Page 2 of Prey for You

Sam, his hair messy and falling over his piercing eyes, cheeks dark with two days stubble and tense as he fought not to come. Without warning, he rolled on top of me in bed, his breath a ragged roar, and clamped one hand to my throat, kneading, but not cutting of my air.

His eyes flashed and he stroked one strong finger from the point of my chin, down to that sensitive skin…

Did Sam’s heart jump the way mine did when our eyes caught? I couldn’t look at him without those intrusive images, which would be a problem when—

“Miss Reynolds?”

Mrs. Priestley, actually. But that’s for later.

“He’s sitting between his lawyers at that table,” I said hoarsely, flapping a hand towards them.

Derek pretended to feel sympathy for me, his slashes of dark brows rising, pinching over his nose. “I know this is difficult. But we’ll take our time. I assure you, Miss Reynolds, you’re perfectly safe. Do you need a drink of water before we begin?”

I just stared at him.

He shot me a look, but then flipped through the papers on his podium, something he’d told me he would do to distract the jury when he wanted them to focus on him.

“Please tell the court about the first time you met Samuel Priestley.”

I took a deep breath and nodded, stifling a smile because I was going off-script, and it would piss Derek-the-Dick offroyally.I turned to face the jury and spoke to them directly, meeting eyes with each of them so they could see I was being honest, like Jeremy had coached me.

“I was going out to this little church to meet an old friend of mine—he’d been the Chaplain at my high school. We were supposed to have coffee. But when I got there, there was a funeral. I didn’t know that Richard—my old friend—had had a heart attack that week. Sam was the priest—excuse me,ministerthey called in to cover for Richard.

“When I arrived Sam was kneeling in the aisle praying with a couple old ladies. Then he greeted me. He had to tell me what had happened and he was really worried. He didn’t want me to drive because I’d had a shock. So he invited me into the cottagethey have there for the priests—I mean, ministers. He gave me a drink and talked to me to help me calm down and so I didn’t need to be alone.”

Derek’s gaze, when I finally met it, was pure, laserfury.But God bless the man, he kept it together.

“That’s lovely, Bridget. But that wasn’t thefirsttime you met Samuel Priestley, was it?”

“Yes, it was.”

Derek cut a look to Jeremy, then turned back to me.

“Miss Reynolds, would you please tell the court the story of the first contact you had with a man you met online, whom you calledCain,or by the screen name,SleepingBeast?”

My mind conjured the words on my computer screen:I know how to make you feel alive…

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Those little muscles at the back of Derek’s jaw flexed. “I assure you, Bridget, that you can. I know this has been a harrowing journey for you. But as we have already established, you have been an ally to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They assure me that you will continue to receive their protection even after this case is decided. You have been offered full immunity in exchange for your role in the arrest of both Mr. Priestley, and other criminal predators.”

I nodded. I was struggling to breathe. “I’m aware of the immunity, but I won’t be making use of it. I’m not testifying against him.”

Derek went very still. His eyes narrowed. “Miss Reynolds, you were summoned as a State’s witness—”

“Yes, but things have changed.”

Murmurs bubbled in the gallery, and in my peripheral vision I saw the judge shift in her seat, but she didn’t say anything.

Derek straightened, chin high so that he stared down his nose at me, and I saw in his eyes the same accusations and disdain I’d been seeing in figures of authority since I was a child.

Troublemaker.

“Please explain to the courtwhatprecisely has changed?” he asked coldly.

I didn’t mean to hesitate, but my lungs expanded suddenly and it took a second to be able to speak. “Sam Priestley is myhusband. I won’t testify against my husband in a criminal case, and you can’t make me.”

The roomeruptedwith small shouts of protest and shocked gasps.But quietly. It was weird. All these astonished, scandalized adults keeping their voices hushed as they reacted, then leaned into their neighbors or hissed into their recorders.

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