Fractured Affections (The Affections Series Book 1)
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Authors: Elizabeth Wills
Fractured Affections
The Affections Series
Book One
Elizabeth Wills
Copyright © 2015 Elizabeth Wills
First Edition
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.
This is a work of fiction. References to real people, places, organizations, events, and products are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real.
Edited by: Karen Hrdlicka
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Reagan
“COME ON BOYS! We needed to leave like five minutes ago.” Every morning I go through the same thing. Getting three boys up and ready to go in the morning is enough to make you contemplate blowing your brains out. First it’s breakfast, then lunches and checking book bags to make sure they have everything they need, while they whine and holler that they don’t want to go to school. Like that would even be an option.
“What are you guys doing up there?” I yell as I climb the stairs.
When I reach the top, I head down the hall to Dylan’s room. He is the oldest of the boys and the most caring. At ten years old, he almost reaches my height at five-foot-six. Then there is Max who is seven and Colt is five. I can hear snickers coming from behind his bedroom door.
“Ssshhhhhhhh! She’s going to hear us,” Dylan whispers.
I am now terrified of what I might find when I get inside his room. Nothing good ever comes from this type of situation. My anxiety is slowly creeping up on me as I crack his door to peek inside.
“Surprise!” they yell, as I walk in the room.
I look up to see my husband standing there with the most beautiful bouquet of calla lilies, my favorite flower. I’m completely caught off guard. I thought he left hours ago for work.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, as I take the flowers and reach up on my toes to press my lips against his. After almost eleven years of marriage, he is still the best husband I could ask for. He has never left my side.
“I thought you might like the day off. I figured you could take yourself a nice hot shower while I get the boys off to school, and then I made arrangements for someone else to take care of work, so we can have some time just the two of us,” he says.
He’s up to something. He never takes off work. He has always been dedicated to the business he started when we first got married, building homes for people from the ground up. He helps to guide the owners to make it their own. Every home is special in its own way. It’s time-consuming work, but it is what he loves, and he has provided for his family with it. Not many people are that fortunate.
I stopped working dead end jobs once Dylan was born and have been a stay at home mom ever since. Some days I’m happy to do so, and on others, I resent staying in this house caring and cleaning up after others. I have lost my individuality. Most days I am a mom and a wife, not Reagan.
“I don’t understand; you never take off work. What is really going on, Dalton?”
“Well, that changes today. I’m not sure how often we can do this, but now that all the boys are in school full time, I plan to take off more, so we can be together. Just the two of us,” he says, as he wraps his strong arms around my waist and pulls me in close to him.
I smile at the gagging noises coming from my children, since it’s so gross for their parents to touch one another.
“Alright boys, get your things. It’s time to go.” He turns to whisper in my ear, “And you take your time in that shower. I would hate to see you finished before I get back.” His breath tickles my ear as he speaks sending a shiver down my spine.
I’m still standing there with my eyes closed as they all leave me alone. I soak up the quiet and take a deep breath. A day alone with Dalton, just the two of us, sounds absolutely amazing, but I can’t help but feel as though something is going on that he’s not telling me. I will not hound him about it. I need to enjoy our time together.
I walk slowly down the hall to our master bedroom and take in all the pictures lining the walls, pictures of our little family from over the years. My, how time flies. I feel like it was just yesterday that we were so young ourselves and getting married. Shortly after, Dylan was born and Dalton was there, helping me through. I was so unsure of things as a new mom. It’s amazing how strong some people can be. When you are falling apart, they are picking up the pieces. He has always done that for me. I love him more and more every day for it.
I enter my bathroom and slide out of my clothes. The silence blankets over me as I step into our shower and turn the water on. Closing my eyes, I let the warmth wash over me. My muscles begin to relax, and after some time I grab the soap and begin to lather myself. As I slowly slide the soap down my leg, until I am completely bent at the waist, I hear the shower door slide open behind me.
“Mmmm Mmmm Mmm, I came back at the perfect time,” he says, as his hand slides over my bottom and up my back.
I begin to stand.
“Don’t move Rea, let me feel you.”
I lean back into him as he steps under the spray of water with me. The feeling of his hands tracing my skin causes gooseflesh as they wrap around my waist, then up my breast and back down again. His teeth lightly nibble my neck. Tilting my head back, I close my eyes while enjoying the sensations he is awakening in me. I turn in his arms and press my lips to his. He deepens the kiss, causing a moan to escape my lips, and presses me backward until my back hits the shower wall. I shiver from the coolness of the tile. Lifting my leg, Dalton wraps it around his waist. I can feel his erection pressing against my center. I rock my pelvis into his; igniting a fire in me that only his touch can feed.
