Page 48 of Prey for You

I nodded, but the knot of hope and mischief in my chest unraveled as all those little thoughts—those niggling little maybe-just-this-once ideas that crept up on me with increasing frequency—were killed dead.

“Bridget?” Sam said.

I sighed. “I know.”

“Babe, we can’t risk it.”

“I know.”

He paused. I was looking down but I could feel his eyes on me, even through the phone.

“Bridge, your lips sayI know,but—”

“Sam… Iknow.”I made myself look up, meet his gaze, and admit it to myself as well as him. “We can’t risk it. I won’t risk it. I just… I just wish it could be different.”

He clawed a hand through his hair and nodded. “I know. Me too.”

But that was why it all sucked. Because we both knew neither of us could do a fucking thing about it.

16. Fire Inside

SOUNDTRACK:Oceans Apartby Secret Nation

~ BRIDGET ~

The dream was divine. I never wanted to leave.

I shivered when the quilt lifted and fluttered to make room for a big, heavy body that smelled like man and cologne.

The relief when his arm snaked over my waist and hooked around me, pulling me back into the cradle of his larger, stronger body made something deep in my chest break open.

I could breathe again.

“Bridget…” Sam’s breath fluttered against my ear as he held me tightly against his body—his skin was chilled from the night air, but that furnace that burned inside him swallowed it quickly. “Bridget, wake up.”

“I don’t want to.”

He chuckled. “It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

I shook my head. “Nope. I’ll open my eyes and I’ll be so happy, but then you’ll be gone and it will kill me inside.”

“Bridget—”

“I can’t do it, Sam.”

“Bridget, wake up.”

The sound of his voice in the silent room, his breath fluttering against my cheek, startled me. I jerked, but that thick, warm arm tightened around my waist and held me in.

“I…Sam?!”I gasped, turning over in the circle of his arms, tears already welling in my eyes as I strained to see his face in the near pitch-black of my room because I’d pulled the blackout curtains before I went to sleep.

“Hey,” he rumbled, and I felt the vibration of his voice in his chest.

“Sam! What are you doing?!” I cried, throwing my arms around his neck and squeezing him so hard he grunted. But he held me just as tightly, one arm laid up my spine, the other under my head and curled around me to hold me to him. I was a blubbering mess, lips numb and eyes bleary with sleep.

Sam let that hand slip up my back to cup the back of my head, then grip my hair as he grasped me even tighter, then suddenly his mouth was on mine, and nothing else mattered. Not the missing him, not the tears, not the trial—nothing.

I took his kiss like it was air in a vacuum. Grabbing at him, still terrified he was a dream, but reveling in the sensation of his stubble scraping my lips and cheek. I shivered when he graveled my name and his chest buzzed against my nipples. I stopped breathing when he rolled me over and leaned over me, and sighed when he broke the kiss only to pull my head back and dive for my throat.

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