so tiny that Colm can barely fit his shoulders in here, and the entire front of his body is pressed against my back.
His breaths are coming in shallow, even pants, his adrenaline spiking, I’m sure, but just like I feared I can feel the air on my skin.
No. No. This is unacceptable.
Maybe it’s a punishment for how I got all day-dreamy earlier. I let myself consider that letting Colm touch me might not be the worst possible thing, and this is what I get. Trapped and surrounded, with every second of it totally out of my control.
The Aryans’ voices are loud now, right outside the door, but I don’t care.
Let them kill me. I can’t stand the feeling of panic rising in me and my heart is about to pound out of my chest. I don’t realize I’m actively struggling to leave until Colm gives up trying to give me space and wraps both of his thick arms around my chest.
He wraps me up, pulls me away from the door and against his too-hot body, and then he squeezes. Not like he’s going to crush me, but with so much pressure it’s hard to thrash.
“Shh.”
He makes the noise directly in my ear, so the guys outside can’t overhear it. It’s hot, too, and too close. It’s all too close.
I pull against Colm again, and he splays one hand out over my chest like a brace. He keeps shushing me softly, pulling me farther and farther from the door that looks like my salvation, the edge of it limned in moonlight.
It takes all my self- control not to audibly sob, but my face is making some awful expression, I’m sure. It’s too much. It isn’t supposed to be like this.
Colm’s hand moves up until it’s covering my mouth. My breathing picks up, harsh rasps through my nose, but it smothers the noise I was about to make.
“I don’t think they’re here, man. This place seems empty.”
Their voices filter through the door. They’re still speaking quietly, but I can hear them loud and clear, so they must be right in front of us.
“They have to be here. The tracker led us to the car, and it’s parked right fucking there. Where else would they be? Do you think they wandered off into the desert to look at the stars or some shit?”
The voices continue, arguing about where we must be and how they can find us. My mind is still stuck on the fact that they have a motherfucking tracker on our vehicle, which explains a lot, but I’m too distressed to process that right now.
They need to step away. If they just go look for us somewhere else, I can get out of this fucking closet and think. Instead, they seem to be getting more intent on bickering with each other like children while my panic is slowly threatening to choke me.
Colm is the only thing holding me together right now, even though it’s being shoved against him like this that’s making me freak out in the first place. If it were literally anyone else in here with me, I would have slit their throat already.
He’s shushing me in a rhythm and rocking me at the same time, one hand still on my mouth and the other arm barred across my chest.
Shh. Shh. Shh. You’re okay. It’s just me.
It’s barely audible, but I hear it. I try to let the words sink into me, but my heart still feels like it’s going to rabbit out of my chest.
I can’t stay here like this. I can’t keep doing this, but I don’t want to die over my stupid obsession with keeping people at arm’s length. There has to be a fucking distraction.
“Fuck,” I whisper, barely able to form the word through my panic.
Colm tentatively moves his hand away from my mouth and tilts his head close to hear.
“Fuck,” I breathe again. “Fuck me. Distraction.”
Colm freezes, but I’m pretty sure he’s been half-hard from his cock being pressed against my ass this entire time. I know he lives for this secretive high-tension shite, even if he denies it.
“Yeah?” he asks, also breathless.
I nod. He can feel it. The voices aren’t going anywhere, because they’ve gotten into a fucking fight about something, and I need to think about anything else if I want to survive.
Colm’s hand is trembling a little as he reaches down and unbuckles my jeans, slowly shimmying them down with my underwear until my thighs are pinned in place by the fabric. He puts his warm hand against the side of my hip and holds it there for a second. Not doing anything, just touching.
I whine, although it’s barely audible. It feels almost good. Terrible in the best way. I feel insane as the texture of his clammy skin against mine feels just as uncomfortable as I expected, but every time I remind myself that the hand on me is attached to Colm, it gets easier.
Despite my fear—or maybe because of it—my cock is already well on its way to hard. It won’t be the first fear boner I’ve experienced, and it hopefully won’t be the last. But it’s helping me twist all that adrenaline into something I’m designed to handle, and I’m ready to lean into that.
“Do it,” I whisper, suddenly desperate for his cock.