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  Tarnished

  Copyright ©2015 Erica Chilson

  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 noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Wicked Reads

  PO Box 29

  Nelson, PA 16940

  www.ericachilson.com/wicked-reads

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2015

  ISBN-13: 978-0692544679

  ISBN-10: 0692544674

  License Notice:

  No part of this may be reproduced, copied, scanned, or distributed in electronic or printed form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Publisher Notice:

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Titles by Erica Chilson

  Mistress and Master of Restraint

  -series order-

  Restraint

  Unleashed

  Dexter

  Dalton

  Queen Omnibus*

  Jaded*

  Queened*

  Checkmate*

  King

  Faithless

  The Hunter

  Integrated

  -Coming Soon-

  Hero/Empowered (tentative title)

  Blended

  -Series order-

  Good Girl

  Wildly Wedded Wife (Blended #1.5)

  Widow

  Wanton (Blended #2.5)

  -Coming Soon-

  Warped

  Rusty Knob

  Rusty Knob

  Tarnished

  Stainless (coming soon)

  Dedication

  To my faithful readers who bridge every genre just to read my words. I thank you for understanding that I believe even a written world should be diverse, with many from all walks of life, age range, physical appearance, educational level and societal class, and sexual orientation. Love is Love. Don’t discriminate.

  Table of Contents:

  Copyright Page

  Titles by Erica Chilson

  Dedication

  I Opened the Door

  Willy Wanker

  Life Skills

  Non-Profit

  I Know Everything

  Depraved

  Nocturnal Visitor

  Therapy

  Tying One On

  Graduation

  Are You Wet?

  Trust

  Have Words

  S. E. X.

  Curtains

  Freedom

  House of Horrors

  Teddy Bear

  Brother Bear

  Sacrifice

  The Power of the Bonfire

  Invisible Scars

  Panty Party Pantry

  Sunshine Bear

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Royce Kennedy believes he has the town of Rusty Knob and its citizens in the palm of his hand. For altruistic reasons, of course. A real man takes care of his land and the people on it, whether they want to accept the help or not.

  After fostering an orphan, adopting underprivileged kids, creating businesses to bring jobs back to the area, donating his time, energy, and money by founding the Community Growth: Life Skills Center, people are beginning to wonder if the man is running a campaign to earn the status of a saint.

  Royce’s family is getting frustrated by idly watching their patriarch spread himself too thin, because he won’t allow them to shoulder his burdens or their own. Drastic measures are taken before the man can see reason. When the dust finally settles, Royce realizes he’s been taking care of everyone but himself.

  But there’s a problem with sorting out your issues, with the clarity of mind, you can’t hide from the good, bad, and downright filthy secrets buried in the depths of your past.

  With dark, violent, depraved skeletons, Rusty Knob’s patriarch isn’t as pure of soul as he appears to be. Will he finally surrender and accept the help to buff the tarnish away?

  Just because it’s the moral thing to do, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for you.

  Tarnished

  •Rusty Knob• Book Two •

  •June•

  I opened The Door

  “Royce,” flows a breathy moan directly into my ear, followed by raspy pants of exertion. “Royce– baby.” The needy tone of my wife’s voice runs a quiver up my spine as I sink deeper and deeper into her. I lose myself, falling into the way every inch of her skin nestles perfectly beneath mine. It’s an intimate comfort far greater than the need for gratification.

  Tangled around my fingers, dark, silky threads turn to light, springy curls. Rolling into my lover in a wave, I rest my cheek against hers, knowing she craves to hear how she affects me. My muscles seize– body preparing to give her what she ultimately seeks.

  Release and seed.

  Demandingly so, fingertips clench, nails biting sharply into my ass, urging me on. “Don’t stop… don’t stop.” Breathlessness blends into throaty moans of pure pleasure, voice finally twisting from my loving wife to the innocent seductress beneath me. Head jerking backward into the pillows, arching her neck, mouth opening wide, my name is released in a torrent as we explode. “R-O-Y-C-E!” The glorious sound warps, becoming frantic then blood-curdling.

  Piercing pain shoots into my temples as my body is broken. Torn. Bloodied. Ruined. “Royce!” Willa’s soft voice wavers until it’s shrill and terrified. “Oh, my God! Donny, make it stop! Don’t hurt him! I did it. It’s my fault! R-O-Y-C-E!!!”

  “I warned you, brother,” Donny twists out with tears streaming down his cheeks– a baseball bat clenched in his fist. “I warned you, and you did it anyway. You’d be hurt, but Willa’d die.”

  My eyes open just as the butt of the bat travels toward my head. Jerking upright in bed, sheets stick to my sweat-coated flesh. I huff over and over again, trying to catch my breath. My heart beats in my throat, so rapidly I fear one day waking to a heart attack. My mind spins, emotions trying to catch up with my thoughts. Amazing and horrific portions of my life curl together into a nightmare.

