Chapter 6 #2
I can make out the silhouette of a dark blue body through a couple of the tubes, in one of the center ones. I duck into the room, creeping closer. There’s some condensation on the capsule, blurring the exact details of what’s inside.
After a few more feet, I’m peeking around a control board. The shape inside the capsule moves languidly, almost rhythmically. It’s him, the mutant who rescued me. And he’s jerking off.
I can’t help but let out a gasp when I realize what I’m seeing. “Eeep!”
“HOLY FUCK,” he startles, the sound muted and distorted through the glowing liquid. He grabs one of his wings and wraps it around his waist; his tail flicks agitatedly in the solution.
My hands are up by my face in an instant, and I’m only barely peeking through my fingers at him. Oh my God, I’m trespassing and a peeping tom and utterly in the wrong, and still curiosity gets the better of me, rooting me to the spot.
“Oh, hey, Lacey. Fancy seeing you here,” he says, a slight hitch in his voice as he recovers. “Where I live. And work. What a . . . coincidence.”
While he speaks, he leans against the edge of the tube, stretching and folding an arm behind his head in a way that really emphasizes his bicep. Then he flashes me that smile, with his sharp, pronounced canines.
I wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling surprised when I look at him.
His eyes are bright and golden, his hair is almost the same deep blue of his skin, just a little darker.
He rakes it back from his face, and it flops back exactly the same as it was, and that alone sends a little zing through the low of my belly.
Despite him deciding this is the time to show off, I can’t bring myself to lower my hands. They’re not really providing anything to the notion of privacy, but I can’t stop peeking through them.
I slowly uncurl from my full-body flinch. “Wh-what are you doing in there?”
His eyes narrow at me.
“Do I really need to explain . . . ?” he asks, with a small gesture at his hip.
From what I can tell of the blurriness, there’s something definitely not normal going on over there. I don’t know if I’m thankful I can’t totally see—I don’t know how I’m going to tell Adrianna that she was onto something earlier.
What I can tell from the general blurry shape of it: His cock is hard, every so often twitching and bobbing in the water. It’s very distracting. A few droplets of pre-cum drift off the head with the slow circulating current, clearly a different viscosity than the water in the tank.
I bite my lip. “No, I mean, before that. Did Maestro trap you in there? Do you need a hand?”
“Do I need . . .” he repeats, eyebrows raised.
I can see him briefly consider a response, but he closes his mouth on it and then covers his mouth with his hand.
After a moment, he shrugs. “No, I’m fine.
I mean, I guess, technically I’m trapped.
Maestro’s supposed to come back and get me after an hour, but sometimes after he microwaves a TV dinner, he falls asleep at his desk.
And Vin probably won’t let me out any time soon, cuz he’s a dick about it. ”
I nod several times because I don’t know what else to do right now. All I can think about is how I’m going to try to get out of this moment, but no good ideas are coming to me. “Oh. Well, glad you’re ok.”
“Thanks,” he says slowly, eyes flicking from the hallways to me. His eyes narrow, then. “What are you even doing here?”
Shit.
“I’m, uh, here for our date, obviously,” I say quickly, each word feeling flimsier than the last. I try to look convincing, but it’s the weakest of excuses.
He holds my stare for a long moment, letting me squirm. It’s so hard to maintain eye contact. Every time my eyes dip away from his face to the hard line of his cock pressing against his wing, I have to school my attention back up.
“Is that so?” he asks at last, quirking a brow. It’s not the open and easy grin I saw last night; there’s a tightness in his cheek and a wariness in his eyes that wasn’t there before.
“Yeah, uh—” I nod, crossing my arms over my chest, starting to chew the inside of my cheek again. Maybe I can wiggle my way out of this one. “I even wore my rain boots, like you said.”
A wicked grin hooks one side of his mouth, showing me his canines. “You’re early. Hit that button for me, will you?”
He gestures to the big red button at the base of the capsule. Just below it, there’s a sticky note that says, “Leave him in there, he’s been annoying today.—Vin.”
For a moment, I debate how smart it is to release the one henchman who has spotted me so far. He might tie me up and alert any others around. Then again, I’ve already been tied up around him once before, and I got out ok.
At the very least I should give him a chance to get dressed.
