14. Carrie
— ? —
Carrie
The drive back to the cabin is silent.
Tom’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel, his jaw set in that hard line I’ve learned means he’s thinking, calculating, planning three steps ahead.
My ruined dress clings to my skin, the wine already drying into stiff patches that smell sour and wrong.
I should feel humiliated. I should feel small.
Instead, what I feel is close to triumph.
“It’s done,” I say finally. “It’s really done.”
“Reyes confirmed. Ulises has the full packet, the photos, the hotel receipts, the texts, all of it. Plus the divorce filing.” Tom’s voice is grim, but there’s satisfaction underneath. “By tomorrow morning, every lawyer in the city will know what he is.”
“And his reputation?”
“Already cracking. I saw Eleanor’s face when I mentioned the affairs. She believed me.” He glances at me. “The Donnelly matriarch believing you means more than any court filing.”
I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes. The adrenaline is fading, leaving exhaustion in its wake. My hand drifts to my belly, an unconscious gesture I’ve caught myself doing more and more these past few days.
Hold on, I tell the little maybe under my hand. Just hold on a while longer.
I haven’t told Tom yet. Haven’t even taken a test. But my body feels different in ways I can’t ignore. The tenderness in my breasts. The nausea that hits every morning. The bone-deep tiredness that no amount of sleep seems to cure.
After six years of trying, of hoping, of crushing disappointment, I’m afraid to hope again.
“You okay?” Tom asks.
“Just tired.”
“We’re almost home.”
Home. The word settles warm into my chest. The cabin isn’t much, two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen that still smells of the breakfast Tom overcooked this morning, but it’s become more of a home in five weeks than the brownstone ever was in six years.
When we pull up the gravel road, the cabin is dark and quiet. Tom helps me out of the truck, his hand steady on my waist, and we walk inside together.
“Shower first,” he says. “Get that wine off you. I’ll open some champagne.”
“Champagne?”
“We’re celebrating.” He kisses my forehead. “You survived. You fought back. And tomorrow, Ulises is going to wake up to the worst day of his life.”
I smile despite myself. “That does sound worth celebrating.”
The shower is hot and long. I scrub the wine from my skin until it’s pink and raw, watching the red-tinged water swirl down the drain. When I step out, I wrap myself in Tom’s flannel robe, too big, sleeves hanging past my hands, and pad into the living room.
Tom has lit the fireplace. Two glasses of champagne sit on the coffee table, the bubbles catching the firelight.
He’s shed his jacket and tie, rolled up his sleeves, and he looks more himself again, less the man who faced down his brother in a room full of strangers and more the man who ruins my eggs every morning.
“To freedom,” he says, handing me a glass.
“To freedom.”
We clink glasses. The champagne is cold and crisp, and I only let myself take a small sip before setting it down. Tom notices.
“You okay?”
“My stomach’s a little off. Probably just nerves.”
He nods, accepting this, and settles onto the couch. I curl up beside him, my head on his shoulder, and for a little while the fear goes quiet and the whole world narrows to the warmth of him.
But I don’t want the night to wind down. I lift my head from his shoulder and turn to face him. The fire pops behind me. Tom watches me, patient the way he always is, waiting for me to settle back against him and let the evening go quiet. Safe. Careful.
I’m done being careful.
For six years I lived inside another man’s permission.
When to speak, when to want, when to reach for him and when to wait to be reached for.
Tonight I stood in a ballroom in a wine-stained dress and watched a room full of people finally understand what I survived, and the woman who walked out of that party is done waiting for one more thing in her life.
“Tom.”
“Hm?”
“Put the glass down.”
He sets it on the table, slow, his eyes on my face. “You okay?”
“Better than okay.” I climb into his lap while I still have the nerve, one knee on either side of his thighs, the robe falling open between us. His hands come up to my waist on instinct. I catch his wrists and move them back down to the couch. “No. Tonight you keep these right here.”
That gets a reaction. His pupils blow wide, his jaw working around a question he doesn’t ask.
“Carrie, what are you doing.”
“I won.” I frame his face in my hands. “I stood up to him. In front of everyone. I did that.” My voice cracks on the last word and I let it.
“And right now I want one thing in this whole world that is mine. That I asked for. That nobody handed me. I want you. Like this. My way. Are you going to argue?”
“No.” The word comes out rough. “God, no.”
