by Ava Danielle
I Belong to Him
By
Ava Danielle
Copyright © 2015 by Ava Danielle
ISBN-13: 978-1511817523
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 the prior written permission
of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or publisher.
Cover design: MGbookcovers
www.mgbookcoversanddesigns.com
Dedication
To my husband, my best friend, my forever.
I belong to you!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter 1
The ceiling is white. White, with little shadows of trees coming in from the nightglow of outside. I’m lying in bed, next to my husband, and listening to him snore, yet again. I can’t seem to fall asleep with all these thoughts running through my head. It’s two am and I’m just watching that clock tick away. His stern back is facing me, I’m on my side facing him. Why won’t he touch me? Does he not desire me? Do I repulse him? All these thoughts are running through my mind. We haven’t had sex since, oh I don’t even remember the exact date. It’s that pathetic. I want to touch him, once I realize how many times I’ve been rejected, I’m not even going to attempt to turn him on, I’d love nothing more than to run my fingers through his hair. I want to cuddle up close to him, knowing damn well he’s just going to deny that and tell me he can’t breathe when I’m lying that close to him, like he does so many times. I want to touch him without the fear of hearing him say he needs to get up early. I want to be wanted! I want to be loved and told how beautiful I am, even if I’m not. Does age change a person? Fifteen years of marriage, I get the fact that romance falls a bit behind, but to be honest, this relationship feels more like we’re roommates that share the bed, in a non-romantic way of course.
Tick-tock-tick-tock
I should really get to sleep. I should just forget all this and hope the next day will be better. That in the morning, I might actually get a kiss, since the Good-Night Kisses have come to be fewer than I ever could have imagined. Maybe he’s stressed? Or he’s sick yet again? I really need to reconsider all these thoughts at night. I love him; I really do, but am I still IN love with him is the remaining question. We meant something to each other at one point; it doesn’t seem to apply anymore. We were, at least I think we were, head over heels for each other at one point. Michael used to show me affection. Michael used to care about my feelings. Emphasis on the words, used to!
I snuggle up close to him, my fingers tracing his tattoo. I feel him stir, “Addison, stop.” I continue to get closer to him, I breathe him in, wanting to be near him. The ache between my legs growing stronger. “I want you, Michael,” I whisper, kissing his chest. “Not now, Addison, I’m tired.” I’ve been hearing those words a lot. I stay close to him, my body full of heat and desire. I feel him slide further and further away from me, he sighs. I’ve come to realize, this will end like every other night I’ve attempted.
Chapter 2
The alarm clock started blaring at six in the morning. I’m already hanging off my side of the bed out of fear I will hear all about being too close to him again, and pushing him off the bed. Some days I’ve considered stuffing extra pillows in between us just to assure him, and maybe myself, that I stay as far away from him as possible. I crawl out of bed; he’s sleeping far on his side, not a concern in the world. I go make coffee and get our three kids ready and off to school. I decide to take the kids to school myself this morning and take care of the PTA at my youngest elementary school. Some days it’s just good to get out and deal with problems outside of the house. I kiss him bye, as he growls at me and hurries away from me. A deeper kiss I long for. Maybe I’ve read too many books and the hope that he grabs me and kisses me deep to remind me I’m his, makes reality that much harder on me.
As I get myself ready for the day, I curl my shoulder length brown hair, and put on some light make-up. I make sure my brown eyes don’t look dead tired from a sleepless night. I may be a mom, but I clearly don’t want it to look obvious, I’m just a woman after all.
On the drive to the elementary school, after dropping my two oldest off at the middle school, I think about all the things we’ve done in the past fifteen years. We’ve had some great days, the ones he wasn’t away on business trips or long nights at the office. We’ve had some fun in and outside of the bedroom. But it was passion I desired and needed.
We make it to the school, and Emma starts to walk to her classroom. I greet the teacher for a minute. Emma sits in the front row, her desk nice and neat, she gets that from me. I turned around after watching her storm to her friends, and ran into this tall; he’s a head or two taller than me, well dressed, extremely handsome man. I’m assuming he’s a dad, but boy was he handsome, if I hadn’t mentioned that part yet. Brown eyes, brown hair, supermodel type almost. I’m really hoping I’m not drooling at this point.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say as I watch him just smile at me, nod his head, and then walk away. Left staring after him, and the way he carries himself has me intrigued. A girl can look, right?
I walk into the PTA Room to get all the books in order, we are preparing for the book sale next week. On top of that the kids have spirit week coming up, so a lot of parents will be coming in buying sweaters and t-shirts. I pile all the shirts in their size order and get them organized. My friend Kristina shows up, wearing sweatpants, a spirit sweater, and her curly dark hair put up into a ponytail. “Go Tigers” in big bold letters on her sweater, our elementary school mascot is a tiger. It’s quite fitting; this school is filled with loud, roaring children.
