It didn’t feel at all like an unskilled kiss. A shy one, but not at all the saliva-dripping, biting, or tight-lipped messes Colin had experienced when he’d first started hooking up. What Taron didn’t have experience with he clearly made up with theory, and while the kiss wasn’t earth-shattering, it did cause a tremor in Colin’s heart.
He murmured, melting into the embrace as the kiss went on, until his hands clutched Taron’s shoulders, and their chests pressed together like two mismatched puzzle pieces that desperately needed to form a picture.
It even felt mutual when they both came up for air, as if they were already understanding each other’s body language.
Taron asked, as if he hadn't put a shock collar on Collin's neck and hadn’t dragged him here kicking and screaming.
Colin exhaled, nuzzling Taron’s beard. “Sure. But what about the blowjob? Did you not want to go there for the same reason?” he asked, grinning at Taron, still drunk on the intense kiss.
Taron lowered his eyelids and shook his head.
Colin grunted, shaking his head to show his displeasure. “Fine. We’ll deal with that later.”
Taron kissed him again, as if he wanted to show that he wasn’t as worried about Colin’s teeth on his tongue, and Colin could no longer be irritated. It was fine. So maybe the circumstances weren’t ideal, and his parents were probably worried, but trying to make a run for it now would have been not only risky but also stupid. Taron, like any man, had weak points, and Colin would use them to gain his trust. And then, he could run.
After all, hadn’t he secretly wished for a gap year?
Chapter Twelve
The next two weeks were oddly normal. As normal as life could be for a man who was locked up underground every night and slept on a mattress inside a cage. As normal as life could be for a man who had a shock collar around his neck.
It was a weird kind of normal, but that’s how it felt to Colin, and he didn’t fight it.
Since Taron had first brought him to the windowless cellar, his body seemed to have undergone a reboot of sorts. Gone was the daily uneasiness and sleepless nights spent on tossing in the sheets while hours went by. Gone was the constant sense of fatigue and the need for coffee. Each morning, Colin would wake up well rested, just in time to see the trapdoor open and hear the soothing sound of Taron’s boots on the wooden stairs.
Breakfast would await him upstairs, and while there was variety to lunch and dinner, the first meal of the day always included hearty scrambled eggs with a side of seasoned rabbit belly. He’d been apprehensive the first time he’d found out what the meat was, but by that time he already knew it was delicious, so he didn’t fight his instincts, and allowed rabbit to become one of his favorite meats. Taron even made his own rabbit jerky for snacks.
After breakfast, they would both do their chores, which was still kind of exciting at this point. Colin fed the chickens and rabbits, cleaned their coops once a week, gathered the fresh eggs. In some ways he was a little kid in his grandmother’s garden all over again.
Over a month ago, his life had gone off the rails, yet when he was outside, his skin absorbing the sunlight, when he smelled the woods and listened to the singing of birds, nothing felt out of place. It was like an odd dream where, instead of spending endless hours at a desk or listening to lectures, he was expected to do work that fed both him and Taron. When he’d been first allowed to roam without Taron’s constant supervision, his brain had still been galloping as if it expected messages, questions, and new stimuli every moment of the day. But as days went by, he gradually became more peaceful, getting in tune with the beautiful spring deep in the woods. Almost like a mindfulness retreat.
For once in his life, he didn’t have to constantly worry about an abstract future and the consequences of not listening to well-meaning people. He was grounded in the here and now, with a man whose quiet presence didn’t make Colin annoyed or uneasy. Instead, Taron being around meant little touches, kisses, or random lunchtime jerk-off sessions.
They both had chores, things to do, but if anything, Colin was getting the long end of the stick. He tended to the garden under Taron’s instruction, while Taron did most of the heavy lifting, the planning, the stocking up. He never seemed satisfied with what they had, instead finding minor things that could go wrong with his solar panels or prioritizing repairs of the ram pump, even though they had endless gallons of filtered rain water stored in barrels on the property. If anything, the amount they had already seemed excessive.