Page 150 of Reverie

I want to close my eyes. I want to cry, thinking of the room I just left—the room where he held me after leaving Asheville—having shared space withher.

“I see,” I say, fighting to keep all judgment out of my voice. In my periphery, I spot Jami’s blonde ponytail at the galley. She’s not looking at us, but I feel her presence in my space nonetheless.

This 767 isn’t big enough for both of us.

“And because I commanded it, she kneeled on the ground and opened her throat to take my dick.”

This time, I can’t resist the squeak that pushes past my vocal cords. I close my eyes in a long, slow blink.

“But you want to know what else happened, Sunbeam?”

I keep my gaze focused on him, even though my eyes burn. “What?”

“It didn’t do anything. It didn’t help. Even though she was sucking me off like a champ, I still wanted to jump out of the plane each second that went on.”

I nod. “I see,” I say. His words make me feel unsteady in my seat—like the plane is going in one direction and I’m floating in another.

I realize that if Jami hadn’t been so fucking disrespectful and tried to come after Hunter, I wouldn’t care about this woman’s past with him.

My husband.

But it is what it is, and I find myself completely untethered as I’m confronted with Hunter’s past.

“So you want to know what happened next?”

No.

“Yes,” I rasp.

“I took it out on her. It started with her ass, and the sting on my palm helped a bit to center me, but even though I was spanking her so hard that she was crying, I still was fucking losing it.”

Oh, Hunter.

“I understand,” I say.

“But you want to know what finally brought me down?” He leans forward in his chair suddenly, clasping his hands over his knees.

Not waiting for me to acknowledge his statement, he says, “It was when I put my belt around her neck and brought her to the edge of consciousness.”

My hand goes to my chest, but I settle it right beneath my neck.

“The more she gasped for air, the harder I got and the more at peace I felt. And it wasn’t until I thought I’d kill her with my actions that I stopped.”

“Hunter,” I say, my voice strangled as if I were the one whose air supply had been cut off.

“This is the darkness I have been running from, Sunbeam, because youknowthe boundaries of my violence. There aren’t any. There aren’t any except for with you.”

He leaves his chair, and I stop breathing when he kneels before me.

“With you, I don’tneedany of those things. With you, I can breathe just by being in your presence. I can dare to dream about the life that I’ve never allowed myself to want.”

I lose the battle and a tear falls down my cheek. Still, he keeps kneeling and doesn’t touch me.

“You’re not just the sunshine, baby. You are radiance personified. I was in such a dark, dark place when you walked into my life. When I became solely responsible for August, I was desperate to stay out of that place—not for myself, but for August. But then you strolled in and completely wrecked my shit in the way I didn’t know I needed but I’m so grateful for.”

I grasp the sides of his face, but then he snaps and says, “Hands down.”

I drop them back to the armrests, but he has me shaking when he puts his hands on my thighs, rubbing from my knees up to the crease of my groin, bunching the fabric of my skirt.