Chapter 5

Ana sank into the chair on the Wenn jet and glanced around the plane as the stewardess handed her a drink.
Staring out the portal, she couldn't help but think of Christian's jet, and how the last time she had flown on it had been due to a dire emergency.
That she didn't want to focus on, at least not right now.

Glancing to her side she saw her laptop and felt like it was mocking her since she couldn't use it at the moment. She yearned to be able to write a happy ending for the event that had turned her life upside down, but she knew it wasn't going to happen. Instead, she grabbed for her travel bag and pulled out a journal. She needed to write at the moment; even if there was no way that she could change the scene running in her head to fit into the book she was writing.
She remembered it all too well.
The feelings.
The emotions.
His touch….
All things that she knew she could never really capture justly, but she was driven to try. Putting her drink to the side, she put pen to paper and poured out her memories, rich with emotion…

I woke myself with a scream. The nightmare was so real! I saw myself standing next to the grave, staring down farther than could be possible at the casket. The wood was gleaming, as if reflecting the light even though fog was swirling around my feet and the sky was over casted and growing darker.
I had hunkered into my coat, my ears even with my shoulders as the pain of my neck and back rose to consume me physically and not even coming close to the pain in my heart.
Suddenly, the top of the coffin had turned translucent and I saw him lying there broken, then suddenly he was pounding on the lid, only I was too high up to do anything about it and when I leaned over the grave opening I had started to fall, my scream waking me…
It had also brought Christian into my room.

I don't know how I had forgotten that he had been sleeping on the couch in the living room of the suite, not wanting to be further than that away from me, and as he had reminded me, he didn't need that much sleep. Anyway, I was suddenly in his arms, his lips against the crown of my head as he whispered words of reassurance to me.

I had begged him not to leave me and he had promised he wouldn't.
Then I begged him to make me forget and he said he couldn't.
That he didn't want me to regret it later.

I remember being so hurt and mad.
I pulled out of his arms and jumped off the bed…
"Why don't you just say that you don't want me?" I had demanded as tears streamed down my cheeks.

"Throwing my words back at me isn't an excuse!" I had screamed, feeling him coming up to me.

"I want you. I could never not want you," he had responded as he pulled me against him; my back to his front. One of his arms crossed my upper torso so that his hand cupped my opposite shoulder and his other hand laid just above my pelvis as that it applied just enough pressure that I could feel how he really did want me. "I just never want you to regret allowing me the pleasure and privilege of making love to you."

"I could never regret that. You're the only one who makes me feel this way," I had pleaded as I laid my head on his shoulder so that I could look up at him. "Please, Christian. I need to feel like I belong to someone. That my love isn't poison. That there is a tomorrow worth striving for…"

"What if I just held you?"

"You can always just hold me, Christian. Tonight, I'm the one who needs more…."

"Miss Steele," the stewardess 's voice called me back to the plane. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but can I get you another drink? Something to eat?"

"I won't eat till we're in the air," Ana answered distractedly.

"Ma'm we took off over a half hour ago…"

"Oh" Ana had said embarrassedly. "Ummm… another drink, I guess. And something light?"

"Of course. I'll have it out for you in a few minutes," she replied as she headed to the galley towards the back of the plane.

Ana meanwhile, swallowed and started to flesh out the rest of the scene a bit uncomfortably. She wasn't one for writing descriptive sex scenes, but she needed this outlet. Needed to put the images into something concrete so that down the road she would have a way to delineate between reality and the fantasy of the life she was rewriting…