Page 39 of Prey Tell
The corners of my mouth tilt up into a small smile. “You really want to know?”
She nods enthusiastically. Maybe telling her explicitly what happens during these types of games will steer her away. Because as much as I want to explore this with her, I also know shereallyneeds to want it. It’s serious, and it can be dangerous. The thought of someone hurting her makes me want to burn the world to ashes. Also, like I told her during her engagement party, I’m not sure she can handle it. Not because she’s not brave. But because men like me are simply patient hunters waiting for their prey. Juliet doesn’t understand how intense it can be—how my world will fall away, how I act on pure instinct, how I’m not the man she knows, but a beast in disguise.
And with her… I worry about howmuchI want her.
“Consensual forced submission. Consensual non consent. Scratching, biting, hair pulling, spanking, and chasing, which you saw tonight,” I add. “Among other things.”
She swallows. As she nods, I reach behind her to open the door of the SUV. Her hand comes up to my shoulder, and I flinch away, taking a step back.
“Thank you,” she says, giving me a small smile. “For explaining.”
I give her a curt nod. “Have a good night, Parker.”
I turn around before I can change my mind. Because though it goes against every single moral code I have, I want to drag her back to my party.
Iwantto show her.
But I can’t. Because she’s Jackson’s sister, and she deserves someone who doesn’t have the inclinations that I do. Someone without my past, without my cursed history. I’ve known it my whole life, and tonight was the second time I had to convince her of it.
As the car drives away, my control grows thin. The control I’ve worked so hard to cultivate. One more feel of her hand against my chest—one more heady glance up into my eyes—and I might snap.Break.Bend myself around her, just like I wanted to all those years ago when she came to me that night.
She may think I hurt her all of those years ago. She may even tell herself that I hurt her tonight by refusing her—again.
But I don’t think she understands that she has the capacity toruinme.
That maybe she already has.
CHAPTEREIGHT
THE RESEARCH
Juliet
The next two weeks go by at a sluggish pace. I keep myself on an identical routine every day, even going so far as to work over the weekend to keep myself busy. The good news is, I manage to distract myself enough during the days that I hardly think of Chase, or the party, or the things he told me. And despite the one encounter with Professor Landon in the library—and howsorryhe was to hear that Dylan and I had broken up—the days fly by. I meet up with Dylan to discuss the paper we’re coauthoring, and it startles me to see how well we work as peers and friends—and how much we might’ve been forcing a romantic relationship. And after I get home each night, I grab my favorite ice cream, my computer, and I research.
First, I analyze thewhysof how a partner could never make me come in bed. It wasn’t that they didn’t know how. But I realized, after pulling up articles on the topic of orgasming with a partner, it all came down to trust.Had I never trusted Dylan, or the other couple of guys I’d slept with?I thought I had at the time, but the deeper I dug, the more I realized that it wasn’t intrinsic trust people were referring to, but rather the trust of handing your pleasure to another person. Apparently, it’s a skill that not everyone naturally has.
Of course,thatrevelation led me to researching how, exactly, one begins to trust their partner to handle your pleasure. Which then naturally led to Dominance and submission. Or, those were the aspects I’d focused on. From an objective standpoint, it made complete sense. The whole underlying current of BDSM was giving your power to someone else.Submittingto them.Trustingthem to keep you safe as they brought you pleasure. Sometimes, even through pain.
Every single night, I watched YouTube videos from experienced submissives. I took notes. I pulled articles up from my university library. I even went so far as to bookmark certain studies to use in my dissertation. The psychology behind primal play makes sense, too. People strip everything away to appeal to their primal selves. Biologically, weareanimals, after all. Other mammals reproduced in similar ways, acting on pure instinct. It would make sense that humans, as primates, were aroused by acting like the animals. It’s completely natural.
Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting to agree with the research I found. At first, the notion that Chase was into BDSM terrified me. Chains, whips, bondage…wasI into that? I wasn’t sure. But the researcher in me didn’t want to give up. ThePhDstudent wanted to see this through, to analyze all of the data once I had it to make an educated decision.
And I couldn’t deny the pull of using only my primal urges. Of trusting my instincts. Andthatled me to the only conclusion I kept coming back to.
It was worth trying.
But only if Chase would be my Dominant.
Which meant, I needed to convince him.
My reasons for this were three-fold, and eerily similar to the list I made asking him to take my virginity.
Pros: I trusted him. He was Jackson’s best friend. He would be gentle, caring, and understanding. After learning about the levels of trust needed, I was terrified of choosing the wrong person and having that trust abused. I also found Chase attractive—obviously.I’d read that that was very important with primal play. The smells, the taste, the appearance of your play partner all had a huge impact on your ability to listen to your intuition.And,though this was on the cons list eight years ago, I now knew he was attracted to me, too. Why else would he have kissed me? And, for the purposes of this experiment, though he did come with family baggage, it didn’t bother me.
Cons: Chase might want someone more experienced as a submissive.
All in all, it’s a short cons list, which is wonderful.Andit is something I can fix by pouring myself into research—which is exactly what I do for two days straight, only emerging once I realize I haven’t left the house in forty-eight hours.