  For a few glorious moments I was with my Annie again– feeling her beneath me while I was thrusting inside her. I never thought I’d experience that again, except in my most cherished memories. The dream was so lifelike. Real. I could touch the softness of her skin. I could taste her delicate flowery scent on the back of my tongue. I could hear the way her breath would catch when my name rolled off her tongue. Lastly, most importantly, I could feel the force of her love and devotion. It was soothing and arousing. Then my greatest joy warped into a nightmare as Annie was torn from my life all over again.

  I crave those snapshots of my life until I wake to learn I will have to suffer through the grief as if it’s as fresh as the day she left me.

  The love turned to lust. My Annie turned to Donny’s Willa. My pleasure turne
d to pain. And then I awoke in a darker mood than the day before.

  It was a trick. An evil, delicious taste of what I’ve lost that can never be found, and what I’ve tarnished and am trying to reclaim.

  With a lunge, I roll to the side of the bed, understanding my adopted son more than he could possibly imagine. The convulsions start in my guts, until they become body-wracking. My back and stomach muscles clench and quiver painfully. I retch into my wastebasket, wishing I could change the past but knowing I never would even if I could.

  I retch harder when I realize for the first time I wouldn’t bring my Annie back to life. She would hate the man I’ve become. I would sicken her. I don’t deserve her anymore, and she deserves more than a lowlife like me. Perhaps God took Annie in a fiery ball of agonizing hell to get her away from who I’d ultimately become. I hope Annie is at peace, and I’m glad my father didn’t survive to watch both of his sons fall from grace.

  The only change I would have made would have saved Willa, Donny, Sean, and me.

  Woulda… Shoulda… Coulda…

  Had I known they were for sale, I would have bought Warren, Willa, and Wynn all at the same time when they were little kids. Then I would have swallowed my pride. It would have changed the arc of our lives for the better– the only path that would have ensured Hayden and Hayley were created as well.

  But I don’t own a time machine, nor am I smart enough to make one. There is no changing the past. There is only woulda shoulda coulda, and I wouldn’t change anything but the future.

  I wipe my mouth off with the back of my hand, deciding to make a protein shake for myself this morning while I’m making Wynn’s. In the past thirteen months, my son has slowly needed fewer and fewer shakes to combat the emotional vomiting, while I’ve needed them more and more.

  We all suffer the consequences of our actions, but sometimes they take nine years to catch up with us.

  I reach down for the wastebasket, and then make my way to my attached bathroom. “Dad?” Bren startles the hell out of me. I turn slowly toward my open bedroom door, knowing I had shut it when I’d gone to sleep.

  “Brennan?” I can’t look my son in the eye. I stare down guiltily at the puke splattering the inside of the chrome can clutched in my fingertips. “Did I oversleep?”

  “No,” is all he says. He doesn’t move. I doubt he breathes.

  I try again, eyes now looking through the trashcan but seeing nothing. “Did I shout in my sleep?”

  Bren’s, “No,” has my eyes flicking up to finally meet his. My son looks exactly like me, finally filling out in the chest, but it’s his mother staring back at me with unflinching sincerity and concern. His voice softens into a whisper. “I just felt it.” His curled fists clench at his sides.

  “I’m fine,” I mutter lamely, feeling like the child. Bren doesn’t blink. He looks deep inside of me, as if he already knows my dark secrets and he’s okay with the vileness he sees because I’m his dad.

  Bren steps forward, approaching me cautiously. “No, you’re not. You’re getting worse while everybody is getting better. Wynn might get sick once a week, but I hear you in here every morning upchucking your guts. Now you barely look at me.”

  “I…” My eyes seek out the corners of my bedroom, proving my son’s suspicions right. “I’m fixin’ to get ready for the day.” I take a few steps. “I’ll meet you down at breakfast.”

  I get as far as the bathroom door before Bren’s, “Dad?” stops me.

  I wait.

  My son tracks across the carpeting with silent footfalls. “I was there, remember?”

  Forehead pressed against the cool door, I close my eyes in defeat. “I remember. You saved Willa’s and my life, and neither of us will ever be able to repay you that debt.”

  I huff a laugh at the irony. I was branded a hero when I was the coward. My son must hate me more and more every single time one of the townsfolk brings up how I saved the day. Bren is the hero who called 9-1-1 to save Willa and me while protecting Hayden and Hayley. I’m just thankful he never opened the twins’ bedroom door like I’d ordered.

  “I don’t want a payment.” Bren’s hand settles between my shoulders. “I want you to look me in the eye. Willa’s able to now, but you seem to have lost the ability. I know what happened; I was there.”

  Unable to answer him, I just press into Bren’s touch. Tears slip free to carve across my cheekbones. “I can’t look you in the eye because you’ll see the truth, and I’m ashamed. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met, so much like your mother.”

