#teamtom

You playfully kick him off the couch and roll to sitting up, feeling a little wobbly and loopy, leaning to kiss him as he kneels on the floor between your leg. His hands slide up your legs and you giggle as he moans into your mouth as his hands come in contact with the garters holding up your stockings, you went all out on your wedding ensemble, it was nice to see it was appreciated. You reached down to help him unsnap the complicated thing, his fingers clumsy with desire and booze. Once free of their bondage, he started to slide off your stocking, leaving a trail of licks and kisses on the trail of freshly exposed skin. Your head lolls back as the kisses move higher, joined by gently bites on your inner thighs. He growls, “Mine.” and you giggle again.

His head pops out from under your skirt. “Hey there Giggles, I’m trying to seduce you here.”

He joins in the laughter and you pull him up onto the couch with you, turning your back to him, “I need to be out of this dress.”

His fingers run along the line of dainty buttons running up your back, “I wholeheartedly agree, my love.” He makes his first attempt at undoing the row of satin buttons and loops. Failing miserably. “We may have a problem here.”

You reach back and attempt to release the devious buttons, finding as little success as he did, “I am trapped in this dress.” You sigh.

He leans on, laying a trail of kisses up your neck to your ear, “I could try to rip it, but it’s so beautiful, you’re so beautiful.”

You moan, “Send those little punks flying, Love.”

He reaches and pulls and…. Nothing. More laughter. “Really??” He hops off the couch and disappears for a moment, you lie back and giggle, probably far too tipsy for this, but it’s your wedding night dammit, you are getting laid!

He reappears with the pair of manicure scissors from your makeup bag. You put up a warning hand, “If you stab me by accident on my wedding night I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

He runs his hand up your back again and carefully snips off the first button, holding it in his hand and passing it to you, “Slow and steady, I am not going to damage my bride.”

Slow and steady turned into slow and tortuous as he carefully snipped the trail of buttons, placing each one in your hand and covering the skin he releases with nips and licks before moving on to the next delicate piece of satin and plastic.

After an eternity, you feel him sliding the dress off you, it bunching awkwardly at your waist until you stand and let it fall into a pool of lace, satin, and tulle at your feet.

“Oh my dear sweet Lord,” He breaths as you stand before him, finally revealing your hidden secret, the one you were saving for him, for this night. The nude and black corseted garter belt and matching bra that had been hidden under all that semi-virginal cream bridal gear. The devil inside the angel.

You feel another giggle rolling up but it is stifled by his lips suddenly on yours, pulling you tight to him, dragging one leg up as he starts to lift your off the floor again to wrap around him as he pulls and carries you to the bedroom.

He drops you on the bed and starts peeling off layers of his own clothes, watching your scoot back on the bed with an almost feral hunger in his eyes, “Look at you,” he growled, shucking off his waistcoat and shirt, letting buttons and cufflinks land where they will, “You had this on the whole time, as you stood there, looking so very innocent, professing to the world that you are mine, there you were, hiding this delicious dirty secret that was just for me.” He stopped once he was free of his trousers, crawling over you slowly, the predator pinning down its prey. “Dear God, I love you.”

A hand snakes into your hair and pull his mouth to yours, biting your lower lip, feeding the lust ball of fire growing in your core. “I love you,” you mumble into this kisses, “But if you don’t fuck me right now, I may die.”

He chuckles against your mouth and pulls back. “We can’t have that now can we?” He runs a hand over your slightly cinched middle, fingering the “This is a problem though, this is breathtaking and I have no idea how to free you from it.”

You wrap a leg around him, pulling him down to you again, biting his neck and shoulder, “Don’t care, fuck me.”

“As you wish, my Lady.” He wiggles you out of your panties and runs the flat of his hand up your wet and overheated sex, letting his thumb graze over your suddenly throbbing clit as a finger slid into your soaking core. Teasing you a bit as he laved his tongue over your still covered nipples.

You buck beneath him and he chuckles against your breast, “You insufferable tease,” you grumble, lacing your fingers in his hair, pulling a bit. “Please.”

He moves to kneel between your open and inviting legs, his hand continuing its slow torture as his free hand works to free the beast straining in his pants. “Since you asked so very nicely.” He yanks his pants down far enough to unleash his needy dripping cock before running it slowly over your slit and then slipping in deep and fast, filling you. You gasp and moan at the familiar and pleasurable stretch.

He buries his face against your breast, working to calm his breathing a bit as you clench and twitch around his length. “Fuck.”

After you’ve both adjusted, he rolls and snaps his hips, growling a bit at the breathy whimper it elicited from you.

You were torn between wanting to savor this, your first lovemaking as man and wife, but you were bordering on desperate to orgasm. You latch onto him, your hands in his hair, sliding a leg around his hip, digging in to drive yourself up into his thrusts.

