Page 149 of Reverie
He nods slowly before leaning closer to me.
“I’ve done some thinking while you were in the back.” His voice is a whisper against my ear, and even though I don’t think he’s trying to seduce me in this moment, I shiver. I can’t help it.
“And I realized…you’re right.” He breathes in a slow cadence, and I feel the pressure of his exhalation against the flesh of my neck. “My worst nightmare is the one where I lose you, Winter. There have been so many goddamn times where I’ve almost lost you, either from me being a dumbass or from my father or from these fuckers who want to erase us.”
Then, as if he can’t help himself, he presses a delicate kiss behind my ear.
When he pulls back, he puts his head on the rest behind him, turning his face toward me. I mirror his pose, facing him. “I’ve been so scared of losing you that I haven’t allowed you the opportunity to go.”
I watch, mesmerized, as his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows.
“When you almost left me at Amelia Manor…when you found out that my father had—” he stops, running his hand over his mouth. “I knew I wasn’t fighting fair. I knew that if I wore you down, you’d relent. I just needed an in, a crack in your armor so I could hold on to you and never let you go.”
He grabs my hand, pressing a hard kiss to the back of it. After a long moment, he lowers it and shifts to put his hand over my lower stomach. Over our child.
“I knew you weren’t in the right place mentally to even entertain the idea of having a baby when I brought it up before. I knew that there was so much you were healing from. I knew that you were lonely and missing Veronica. But I’m a selfish fucker, and all I could see, all I could think about was giving you a good enough reason not to want to leave me again. Because the sight of you running away from me with only a backpackcrushedme.You were so determined to leave me that you were prepared to leave everything behind, and thatmeanssomething.”
His voice is fierce, filled with emotion as he spills all the raw truths that he’s never confessed before.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for how I twisted and bent and pressed you into doing things you might not have chosen to do otherwise, but I can’t say that I’m sorry that you’re here with me. And the fucked thing is, if given the same circumstances, I very likely would make the same fucking decisions.”
His eyes don’t waver from mine as he delivers his final words. And I really, really believe him.
It’s a massive red flag, sure, but again…I’m a silly bitch. And I love the fuck out of it.
“So what do we do now?” I ask, and my voice sounds strange to my ears.
His face turns even more serious.
“You say you want to see all of me. You want to know all of me. So I’ll give you this choice, Sunbeam. Are you willing to go into the darkness with me? Are you willing to see me at my worst—know of all the terrible shit that comes along with me?”
I hear the part he doesn’t say as he grips the armrest with the hand not clutching mine:And if my ugliness is too much for you to bear, I’ll let you go.
I stare into his bottomless blue eyes.
“What doyouwant, Winter?” he whispers.
I nod before my brain can catch up to my body.
“Hunter, I want all of you,” I say.
His smile is slow, and the plane lifts in the air before falling a fraction, mirroring the roller coaster in my gut.
“Okay,” he says with a breath. He moves to the seat across from mine, spinning it around so that we face each other—his back to the forward galley and my back to the bedroom.
“You want to know what happened with that flight attendant, yes?” he asks, and a piece of me appreciates that he’s not calling her by her name. His voice is so low and firm that it centers in my lady parts.
Do I want to know? Not really. But if this is what he needs to know I won’t leave, then….
“Tell me,” I say, trying to add steel into my voice.
His smile is sad, distant. In contrast to his words, he leans back in the chair, spreading his legs so that he’s the picture of nonchalance.
“I was flying from Türkiye back into D.C. I’d just learned that Maiya had died and I was a mess, to say the least.” The side of his mouth kicks up. “It felt like fire ants were under my skin. I was buzzing, so overwhelmed and afraid and paranoid that everything was going to shit that I wanted to stop existing. I couldn’t handle being alone with myself. So when she came by and offered herself up, you know what I did?”
I swallow. “What did you do, Hunter?”
“I told her to go to the back room and get on her knees to suck my cock.”