Page 122 of Prey for You

“You were always correct? About every hunt?”

“No, but I was never hunting more than one woman at a time. It takes a great deal of planning and preparation and I had a job. I didn’t have time to work with more than one woman. So that probably made it easier to keep track of their needs and boundaries. But it’s inevitable in a situation like this that details crop up that weren’t covered, or that could be interpreted in multiple ways.” He shrugged. “If anything ever happened that she didn’t like, we covered it in the debrief. And I made notes to ensure it wouldn’t happen again in other hunts.”

“Give me an example of a detail that might be interpreted differently?”

“Well, in the example we already discussed—my judgment of what she considered to be a risk could be different. I had one client who I removed from a situation when, in her mind, the people hadn’t been close enough to warrant abandoning the hunt. But of course, I’d already carried her away by the time I learned that.”

“How did you resolve that, Mister Priestley?”

“We talked about it. I made more notes. She wanted to be hunted again, so the next time I had a clearer idea what she viewed as a risk.”

The lawyer nodded, then returned to the podium to look at his notes, his lips pressing thin before he looked at Sam again.

“I think it’s important that we cover the violence that is inherent in this kind of interaction. You’ve been very candid with us already, but I know it’s a sticking point for a lot of people. So, I’d ask you to explain how the boundaries around exposure, injuries, blood loss, and aftercare are established, and what that looks like in practice.”

I bit my lip, my mind taking me back to that beautiful, tender shower Sam had taken with me, washing every inch of my body without even the slightesthintof anything sexual. His tenderness and care making my heart squeeze and tears blur my vision.

But he was describing these scenes withother people.Once more I found myself sitting there—in a roomful of people I didn’t trust—having to listen to my husband talking about how he measured whether a woman was comfortable with him baring her breasts in a park at night. Whether he could or shouldundress her, or take her with clothes moved aside. How he had to have permission to enter her home and clean her up afterwards…

And I felt sick.

Then I looked at the women in the jury and got sicker.

One woman, younger, with dark hair and bright eyes, was watching Samavidly.Clearly fascinated with what he had to say. But in the row in front of her was a woman who looked to be about sixty. Her nose was wrinkled up and her mouth kept turning down at the sides whenever Sam wasexplicit.

Don’t you judge him, you bitch. Don’t you do it. He doesn’t deserve your—

“And in the course of your, er,hunt,the women would orgasm?”

“Usually.”

I stopped breathing.

There was no wicked or cocky suggestion from Sam on this question this time. But somehow that made it worse.

“That was the goal?”

“Always. Success can depend on a lot of factors. Sometimes women want to try this, then find out they don’t like it, so it’s hard for them to reach a climax. Others, we were interrupted and had to abandon the hunt before she reached that point. But most of them, if I paid attention and she was enjoying it, we’d get there.”

We. He said we…

“Byget there,you mean, have an orgasm?”

“Yes.”

“As a direct result of your, er,workwith her?”

“Yes.”

I wanted to stand up and scream at Sam’s lawyer tostop asking about fucking orgasms!

And at the same time, I wanted them to keep going—to show those fucking pearl clutchers that just becausetheywere frigid, didn’t mean we all were.

I was miserable and itchy and horny and disgusted.

And the problem was, as I watched the jury listen to Sam and heard the lawyer remind them over and over again that the actions Sam was describingweren’tcrimes as long as they were consensual, I couldn’t push it away like I had last time.

I wasbathedin jealousy and fear.

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