“Good.”
I kiss him, and there’s nothing gentle in it.
I bite his lower lip and swallow the sound he makes and feel him strain underneath me, his hands fisting against the cushions where I left them, holding still because I told him to.
The power of it goes straight through me.
Heat pools low and insistent, and I roll my hips down just to feel him jerk.
“You’re killing me,” he breathes.
“You’ll live.”
I push his shirt up and he lets me drag it over his head, lifting his arms only when I guide them.
I take my time. I map his chest with my mouth, the line of muscle low on his stomach, the cut of his hip above his waistband, and I feel him shaking with the effort of keeping his hands where I put them.
“They stay,” I remind him, working his belt open.
“They’re staying.” His voice is wrecked. “Carrie. Please.”
“Please what?” I free him and wrap my hand around him, slow, watching his head drop back against the couch. “Tell me. I like hearing it.”
He huffs a laugh that breaks in the middle. “Now you want me talking.”
“Now I want a lot of things.”
I lift up, take his cock in my hand, and line him up where I want him, then sink down in one slow motion that pulls a groan out of both of us. I stay there a moment, seated full, stuffed to the hilt, my forehead dropping to his. He’s trembling under me, his knuckles pale where he grips the cushion.
“You feel incredible,” I tell him, and mean every word. “You always do.”
Then I start to move.
I set the pace. Slow when I want slow, deep when I want deep, and when he tries to thrust up into me I press a hand flat to his chest and hold him down.
“Uh uh. I’ve got it.”
“You are going to be the death of me.” His eyes stay fixed on me, dark and wide. “Look at you. Taking exactly what you want. Riding my cock like you own it.”
“Finally.” I roll my hips and watch his mouth fall open. “Feels good, doesn’t it. Being the one who gets asked.”
“Yes.” His whole body goes tight. “Yes, it does.”
I reach between us and rub my own clit while I ride him, slow and lazy, putting on a show, and his eyes go black watching my fingers work.
I feel him getting close. I feel it in the way his thighs go rigid under me, the way his breath turns ragged, and I slow to a stop on purpose, drawing it out, leaving him hanging right at the edge.
“Carrie.” My name comes out half plea, half warning. “I can’t, you have to let me.”
“I will.” I lean down and kiss him, soft, even as I keep my rhythm cruel and slow. “When I’m ready.”
I do it again. Bring him right to the brink and stop, clenching around him just to feel him shake, until the most controlled man I have ever met is coming apart underneath me, begging with his eyes.
“When you’re ready.” He laughs, helpless, wrecked. “You learned that fast.”
“I had a good teacher.” I grind down hard and his hands fly to my hips.
I let him suffer a little longer, because I can, because this careful, contained man is unraveling for the simple reason that I decided he could.
When I finally pick up the pace and give him what he has been straining toward, I go with him, riding him fast and deep, my clit grinding against him, the pleasure cresting through me bright and sharp, his name in my mouth and his hands finally fisting in the robe at my back, because I’ve stopped telling him no.
We stay tangled there, breathing hard, the fire crackling, his heart slamming under my palm.
“I had no idea you had that in you,” he says into my hair.
“Neither did I.” I laugh, giddy and a little stunned at myself. “I think I like it.”
“For the record, I like it too.”
“Noted.” I press a kiss to his jaw. “Round two after the champagne?”
“Give me five minutes and a defibrillator.”
I’m still laughing when the first fist hits the door.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The sound explodes through the quiet cabin, making me jump so hard I nearly fall off his lap. Tom is on his feet before I can breathe, his body between me and the door.
“OPEN THE DOOR, TOM.”
Ulises’s voice. Slurred. Furious.
“Stay behind me.” Tom’s voice is calm, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands have curled into fists. “No matter what happens, stay behind me.”
BANG. BANG. BANG.
“I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR.”
Tom crosses to the door. His hand pauses on the handle.
“Tom.”
He opens it.
Ulises stands on the porch, illuminated by the light spilling from inside. He’s still wearing his suit from the party, but the tie is gone, the shirt untucked, the jacket wrinkled. There’s a bottle in his hand, whiskey, half-empty, and his eyes are wild in a way I’ve never seen before.
“You smug son of a bitch.” His voice is a growl. “You think you can just.”
Ulises’s fist connects with Tom’s jaw before I can scream.