“Hey Addison, eight am with only one cup of coffee, it’s not going to be easy to function this morning.” I laugh at Kristina as I’m starting to print price tags for the books. “Come sit, help me figure out how to price these fuckers,” I say to Kristina as she puts down her coffee and gets to thinking. I tell her about the dad I stumbled into in the hallways, and how I couldn’t stop staring. “You’re married Addison,” she says with a raised eyebrow. “Doesn’t mean a girl can’t look, geez,” I tell her. Kristina is the only girl I could tell anything to and not be judged. It’s not like I’m planning on cheating on my husband, but that man sure was good on the eyes. We got so sucked in, when there was a knock on the door. I look at Kristina and wonder who could be bugging us since our PTA Members and the staff usual
ly just walk in. “Come in” Kristina says in a questionable tone. And there it was, the door opened and HE came in. “Hi, sorry to bother you ladies, but I’m in need of a sweater for my son, I kind of turned the red one pink in the wash and let’s just say, he’s not too excited about wearing a pink sweater to school. You know how kids are,” he says with the sexiest smile that I’ve seen in the longest time. I nudge Kristina to let her know that’s the man from the hallway. She just smiles at me, gets up and excuses herself to the bathroom. Bitch! I rise up from the seat and smile at him, “Of course, follow me.” We head over to the table that I had just organized the sweaters on. “What size does your son wear?” I ask him coyly and try not to blush too much thinking about his ass. He makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, but strangely, in a good way. “The pretty pink sweater is size medium, but it was getting a little tight on him, so let’s go ahead and go with large,” he says as I reach for the sweater. As I hand him the bright red sweater our fingers lightly touch and there’s this shiver that runs through my entire body. He smiles at me and I’m left wondering if he felt it too. I must be going out of my mind to even think this. We walk over to the table, where our cashbox is, for him to pay. I really need to gather my courage to ask him who he is. I don’t see a wedding ring, but these days, it could be left at home or he could’ve forgotten to put it on this morning. I’ve seen a lot of that. I was actually considering taking my ring off and just leaving it on my nightstand, it’s getting a bit tight on my ring finger. Oh, who am I kidding, I’m thinking about doing it because I don’t feel like it has a purpose anymore. As he hands me a $20 bill and smiles that smile I could stare at for our hours, I finally use that mouth God gave me and ask him what grade his son is in. “Benjamin is in Ms. Miller’s 5th grade class. He’s the little whirlwind that seems to have all the girls wrapped around his little finger.” I laugh at his statement because it wasn’t too long ago that Emma was telling me how cute Benjamin is. “So I hear. My daughter Emma is also in that class, she offered to sit next to him, in the front row the other day, to help him with his math.” I pack up the sweater for him and as I hand it to him our hands brush again. I’m starting to think I do it on purpose, just to have that extra connection with him. I’m really starting to lose my mind. Kristina comes back in the room, bouncing with another cup of coffee and sits back down in the chair to price the books. Our eyes glance away from Kristina and back at each other. “I need to head to work now, thanks for the sweater, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around since our kids are in the same class. See you ladies.” As he walks out of the classroom before we could say anything. “Bye,” I whisper as I feel Kristina’s eyes on me. “So, spill it,” she says as I walk over to sit next to her. “Where’d you go, bitch?” I poke at her and she just laughs. “Thought you might need a minute alone with the man with THAT sexy ass” she says as she starts to get back to pricing the books. I take the books she’s priced and stacked them in the “TO SET UP PILE” and wondered. Why am I so intrigued with him? Why did he choose to come in this morning? What are the odds of that happening after I totally ran into him in the hallway earlier?
Around lunch we finally finished setting up for the book sale when Kristina suggested we go to her house to eat some sandwiches. I never say no to Kristina’s sandwiches. She’s the queen of sandwiches, I swear. We pack everything up, head out of the school and take her BMW back to our subdivision. The best part of our friendship is we are pretty much neighbors. Kristina lives three houses down from me. We spend a lot of time at either her place or mine working on PTA things or read. We read A LOT, and talk about our book boyfriends daily. Other people would probably think we’re crazy, but it doesn’t bother us a bit. There’s nothing healthier than a good margarita and a conversation about hot guys and their sexy six-packs. Here and there we’d admire the leading female characters, but that’s very seldom.
Chapter 3
We pull into Kristina’s driveway, and get out of the car. As we start walking to her door, my cell phone chimes. I look down at the text message I received from my husband, Michael.
Will be home late tonight!
