21. Winter

TWENTY-ONE

WINTER

I ’ve never felt the level of disquiet in my body as I feel right now. It’s like there’s a fine tremor of tension thrumming along the facia covering my muscles, and it takes effort for me to breathe in and out as I lay on my side in the bed.

The bed that, given the circumstances, my husband likely fucked the woman outside that door on.

Contract. Release. Contract. Release.

I fell asleep for what feels like forever—lulled into unconsciousness by pure exhaustion and emotional overwhelm—but the digital clock on the far wall tells me that I’ve been out for an hour.

I don’t want to think about how much of a fool I’ve been.

I know that Hunter loves me. He loves me with all that he can. And still, he refuses to cross the gulf separating us.

I know the hurt he’s experiencing, and part of me realizes that I shouldn’t make demands he’s not ready to fulfill. If I were just his friend or his counselor, I wouldn’t. I’d offer him chances to come to whatever conclusions he draws about his life in his own time.

But I’m not his counselor. I’m not just his friend.

I’m his lover.

I’m his wife.

I’m supposed to be his soulmate.

Soulmate. The title feels right, seeing as it’s my soul that’s in the process of cracking.

Now that I’m Mrs. Winter Leigh Brigham, I could walk away and be set for life. I’d questioned him over and over about a prenup, and each time I brought it up, he just looked at me like I were mad.

We didn’t sign one. Instead, he handed over nearly everything to me.

But I don’t want to walk away from him—from our family.

I want him.

All of him.

And what I have of him right now isn’t enough.

A tap on the door has me sitting up in the bed. I pause for a moment, afraid that it might be Jami on the other side, but my shoulders drop when Hunter speaks.

“Sunb—Winter. We’re preparing for landing. Can you please come to your seat?”

His presence on the other side of the door is comforting…and at the same time, I don’t want to see him at all.

You’re hiding again, Winter.

“Yes,” I call out. “Give me a moment.”

I move to the bathroom, wetting my palms and using them to slick my hair into a messy bun at the top of my head. Staring at my reflection, I catalog all the changes in my appearance.

The scar I got from Adam’s attack is barely noticeable most days. Now, it feels like a beacon on my forehead.

“You are a bad bitch from Hell. You’ll get through this,” I say to my reflection.

I feel Veronica’s presence next to me, cheering me on.

No matter what happens, I will get in contact with her.

Pulling my shoulders back, I exit the room and keep my eyes on my seat as I navigate toward the front of the plane.

I want to cry and yell and throw up all over the floor when I see Hunter’s dark hair over the top of his headrest. The captain’s chairs are spacious, set on a swiveling base. He faces forward, whereas before he faced the aisle.

When I reach him, he looks up at me with so much conflict in his gaze. Things are heavy between us, and I know that he knows what I know: Things could go nuclear at a moment’s notice.

I don’t want to fight—at least, not like this. So I look away and take a seat, putting the seatbelt on with a quiet snick.

“How much time until we land?” I ask once I’m settled. I situate my seat to face forward like Hunter’s. He taps his hand on the table in front of him, and I notice curiously that instead of whiskey, he has water in his glass.

He blows out a deep breath with a chuckle. “I thought about stretching the truth, but that won’t get me anywhere. There are still a few hours before we reach our first destination.”

More deception. More manipulation.

Putting my hand on my seatbelt, my voice is grating when I say, “What the fuck is this, Hunter?”

But before I can remove the belt, he grabs my hand, pausing my movements.

“Can you give me fifteen minutes of your time, Winter?” His voice is barely above a whisper, but his plea carries the weight of the world within it.

I stare down to where our hands touch, his thumb resting near the ring he gave me just hours before.

“If you want to talk, then let’s talk,” I say, my voice just as low.

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 backpack crushed me. You were so determined to leave me that you were prepared to leave everything behind, and that means something.”

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 do you want, 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.”

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 with her.

“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 you know the 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’t need any 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.

“You’re right, baby. You’re right that I’m fucked up from all the shit I’ve gone through and the shit I’ve done. And I haven’t had people around me to help me find myself through that. So I picked up whatever pieces I could find and pulled myself together. And there are parts of me that don’t fit; there are jagged edges to me that I’ve been trying desperately not to let cut you.”

