Too soon, Darwin shifted onto his side, pulling Tom with him with the ease of the too-strong-for-his-own-good.
“Okay?” he asked, and Tom rolled his eyes, although he was too exhausted to do more than a halfhearted roll.
“Better than,” Tom managed to answer, stroking a hand down the arm wrapped around his side.
“Yeah you were.” Darwin’s chuckle sounded a little rough. “Kind of demanding though.”
Twisting his head around, he gave Darwin a frown.
“I wasn’t being demanding,” he protested. “I was… encouraging.” He couldn’t keep a straight face at that and turned back to hide his smile.
Darwin laughed. “You were definitely encouraging me,” he agreed. “And with you, I don’t need much encouragement. Or, you know,
any
.”
Tom couldn’t stop grinning. Despite his bouts of terror, he’d made it through with a mind-blowing orgasm. After six months of fighting his unreasonable fears, he finally felt as if he’d won.
“Bloom!”
Darwin leaned back so he could see MacDougal without the stair structure blocking his view. “Yeah, boss?”
“What’re you fucking grinning about?”
Although his boss was scowling, Darwin judged it to be just a three or four on the MacDougal fury scale.
Darwin could feel his smile widening. He knew exactly why he looked so happy—because
he
was
happy. Ecstatic even.
“Because it’s such a beautiful day, boss.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
MacDougal’s scowl ramped up another point or two. “It’s fucking sleeting. Do you know what fucking sleet means?”
It was sleeting? Darwin hadn’t even noticed when he’d walked from his truck to the building site. “What sleet means? Uh…
not really.”
“It means it can’t fucking decide whether to rain or snow, so we get the fucking worst of both worlds, that’s what it means!”
Darwin still couldn’t stifle his grin.
“Guess I didn’t notice the sleet.” MacDougal snorted.
“Big fucking surprise there. Ever since you took one look at Cooper, you’ve been in a fucking happy-time fog. I’m thinking about suing the bastard for lost productivity.”
Darwin just laughed. “Need something, boss? Otherwise, I should get back to pulling petals off my he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not flower.”
No one did a long-suffering look like MacDougal. “If I see you with
any
kind of fucking flower, petals or not, your ass is history, Bloom. Just wanted to give your ungrateful ass a heads-up. There were a couple guys asking for you earlier, while you were at lunch. They said they’d stop by later.”
Everything inside Darwin slowed down, went instantly cold. “Guys?” he forced out after what felt like hours had passed.
“Yeah. Suits.” MacDougal was watching him carefully. “You in some trouble I should know about?”
He shook his head, kept shaking it for too long. “No.” Darwin put his nail gun down with extreme care.
“Going somewhere?”
“I have to…run an errand.” Darwin was only half-aware of what he was saying. “I’ll make up the time tonight after work.”
“Fuck, Bloom.” MacDougal’s rage was gone and only tiredness remained. “Why do all my best workers have to be illegal or have a dead wife in their closet or some other fucking felonies they’re running from?”
“No felony,” Darwin said, trying to force a smile. “No dead wife—or dead husband.
I’m completely legal and I’m just running an errand.”
“Sure you are.”
Darwin couldn’t hold MacDougal’s gaze anymore. Looking away, Darwin moved around him and through the hole in the plastic sheeting that served as a door. Sloppy wet snowflakes flew into his face, stinging his skin.
This time, he noticed the sleet.
*
“Fuck.”
They’d found Tom already.
Darwin knew he shouldn’t have even gone near the other man, but he couldn’t leave town without saying goodbye. When he’d rounded the corner in the hallway leading to Tom’s office, he’d seen two suited backs in front of him, both with governmental haircuts and both talking to Tom. Darwin could almost smell the lab on the two men.
He dodged back around the corner and pressed against the wall, trying to think something beyond,
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
His eyes flicked over the typical beige, bland office-building walls as he tried to figure out what to do.
When his gaze landed on the red square of a fire alarm, he didn’t think his plan through. He just pulled it.
As the alarm started blaring, it took a few seconds for Darwin to realize he was between the suited men and the nearest exit.
They were probably heading right toward him.
