Page 77 of Twisted Little Game

“Are you Roman’s cousin, too?” Tate asks.

She lets out a laugh. “Family, no. Romik and I have been very close friends for life.”

“Lucky you.”

“Yes.” Nata reaches out to touch me yet again, stroking her fingernails over the center of my chest where an hour ago Tate was laying kisses along my skin.

Fuck.

My body tenses. Her touch feels fucking nothing like his.

Whatever took over Tate after he came… after I made him come—was so raw and magnetic it was impossible to resist.

And I still don’t understand how Tate’s goddamn mind works.

He hates me.

He wants to get rid of me, his bodyguard, his jailer. I feel it radiate off of him in potent waves every time I try to lay down a rule or a boundary.

But it’s always at odds with his physical need for me.

That’s what it is. When I actually fucking look at it, head on, and don’t push it down like I do with every emotion in my life, I see so clearly that Tate could hate me until his last dying breath and he’d still want me to fuck him.

My skin heats as Nata and Maks break off into a quick conversation and say their goodbyes to each other. I’m in a simple white T-shirt and the material still feels like too much, too cloying, like my entire body is still overheating from the memory of what we did.

Finally Nata is gone.

Maks, Tate and I sit at a corner booth, sliding onto the semi-circle. The moment I sit down next to Tate, I slide my palm over his thigh, gripping it under the table.

I’m comfortable in Capp’s Diner.

It smells like fresh ground coffee beans and bacon grease. Right now, the register and countertops are adorned with fall-colored wreaths and garlands, and there are pumpkins dotted along the upper shelf. This place also feels like a second home to me. The light blue Formica countertops are worn in places. The waitresses know me, but they never ask questions. It’s not the most popular place in town, and that’s a good thing.

I sit back on the comfortable leather booth seat and watch Tate browse the dingy plastic menu that I’ve long since memorized.

“How are the pancakes?” Tate asks me.

I squeeze his thigh. “You will love them. Lots of strawberries.”

Fuck me.

I even love the way Tate browses a goddamn diner menu, his eyes gravitating to anything that has the fruits he loves, and the way he bites his lower lip and smiles when he sees the picture on the back of a particularly well-photographed malt milkshake.

“Oh, damn, they have protein shakes too.”

I furrow my brow, reaching for the menu. “They do not.”

“They do,” Maks tells me from across the table. “They’re new. I’ve had them. They’re actually great.”

“Malted protein shake and strawberry pancakes it is,” Tate says. “Roman, I assume you get black coffee, steak & eggs, and a side of bitterness and maybe vodka?”

Maks is grinning.

“That is my order, actually,” I admit. “Other than the vodka. You know I like Cognac more, anyway.”

Once we order, our food is out within minutes.

As we eat, we explain everything to Maks for the next half hour.