9. Carrie
— ? —
Carrie
For a long moment, I can’t breathe.
The workshop feels smaller suddenly, the space full of sawdust and the weight of what he’s just said. Tom is still on his knees, holding my hands, looking up at me, having just offered me the moon and unsure whether I’ll take it.
“You’ll... give me one?”
“Yes.”
“A baby.”
“Yes.”
My heart slams in my throat. This is insane. This is absolutely, completely insane. I’ve known him for a week. He’s my husband’s brother. I’m technically still married. And he’s kneeling in front of me offering to, what? Get me pregnant? Just like that?
“Tom.” I pull my hands free, take a step back. “You can’t just... that’s not... you don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.”
“You know the mess. You know the trauma. That’s not the same as knowing me.”
“Then let me.” He stands slowly, not moving closer, just... waiting. “Let me know you. Let me help you. Let me give you the one thing he never could.”
“This is crazy.”
“Probably.”
“You could have anyone. Someone younger. Someone who isn’t.”
“Don’t.” His voice sharpens, and heat flashes in his eyes. “Don’t tell me what he told you. Don’t tell me you’re too old or too broken or too anything. You’re exactly what I want.”
“You don’t want me. You want to hurt Ulises.”
“That’s not.” He stops. Runs a hand through his hair, leaving sawdust in its wake. “Okay. Fine. Part of this is about Ulises. I won’t lie to you. Taking something from him would feel good. But that’s not why I’m offering.”
“Then why?”
“Because I’ve wanted you since that dinner three years ago.”
The words land and knock the breath out of me. I stare at him, trying to find the lie, the angle, the manipulation. But his face is open, almost vulnerable, and there’s nothing in his eyes but truth.
“The dinner?”
“You wore a green dress. You made a joke about the crab cakes looking like they died unhappy. I laughed too hard and Ulises shot me a look across the table that said back off, she’s mine.
” Tom’s mouth twists into the beginning of a smile.
“So I backed off. Because that’s what I always did with him.
I let him have what he wanted, even when what he wanted was you. ”
“You didn’t even talk to me that night.”
“I didn’t have to. I watched you all evening. I watched the way you tensed every time he touched you. The way your smile didn’t reach your eyes. The way you disappeared into yourself whenever his attention landed on you.” His voice drops. “And I thought, she’s married to the wrong brother.”
I don’t know what to say. The Tom I remember from that dinner was quiet, forgettable, a shadow at the edge of my husband’s spotlight. I barely noticed him. I was too busy performing, too busy being the wife Ulises expected, too busy surviving.
But he noticed me.
“What do you want in exchange?” I ask, because there’s always a catch. There’s always a price. Six years with Ulises taught me that kindness is currency, and no one gives it away for free.
Tom’s answer is simple. Devastating.
“You.”
“Me?”
“I want you to stay. Here. With me. Not as a guest, not as a patient, not as a woman I’m hiding from my brother.” He steps closer, close enough that I can smell the sawdust on his skin, the warm cedar smell of him. “I want you to be mine. For real.”
“That’s not.”
“I know it’s too fast. I know it’s complicated.
I know you’re technically still married to a man who doesn’t deserve you.
” His hand comes up to cup my face, gentle, so gentle.
“But I’ve spent three years thinking about you.
Wondering about you. Wanting you. And now you’re here. And I’m not going to waste this.”
“Tom.”
“Tell me to stop.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “Tell me this is crazy and you want to leave and you never want to see me again. I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go. I’ll help you disappear. I’ll do whatever you need.”
“And if I don’t tell you to stop?”
“Then stay.” His voice is barely a whisper. “Stay, and let me give you everything he wouldn’t.”
I should say no. I should walk away. I should protect what’s left of my broken heart instead of offering it to another man who could shatter it.
But Tom isn’t another man. Tom is the opposite of Ulises in every way that matters. Tom is gentle where Ulises was cruel. Patient where Ulises was demanding. Kind where Ulises was cold.
And I’m so tired of being careful.
I close the distance between us and press my lips to his.
He makes a sound caught between a groan and a prayer, and his hands slide into my hair, cradling my head, careful and reverent. The kiss starts soft, almost questioning, but it deepens fast, turning hungry, desperate, years of want pouring out of both of us.
“Are you sure?” he murmurs against my mouth.
“I’m sure.”
He picks me up.
Actually picks me up, and I weigh nothing in his arms, held instead of tolerated.
I wrap my legs around his waist and he carries me out of the workshop, across the yard, into the cabin.
We don’t break apart the whole way, our mouths finding each other again and again, and by the time he lays me down on the bed, our bed now, not just his, I’m shaking.
“We can stop,” he says, hovering over me, his eyes searching my face. “Anytime. Just say the word.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
“Carrie.”
