Page 23 of Balance

I looped my arms around his neck and tilted my head up, angling for a kiss. “I have no intention of running away.”

And if he kept looking at me the way he did, I’d never want to leave.

CHAPTER 12

MATTHEW

He promised not to run. He was comfortable with me, even after I told him that I wanted him to call me Daddy. For now, that would have to be enough although there was a feral, greedy demon inside of me that wanted more. A demon born of trauma who didn’t think a promise was good enough. That wanted to chain him to my bed so he couldn’t leave. That wanted him to call me Daddy right now and then all the time.

The demon inside of me wasn’t really a demon. It was just my insecurities rearing their head. But then Troye slipped his arms around my neck and looked up at me with naked trust, and the noise in my head quieted. The demon stilled. And then he kissed me, or maybe I kissed him, and a sense of rightness took root deep in my bones.

In my arms, Troye shivered, and I pulled him closer. “I suppose it was a bit cold for a walk.”

Troye’s laugh was soft and lyrical. “I don’t mind. It means you have to keep me warm.”

“We should head back before we freeze to death.” I steered us back the way we came, and Troye again snuggled into my side. His shivering didn’t stop. “You should have told me you were freezing,” I admonished him gently.

“But now we can cuddle. So, you see, my evil plan worked.”

“You planned to be cold?”

“Well, no. But I didn’t plan on needing to stay warm. I’d say it worked out well.”

I led him to my car instead of his and opened the passenger door for him. Once we were inside, I turned the car on and cranked the heat. Troye’s cheeks were pink from the bite of the air, but I was sure he was also blushing.

“There used to be more snow in the winter,” he said, holding his hands over one of the vents. “When I was a kid, the snowbanks were taller than me. I know I was a kid, and that didn’t take much, but they were huge. There was always snow by Halloween, and it seemed to stay until April.” Another shiver ripped through him. “I think that’s how I forget that February is still a cold little bitch of a month. Because there’s not like fifteen feet of snow everywhere to remind me that it’s winter.”

“What was your favorite Halloween costume when you were a kid?”

Troye shrugged. “It was more about the candy for me than the costumes. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up so I got whatever was cheap enough for Mom to afford.”

His face split into a bright smile, one that stretched from ear to ear and he directed it at me. It was hard to fathom how he could be cold when he had the sun living inside of him. “Mom would take me to the rich neighborhoods, though. The ones with the full-size chocolate bars. Other kids were out there with their cute little trick or treat bags, and I had a pillowcase. What about you?”

“One year, I went as Mister Clean. I thought it was brilliant. And then my classmates made fun of me for not being Batman or Superman or Jason. So the next year, to show them up, I went as Genie from Aladdin.” My mouth smiled without my permission, finding humor in the memory. “I was blue for a week.”

Troye tipped his head back and cackled. “Shut up. That’s fucking brilliant.”

“I didn’t think so at the time. I begged to be allowed to stay home, but sadly, my parents didn’t have a compassionate bone in their bodies.”

Troye tilted his head and looked at me like if he could just get the angle of his gaze right, he’d be able to look inside of me and see my secrets. It wasn’t as though I had any deep, dark secrets to find, so I let him look. I let him examine me and form his own conclusions about what he saw.

“I was thinking more about that game. The little mushroom one for your foster kids.” He leaned back away from the heat vents.

“You were?”

He’d called them my foster kids. And though that wasn’t technically true, it felt true in all the ways that mattered. My insides got all warm and fuzzy at the thought of him putting time and effort into this idea even after he’d fled the hotel room. It took some of the sting out of the memory of waking up alone.

“Ever since I walked onto that plane and saw you sitting in my seat, you’re basically all I’ve been able to think about. And that was true even before the spanking. But I had some ideas I wanted to run by you about the game.”

“Not yet,” I told him. “Let me hire you. Let me send you a contract to sign and bring you on board in an official capacity.”

Troye shook his head. “That’s not necessary. You do a lot for those kids, and I don’t mind contributing in an unofficial way.” He forged ahead without leaving me room to reply, his hands twisted nervously in his lap. “I was thinking that you could have different settings people could choose from. So instead of a mushroom in the woods, you could also be like… a racoon in the city. Something like that. It might be fun to wrap the game as a mushroom, but then you start over as a raccoon in the city. It would expand the game play without a lot of heavy lifting. You could reuse a lot of the elements and goals from the other version.”

“Just when I think you can’t get smarter, you go and blow me away.”

He shook his head. “It’s not like I built the game or anything. I just know how I feel when I find a really good game, I complete it, and I don’t quite know what to do with myself.”

Troy was doing it again. Diminishing his contribution because he didn’t think his ideas were worthy of proper recognition or compensation. “It’s not nothing, Troye. Do you know how many hours I’ve spent trying to come up with a concept that would work? Don’t downplay your ideas.”