Page 4

~ brIDGET ~

I laughed, sprinting down the hallway outside the room. Sam had been naked and hard. He wasn’t leaving that room quickly. I pulled up at the elevator and hit the button several times, still snorting to myself at the look on his face when I ran.

Watching the numbers climb towards our floor, my heart thudded, but not out of control.

I had checked the street map when I booked the hotel. There was a big park with a forested area next to a sports field two blocks away. It would be tricky to get to if he was right on my heels, but I figured I had a couple minutes. That’s what I told myself as I danced on the spot in front of the elevator when Sam—in dark jeans and a trim navy blue hoodie that hugged every muscle and shaded his face—came striding around the corner down the long hallway and drew up short when he saw me.

Then he launched into a run.

I yelped and dashed for the nearby stairwell door, heart fluttering at the sound of his laughter bouncing off the walls behind me. My steps echoed in the concrete stairwell which wasn’t going to help at all.

I needed enough time to get to the greenbelt that ran alongside the main parking lot before he saw me—I could follow it to the sidewalk and the pedestrian underpass that took us beyond the six-lane highway dividing the hotel block from the park.

A few minutes later, checking over my shoulder every few seconds, I sprinted out of the tunnel of the pedestrian underpass and onto the sidewalk of the busy road that lined the park on two sides.

I dropped my head and ran for the trees, praying that Sam wouldn’t get out of the dark tunnel and up onto the street level before I disappeared from view.

I slowed to a jog in the wooded area, under the shadows of the trees. I remained close to the road, but I needed a place to hide. Sam was used to me running, but I’d decided to do something different this time and hide from him. This empty tree-space was long, lining two sides of the park, but it was only fifty or sixty feet deep. Even when we were hidden from view of the road, or the running track that circled the park, we’d never be far from unsuspecting ears.

I wanted to find the thickest part of the little wood and see if I could hide under a bush or in a hollow tree—anything that might stump Sam for a while. Frustrate him.

I grinned to myself and slipped between two more thick trees, pushing through undergrowth—only to stumble out into a small clearing.

I stopped dead, looking around, afraid that maybe this wood wasn’t quite so abandoned as I thought.

The little clearing was the size of my bedroom back home, a cracked, concrete pad at its center strewn with dirt, leaves, and animal muck. The picnic table on it—thick wooden benches and a slatted top all bolted to the steel frame underneath—tilted drunkenly. The top sagged alarmingly, and one of the slats was torn off its bolts.

Sitting on that bench would mean take your life in your hands. But that didn’t mean kids didn’t come out here.

I bit my lip. Light flickered between the trees—which meant eyes in the right place would be able to see us. And the car noise from the nearby road was pretty loud, even though it was dulled by the trees. Maybe this wasn’t going to be the best hunting ground after all. I was all for risking a bit of exhibitionism, but there might be kids and—

“Got you. ”

My heart shot into my throat as a thick hand clapped over my mouth, and I was yanked off my feet. I tried to scream, but it was only muffled whining against his palm as I was shoved towards that old, clunky table.

The edge of it hit me right in the belly as Sam bent me over, pinning me between the rough edge and his thighs.

Then he let go of my mouth and grabbed my hair, yanking my head back, rubbing himself against my ass as he dropped his jaw against my cheek and rasped in my ear.

"You really thought you could get away?" he asked smugly. "You underestimate me, wife."

He let that last word trail off into a disgustingly hot growl that pebbled my neck and spine with goosebumps and made me shiver. But it turned out I wasn’t the only one doing the underestimating—Sam had left my hands free and was now busying himself with getting a hand under my sweater to find the button of my jeans. I was half-thrilled, half-terrified that we were about to traumatize some kid, but it had been way to easy for him to catch me. I wasn’t satisfied.