You pick up speed, racing to bring the other one to the peak. Driven by need and too many cocktails.

He growls “Mine.” as he pulls your mouth to his, driving in deeper than before, pushing you over the edge as he spills inside of you, panting and groaning into your kiss.

When you stop seeing stars and can breathe again, he gently pulls out and rolls next to you, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you close.

As you drift off in his arms, you whisper, “We are going to be so miserable in the morning.”

You didn’t sleep, you just lie there, curled in the fetal position on your side of the bed. You never spread out in the bed that was now all yours. That wasn't your side and being in it alone just reminded you how horribly empty the bed really was. You stared at the vacant pillow. So this is what real, deep, empty loneliness felt like. You cried until you ran dry.

 You sat up with a start when you heard the front door opening. The house was so empty that you could hear everything in the vast silence. You edged off the bed and stood slowly, grabbing the vase on the dresser as you carefully opened the door and padded down the hall. It heavy crystal slipped from your hands and landed on the carpet with a dull thud when you saw him, his hands up in defense, “Get out.”

 “(Y/n), I just, I wanted to--”

 You grabbed and threw the closest thing, a squat orange candle on a silver tray, and launched it at him, just missing his head, “I don’t give a fuck what you want, get OUT!”

 He advanced slowly, hands slowly lowering. “I know what day it is, (Y/n). Does anyone else?”

 His hands come up again when you pick up the second candle on the plate, closer still, close enough now to put and hand on your chosen weapon and lower it back to its resting place, “Please, I wanted to make sure you are okay.”

 With a shuddering breath, you release the candle and wrap your arms around your middle, needing the protection of your own arms, “Did you really think I would be? What do you really want here, Tom? What is this about, how did you get in, I changed the locks.”

 He steps back just enough to give you the comfort of perceived distance and safety. “You still hide a key under the roses.”

 You march past him then, opening the door, “So you figured it was a good time to break in? Well it wasn’t so, again, get the fuck out”

 His blinks and the tears that had been slowly overtaking his eyes finally fell down his cheek, “You’re not the only one who is in pain here, (y/n), it was supposed to be today. The future, our family's future, was supposed to start today. Please don’t push me away. I need to be here with you. Please?”

 You sigh and close the door, too numb from your own grief to bother anymore. You drag yourself to the kitchen and start a pot of coffee. He follows a bit after, sitting at the table and quietly looking for something to say in the swirls and circles of the tablecloth, “I'm sorry, (Y/n), I am so truly and deeply--”

 “Don't. You don't talk, you are going to drink your coffee, keep your mouth shut, and leave when you are content with the knowledge that I am fine here without you.”  You don't look at him, focusing on making the coffee, measuring the grounds into the French press, taking out mugs, his favorite one, the one you had almost shattered at least two dozen times, pouring in the scalding water and watching the steam cloud the glass. He listened, he didn't say anything more than a soft thank you when you gave him his mug. “I am fine, Thomas. You didn’t have to come here.”

 He waits a moment, gauging if you wanted him to speak, “You’re not fine, (y/n), I know you well enough to know your “been crying all morning” face. Today is a bad day, it wasn’t supposed to be. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, this hollow ache in your chest where our family was meant to be, but it is, and I--I am selfish and horrible and I need to be with you today. I woke up and remembered what day it was, and all I wanted was to hold you. You don't have to let me, but I wish you would, just for today and then if you tell me to, I will leave and never come back. It will kill me but I deserve that.”

 You drink your coffee and listen, you don't have anything left in you to bother feeling one way or the other about his pain. “Yes, you do. This isn't going to make me forget what happened, this isn't a reconciliation, it's commiseration. You stand and move to the living room, sitting on the couch and staring at the darkened tv screen.

 He follows and sits beside you, setting his mug on the table and slowly letting his arm come to rest behind your shoulders. You lean in, burying your face in the warm familiarity of his chest. He smells the same. Feel the same and dammit if he didn't feel like home. His other arm wrapped around you, tenderly stroking your hair and starting to rock you, his nose burying in the top of your head for a moment before he turns and rests his cheek there. “You changed your shampoo.”

 “A lot has changed.” You whisper, closing your eyes, amazed when you feel the tears slip down your cheeks. You were shocked you had anything left.

 After a long stretch of painful silence, you finally ask, “Why did you have to tell me?”

 His voice was barely above a whisper, “What else was I supposed to do? Lie? Pretend that the grief and guilt were tearing me apart? All of this is slowly destroying me (y/n), if I had tried to lie and hide it from you, it would have been worse. Ripped us apart slowly rather than instantly. In the end, I just wanted to cause you the least pain. I never wanted to or meant to hurt you.”