  “I remember Mom,” Bren says fondly. He releases a few chuckles. “I’m old enough to remember she was a yeller and far from perfect. Some things Willa and Penny do remind me of Mom, so don’t go sanctifying her when she was only human.” Laughing darkly, “I’m not that great, either. I’m about to join the family business in mistake making.”

  “Not true… aside from your lack of boundaries when it comes to privacy,” I mutter wryly. “I know you think I’ve tried to replace you with Kade, and then Wynn, but that’s not it. You were my first born, and I want to be the father for you that mine was for me, and I’m terrified you’ll see that’s a bullshit lie.”

  “I love you, Daddy.” My son rests his forehead between my shoulders, and then his arms curl around my waist to hug me from behind. Then he cuts me off at the knees. “I opened the door.”

  I fall to the ground, body lurching forward to bounce off the closed bathroom door. Clutching the wastebasket to my chest, I retch like never before. I vomit until the vein in my forehead throbs, my eyes bulge from my skull, and my heart flutters on the verge of an attack. I pitch forward listlessly, but my son holds me upright before my face smashes to the floor.

  “Shh… it’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s my turn to help you.” Bren rocks me back and forth, both of us sobbing. “Shh… it was time I told you the truth. I start college in two months, and I’ve got to get you some help now because I’ve got a lot of shit I’m gonna have to deal with soon… I know you told me not to, but I had to leave Hayden and Hayley’s room so I could let Corbin in to help. But don’t worry, I made sure the twins were locked up nice and tight and couldn’t see. Then I sat with you while we waited for the police and the ambulance.”

  With body-wracking convulsions, I retch like I’m dying. My son saw. My son saw what I have no true recollection of except from the police photographs. My son saw Willa beaten within an inch of her life with fists, a baseball bat, and a truncheon. Her violated body was sprawled on the floor next to mine, with the wooden truncheon inside me. Which means he knows I’m the reason why his uncle, who was a good man for the first forty years of his life, finally cracked and went insane.

  Willy Wanker

  With a deep breath, I put on my ‘daddy’ uniform and step into our dining room. My mood changes instantly when I take in my family sitting around the table, with Bren and Wynn’s yearbooks being passed around. My smile is no longer forced. It’s ear-to-ear and strong enough to power a small city’s electricity grid. I’m mirroring the huge smile on Brennan’s senior picture, sitting front and center in the middle of the table. Next to that is the reject picture that didn’t make it into the yearbook. Wynn is displaying his ‘teenage Wynn’ attitude, taken in the dark months, as we’ve dubbed his asshole period.

  “What’s a manwhore?” Hayley parrots in a girly voice as she reads from Bren’s yearbook, no doubt. “They are going to write songs about you, my brotha. Songs sung at Pride Parades, and I’ll be leading the march. Have a frantastic life, buddy. I hope Facebook is still in existence five, ten, fifteen years from now, because I ain’t ever stepping foot back in Rusty Knob. I love ya like a brotha from anotha motha. Franny writes weird,” Hayley complains.

  “My turn,” is the only notice Hayden gives before he’s tugging the book free. “Fuck you– love Jackson. Positive! I’m going to cut your dick off– Jesse.”

  “That’ll be enough of that,” Willa says in a panic, snatching t
he yearbook and clutching it to her chest. A second later, she has the book open in her lap and her eyebrows are raised in shock.

  “Dude, what did you do?” Wynn slaps Bren upside the head, punishing him with his own signature move. “I keep asking Jack, but he won’t spill it.”

  “Dad?” Bren’s eyes connect with mine across the table, when no one else knew I was skulking in the doorway. “Wanna make me a shake this morning?” Grimacing, he pushes the greasy bacon around on his plate, making my stomach revolt.

  I step into the room, hand brushing the tops of the twins’ heads. “Wynn, ya need one too?” Then I lean down to kiss Willa’s cheek, and she surprises me by turning to the side to kiss the corner of my mouth instead. “Morning,” I whisper in her ear, knowing she likes it. I jerk slightly when my voice cracks with lingering emotions.

  “I’m good,” Wynn answers, snagging Bren’s bacon. His plate is loaded for bear and doused in the real maple syrup. He threw a fit in the middle of the grocery store last weekend when the kids tried to get Mrs. Butterworth’s. I had to compromise by getting both. He’s nearly drained the entire bottle in the past few days.

  “It’s a good thing you’re playing college ball.” I stare pointedly at Wynn’s heart-attack-special, and then flick my eyes to make sure the little ones aren’t eating unhealthy. “Hey, that oatmeal looks good.” I nudge Willa in appreciation. “I think I’ll fetch some for Bren and me.”

  Willa rests her palm in the center of my back and flashes me a big smile, like she somehow knew we needed something soothing and comforting for breakfast.

  I hurry from the room, face flaming red from just that small touch. I listen to Willa as I fix my breakfast. “Okay, let’s read some more. Bren, you’re proof you can’t rehabilitate a hillbilly. No matter how much green is in your pocket– Duane. Seriously, Bren, what the hell did you do to your friends?”