Grasping the nearest doorknob, he twisted. It was locked, but he kept turning until he felt the locking mechanism snap. He shoved the door open and ducked inside the empty office, closing the door almost completely. Through the slight opening, Darwin watched people make their way down the hallway toward the stairs.
The two government guys passed by Darwin’s field of vision and he felt his stomach twist at the sight of them. He didn’t know them personally but they had the same look as the rest—cold and impassive, as someone would have to be to wipe five men’s memories and hold them captive.
A bolt of pain shot from his hands to his brain, and Darwin realized his fists were clenched hard enough for his short nails to dig crescents into his palms. He forced his hands to relax, his fingers to open…and then immediately tensed again as Tom walked by Darwin’s hiding spot.
Opening the door, Darwin glanced around and didn’t see anyone behind Tom, just those who’d passed already, moving in front of him like a line of obedient sheep.
Darwin caught up to Tom easily, wrapped one arm around his waist and covered his mouth with his other hand. He wasn’t too worried about Tom making a noise, since he knew from personal experience—a lot of very personal experience—that Tom went silent when he was scared or stressed.
Tom went stiff as Darwin grabbed him, lifting the smaller man off the ground as he hurried back a few quick strides into the room serving as his hiding place. As Darwin had predicted, Tom didn’t make a sound.
Even so, Darwin played it safe and kept his hand over Tom’s mouth as he closed the door behind them with his other hand.
“Shh,” Darwin hushed, despite the other man’s silence. “It’s me, Darwin.”
“Of course it is,” Tom said, his voice muffled by Darwin’s palm. “Who else could pick me up so easily?”
A little startled by Tom’s lack of fear, Darwin let his hand drop from the other man’s mouth as Tom turned around to face him.
“We’re in grave danger,” Tom stated, and Darwin jumped, staring at him.
“How’d you know?”
One of Tom’s eyebrows went up and he looked at Darwin quizzically. “Er…fire alarm’s going off? We could get burned to bits any second. Although this is the fifty-zillionth time it’s gone off in the past two weeks and not once was there even a hint of smoke, so the ‘grave danger’ part is probably an exaggeration on my part.”
Tom was smiling, his dimples in full play, and Darwin stared at him, his heart breaking. How was he supposed to leave this amazing man? The smile was fading a little, growing uncertain as Darwin’s silence lengthened.
“What’s wrong?” Tom finally asked.
Darwin gave a humorless laugh. What wasn’t wrong? “Didn’t they tell you?”
“They?” Tom shook his head, looking confused.
“The guys with the suits and bad haircuts,” Darwin explained. “I saw you in the hallway with them.”
“Oh right—those guys.” Tom nodded.
“They asked about you.”
The thought of the government goons getting so close to Tom, talking to him, asking about Darwin, made his skin prickle hot with rage. “What’d they say? Did you tell them anything?”
Tom flinched back. “Th-they… Not much. They’d just gotten here. I just said I knew you, that we’re…friends.”
“Sorry,” Darwin apologized, tipping his head back and closing his eyes for a moment. “I scared you. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t…” Tom didn’t finish but looked away, flushing a dark red. “You’re just a little…intense right now. I’m used to you being,” he waved a hand, as if searching for a word, “I don’t know…happy.”
Despite the situation, Darwin couldn’t help himself. He hooked a hand around the back of Tom’s neck and pulled him in for a hard kiss. When he finally raised his head, they were both breathing hard. The expression in Tom’s Bambi eyes had gone from wary to hungry.
“That’s because you make me happy,”
Darwin said, before shaking off the draw of the man in front of him and refocusing on the immediate danger. “We have to go now.”
“Go?” The corner of Tom’s mouth turned up. “As much as I’d like to leave with you, I have a job due at five.” He narrowed his eyes, his smile turning seductive. “We have a little time before the firemen give the all-clear, though.”
“Tom…” Darwin didn’t want to crush the other man’s teasing, didn’t want to step on Tom’s fragile new confidence and make him scared again, but what could he do? A new layer of rage for his pursuers coated his throat, making it hard to talk. “It’s not safe to stay. Definitely not for me—and not for you anymore. Not now that they know we’re friends.”
“What?”