 “I know.” You mumble into his chest. “But you did.”

 “I know.”

 “I can't forgive you, Tom. What you did was…”

 His hand moved up and down your back in slow easy strokes, “It was wrong. I was horribly, irredeemably wrong. I know that. I remind myself of that every time I think about you.” He tilted your chin up, looking into your puffy tear ravaged eyes. “I think about it constantly. About how desperately I wish I could change everything and just go back to you loving me.”

 “I never stopped loving you. God, I wanted to, still, want to, but all I can do is watch my life move by in this empty fog that won't lift. I miss you and I hate myself for missing you.”

 “I know I have said this so many times and that you can’t trust me enough to believe I truly mean it, but I am so sorry, (Y/n).”

 “I know.”

 He leans down and let his lips come to yours, tentative and tense, waiting for you to pull away, his hands tangling in your hair when you don't.

 You let everything pour into the kiss, all the pain, the loss, the grief, and the longing. The ache of a future lost that may never be found again but that you yearned to search for anyway. When he finally pulls back you whisper, “Please stay.” and his arms tighten around you, holding on for dear life.

 “Can we ever get through this?” He begs gently.

 “We can start with today and see where the road takes us.”

“Oof!” Out of some leftover reflex his arms wrapped around you, keeping you upright and out of harm's way. “Hello, Stranger.” He let his arms fall as gracefully as possible without seeming awkward.

 You manage a half-hearted, “Hey,” cursing in your head, suddenly longing for a large rock to either crawl behind or fall on your head. “You look good. Relaxed.”

 He casually lets his hand come to yours, brushing against it, wanting to take hold. “Are we to the awkward small talk phase of all this?”

You try to pull your hand away as inconspicuously as possible, he's not allowed to touch you or be charming anymore. He lost that privilege when he ‘accidentally’ slept with a twenty-something production assistant. “We aren't anywhere Tom, I am here to celebrate my friend's happiness, you are here to do the same, and let's just leave it there.”

You turn to walk away, content to let him watch you leave him again when he gets a hold of your wrist. “Can we just," the hand slips to lace his fingers with yours, "Can we talk, just talk, tell me about your day, your week." His voice drops to a whisper, hiding the crack in his voice, "I was so eager to see you tonight, I miss you. I miss us."

 “The way you missed me and went searching for me in some little tramp’s pussy?”

 He dropped your hand, leaning in with unearned rage and whispered, “Don’t be crass, it was a mistake, I was alone and,” he shakes his head, as if shaking away the image of the other one beneath him, “I found some comfort in her wh--”

 “Literally in her.” you bite back.

 “Oh my God, (y/n)!”

You grab his hand this time, pulling him away from the growing party around you, not wanting to make a scene. You drop his hand and fold your arms over your chest once you are outside, polishing up your mental battle armor, as he paced past you, trying to steady his nerves. “You want to do this here? Do this now? Fine. Let's go. You cheated on me, Thomas. You cheated on me with a child while I was home falling apart. I needed you and you weren't there, physically or mentally.” the tears started then, remembering the night you had told him, the night you had lost… everything. The night you needed him holding you and instead he had said he was sorry and needed to ‘process his grief’ over the loss of what was to be and never would, the night he had found his comfort in someone else.

He tries again to touch you, suddenly wanting to be there for you, to share the grief that you have carried for months. “I hate that I wasn't there. We were both left alone with it, (y/n). I didn't know what I could do or say to help you and I didn’t know what to do with myself. We lost,” his hand comes to your elbow, thumb stroking lightly, “you lost everything and I was useless to you. I couldn't be there, I couldn’t soothe your pain or my pain. I was just…” His eye glass over and he swallows it down, “I was adrift in the pain and she… she helped, and I am so sorry and I regret what happened but it happened and dammit can’t we just work through this and move the hell on? I can't stand being without you.”

 You let out a frustrated growl and pull away from his belated support. “You. Slept. With. Someone. Else. While. I. Was. Falling. Apart. You don't get a free pass for that Tom. You just don't. You didn’t forget my birthday or leave wet towels on the floor, you buried your grief in a glorified stranger's quim and then came home and fucking confessed it like I would offer absolution and wipe your tears and say, I am so sorry that the loss of our unborn child made you need to fuck the pain away.”

 He didn't give you time to react, wrapping a hand around the back of your head and pulling your lips to his. You can't stop the reflex of kissing him, pressing into him, your hands crawling up his back, you can feel your tears pressing from you, rolling down and salting the oh so familiar taste of his kiss. In that kiss was everything you had wanted, everything you had needed, and everything you had lost. When you finally pulled away, sobbing quietly, eye squeezed shut, your forehead still against his, you wanted to stay. In that brief, heartbreaking moment, you knew you could never go back.