I ignore it. I’m a little pissed off. I used to receive love messages; I used to receive “I love you’s.” There used to be so much more, so much more love that he would show, he’s turned into an ass over the past year and I’m not sure if it’s work, or me. If there was something on his mind, I wish he would just tell me and let it out. I put my phone back in to my back pocket and sit down at Kristina’s kitchen bar. “Any clue what you’re preparing for dinner tonight? I probably should set out the chicken later and throw some rice in the rice cooker, and I can’t come up with a stupid vegetable. Ugh. I also need to sit down and explain to Emma the multiplication table again. And then Cheyenne probably needs help studying the periodic table. I’m so glad Violet is an A student and doesn’t require lots of help.” I mumble on and on, when Kristina finally stops me “Addison, shut up, you’re rambling. What’s going on in that pretty little mind of yours? You thinking about hot stuff again?” Shit, she caught me, I kind of am preoccupied with him and trying to drown out those thoughts with all my chores, and the children and husband that require my full attention. “Actually found out who he is, well sort of. He’s Benjamin’s dad.” Kristina stops putting mayonnaise on the sandwich and looks up at me “Wait, Benjamin Donavon’s dad?” I give her a confused look “Yeah, why? You know him?” She licks the knife and just giggles. “I don’t know him per say, but I know OF him. His ex-wife left him a while back; he’s on his own with Benjamin. He owns the BMW Dealership Ryan bought my car from. Guess she couldn’t handle all his money,” she says joking. I get up and go to the refrigerator to get us a both a bottle of water. “In all seriousness, he’s a really good hands on dad. It’s been rumored that his wife cheated on him and left with her new boyfriend, left her son behind to go live in the Bahamas. I don’t know how much of all that is true, you know how the rumor mill is, and how crazy some of these wives are with their stories,” I smile at her. I hadn’t heard of any of this but it would explain why he’s doing the laundry and not really good at it. I chuckle at my own thoughts and imagination of how that mishap has turned out. “Earth to Addison.” Shit! Busted again! “My sandwich ready?” I quickly answer to gear away from the questions I’m sure she’s ready to ask. We sit and eat the turkey sandwich she made for both of us. I swear she’s got a special sauce that make these exceptional! We talk about our kids, all the paperwork we still need to get together to finally open up our own little bookstore/coffee shop. It’s been our plan forever and now that the kids are older, and pretty much old enough to start fending for themselves, there’s no better time than now. We found a storefront down on main street the other day, and it pretty much screamed our name. The rent for it is exactly in our price range, and with the support of our husbands it should be easy to start off. We are book nerds with our daily dose of coffee; this is the perfect place for us to not only make a bit of money, but a job we will both enjoy. I mean, it doesn’t get better than opening a business with your best friend.
After Michael finished his school to be an Architect, and we finally settled down in the small town we both grew up in, Middletown, this was a perfect time to start thinking about my own career. I’ve always been a housewife and mom. I’m in control with everything, and the thought of having a boss at my age and starting from small isn’t really appealing. I know it sounds extremely naive or petty, but I am who I am.
Kristina and I discuss our plans of a weekend barbecue with our families. Spring in Connecticut is warm and the flowers blooming just makes for a great relaxing weekends, that’s if our kids don’t cause drama with all the neighborhood kids. The subdivision we live in is filled with teenagers and all their rambunctious ideas. After we finish with our sandwiches, we have about two more hours until it’s almost time to pick up the kids. We go over a few more details about our storefront, and decide it’s time for some iced tea and sitting on the fron
t porch.
As I sit in the white wooden rocker and stare out at the perfect lawn, and the little kids that play in the street, I find myself thinking about my husband. “How are things with Michael?” Kristina asks, as if she’s reading my mind. I’ve told her a few of the things, but I hadn’t really gotten into deep about it. “They’re ok. It’s been a little slow in the love department, but I assume any marriage has its hiccups. We’ve been going to bed at the same time, I have the hopes of making love, but that seems to just be hope” I look down as I rock in the rocking chair and my mind starts to think about Benjamin’s Dad. His smile, he gave me, I hadn’t seen on my own husband in a long time. “It’ll get better, I’m sure” Kristina assures me as she starts to drink some of her iced tea.”
Time to get the kids from school has arrived and after our girl talk, I felt a little better about going home to Michael. I’m pretty sure I should probably talk to him, but never really sure of how to start that conversation. As we arrived in the parking lot, I go to pick up Emma in class. I needed to talk to Ms. Miller about her progress in class. I’m also thinking I’m using that as an excuse to see HIM again. The bell rang and we headed out of the building. Asking Emma about her day while we walk to the car, and not paying attention as to where I’m going, I run into someone again. “Oh shit, sorry” I say looking up at him. “I swear I’m not doing this on purpose,” I say with a giggle as he just smiles at me. “You run into everyone like that or am I special?” He asks. Stunned, I stare at him not sure what to say next. “In all honesty, I don’t run into many people so I guess you could say you’re special.” Did I really just say that to a stranger? He smiles at me, “I’m starting to like that. I’m Brandon Donavon,” he says handing me his right hand, I shake it “Addison Walker. Nice to meet you.” He has those perfect white teeth when he smiles, and dressed in a perfect suit. His brown hair is a bit all over the place and in some places waving at me. His perfect little scruff could make any girl panty dropping wet. I hadn’t looked at him this intently before and even with that crooked eyebrow, he’s pretty damn sexy. “Well, I hope to run into you again soon, I need to make sure Benjamin is ready to go home. See you around Addison” He winks at me and that smile is really starting to melt me. Emma is pulling on my pants and ready to go. “I’m going into the car,” she says and I’m still staring behind Brandon whispering “bye”. I can’t think straight when I’m around this man. Finally realizing Emma is ready to go home, I get into my Audi and drive us home.