So, first I leaned back into his chest, bumping my ass against his growing groin. “The table’s rough. Give me a little more room,” I whispered as he rumbled his approval and did as I asked. I waited for that second when his grip loosened as he shifted back a step, then I pushed up from the tabletop, like a swimmer out of a pool, launching myself onto those rotted slats, praying they were strong enough to take my weight until I could leap off the other side—but I should have known Sam wouldn’t be so easily thwarted.

One of his hands swiped me, his nails scraping on the back of my calf as I shoved up and onto the table. But before I could get my second foot forward for that first crucial step and jump off the table, he snarled and his other hand grabbed the hem of my sweater, yanking me back at the same moment I took a step.

My balance was thrown. Half-crouched, halfway to my feet, I was caught. My arms pinwheeled and I tipped, tried to catch myself, but the sole of my shoe caught in the space left by that missing slat.

Unable to get feet under me, my entire weight was thrown sideways. I had a split-second to watch that bench and concrete beyond it rush towards me, reflexively knowing attempts to avoid one doomed me to hit the other.

“Shit!” Sam grunted.

A steel bar hit me right at the waist before I could faceplant into the bench and the world flipped. Table, trees, scattered sunlight—my stomach swooped because I was swung up and away.

When things stopped spinning, my legs were dangling, I gripped that steel bar of an arm across my stomach, and there was a ragged panting in my ear.

“Shit, that was close,” Sam muttered. “You don’t have an ounce of self-preservation, do you?”

I huffed, still finding my breath after the shock and impact from his arm that I was still bent over and clawing at, because this was supposed to be a hunt, and he hadn’t had to hunt me at all.

But now I couldn’t reach the dirt because he was holding me off my feet as he carried me out of the clearing and into the woods.

“That wasn’t even a hunt!” I gasped. “Let me go and like, count to one hundred or something—”

“Absolutely not,” Sam growled, low and deep, his chest vibrating against my back deliciously. “You ran, I caught. Not my fault you suck at hiding.” I could hear the smirk in his tone.

“But—”

“It’s my turn now. You want a hunt, you’re going to have to do better than a game of tag,” he rasped, turning his shoulder to take the brunt of the branches and bushes as he carried me into the trees.

Growling with frustration, but unable to get him to budge his grip around my middle, I started working to pry his fingers back. If I could bend one hard enough, he’d loosen his grip to ease the pain and—

“Nice try, Bridget,” he chuckled, digging his fingers into my ribs and pinching so I jerked and twitched and giggled and lost all strength.

I was still sniggering when he hiked me higher against his body, then hissed, “ Yesssssss.”

A moment later I found myself face to face with a broad tree that was old enough there were no branches for the first eight feet on the trunk. Sam grasped my throat with his free hand and lifted my chin, his stubbled jaw rasping against the sensitive skin of my neck as his lips tickled my hair and his breath thundered in my ear.

“You going to submit yet, wife?” he graveled. “Or do I have to make you?”

I grinned, but need was thrumming low in my belly at how effortlessly he held me.

“That depends on what I’m submitting to,” I murmured, turning my head slightly so that his stubble scratched against the corner of my jaw.

God, I loved the feeling of that, his heat at my back, and the rumble of his voice in his chest.

“Mmmmmm,” Sam hummed, reaching for my wrists. There was a brief tug-of-war in which I struggled to keep myself out of his grasp, but with no leverage, his longer reach won out. Soon he had both my wrists manacled in his fingers and was lifting both my hands…and planting them against the truck of that tree.

“I’m going to have you one way or another, Bridget,” he rasped, his breath growing harsher in my ear and sending trills from behind my navel to my core. “So, the choice is yours. You can play nice, and I’ll spoil you a little. Or you can fight, let off some of that steam, and I’ll remind you why you decided to marry me.”

His voice dropped so deep with promise and warning on that last sentence that my breath caught.

“Well… hello Cain,” I smirked. “It’s nice to see you again.”

Sam went very still, and adrenalin jolted through me. But in a blink he was alive again, a low chuckle vibrating at my back and his breath hot as he nipped the side of my neck.

