Page 10 of Prey for You

My heart shot into my throat as a thick hand clapped over my mouth, and I was yanked off my feet. I tried to scream, but it was only muffled whining against his palm as I was shoved towards that old, clunky table.

The edge of it hit me right in the belly as Sam bent me over, pinning me between the rough edge and his thighs.

Then he let go of my mouth and grabbed my hair, yanking my head back, rubbing himself against my ass as he dropped his jaw against my cheek and rasped in my ear.

"You really thought you could get away?" he asked smugly. "You underestimate me,wife."

He let that last word trail off into a disgustingly hot growl that pebbled my neck and spine with goosebumps and made me shiver. But it turned out I wasn’t the only one doing the underestimating—Sam had left my hands free and was now busying himself with getting a hand under my sweater to find the button of my jeans. I was half-thrilled, half-terrified that we were about to traumatize some kid, but it had been way to easy for him to catch me. I wasn’t satisfied.

So, first I leaned back into his chest, bumping my ass against his growing groin. “The table’s rough. Give me a little more room,” I whispered as he rumbled his approval and did as I asked. I waited for that second when his grip loosened as he shifted back a step, then I pushed up from the tabletop, like a swimmer out of a pool, launching myself onto those rotted slats, praying they were strong enough to take my weight until I could leap off the other side—but I should have known Sam wouldn’t be so easily thwarted.

One of his hands swiped me, his nails scraping on the back of my calf as I shoved up and onto the table. But before I could get my second foot forward for that first crucial step and jump off the table, he snarled and his other hand grabbed the hem of my sweater, yanking me back at the same moment I took a step.

My balance was thrown. Half-crouched, halfway to my feet, I was caught. My arms pinwheeled and I tipped, tried to catch myself, but the sole of my shoe caught in the space left by that missing slat.

Unable to get feet under me, my entire weight was thrown sideways. I had a split-second to watch that bench and concretebeyond it rush towards me, reflexively knowing attempts to avoid one doomed me to hit the other.

“Shit!”Sam grunted.

A steel bar hit me right at the waist before I could faceplant into the bench and the world flipped. Table, trees, scattered sunlight—my stomach swooped because I was swung up and away.

When things stopped spinning, my legs were dangling, I gripped that steel bar of an arm across my stomach, and there was a ragged panting in my ear.

“Shit, that was close,” Sam muttered. “You don’t have an ounce of self-preservation, do you?”

I huffed, still finding my breath after the shock and impact from his arm that I was still bent over and clawing at, because this was supposed to be a hunt, and he hadn’t had to hunt me at all.

But now I couldn’t reach the dirt because he was holding me off my feet as he carried me out of the clearing and into the woods.

“That wasn’t even a hunt!” I gasped. “Let me go and like, count to one hundred or something—”

“Absolutely not,” Sam growled, low and deep, his chest vibrating against my back deliciously. “You ran, I caught. Not my fault you suck at hiding.” I couldhearthe smirk in his tone.

“But—”

“It’s my turn now. You want a hunt, you’re going to have to do better than a game of tag,” he rasped, turning his shoulder to take the brunt of the branches and bushes as he carried me into the trees.

Growling with frustration, but unable to get him to budge his grip around my middle, I started working to pry his fingers back. If I could bend one hard enough, he’d loosen his grip to ease the pain and—

“Nice try, Bridget,” he chuckled, digging his fingers into my ribs and pinching so I jerked and twitched and giggled and lost all strength.

I was still sniggering when he hiked me higher against his body, then hissed, “Yesssssss.”

A moment later I found myself face to face with a broad tree that was old enough there were no branches for the first eightfeet on the trunk. Sam grasped my throat with his free hand and lifted my chin, his stubbled jaw rasping against the sensitive skin of my neck as his lips tickled my hair and his breath thundered in my ear.

“You going to submit yet,wife?”he graveled. “Or do I have to make you?”

I grinned, but need was thrumming low in my belly at how effortlessly he held me.

“That depends on what I’m submittingto,”I murmured, turning my head slightly so that his stubble scratched against the corner of my jaw.

God, I loved the feeling of that, his heat at my back, and the rumble of his voice in his chest.

“Mmmmmm,” Sam hummed, reaching for my wrists. There was a brief tug-of-war in which I struggled to keep myself out of his grasp, but with no leverage, his longer reach won out. Soon he had both my wrists manacled in his fingers and was lifting both my hands…and planting them against the truck of that tree.

“I’m going to have you one way or another, Bridget,” he rasped, his breath growing harsher in my ear and sending trills from behind my navel to my core. “So, the choice is yours. You can play nice, and I’ll spoil you a little. Or you can fight, let off some of that steam, and I’ll remind you why you decided to marry me.”

His voice dropped so deep with promiseandwarning on that last sentence that my breath caught.

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