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.