“You want to be reminded who’s in charge, Bridget? My way it is,” he growled.

“Wait, I wasn’t—”

“Yes, you were,” he growled. Before I could protest the world flipped again, and the air left my lungs in a rush as he thumped me back against the tree. I was still inhaling when he flattened my hands on the trunk over my head, pinning them hard enough against the rough bark that I’d have scrapes when this was done—and so would he.

My heartrate picked up and my breathing grew faster.

He’d positioned me high enough that I could just reach the ground on my tip toes, but I couldn’t get any real traction.

Keeping me stretched back like that, my hair snagging on the bark, he reached down with the other hand to pop the button on my jeans and yank the zipper down.

I felt my cheeks flush. I wanted to pretend not to approve, but I knew he wasn’t fooled.

“No foreplay?” I teased. “And here I thought you were a gentlema—”

His mouth landed on mine, his tongue demanding and insistent as he plunged a hand down into my jeans at the same time he sucked hard on my tongue.

I gasped when he touched me and that deep, puttering rumble rolled in his chest. Then he pulled back to meet my eyes and his pupils were so dark his eyes looked black.

“Already wet for me, naughty girl,” he rasped. I snickered, but then he was kissing me again while he wrestled my jeans down, struggling because he only had one hand and was using his body to keep me against the tree.

He took every opportunity to stroke, or tease, or grab on his way, and I loved it. But I didn’t help him. If he was going to dominate, he could find a way to get those jeans off without me. But of course, he did. And I was left there with only one shoe, no jeans except where they puddled at my foot, caught on the shoe, and a half-furious husband looming over me, my hands nailed to the tree over my head.

When he finally got himself loose and used his free hand to pull my leg up and hook it over his hip, then ground against me, I was gasping.

“We have to be quiet,” I whispered, staring up at him as he maneuvered my leg, positioning himself. “There might be kids— oh!”

Sam dropped his forehead to my shoulder, shuddering as he pulled me onto him. My head thunked back against the tree and my jaw dropped, but he took my mouth before I could make a sound. And then I was being taken— his body, his tongue, his soul .

The sounds from the road faded. All I could hear was my own pulse, and his breath thundering in my ear. My body was a shaking mess, penetrated and plundered. Instinctively I tried to grab for his shoulders, but couldn’t move my hands—and when he felt my resistance, Sam ground both hands back into that rough bark and jerked his head up, locking eyes with me as he hitched my leg higher and kept going, harder .

“What… were you saying?” he grunted, thrusting into me again and nipping at my chin when my head sank back.

“I don’t know,” I gasped, my eyes wanting to close to better appreciate the unrelenting onslaught. But Sam’s gaze was intense, his eyes piercing and his forehead was beginning to prickle with sweat. Then he looked down, watched himself take me and another shudder rocked through him.

“God, Bridget,” he said through his teeth, his upper lip peeled back like he was furious, but I knew it was just the fight for control.

Dropping his head like that had brought his face close to mine and I leaned down for his mouth, kissing him deeply—and biting his lip when he pulled away. Which only drove him on.

I was struggling to stay quiet, yearning to call for him, tiny whimpers breaking in my throat, and he was starting to smile, knowing it was torment for me to hold back. He’d just grazed my chin with his teeth again when there was a childish shriek somewhere to my left and we both froze.

“Mom! Mom! Did you see!?”

Sam’s eyes went wide, both of us snapped our heads to look towards the sports field. I couldn’t see anything but trees and bushes and smatterings of sunlight. But I knew there was a path on the other side of the trees, ringing the grassy field, and a handful of buildings along it. But not near here.

A low murmur of a woman’s voice responded to the kid, too low for me to make out the words. A few seconds later, the child called out again further away so I could breathe again.

Sam blew out a breath then turned his head slowly back to look down on me, searching my eyes. I knew he had the same dilemma I did: keep going and possibly traumatize an unsuspecting kid? Or keep going because it was fucking hot to be hidden in here?