Balling my skirt in his fists, he stretches the fabric taut over my upper thighs. “What I did with her was a Band-Aid.” He releases the tension in my lap, looking into my eyes, pleading. “Please believe me when I say that.”

I bite my lip, nodding to show him that I understand, that I believe him.

“You think I need to be like that with you, but the reality is, baby, I don’t want that. I want to be gentle with you. I want to be strong for you. I want to hold you and worship you and make you feel like the most spectacular woman on the planet. Because that’s what you are to me.”

His hands go to my waist, and I part my legs, letting him get closer to me. He lifts my shirt to right beneath my bra. I’m self-conscious about my rolls and the way my stomach has grown with each week of my pregnancy, but Hunter stares at me with such reverence that I feel like a goddess.

He puts his lips to the flesh above my navel, giving me sucking, open-mouthed kisses across the width of my abdomen. He kisses me on the flesh that protects our child.

“There will never be another woman you need to be jealous of, Winter,” he whispers against my skin. “There will never be a time when I don’t want every piece of you that you’re willing to give me.”

I ball my fists, desperate to run my fingers through his hair. “Can I touch you, Hunter? Please,” I say, tension in my voice.

I’m dimly aware of Jami’s presence on the other side of the plane, but at this moment, I can’t force myself to care.

Hunter shushes me, bringing his hands up my ribcage and to the clasp of my bra at my back. He unsnaps it. When I stiffen, he says, “Trust me.”

I relax back into the seat and nod once. He pulls my top and bra off in one move.

When the cold recirculated air hits my breasts, my nipples tighten, drawing a line to my clit. My gaze flicks toward the galley, embarrassment blooming hot over my cheeks.

“Eyes on me,” Hunter commands, and he puts his hand on my jaw and forces me to look at him.

Only at him.

When I suck in a breath and drop my voice to say, “Yes, Sir,” he smiles—beams.

“Good girl,” he growls. My panties get stupidly wet, and I do a Kegel involuntarily. “What’s your word, Winter?”

I shiver. We’re really doing this.

“Paris,” I say on a breath.

“Use it if it gets to be too much.” Hunter lowers his head to my right nipple and my back bows off the seat. He palms the other, squeezing the peak of my other breast between two fingers. When he draws hard on my skin, I moan loudly and shut my eyes, dropping my head to the headrest. Distantly, I feel him unbuckle my seatbelt.

A beep draws me from the ecstasy he’s stoking within me, and my eyes snap open. I immediately fix my gaze on the illuminated call light above me and gasp, looking down at Hunter.

“Do you want to use your word?” His gaze and voice are hard, commanding.

I can’t resist him; I don’t want to deny him. It dawns on me that I really, really want to do this. I want to go there with Hunter.

So I shake my head, even though Jami’s blond head looks past the galley curtain to where we sit.

“Don’t move unless I tell you to,” he commands. And this time, he isn’t daring me to stop him. He wants me to be in this with him.

He invited me to dive into the madness. And I’m following him like he’s Virgil and I’m Dante, going all the way into the darkest parts of Hell together.

“I trust you,” I say. My tits tremble from anxiety as much as from the cold.

He lands another reverent kiss to my stomach before standing, pulling me up with him.

I want to cross my arms over my chest, but Hunter moves behind me and sits in my vacant seat. He doesn’t order me to sit—instead, he pulls my skirt up, bunching it high around my ribcage, and sits me on his lap.

As Jami bounces closer, Hunter’s hard erection presses to the cleft of my ass.

When he puts my hands on both armrests, I let out a squeak. I want to cover myself, hide myself from her. Not because of insecurity, but rather because I don’t want to be vulnerable in front of this woman.

Hunter palms both of my breasts, covering my nipples when Jami lands upon us. She stumbles and gapes at my nakedness; I blush and raise my chin, channeling every ounce of confidence I have in my body.

“Sit,” he bites out, directing his words at Jami. Part of me wants to hide, but instead, I force myself to stare her down.

Yeah, bitch. Sit down.

Jami lowers herself to the seat Hunter used across from us, and I raise an eyebrow when she primly places her hands on her knees.

“Don’t move from this position, Winter,” he murmurs in my ear. I drop my head against his shoulder.

