Page 21 of Prey for You

Bridget tipped sideways to rest her head on my arm, still clinging to my hand. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Sure that we can’t stop this train, so we have to play along until they’re stuck in a corner, prosecuting a case without their star witness… God willing.

“I hope you’re right.”

“I almost always am,” I said smugly, then flinched when she slapped my stomach.

But she was deflated, I could feel it. And I knew if I didn’t get her distracted, this would steal the rest of this day from us. So with a low rumble, I rolled her onto her back and covered her with my body, taking her face in my hands and kissing her.

She clung a little too tight at first. But in the end, that only made it better.

7. Pillow Talk

~ SAM ~

We spent the next day in the suite, eating room service, sleeping, making love, and talking.

I was learning her.

I’d observed that stalking a woman was very different from…this.When I fixated on a client, I learned a great dealabouther—her habits, preferences, fears, desires. Early on as a developing Dom, when I was selfish and violent, that was all I needed. She wanted me in her life? She would take what I decided to give.

Later, in an attempt to reconcile the dark, aggressive side of my nature with the care and compassion of God, things began to shift.

My stalking, even though it was consensual, would quickly grow frustrating. I could be part of a woman’s life, but notinit. And over time, I learned that if I was ever going to truly help, I couldn’t just observe. I had totalkto her. More importantly, listen.

What a revelation.

To my surprise, my past disciplines as a Dom helped. I was already accustomed to remaining quiet and allowing a person to reveal themselves to me. I was already skilled at persuasion, making agreements, finding boundaries, and providing safety.

No one could read a room better than me.

But when I held a broken heart in my hands, rather than a body, suddenly the stakes were higher. I had to learn how to do those things withemotions.

What a mind fuck.

Yet here I was now, able to use all those skills and practices to unwrap my wife. And it was thrilling.

“Tell me what happened after high school. You went to college? But you were already working with Jeremy then, right?”

We were sprawled on the bed, the debris of a late lunch on trays on the floor. I lay on my back with my hands clasped under my head. Bridget lay on her stomach at an angle, arms folded on my chest, her chin on her hands.

This close I got to see the ways her eyes changed when she felt something.

“College was a weird time. I was super-disconnected,” she said after a moment’s thought. I waited. I could see her turning things over in her mind, and I was already seeing that when things were vulnerable, she needed to be given silence if I wanted her to keep talking. Otherwise she’d snap out of her head and start deflecting with humor, or sex.

Not that I was complaining about the latter.

“My life was so different from my peers. They were all giddy about growing up and not jaded yet. All they saw was potential. I saw monsters everywhere. We didn’t understand each other. I ended up spending most of my time online,” she said with an uneasy shrug. “That’s where I found other people like me.”

“Is that how you ended up informing?” I asked, trying to keep the tension out of my voice that always entered it when I thought about Jeremy. Something about that guy, the presumptive way he talked about—and to—Bridget pissed me right off.

“Sort of. I realized later, I’d already been doing that for them for a long time. Initially it was about people who came into my life. They were all convinced my dad wasn’t done with me, so there were always people popping up, or threats they were investigating. I helped them grab a couple of his guys once or twice. It morphed from there.

“But while I was in college, I got into the dark web and started finding people myself. People like me. And even though I knew the FBI were keeping an eye on me, I guess I didn’t realize how much. I got tangled up with a group of guys that I think were grooming me for trafficking, but the night they locked me up, Jeremy stepped in. It was the first time I was, like,scared.”She bit her lip, that little v forming between her brows. “I mean… that’s not right. I was always scared. But the good kind. The kind that made me feel something. That night… that was the first time since my dad that I remember feeling like a little kid. Like, there was nothing I could do. I was screwed—or about to be. I wasrelievedwhen they busted in and took those guys down. But that kind of sparked this… thing.”

“Thing?”

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