Tom finds his release with a cry and a curse, the body above him falling against him, panting, shivering and going limp.

He has barely enough power for it, but Tom manages to turn them both to their sides, losing their connection as Tom pants heavily, the sweat cooling his overheated body.

He’s on his back, and it takes his foggy mind a moment to realise the body next to him has begun to shake. He more feels the sobs leaving the body than hears them. Another few seconds later his brain has caught up with the situation as well.

Oh, fuck.

Tom only knows he must have spoken out loud when the woman next to him laughs humourlessly. “We shouldn’t have done this,” she murmurs, almost without a sound.

He turns his head, hoping against hope that maybe his mind made it up again. That the woman next to him isn’t who he thinks she is, and that maybe he’s brought someone else home with him. But no. He knows the face and contrary to all the other times she’s still the same woman he’s just had sex with.

Tom’s heart breaks as he sees her face crumbling. “It’ll all be fine,” he hears himself say and almost laughs out loud.

“No,” she answers, lying on her side next to him, curling in on herself. “No, it’ll never be fine again. I don’t know what he’s written in that letter to you. Maybe to take care of me. But I’m sure this wasn’t it.”

No, he admits to himself. In his letter Nick clearly didn’t tell Tom to have sex with his wife.