Tom’s
smile
had
turned
puzzled. “Not safe? What are you talking about? The only danger we’re in is if Adam catches us in his office. He’s kind of territorial about it. I’m surprised it wasn’t locked, actu—”
He broke off, looking startled when Darwin grabbed his upper arms and gave him a single restrained shake. “Tom. This is serious. You need to listen.”
Tom jerked back, breaking the other man’s hold. Once out of reach, he stared at Darwin with large, worried eyes. “Why are you acting like this?”
“Because I—” With a frustrated huff of air, Darwin ran a hand over his head, searching for the right words. He should’ve expected Tom’s reaction. Darwin knew he sounded nuts, and he hadn’t even told Tom anything yet. How was he supposed to explain everything—the lab, the surgeries, his abilities, the escape—in the few short minutes before the firefighters declared the building free of fire and safe to re-enter?
“Listen,” Darwin said, low and fast, kicking his own ass for not telling Tom everything about his past earlier. “I just have time to tell you the basics but I promise you can ask questions later, okay?”
Although Tom’s expression was still wary, he eventually nodded.
“Those men, the ones talking to you earlier?”
He gave another nod, watching Darwin carefully.
This is it.
Darwin opened and closed his hands, fisting them repeatedly. “They work for an offshoot of a government agency. This group was involved in a…research project.”
“A governme—”
Cutting the other man off with a short shake of his head, Darwin continued, “I know it sounds nuts but there’s just no time to explain everything. This group is dangerous—
really
dangerous. They’re trying to find me and they won’t hesitate to use
you to do that.”
Tom didn’t look too frightened—or convinced. “How do you know about this secret government agency? Did you used to work for them?”
Darwin gave a tight shake of his head.
This was even more difficult than he’d expected. “Not voluntarily. I was one of the…I don’t know what to call them.”
Victims? Prisoners? Casualties?
All the terms coming to mind sounded so pathetic.
“Research subjects, I guess.”
“A secret government agency performing research on people.” The disbelief was thick in Tom’s voice and Darwin couldn’t blame him. It
did
sound ludicrous, like an overdone B-movie plot. “What kind of research?”
“They were trying to improve us,”
Darwin struggled to explain. He wasn’t used to being at a loss for words around Tom, but now he just couldn’t figure out how to put the little he remembered about his past into non-crazy-sounding words.
“Make us stronger, better.”
“Better?” Tom repeated. “Better how?”
“Better soldiers. Better fighters.”
Better killers.
“So what? Does your arm turn into an Uzi?”
As shitty as everything was at the moment, Darwin still had to laugh. “I’m not a Transformer, no.”
Tom mouth twitched in response but he stayed on track. “How’d they make you ‘better’ then?”
“I’m stronger—a
lot
stronger. Plus they did stuff to my brain.” Moment of amusement over, Darwin was getting twitchy again. “I’ll show you, prove it, but you’ve got to leave with me now. Please, Tom.”
As Tom stared at him, looking as skeptical as anyone with huge brown Bambi eyes could look, Darwin waited for his response, trying not to act too jittery as the seconds ticked away.
“You were experimented on in a secret government lab where they made you stronger and did unnamed things to your brain.”
Darwin nodded, not sure how to read Tom’s flat tone. “That’s the short version, yeah.”
“This is fucked-up.”
“I know!” Relief ran through Darwin.
Tom actually believed him! “Those bastards kept us locked up, cut us open, took away our memor—”
“No,” Tom cut him off. “
This
is fucked-up. This conversation. This situation. The fact that I’m pretty sure you believe this insane story is true.”
Darwin actually flinched back at the other man’s words. “I know it sounds crazy.”
Shaking his head, Tom moved around Darwin toward the door. “It doesn’t
sound c r a z y — i t is crazy. And I’m crazy for thinking that someone so perfectly… perfect could have possibly existed, much less be interested in me.”
“Wait!” Darwin grabbed Tom’s arm.
“You can’t stay here. They’ll use you to get to me.”
Although all color disappeared from his face, Tom met Darwin’s gaze steadily.
“Going to prove how strong the scientists made you?” he asked with hardly a shake in his voice.
“No, of course not!” Dropping his hold as if Tom’s arm was on fire, Darwin stared at the man’s back as he yanked the door open and strode down the hallway toward the stairs.
Darwin had never felt so helpless. He walked to the door and then reversed, pacing fast and frantically.