“Please.” I reach up to touch his face, this face that’s the opposite of Ulises’s. Softer. Kinder. “Please, Tom. I need this. I need you.”
He undresses me slowly.
Each piece of clothing is a veil lifted, a revelation, and he pauses between each one to look at me, really look at me, and the looking says I’m worth it.
When I try to cover myself, instinct, reflex, years of Ulises teaching me my body was never enough, Tom gently moves my hands away and pins them to the mattress above my head.
“Don’t hide from me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. And I understand why. But you don’t have to.” He lowers his mouth to my collarbone, then lower, dragging his lips down between my breasts, over my ribs, to the soft swell of my stomach. “Not with me. Never with me.”
He kisses the places Ulises ignored. The inside of my wrist, where my pulse flutters against his lips.
The curve of my hip, where I’ve always been soft, and he drags his tongue along it, savoring every inch.
The belly I’ve always hated most, the part I’ve sucked in and covered and apologized for, and he kisses it so tenderly that a knot breaks open inside me.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs against my skin, and I start to cry.
The break isn’t grief. It’s relief. It’s being seen. It’s being touched by someone who makes me believe I matter, that my body isn’t a failure, that I’m not running out of time.
“Hey.” Tom’s head lifts, his eyes worried. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” I shake my head, tears streaming down my temples into my hair. “No, you’re, this is, I just.”
“I know.” He kisses the tears from my cheeks. “I know. It’s okay.”
Then he moves lower, and this time he doesn’t stop at my belly.
He settles between my thighs and looks up the whole length of me, and my face goes hot, because no one has ever looked at me there and wanted what they saw.
He spreads me open with his thumbs, slow, and drags his tongue up the center of me, and the sound I make is nothing I recognize.
“God, Carrie.” His breath is hot against my clit. “You’re soaked. All this for me?”
“Tom.” My hips lift off the bed. “Please.”
“I’ve got you.” His mouth closes over my clit, his tongue working slow, and two thick fingers push inside me and curl, and I fist the sheets and hang on.
He takes his time, licking and sucking and stroking that spot that makes my thighs shake, until I’m right at the edge, until I’m chanting his name into the dark.
“That’s it,” he breathes against me. “Come on my tongue. Let me feel it.”
I break with his mouth still on me, clenching around his fingers, crying out loud enough to echo off the walls. He works me through it, gentle now, until I’m boneless and gasping and still twitching against his lips.
When he finally rises over me and notches the head of his cock against me, I’m still trembling.
He pushes in slow, inch by inch, and I gasp, not from pain but from the stretch of him, the fullness, the sheer size of him opening me up.
He sinks in to the hilt and holds there, buried deep, his forehead pressed to mine, both of us shaking.
“You feel.” His voice cracks. “God. You feel perfect. So tight. So fucking perfect around me.”
He moves slow at first. Deliberate. Every drag of his cock out and back is a question, a check-in, a promise. Is this okay. Are you with me. Do you want more.
“More,” I whisper.
He gives me more.
The rhythm builds, steady and relentless, his hips driving into mine, the slick sound of us filling the little room.
He hooks my knee over his arm and folds me open and sinks deeper, so deep I feel him everywhere, and I climb toward a bright, terrifying edge.
He shifts the angle and hits the spot that makes me sob, and my nails rake down his back.
“There?” he asks.
“There. Right there. Don’t stop.”
“Never.” His hand slides between us, his thumb finding my clit and working it in time with his cock. “Come for me, Carrie. Come all over me. I want to feel you.”
I shatter, and it’s beyond anything I’ve ever felt, clamping down on him so hard he groans against my throat.
The pleasure tears through me in long pulls, and he fucks me through every one of them, chasing his own release, until he buries himself deep and comes with a low, wrecked groan against my throat, his whole body shuddering.
When it’s over he gathers me against his chest, still inside me, softening, and we lie there trying to remember how to breathe.
“Stay with me,” he whispers into my hair.
I don’t know if he means tonight or forever.
“Yes,” I whisper back.
Either way, my answer is the same.
Later, tangled together in the dark, Tom presses his hand flat against my belly.
“We’re doing this? For real?”
I cover his hand with mine. “For real.”
“No regrets?”
“Not yet.”
He laughs softly, the sound rumbling through his chest. “You know how to sweet-talk a guy.”
“I’m working on it.”
Silence settles over us, comfortable and warm. Pale light through the window washes the walls. I feel different. Lighter. A fist clenched tight inside me for years has finally begun to open.
What have I done? I think.
And then: What has he done to me?
I fall asleep with his heartbeat against my back, his hand still pressed to my belly. And for the first time in years, I don’t dream of empty cribs.