23. Hunter
TWENTY-THREE
HUNTER
W inter’s eyes are reluctant to slide open when I sit on the edge of the bed. It’s barely sunrise, but we’ve been sailing through the night and now we’re at the place I’ve been dying to take her.
I just hope she loves it.
“Hunter, we’re on our honeymoon. A honeymoon is like a vacation. Vacations mean sleeping in,” she mutters, her face half-pressed into the pillow.
I chuckle, rubbing my hand down her back until I reach her ass. I give one of her juicy cheeks a squeeze and she jerks.
Looking adorably disheveled with her hair coming out of the braids she put them in, she frowns at me, emitting a growl. Not even the hot buttered biscuit and coffee I present her with seem to cheer her up.
“Where are we going?” she asks, taking a bite of the baked good. Her face falls slack for a second before brightening with the taste.
“They’re good, right?” I ask.
She hums in agreement. “The question? Where are we going at the ass crack of dawn?”
I cup her cheek, using my thumb to wipe away a crumb.
“It’s a surprise,” I say. She raises her eyebrow.
“I dunno, H. Your surprises lately have been a little sus. Like handing me over a duffle bag full of cash, sus.”
I chuckle, leaning over to grab a light bite of her thigh. She squeaks before saying, “Okay, give me ten minutes.” She punctuates the sentence with another bite of her food.
When we reach the top deck, I lace her fingers between mine, navigating her toward the Bell helicopter that I’ve prepared for flight.
“Okay, so we’re leaving the boat. Are we going far?” Winter asks as soon as both of our headsets are on. She settles into the seat, pulling on the seatbelt and stretching it out so that it pins her to the chair when it snaps back into position.
“Can you not just be surprised?” I ask with mock annoyance. I smile to soften the words as I flick on the controls.
“No, I cannot. I require prior information to digest. It’s all part of my anxiety, I’ll have you know.” She folds her arms across her chest.
I grimace, chagrined. “Of course, baby. We’re going to an island about thirty nautical miles away. It’s developed, so don’t worry about getting some rare, random tropical disease,” I say.
She blinks, staring out the glass in front of her seat.
“I wasn’t concerned about that until just now,” she says, her voice flat. I grab her hand.
“I’ve got you, Sunbeam,” I say, enunciating the words so they’re heard clearly over the hum of the rotary wings.
She squeezes my hand in return. “I know, Hunter. And I’ve got you. Always.”
With one final kiss to the back of her wrist, I lift the skids and point us due west.
The helipad for the island is several yards from the main house by design. So when I circle the cay in preparation for landing, I take a few extra moments to fly around the shore of the island. It’s ten miles wide, so not the biggest land mass, but the structures comprising my island estate are the only buildings here.
Well. Our island estate. Really, it’s Winter’s land.
“Wow,” Winter says on a breath. Her awe is plain in her words. “This place is stunning, Hunter.”
I smile and say, “Welcome to Winter Island.”
She snaps her head toward me. “Winter Island? Did I hear you correctly?” Her jaw drops and she looks from me down to the palm trees below and back to me.
I smile. “Yes. What other name would fit better?”
She gapes for a moment before saying, “You bought an island? When did you purchase it?”
I start my final pass around the land before tilting us toward the landing zone.
“I bought it five years ago,” he says. “I was looking for an island that I could use to get away from everyone. I was feeling particularly moody when I got it. But then, a little over a year ago, I met this wonderful, amazing, beautiful woman, and I knew she would love this place. So I named it after her and got it fixed up.”
She doesn’t say anything to that. In fact, she’s silent until we’re skids down on the pad and the rotary blades have stopped spinning.
“You named an island after me,” she says as if in disbelief.
“Yes, I did,” I say. “This will be my first time staying here too.”
She gives me a soft look that’s full of love, and it makes me want to pull my heart out and place it in her hands.
It makes me want to fight off every demon that dares to try to touch her.
It makes me want to weep.
“So I get one of your first times, then?” Winter asks, brightening.
I nod slowly. “Wanna check out our new home away from home?”
“You bet your sweet dick I do,” she says, and we both let out robust laughs.
On one side of the main home on the island, there are at least a hundred steps leading from the house to the shore. It’s a lot of fucking steps, but this was the best vantage point to build the structure. There are 360-degree views of the ocean once you’re inside. Winter Island is a beautiful place.
The architect and designer I hired presented a few ideas for the primary dwelling that looked exactly like what one would expect from a billion-dollar estate and entirely too similar to Isla Cara. All of the prominent elements they suggested—the veranda, the close jaunt to the beach, the massive entertaining space and ballroom—were axed without thought.
The only other direction I gave the architectural team was that I wanted glass everywhere, as many clear sightlines as possible.
It would be hot if I didn’t have the right UV coating on the windows and appropriate air conditioning, but money can buy anything.
