Inside Your World

I'm a huge fan of Carter Walton and the actor who plays him, and I find the severe lack of Carter-related fanfics to be so tragic so I knew I had to remedy this lol So here is a self-indulgent Carter story for me as well as for any of you who like this character too. I am glad he's gained more of a presence on the show this year. It was a very long time coming and I hope it continues. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this alphabet vignette series exploring all things Carter Walton. If you have any ideas for future letters/prompts, drop me some comments. This first one is pretty angsty. Thanks for reading!


A is for Affair

Have you ever stood close to an open flame, wanting to get burned? Craving the feel of the fire licking your skin, tracing up your torso, lancing your fingertips, completely engulfing you until you are consumed by the raging inferno?

That's how it is with Quinn Forrester. The scorching heat between Carter and Quinn is undeniable and enthralling. It's palpable. Explosive. He's asking for the pain, knowing he's playing a fool's game bedding down with a married woman and a volatile one at that, one who's made zero promises to him, but in the moments she's tangled up in his bedsheets, he doesn't care. He doesn't care if she's told him more than once she can't and won't be able to give him the family he's always wanted, the children, the picket fence life. He's happy as long as she's in his life, in his arms. As long as he has her, it's enough. It's more than enough.

He's waited a lifetime to feel this way about a woman, to have a woman respond to him the way she does, to crave for his touch the way he does hers. He loves her to distraction and she's said she feels the same. He believes in those words whispered in the smoky darkness of night as her body is wrapped around his and he can't tell where he ends and she begins. Looking into her eyes, he thinks he sees the truth mirrored there. He tells himself Quinn wants a life with him too and would throw away everything and run off with him if she could. Having someone want him, desire him, need him this way is everything.

xoxoxo

He is a little out of control now. Loving Quinn is half madness: a heady, boozy feeling; a tilt-a-whirl, spinning on your axis experience. He's completely gone for her and would do anything for her.

xoxoxo

The affair is wrong. He knows it. The Carter of old would never have been with a married woman, let alone the wife of a very good friend. But then again, the Carter of old was the loser at love, the last choice, the pushover. This Carter, Quinn's Carter, is emboldened, passionate, alive - refined by a burning flame and awakened with new purpose.

So while Carter adores Eric and adores the Forresters, he loves Quinn more. He wants what he has with her to stick.

xoxoxo

It doesn't stick.

And Quinn doesn't stay.

One afternoon she tells him she loves him but she is returning to her husband.

The world comes crashing down.

Hard.

And when she's gone, all that remains of the fire that once raged so brilliantly, so brightly, is ashes and soot.