Page 23 of Twisted Little Game

His body is stiff and awkward in my arm at first, but then he relaxes into my touch.

I can’t see his expression from here, because the brim of his baseball cap is obscuring it. I drag my open palm up and down his arm.

“That feels good, even though I know you don’t mean it,” he mutters.

“Mean it?”

He turns his head to glance up at me from under his hat. “You know there are, like, three groups of students at other tables staring at us right now? Are you okay with that?”

I hum gently and just continue stroking his skin. “You think I am worried about what people see?”

He looks back down at the table.

I can smell the scent of his shampoo from here, and whatever deodorant he uses, mixed with the scent of his skin.

He finally lets go of the straw wrapper, and with my free hand, I reach out and massage the tense muscle between his thumb and forefinger. I keep my body pressed firmly against his, waiting for him to fully relax.

“Feels so good.”

“It’s called co-regulation,” I explain. “Human touch is the best thing for the nervous system, when people are experiencing panic, or shock, or pure fear.”

He pulls in a few slow, even breaths.

“So you could tell I’m a mess,” he says softly.

“No. You are human.”

He relaxes a little more after I say it.

I let my hand around his shoulder move lower. I hover my fingers over the exposed skin at the side of his low-cut tank top, pausing.

“Is it okay if I touch you here?” I ask.

He looks up at me, surprised, but he quickly nods. “Yes. Of course.”

I stroke slowly over his obliques, then lower toward his waist, with the goal of giving his body the most physical contact possible to get him out of a locked-up mental spiral.

The urge to hurt him the other night was just as strong as the urge to comfort him now, because both times, Tate needed it.

At the party, he needed to be punished.

Right now, he needs to come back down to Earth.

He seems shocked that the same person who threw him against a wall is capable of soothing him now, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop.

I was protecting him from himself that night.

And I’m protecting him from something dark, right now.

His skin is so smooth. Very warm. My body is tricked, again, and of course my cock hardens at the touch out of nowhere.

Crossed wires.

My heart pounds a little too hard, and I give his hand one more squeeze before I get up and slide onto the other side of the booth.

He reaches up to the brim of his baseball cap, twisting it to wear it backwards.

Parts of his hair stick out above the snaps, and he looks like the dictionary definition of a jock, with big, pretty puppy eyes and a slight rosy blush on his neck.