I wanted a house where anyone could see in. No places to hide any secrets.
“Wow, this is wild, Hunter,” Winter says when we crest the path from the helicopter to the home. “Do you have staff here?”
“Not full-time in the house itself. I do have staff that maintain the island and an environmentalist who does quarterly checks to make sure we’re taking good care of the natural vegetation, but other than that, the island just sits.”
I turn to her, blocking her view of the inside and say, “But this is all yours. So you can come here whenever you like.”
“What do you mean it’s mine?” she asks, her thumbnail going to her mouth. I grab her hand and wind my fingers between hers, gripping her tight.
“I mean, what’s mine is yours, yes. But I got this for you. I just didn’t know it when I bought it five years ago.”
She smiles, and it’s luminous.
“I have another surprise for you, though,” I say.
“Another one?” she asks, her voice going higher.
We’re at the main entrance now. The lights are on, as per my instructions, along with soft music that pipes through the outdoor speakers.
I don’t respond to her question. Instead, I open the door to the foyer.
She gasps when she catches sight of what’s inside, but she’s otherwise speechless. Fresh roses adorn every visible surface—there have to be at least a thousand roses of all different colors on the counters and on the floor, all leading to the massive living room that overlooks the other side of the island.
“Hunter,” she says, her voice wispy.
“How did you…? When did you…?” she stammers.
It took a lot of effort and coordination to get this right for Winter. She deserves all this and more.
She deserves what I promised her.
“I couldn’t give you everything I wanted to give you, but I could give you this,” I say.
She puts her hand on my chest. “I don’t want things,” she tells me. “All I need in this life is you. Our family.”
She kisses me—a sweet, gentle caress of her lips against mine.
“Will you show me our bedroom?” she asks, her eyes darkening.
I pull on her hand. “With pleasure,” I reply.
“What do you think they’ll be like?” Winter whispers in the darkness. We’ve made love for the entire day, dozing off and grabbing meat and cheese plates from the fridge when our stomachs started to growl.
I made sure to feed Winter more frequently and nuked any cold cuts, which she despised. She further resisted my attempts to provide her with food because, as she proclaimed proudly, she could survive on dick and dick alone.
I run my fingers against hers, trailing up her palm until I hit her wrist and reverse directions. The bed we’re in is as comfortable as the one back home.
Home being Amelia Manor. But where the bed at our home estate is solid wood, this one is a breezy metal canopy bed with gauzy curtains pinned back to the four posts at the corners.
The sound of the ocean comes through the open patio doors. I probably should close them now that the sun has gone down, but there really isn’t much that appeals to me more than laying here in this bed with my wife.
My. Wife.
“I think they’ll be human,” I say.
She sucks her teeth. “Be serious!” She pats me on the chest, a ghost of a slap.
“I am being serious. Our baby will be a human, which means that as they grow, they will do human things like learning concepts, trying new things, and making mistakes.”
Winter hums at that.
“I think I felt the baby move yesterday,” she says. “I couldn’t be sure, but it felt like what Veronica described when she was pregnant with Summer.”
Her voice turns sad.
“You never told me what happened when she left,” I say.
Winter turns quiet.
“I’m an asshole,” she says, and when I sit up to protest, she says, “No, let me finish.”
I snap my mouth shut, waiting.
“Veronica is my best friend—my sister by all accounts—and I love her so, so much…but I also want her to let me live my life a little. She worries so much about me, and I’m grateful that I have someone who cares enough to want to interfere in my life. And yet, I find myself overwhelmed by how smothering she can be sometimes,” she says.
I see. “What was so smothering in your last interaction?” I ask.
Winter blows out a breath and turns her head toward the open doors.
We have a full moon tonight, and it’s brighter and bigger than in the city by a wide margin. I can see Venus with my naked eye, the sky is so clear.
And because of that brightness, I see it when a tear trails down her face and across her nose.
“Sunbeam,” I say, trying to comfort her.
“I am an asshole,” she repeats, adding more emphasis. “Veronica was very, very concerned about what happened in the shower.” She inhales and exhales, her voice stuttering. “She brought up her concerns to me and they were legitimate…and I all but attacked her for it. She wanted me to leave you, and I couldn’t handle that.”
She starts to cry in earnest when she utters the last truth, and I pull her into me so she can cry until she feels better.
Until she lets all this grief out.
“I miss Veronica, and I am so embarrassed right now. How can I tell her that I loved what you and I did together with a straight face? How can I explain it to her in a way that doesn’t make me look like a brainwashed victim?”
I think about that for a moment. “You are allowed to set boundaries with Veronica. Healthy boundaries, baby. And maybe you two have been so close for so long, it’s hard to grow up. But growing up doesn’t have to mean growing apart,” I say.
She smiles, laughs. “When did you become Dr. Phil?”
