Page 82 of Reverie

I clear my throat. “Sure, Sunbeam. I’ll do that.”

She goes to kiss my cheek again, and I turn my head to capture her lips.

Our embrace is sweet, slow, and full of…everything.

Everything I’ve never dared to allow myself to have and want, I have it here. It’s in my hands.

I run my palms over her sides, and she hums into my mouth, pulling back a fraction to look at me.

It’s like she’s staring into the depths of my soul. I know she would understand. The logical part of me—the part that knows that Winter loves me as I love her, beyond reason—knows that I could tell her anything.

There’s so much she doesn’t know about me. And the reality is the thought of her seeing the darkest, ugliest parts of my past makes me want to die.

You are not a good person, Hunter Brigham,she said to me once.

She wasn’t wrong. Not at all.

“I really don’t want to push you, Hunter,” she says in a soft voice. “But I’m not the only one who has been hurt. You have been too.”

I resist the urge to jump as she analyzes me. I take a long blink to avoid her gaze.

“Eh, my stuff will heal,” I reply.

“I’m not talking about physical pain, H. I’m talking about you—your heart and your soul. Your reactions in your dreams sound very…familiar.” Her voice drops on the last word, and I can’t look her in the eye.

So, instead, I stare at the silky skin on the back of her hand and rub my thumb over it in a slow cadence.

“What you told me that—that night I was taken…” She clears her throat. “That was just the tip of the iceberg. There was more that happened, more you haven’t told me. Right?”

Icy fingers of panic skitter down my spine, morphing into the feeling of unwanted hands on my body. I look down at my palms to make sure they aren’t covered in blood.

I swallow past the thickness in my throat.

“I am here for you, Hunter. I’m here to listen.” She brings my hand to her mouth now, returning the caress. “I’m not here to therapize you,” she whispers with her lips pressed to my flesh. Then she brings my hand to her chest and places it right over her heart.

“I’m here for you because I love you, and I want to be your safe space too.”

At that, I look up at her face.

She looks open to me and so filled with love that I almost choke on it.

“You can tell me anything. Some things…I know they’re hard to say. I know it. But you can’t keep me on the outside of you.” She moves our hands down to cover her stomach. “We’re part of each other now.”

She’s well into her second trimester now. Her stomach has become a little more prominent over the last few weeks, and the sight of her round with my child does all kinds of things to my brain.

One thought is regret—I never saw these stages with August. Another thought is joy—radiant joy that I can try again.

But the loudest thought is fear. All-consuming, trembling fear.

And I know that fear, if given the opportunity, will make me weak. Distracted. Vulnerable.

If I were to allow myself to give in to the fear, that would mean death for all of us.

So I push it down and shut all the thoughts out.

I open my mouth to speak—to spill forward the horrible tragedies that my father allowed, that he dictated.

I open my mouth to tell her that our pasts are not so different.