With aching slowness, he runs his hands over my nipples, bringing his arms up to cradle my jaw from where he sits behind me. In this position, his forearms cover the tips of my breasts, so only the sides of my cleavage show around his muscular limbs. His hands are gentle on my face, and he doesn’t have to exert much pressure to get me to turn toward him.

“You still trust me?” he whispers against my lips.

I nod so hard that I feel a lock of my hair fall from my bun.

“I need the words, baby,” he says in the same low tone.

“Yes,” I choke out. “I still trust you.”

I feel the movement of his lips when he smiles. “Good.”

In a smooth movement, he puts his knee between my slightly spread legs and parts them wide.

I’m so shocked at the move that I can’t protest when he reaches down and rips my panties in two. Now, with my skirt cascading over the swell of my baby bump and the remnants of my underwear hanging pointless above my snatch, I start to tremble at how exposed I am. He bands one arm across my chest again, palming one breast, and with a flick of his wrist, he slaps his hand over my lower lips. My sheath contracts.

Holy fuck, I love it when he does that.

“Still trust me, baby?” he rasps, and I’m distracted by the feeling of his hand on my breast and the other covering my pussy.

“Y-yes,” I say, stuttering.

“Good girl,” he says.

I swallow and absorb his words.

“Jami,” Hunter says, his voice back to the hard, authoritarian tenor that he held before. He speaks without looking away from me. “It seems that you have misunderstood your position here. More importantly, you’ve gravely misunderstood my wife’s station in relation to yours.”

A shiver goes down my back when he growls “my wife.” He sounds so possessive, so proud, more wetness ekes out of me.

“It’s vital that you understand what I’m about to tell you,” Hunter says. His hands start to move, and I suppress a full-body roll as he circles my button.

“Do you see this mouth?” He moves the hand on my breast to my jaw, and my nipple tightens from exposure. “Nothing you can say or do with your mouth will ever compare to Winter.”

I stop breathing again. I trust him to take care of me and I know he wouldn’t do anything that would tear me down, but his words just then are unexpected. Just as unexpected as him putting his finger in my mouth.

Just as unexpected as when I reflexively suck on the digit as my eyes cross, the action causing a new surge of wetness to slick over his roaming fingers below.

He pulls his finger out of my mouth with a wet pop, and I feel his dick twitch beneath my ass.

“Do you see these breasts?” He groans as he moves back to my tit, squeezing the entirety of my breast with his broad hand.

I groan in response. My breasts are so sensitive from the hormones that the action causes me to leap toward the edge.

“Do you think you could compare to the feeling of her flesh beneath my hand?”

“Hunter,” I slur, thoroughly overwhelmed by his words and the scene he’s creating.

“Her brain,” he says, “My god, her clever, beautiful, incomparable brain…you will never, ever come anywhere close to her intellect.”

Hunter slides a finger into my pussy, pressing hard on my clit as he massages me from the inside and outside.

“And this pussy?” He laughs darkly. “I’ll die in this cunt.” He slides another finger inside me to prove his point.

“But the best thing about her?” One of his hands shifts and he places it over my chest while he continues to work me below. “Her heart, and how freely she’s given it to me. I will always protect it.”

His words are fierce, pointed, and I think I could combust at the slightest additional pressure.

His words, words, words….

“She is my queen,” he says. “She is my everything.” He turns my head and kisses me openmouthed over my shoulder.

I whimper into his mouth, awareness dawning that I’ve been his good girl and haven’t moved my hands from the armrests—even though I’m clutching them for dear life.

“How could you possibly think that a few meaningless moments with you could compare to what I have with her?”

He picks up speed with his hand, working me in the way he always does to get me off quickly. My moans turn into deep sighs, and my legs tense around his hand.

“Not yet, baby,” he whispers against my lips. Then, without taking his gaze off mine or slowing his pace, he says to Jami, “On your knees.”

I hear her sharp intake of air, and if I didn’t have my eyes affixed to Hunter’s, I probably would have jumped up and run into the other room.

But I feel the movement when Jami shifts to her knees, silently coming closer and pausing right before Hunter’s feet.

“Apologize to my wife ,” he commands, slowing his pace just a fraction to keep me from the edge of orgasm. I don’t want to look at her, but she’s so close that I can’t ignore her presence.