I shrug. “I’ve been hanging out with you a lot. It was bound to happen.”
We fall into a comfortable silence, and she curls into my side again.
“I’ve been thinking,” she says, but she stops herself before she finishes her sentence.
“What have you been thinking, baby? Don’t leave me in suspense,” I reply.
She chuckles a bit, but it’s a shy sound. “I’ve been thinking about your need for control in the bedroom.”
Immediately, my chest tenses. I knew asking her to dive into the dark side with me was way too out of her character. She’s only doing this for me. She doesn’t really like this. I’m hurting her?—
“Hey,” she says, putting her hand on my jaw. “Relax. It’s not anything bad.” She tilts her face down to kiss me right above my nipple.
I try to release my locked breath.
“I was wondering…have you ever given up control when having sex? Like, a power exchange?”
I try not to snort, but the look I give her must telegraph my response.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a no,” she says. She puts her cheek on my chest again, looking up at me for long moments.
“What do you think about trying something new with me?” she says, not moving her eyes from mine.
Something shifts in my chest, a niggle of apprehension.
“Like what?”
She smiles slowly. “What if we were to have sex,” she says.
“Sold,” I interject.
She purses her lips and rolls her eyes. “What if we were to have sex, and instead of you being in the driver’s seat, I am?”
I search her face for clues as to what that would look like. “Give me a little more information, baby.”
She bites her lip, and I pull it from between her teeth. “Stop distracting me and say what you were going to say.”
She gives me a smile at that.
“How about when we fuck, you couldn’t touch me?” she says, her tone neutral.
“Like tying me up?” I ask, and she nods. The idea causes sweat to bloom on my back.
“I don’t know, baby,” I reply.
“You could safeword at any time, H, and I’ll stop. But I know your limits and I won’t do anything I know you won’t like,” she rushes to add.
“Why do you want this?” I ask, my voice a rasp.
She sits up, and the sheet drops from her chest. The moonlight shines on the tips of her breasts.
“I feel like this is something we need to balance our relationship,” she says. “I’ve been thinking about it and as hot as it is when you go all caveman on me, I think there’s something really important that can happen when you trust me to take care of you.”
She pulls the sheet away from her waist and she’s completely naked, bare, before me.
“I think…when we first got together, so much of our sex life was about making sure that I was safe. You wanted me to feel empowered and safe and in control. And after Adam?—”
I can’t suppress the growl that comes from my chest.
“After Adam,” she says, pressing her palm to my chest, over my heart, “it became your mission to make sure I found that safety again after it had been so violently wrenched from me. You were patient and made sure that I knew that I was in control of when and how we reconnected. And when we made love in the sitting room for the first time….”
She releases a shaky breath, before continuing, “People search their entire lives for the type of connection we experienced in that room.”
She’s right. She’s so fucking right. When she gave herself to me—gave me her raw, painful honesty—in that sitting room, everything shifted for us. We allowed ourselves to come home to each other. We were no longer Hunter and Winter, separate entities. We became one.
Maybe that’s why I was so dead set on calling her Mrs. Brigham way before we made it official.
“These past few weeks since the raid, though, things have been…” she pauses. “You know how things have been between us.”
My heart squeezes in my chest, and I clear my throat before saying, “Yes, I do know.”
Winter straightens, pulling herself to sit upright.
“You can say no, H. But if you want to know my goal with this, it’s to let you know it’s safe to trust me with everything. Even your fears.”
She puts her hands in her lap and waits.
My mind spins through the instances I don’t want to think about—the times I don’t allow myself to entertain.
What would happen if I were to have new memories, safe memories to replace the ones I loathe?
“Okay,” I say, my voice low. She smiles and leans over to kiss me.
It’s a messy, heated kiss, and I drag my hand from her neck to over her nipple, where I bring the hard point between my index and middle finger. She shudders, moaning into my mouth. I skate my hand from her breast down to her pussy, groaning when I land on her soft, dripping folds.
“Sunbeam,” I growl, chasing her mouth when she pulls back.
“Wait here,” she whispers, leaving the bed.
She returns a minute later with soft fabric in her hands.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to bind your legs,” she says. “But how about I use these to tie your wrists to the headboard?”
I squint at the material. “Are those your swimsuit tops?” I ask.
She sucks her teeth . “ I had to improvise, okay?” she says. But then she smiles when I laugh, and the tension within me evaporates like a popped balloon.
“No judgment here, baby,” I say, and she raises her eyebrow.
“Are you cool with this?” she asks.
I swallow and look at the headboard. The metalwork across the back of the bed is intricate but sturdy. A dozen black metal bars span the width of the frame, about half an inch apart.
Looking at the material in her hands, I tell her, “Tie them there and there.” I point to the first and last individual post in the design at the center of the headboard.