A noisy truck rumbled past on the road .

“I couldn’t see them, could you?” I whispered when it was gone.

He shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine. I didn’t say anything, but a moment later he let go of the breath he’d been holding, and it shuddered out of him as he thrust into me again.

Buried to the hilt, he stopped again and searched my gaze. And I knew.

He wanted to keep going. But he’d stop for me.

God, my husband was hot.

“Don’t…”

He froze. I smiled.

“Don’t stop,” I whispered.

“Thank you, God,” Sam croaked. He switched hands locking my wrists, then lifted my other leg and urged me to hook my ankles at his back. Then, with me still bowed back, he planted his free hand on the tree, his forearm offering resistance against my shoulder as he clawed fingers into the bark for purchase and slammed into me.

I stopped trying to pull out of his grip and arched instead, reaching for him with my hips, meeting him stroke for stroke as he picked up the pace. Again, and again, and again.

Breath rasping, body singing, he pushed me closer and closer to that incredible limit. Pleasure coiled and swelled within me until I clenched on him so hard he shook and said my name on a guttural growl that slid between his teeth.

And still he stared at me.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. My head sank back and my eyes closed because all I could do was arch and brace and mentally beg him to keep going. Until I was pulsing around him and riding the edge of that wave, reading to plummet back to shore.

“Bridget… Bridget look at me,” Sam growled.

My eyes flew open and he swore. Releasing my hands finally, he grabbed my ass on both sides, pulling me higher and harder against him, breathing my name in shuddering gasps, his eyes bright pinpoints of light over his pupils that had become black pools of need.

A second before my orgasm hit, I sucked in and would have cried out, but Sam dove for my mouth, swallowing my cries, one hand cupping the back of my neck and holding me into his kiss as he drove me home.

Then I was tumbling, spiraling into that chasm of bliss, my body jerking and twitching, crying around his tongue for long seconds before he breathed, “Bridget… oh god, Bridget—!” and arched, his body shuddering, his hand fisting in my hair so hard some strands were pulled from the roots.

We were locked together there for an endless, speechless moment. Then Sam slumped, and my body went loose.

The sound of the cars on the road sucked back in slowly.

Sam pulled himself together first, straightening, holding me to him as we figured out how to extricate ourselves.

Then he dropped to crouch and brushed my bare foot clean with his hand before putting my foot back into my jeans, sliding my sock on and putting my foot in the shoe before he dragged himself up my body again, pulling my jeans back up, then kissing me as he buttoned them.

When he leaned back, I was still trembling, but also staring at him. No, gaping.

“What?” he asked with a little smile.

“You,” I breathed. “You’re… you’re perfect.”

He snorted but his smile pulled wider. “Hardly.”

“No, Sam, I mean it. You have that… Cain inside. That animal drive that isn’t scared of me. And I love that—”

“Bridge, Cain is just a name I used—”

“I know. I know. I didn’t mean… I’m saying… you’ve got it all, Sam. That aggression and strength that isn’t intimidated by me. It makes everything exciting. And then… then you do stuff like that.”

His brows pinched together over his nose. “The shoe?”

“Yes, the shoe.”

His smile tipped higher on one side in a boyish grin that made me want to swoon like some stupid cartoon character. “You like being served, Bridge?”

I gave him a warning look. “I like being touched in any way that’s… pleasant. And some that aren’t.”

I put a hand on his chest, trying to find the words to tell him what I was feeling, but his eyes dropped and he frowned. “We need to get that cleaned up. ”

He took my hand from his chest, then reached for my other one and held them both there—the backs of both my hands abraded and scraped from the harsh bark of the tree.

“Come on,” he muttered. “I’ve got stuff back at the room.”

He tucked himself away and buttoned up, then took my hand and tugged me towards the road.

As we trotted back towards the hotel, I couldn’t stop smiling.

It was so dumb. Such a little thing. My hands would be fine. But it made me so happy that he cared.