The Beautiful Escape [ZARRY]

14

Trying to keep his growing uneasiness from his voice, Zayn asked, "What brings you to this part of the world?" Only a comment on the weather could be less dull- not that you'd think so by his tight-lipped, rude response. 

"Solitude." Surely he'd take the hint now.

With anyone else, Zayn would have felt inclined to put down this display of insensitive bad manners to pain and discomfort- with anyone else but! 

He considered himself a tolerant, patient sort of bloke, but ten minutes and what felt like several hundred questions later Harry was having trouble controlling his temper. 

"You can't possibly be spending Christmas at the Hall!" 

He hadn't come right out and said so, actually, the gorgeous but tight-lipped Mr Styles hadn't come right out and said anything without prompting, and then it had been as vague and uninformative as he could make it, but by a process of elimination, Zayn was now pretty sure the injured bunk was actually at the semi-derelict Hall for the duration of the holiday.  

"Oh...?" Harry wasn't about to let on that he'd been thinking much the same thing himself. After all his stealthy planning he was going to end up holed up in some glossy-decked hotel again this year. 

Zayn felt encouraged to pursue his point. By his standards, this response had been positively chattering. 

In the cramped conditions- the car hadn't been constructed with his length of leg in mind- he lost all feeling in his right foot. Harry slowly shifted his right leg, rotating his ankle. His muscle-packed thigh nudged against the man next to him in the driver's seat.

A startled, gusty breath snagged in Zayn's throat. A sensation that was all fizzing sexual awareness and no common sense dramatically surged through him, blending in a squirmy mess low in his belly.

Help! Where had that come from?!

The momentary distraction almost had disastrous consequences.

"F*ck!" He braked sharply to allow the bedraggled cat dazed by the headlights to cross from one side of the narrow lane to the other. The feral creature disappeared into the dark. 

"Whew! Close call." His heartbeat slowed down to a steady canter as they accelerated away.

The abrupt halt had sent Harry's head on a collision course with the windscreen. The seat restraint was the only thing that had stopped him making contact. The pressure against his damaged ribs was exquisitely painful. It was becoming obvious to Harry that his chauffeur was the type of bleeding heart who saw no conflict in risking life and limb to save a dumb animal-probably the less appealing the better.

"Are you alright?"

Now he asks! "I'm fine!"

Zayn's dark brows shot quizzically towards his hairline.

"You're obviously not." No doubt such indifference was admirable but in this instance not really practical. "Have you hurt yourself some more...? Shall I stop the car...?"

And increase the agony of sharing space with Mister Sweetness and Light?Anything, was better than that-even replying to his ceaseless questions for another five minutes, Harry concluded.

He obviously wasn't going to be satisfied until Harry owned up to something. "I jarred my shoulder. Why can't I be staying at the Hall...?" he asked before Zayn could press the point any further.

"Well, leaving aside your injuries..."

"Yes, let's do that."

Repressing the angry retort that hovered on the tip of his tongue, Zayn jammed his foot on the brake as the lights ahead turned red. "And the fact that the place is uninhabitable..."

"I found it quite cosy."

"It's Christmas!"

"Your point being...?"

"Time of good cheer and loving your fellow man... Does that ring any bells?"

The mocking light in his hooded, secretive eyes intensified. "And come the New Year I can go back to screwing the bastards...?" he queried hopefully.

The sound of an impatient car horn brought Zayn's attention to the green light.