“Dalton, I need you, please.”
He slides his hand down and applies pressure to my clit, “What do you need, my sweet Rea?” His voice is a husky whisper and it’s a sound that makes me want for more.
“I need you,” I moan. “Inside me, please.”
He rubs circles on my clit before pinning both of my hands above my head.
“You have me, Rea. I would live inside you, if I could,” he says, as he lifts my leg higher and slowly slides into me.
He continues to thrust into me while staring deep into my eyes, my hands still pinned to the wall. I try with everything I have not to break the eye contact, but the feelings he causes in me make that difficult. My head tilts back on its own volition, and I can’t control the sounds that are coming from my lips. While swallowing my moans, his tongue sweeps against mine. He places both of my wrists in one of his hands and trails the other down my side until he reaches my clit again.
Heat and pressure are building inside me. I long for that intense explosion that is so close. His movements become faster and more intense. I know we are both close. Dalton abruptly pulls out of me and spins me around. Bending me forward, he slams back into me, causing a delicious sensation to spread through me.
“God, Rea, I love the feel of you swollen around me.” He is pounding into me hard and fast, and I explode around him, screaming out into the silence. My sounds echo around us. After a few more thrusts, he pulses inside of me, releasing a deep grunt.
After our breathing settles, he pulls me into his arms and holds me close, placing a sweet kiss to my forehead. He pulls in a deep breath through his nose and exhales.
“We should have had more days like this over the years, my sweet Rea. I’m sorry I didn’t try to build more memories with just the two of us.”
We spend the rest of the day naked, in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. It was a great surprise, but at the end of the day I can’t help but feel like something is wrong. For whatever reason, Dalton wants to keep me in the dark.
Chapter Two
Reagan
I take a sip of my coffee and feel the warmth spread through me, while swinging on the front porch and watching our two chocolate Labs play out front in the cool morning air. This is my favorite time of day. I come home after dropping the boys off to school and enjoy a few quiet moments before starting my daily routine. Sitting back, looking over our yard, I think of how we got here, and how I have never regretted our decision to move. I love the life we’ve built together in this home.
After three years of marriage, we decided to leave our hometown and all of our family behind. I needed to get away. Living near our families in South Carolina was suffocating me. My mother hated the idea when I got pregnant and married at eighteen, and then reminded me of it every day. Dalton’s mother just hated me, since my family never lived up to Mrs. Knowles standards.
My father had left when I was eleven, and my mother moved us to a small house on Dalton’s street. After leaving all my old friends behind, I lived my home life in complete desolation. My mother worked full time as a medical assistant and bartended on the weekends, just to make ends meet. I was home alone, most of the time. When she was there, she would drink herself into oblivion, so I would sneak outside to escape the fear I felt while watching her drink. That’s how I met Dalton and his cousin, Striker.
I would wander into the woods to get lost from the world, for a little while. After walking into the dark, with only the sound of crickets in my ears, I would find a fallen tree and take a seat. Boy, did the woods feel huge back then. Sometimes, I would lie back and stare at the canopy above and think of how small and insignificant I was: insignificant enough for my father to leave. Insignificant enough for my mother to completely shut down once he did. I felt like I had no one. Some days, I thought about wandering through those woods until I couldn’t find my way home.
After a few weeks of living in our new home, I went to the woods to find my favorite fallen tree. As I was walking down the slightly cleared path, I was suddenly knocked over by a running boy. As I rolled over and looked up, I saw the most gorgeous brown eyes I had ever seen. There was something in those eyes. They held a darkness; a pain that I was all too familiar with. He helped me up as we stared at each other, not saying a word. That was when Dalton walked up. He apologized and introduced the both of them. Dalton was just a year older than me, and Striker was fifteen.
They became my new escape after that. Dalton was always there to care for me, even in school, since he was only a year ahead. Striker, on the other hand, was the one I could really open up to about life and how hard things were. Come to find out, he was broken like me. He lost his parents, when they were killed in a car accident two years before, forcing him to uproot his life and move in with Dalton’s family. Over time, the three of us became very close and where you found one you found the other two.
It wasn’t until my senior year of high school when everything changed. Striker had a hard time adjusting to adult life and finding a career, so he joined the military and left us behind. Soon after that I found out I was pregnant with Dylan and married my best friend, days after graduation. We tried to build a life together in our hometown, until the pressure of our parents overly involving themselves in our lives was too much to bear. We packed up our things and moved to Tennessee, six weeks before Max was due. It was tough, but it was the best choice we could have made for ourselves.