Page 17 of Prey for You

And that got me thinking about when Sam grabbed me in the bathroom and talked about the hunt.

I was still irritated that he’d been too quick to get after me this morning. He was smug about it, too. Teasing me a couple times and accusing me of pouting.

Thoughtful, I looked at the now-closed bathroom door and smiled.

He knew our tickets were for a circus, but didn’t know which Casino housed the theater. He did know the name of the restaurant—we’d shared a look when I told him about my suspicions for their secret menu—which meant, worst case scenario, if he couldn’t find me for the show, he’d know how to catch me for dinner. And he’d be frustrated if he hadn’t found me earlier.

My smile got broader.

The shower turned on in the bathroom and I launched into action. I was dressed and made up in under five minutes, giggling as I wrote him a note.

“There’s nothing on under my dress. I need someone to confess to. Come find me. Good luck.”

I stopped at the door to make sure he still had the shower running and wouldn’t hear the clunk of the hotel door, then I was out in the hall, and gone.

Forty minutes later the lights in the theater dropped to pitch-black, only a small glow in the orchestra pit below the stage. My heart hammered, beating far too quickly, but I couldn’t stop smiling.

We were both using our burner phones. Sam had texted me twice.

SAM NOTPRIEST: I should have known.

SAM NOTPRIEST: You’re going to need more than confession when I’m done with you.

Even reading that sent a bolt of want diving from my heart, straight between my legs. As the music began, I prayed he’d figure it out before this was done. I wasn’t sure I could wait for dessert.

Unfortunately, the show only made it worse.

Fifteen minutes in I was regretting running from Sam. I needed himhere.

There were no lines in this show. Only a story told through dancing, acrobatics, and music. A very sexually charged,animalisticstory.

Beauty and the Beast. But this was no Disney.

Half an hour later, I sat on the edge of my seat, thighs pressed together, leaning on the balustrade, enthralled. If I didn’tachewith desire, I would have forgotten Sam completely. The show was incredible—powerful dancers and acrobats, flexible in ways that gave me all kinds of ideas and made me wonder what they all got up to with each other off-stage.

The main couple were riveting—the guy was tall and muscular. Shoulders the size of a barn and hands big enough that when he lifted his partner by her waist, his fingers touched at the front.

She was small and lithe—a ballerina, I thought. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t their talent that compelled me to keep watching, but their chemistry.

Whoever put this show together needed to be given a Grammy. Or an Oscar. Or whatever.

The pair danced and flipped and writhed together, telling the story of a woman in poverty who’d been employed by a rich, but ugly recluse who hid his face behind long, messy hair and rejected all human kindness with rudeness and aggression. Violence at times.

She had empathy for the monster and slowly broke through his defenses.

Shocking, I know. But it worked. I was rooting for her to break through before we were five minutes in—and furious with him when he soclearlywanted her, but rejected her over and over, until her heart was in tatters.

But, halfway through, as his walls crumbled and she stared, pleading with him to love her, nerves and anticipation fizzed inmybelly. Moments later when he broke through his own fear and stroked her jaw, I felt the touch onmyface. And when he lifted her up and they began to dance…

Holy shit.

The music built, rising and falling in waves as he cradled her, turned her, then stroked her—but all of it tantalizingly depicted in dance, the touches and movement so suggestive, but neverquiteobscene.

My mouth went dry when he spread her limbs and his hand appeared from behind, between her legs, lifting her like he called the audience to worship. Then letting her drop and catching her gracefully, bending her around his hip and whirling her as her head fell back in bliss, her hair trailing over his legs, the floor, his chest as he turned and twisted, raised and lowered her, curled and stroked—every movement an impossible, graceful,dangeroussweep and glide as he used his body and strength to showcase her beauty and elegance.

Then, in the magic of modern theater, as the lighting dropped and changed, their painted leotards appeared to suddenly match so that as they entwined and moved together it was impossible to see where his body ended and hers began.

They becameone.

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