She nods, and then her face gets serious. I put my left hand near the corresponding post. She uses one bikini top to tie around my wrist in a loose knot, and then she moves to the other and does the same with the remaining top.
“These are quick-release ties,” she says. “If you pull on them hard enough, they’ll unravel, but they’re not too delicate that they’ll fall apart if you twitch your biceps too hard. Is this okay?” she asks.
I nod. Now that I’m tied, a thread of stress weaves down my spine, but I shut it out. I give an experimental tug; the knots don’t slip, but I know even if she tied them tight, I’d be able to break the relatively thin bars on the headboard easily.
Breathe, Hunter.
I am here. I am here with Winter.
“Good,” she says, then she pulls the sheet from my body and climbs on top of me. My dick rests between her pussy lips, and when she leans over to kiss me, the movement causes her to rock against the underside of my cock.
“I love kissing you, Hunter. I know I don’t have a ton of reference to draw from, but you’re really good at it,” she says. For some inexplainable reason, that causes me to flush.
“Happy to oblige you, baby,” I tease. She giggles, and it’s a bright sound I’ve rarely heard her make. Releasing my lips from hers, she kisses her way down my chest until I feel her breath over my dick.
My hands clench into fists and my thighs tense. She must notice the shift because she runs her hands over my tense quads, pressing her thumbs into the muscle.
“I love your cock, Hunter,” she says, then she licks the underside of me from root to tip. Her hands never stop their movements on my thighs.
She follows the movements my dick makes as it twitches from her caresses and slips the tip of me past her lips without using her hands.
The moan she releases reaches a primal part of my brain.
Taking me deep into her mouth, she pops off and says, “People pay good money to see cock like this.”
I bark a laugh at that. “You think so?” I mean, how would she know?
“It only makes sense,” she says, her tone very serious. I want to dive into that more, but then all thoughts fly from my brain when she moves her hands from my legs to my balls, tugging them down as she pulls me to the back of her throat.
“Fuck baby, you are so fucking good at that,” I rasp.
She pops off my dick. “Really?” she asks, her voice bright and just a little vulnerable. “You’re not just saying that?”
I want to touch her face, to reassure her that I love everything she does. “Grade-A head, baby. High-quality top, if I say so myself.”
She grins, her eyes narrowing as she cheeses at me, pleased.
“Let me see if I can beat my personal best,” she says. Then she starts sucking the soul out of my body as if her life depends on it.
Just when my eyes start to roll in the back of my head, she pulls off me again, and I try not to shout at her or force her head back onto my cock.
“You get to choose. Do you want to come in my mouth or my pussy?”
She starts to lick the base of my hard-on like an ice cream cone, teasing me and edging me like a motherfucker.
I think about it.
“Get your cunt over here,” I say, my voice a hard rasp.
As she scrambles over me, she says, “Good. Because I’m so fucking wet from sucking you off, it will take me like thirty seconds to cooooo-me.” She moans the last word as she sinks onto me, and I jab my hips up so that my pubic bone hits her clit.
“Fuck, that’s cheating, H,” she says, “I’m in the driver’s seat.”
I am very conscious of relaxing all the muscles in my body. “Well, drive then.”
She puts her hands on my chest and uses them and her knees as leverage to grind against me.
And then she starts to really fuck me.
“You’re an amazing man, Hunter Brigham,” she says, making a figure-eight with her hips. I stare down at where my dick disappears inside her, ignoring her words.
“You are so brave. You’re a great example of how people can grow. August and I are so lucky to have you,” she says, her tone going a little breathless.
“Sunbeam,” I choke.
“I’m the luckiest girl in the world. You think you’re lucky to have me. Well, I’m so fucking lucky that I have you. And not because you’re a kajillionaire. You could be broke as hell and I’d still want you. I’m lucky because I have someone who gets me and understands me. I can be myself with you, and a lot of people don’t have that.”
My chest starts to get tight.
“Winter, fuck,” I burst out.
“We’re going to do life together, Hunter Brigham. You and me and our family. Because we deserve this happiness. We deserve what we have right now.”
My head tilts back on the pillows, and I am seconds away from ripping my hands from the bonds and grabbing her hips, but I let her be in control.
I let her be in control.
I surrender.
She leans down and presses a bite to my pec, and that little edge of pain is enough to get me to come.
“Fuck, Winter,” I grind out, and she clamps onto me as my cock jerks, releasing hot cum deep inside her.
She lets out a rich moan, her eyes squeezed tight as she comes on my cock, rocking harder and faster to chase her completion.
When we’re both finished, I’m boneless, and the knots give way on their own. She collapses on my chest and then asks, “Was all that okay?”
I don’t know why, but the moment causes my eyeballs to burn. It’s a mix of emotions—heavy, heavy emotions. But I look down at the love of my life, and instead, I say, “I loved every minute of it.”