“I’m sorry,” Jami says in a small voice. Hunter picks up his pace.

“Apologize better ,” he growls to Jami. He breaks our gazes and tilts my chin to look at the blonde at my feet.

She looks…wrecked, like she’s devastated that she’s losing Hunter.

But she actually never had him to begin with. Because he’s mine.

“I’m so sorry for disrespecting you, Mrs. Brigham,” she says, placing her hands on her chest.

“Was that apology good enough for you, Sunbeam?” Hunter’s voice is close, and he nips at my earlobe.

“Yes,” I moan, not caring about her empty words but caring so very much about what’s happening here between me and Hunter.

“Hunter, please,” I cry.

His smile is sinister, malicious.

I let out a sound of protest when he removes his hand from my pussy, but then seconds later I’m yelling for a completely different reason when he pulls his pants down a fraction and slams me down on his cock.

“Oh, God, Hunter—” I choke. He turns my head back to look at him.

“Keep your eyes on me, baby,” he says, his breath flowing over my lips.

I don’t defy him.

“I love every single part of you, Hunter James Brigham,” I say, mindless. I’m so, so, so fucking close. Despite what my more conservative self would say, I love the fuck out of this.

I love the fact that this audacious bitch is at my feet, begging me for forgiveness. I am ecstatic at the fact that she has to watch Hunter fuck me—claim me—and reaffirm that she’s a non-motherfucking-factor.

“You own me, Winter,” he says.

He slams his lips to mine, and he transmits every single fear, insecurity, and desire into the act.

“Come on my cock,” he whispers for my ears only.

I obey him. My god, I obey.

When all my muscles clench and fireworks bloom behind my eyelids, I finally allow my hands to move, reaching one hand back to grasp the back of his head behind me.

“Watch her as she comes and know that you’ll never have this again,” Hunter growls. My orgasm goes on and on, sucking at his cock greedily as I crest and crest and crest?—

“Winter. Wife, ” Hunter says as he surges his hips up in three sharp thrusts and explodes inside me. The feeling of his dick twitching against my walls has me rolling over the peak one more time.

In the aftermath, all Hunter and I do is breathe.

And just when the shame and discomfort begin to edge into my post-orgasm haze, Hunter saves me and says to Jami, “Get out of my sight and stay out of my sight. And never say another word to me or my wife again.”

I feel Jami move off toward the front of the plane.

Still, we can only look at each other, so I see it when Hunter’s gaze turns from dominant to vulnerable. He closes his eyes, lifting me off his softening cock. When I stand, turning to face him with his essence dripping down my thighs, he leans back, looking away from me.

And if my heart is correct in my assumption, he’s waiting for my rejection.

It doesn’t come. It never will.

I settle back on his lap again, this time facing him with my skirt bunched between us. When I land on him fully, he takes a deep breath and holds it.

When he releases it, it shudders out of him, but his face is still like stone.

“Look at me, Hunter,” I say, putting my hand on his jaw. His five o’clock shadow scratches my palm.

“I am your safe space. You are safe with me. I love you, and I’m not leaving. You can’t scare me away,” I say. Then, just because I want to, I lower my forehead to his and sigh.

And wait.

The plane banks to the side and absently, I note the captain’s voice as it comes over the intercom, detailing something about our travels.

But I tune the pilot out when Hunter opens his mouth for several long seconds, preparing himself to spill his truths.

“I love you, Hunter Brigham. I am so incredibly happy to be your wife,” I say.

He shudders again. Drawing in another breath, he begins to speak.

“The leader was someone who I expected to hurt me. He was my father’s co-conspirator, his right-hand man, and he was always on Isla Cara when I was there. He was always watching me. His name was Alistair.”

I commit the name to memory as Hunter rasps the last word of his sentence.

“My father sat across from me, watching, the entire time I was being raped by Alistair and his friends,” he begins.

I still all my muscles, ready to listen to him say as much as he needs to.

As much as he wants to.

“I want to tell you about it, Sunbeam,” he whispers against my lips. So I wrap him in my arms and bring him close.

“I’m here to listen, baby,” I say. Running my fingers through the hair at the base of his neck, I dedicate the next two hours in the clouds to hearing all the horrors Hunter Brigham has endured.