I press it and the top of the capsule unseals with a gust of steam that borders on too loud. He doesn’t seem concerned by it, instead pushing the top hatch all the way open and hooking his hands on the rim.
A drain gurgles as the water level inside begins inching downward. I look away quickly as he starts to pull himself out of the tube, putting one clawed foot on the rim of the capsule, some of the foggy liquid inside splashing over the edge.
“You know, you never gave me a name. Is it because the tube says number six?”
“That has more to do with the tube than me,” he scoffs. “You can call me Ellis.”
There’s the wet sound of feet slapping the ground, the little grunt he makes as he lands. Hugging myself, I question every single one of my life choices. If I glance at his dick again, I don’t know how I’ll make it through this moment.
“You don’t have to grab me a towel, buuut . . .” Ellis says while my back is turned. I spot one and quickly pass it to him, keeping my eyes lowered to the ground.
When I look back at him again, he’s leaning back on the control board, tugging the corners of the towel wrapped around his waist into a knot.
The other night at the gala, I thought I got a good enough look at him to tell that he was lithe and well-muscled, but it’s nothing like this.
I’d spent the remainder of that evening convincing myself I’d only been intimidated by standing so close to one of Maestro’s henchmen, bristled by the danger of it, that it had been only fear quickening my pulse and making my palms sweaty.
There are a number of oddly textured markings on him, clustering on one shoulder and traveling down, a smattering on his side, one long one running down his hip over a muscled thigh. They seem random, unlike the ridges on his tongue. I wonder if they’re a part of him, like freckles or something.
The towel alone doesn’t do much for the fact that the rest of him, big and blue and muscled like an underwear model, is still dripping wet.
I swallow, thankful for the self-preservation instinct that would never allow me to lick whatever that liquid was off him, because I am thinking about it, just a little bit.
Oh no.
Lacey Annabeth Vigil, you cannot. Do not. No, no, no. It’s dangerous to even entertain the thought. It would never work; it would just be a bad idea. It could never happen.
But my body’s getting a whole different memo. I can’t stop staring at the trail of thicker, darker hair leading down from his navel, carving an extremely tongue-able path down the center of his angular hipbones.
I take a step back, and fidget with the edge of my coat. Be professional. Walk back the obvious fascination with him, at least externally.
“So, you’re spying,” he says matter-of-factly, like he just remembered that I’m not supposed to be here.
Ok, I wasn’t fooling him at all. That’s a little disappointing, honestly. “I’m . . . yeah. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a tour?”
“Mm, I do want to keep my job.” Ellis hums. “But, uh, I know a really great Vietnamese place just around the corner.”
“Yeah? You think getting some bánh mì isn’t fraternizing with the enemy?”
“Are you my enemy, Lacey Vigil?” he asks, his words growing soft and low.
He flicks his tongue out at me and I’m a little shocked that it’s forked with little ridges down the center split.
My mind takes a quick detour before I make eye contact with him again, heat rising in my cheeks, instantly hot under the collar and a little bit sweaty. I swallow.
Oh, he gives off fuckboy vibes. Of course, I’m getting instantly hot under the collar for a guy who spells bad-for-me.
I have a type. My friends have spent the last few years just directly telling it to my face whenever a guy they didn’t like cheated on me or turned out to have a gambling problem or whatever. It’s fucking always, “I told you so.”
I’m disappointed in myself, I need to stop getting wet just because he looks at me. Don’t be so easy, girl.
He shifts his weight from one hip to another, tail flicking in a way that agitates the edge of his towel, and leans toward me. Suddenly I’m aware of just how close we are, that he’s brought himself down closer to my level. He gives me a goofy wink. “Arch enemies with benefits?”
He thinks he’s such a smooth operator. It’s not working on me. It’s not.
I lean back a little. “Hold on, arch? We don’t have the history.”
“Oh, but we could.” Ellis laughs with one of those dangerous smiles, his overlong canines snagging the majority of my attention and libido.
I’m too hot and bothered over this guy to clutch my pearls about it. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“You’re the one coming over here and dangling yourself in front of me.” He scoffs, rolling his eyes. Yeah, alright, that’s fair. He grumbles more to himself than me, “Man, the girl of my dreams breaks and enters into the secret lair, sees my dick, and doesn’t even buy me dinner first.”
“You’re really set on dinner.”