The Affair (The Relationship Quo Series Book 5) Read online

  The Affair

  By Nicole Strycharz

  Fifth Book in The Relationship Quo Series

  “It isn’t the act of cheating that hurts. It’s more the lie. It’s the idea that everything sacred and private, isn’t anymore. Cheating hurts because it makes our love insufficient, and there ain’t nothing worse than feeling like not enough.”

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ~Bonus Chapter~

  Thank you for reading my book!

  ~PRAISE FOR THE AFFAIR~

  HOLY HELL it’s the best book I’ve read in a long time. It deals with a VERY sensitive topic so beautifully and with so much bravery and honesty.

  —Leslie McAdam, bestselling author of The Sun and The Moon

  “As a reader, I felt sympathy for the characters. I felt animosity, I felt love, I felt compassion. Strycharz has woven together such a wonderful world filled with such deepness and realism, that if the reader doesn’t feel something, I’d be surprised!”

  —Steve Wilhelm, author of The Another Time Series

  “The Affair is raw, edgy, and emotional from beginning to end.”

  —Martha Sweeney, bestselling author of Killmore

  “It really got me thinking, what do you classify as an affair? Four lives, four opinions. But when it comes down to it, who’s having the affair?”

  —Amo, Amo’s Book Corner Blog

  “This book is so much more than just a story about cheating and its aftermath. It's a lesson in acceptance. It's a class on the intricacies of the human spirit. It's a lecture on learning to love oneself, just as you are and for what you know you can be. It's the sum of its parts, a celebration of family, tradition, and faith.”

  —Daisy St. James, author of Phoenyx in Flames

  The Affair is a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ masterpiece. The storyline and its characters not only teach us but show us there is no such thing as easy love.

  —Martha Cothron, bestselling author of BeYOUtiful

  Read this book! You'll think of love in a completely different way. You'll examine relationships, sometimes your own.

  —Ava Danielle, author of Perfect Melody

  Nicole’s style of writing challenges and pushes my reader limits every time!

  —Dianela, Dianela’s Details Blog

  cannot help but fall completely in love and invest all of myself in the world that Nicole Strycharz creates with men and women that are real and imperfect.

  —C. Dougherty, author of Bleeding on the Page: My Soul Exposed

  ~ Acknowledgments ~

  Mommy!!!! Book FIVE! Thank you for my brain. We all know you are where it came from. Thank you for being my goddess.

  Amo, thank you for holding my hand through this one. There is nothing like your family rising to remind you what you are capable of. You are my inspiration.

  Author Wife, Martha, cheers to somehow making time! Talking to you is my lifeline.

  Wendy for being my rock and my Eagle Eyes. Thank you so much for believing in me like you do.

  Lisa, for a cover I can’t be more grateful for. Because I really drove you batshit this time, didn’t I? I love you like we love coffee!

  LESLIE MCADAM! Woman, from your #1 Fan, please know that I love and adore you. Thank you for writing the truth.

  To my write or die crew, my Relationship Quo Series Group, to my ARC team, OMG you know you are family, right? I’m so lucky to have you all in my life!

  And to Vinny and his gorgeous wife Jess, because you guys ROCK and you answered all my weird-ass questions! You are Italian-American royalty and I love your faces!

  To someone who didn’t mean to…

  Text copyright © 2019 by Nicole Paulette Strycharz

  All rights reserved. No Portion of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Nicole Paulette Strycharz.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover by Got You Covered

  All Logo Designs by “Covers by Julie”

  The Relationship Quo Series

  The Divorce

  The Friend Zone

  The Co-Parent

  The Significant Other

  The Affair

  Coming Soon… More Awkward Relationships. We are far from done…

  **These books do contain mature sexual content and explicit language, making them best suited for readers 18 years of age and up.

  Chapter One

  LYDIA

  That is not lipstick, it’s a ketchup stain or a smudge of jelly from a jelly doughnut.

  Why do I know this?

  One, I do not wear lipstick and two, my husband loves jelly doughnuts.

  Boom. Mystery solved.

  I lifted the white button-down shirt again to examine it for other stains. There is nothing else because my husband is close to immaculate. The only time he gets crazy dirty or messy is when he’s been to the gym or played basketball.

  I picked up the stain remover in our laundry room and aimed it like a gun to the stain on his collar. Then I paused. If it was jelly from said jelly doughnut, how did it get down the side of his neck? Is that physically possible?

  I took the gun— I mean, the stain remover, away and stared at the stain.

  Ah ha! Ketchup! My first thought is the right one, because upon squirting the bottle, it may have caught an air bubble and splattered upward. Flinging a red smear onto his collar.

  Boom. Mystery solved a second time.

  I smiled, contented by my cleverness until I thought about it. He doesn’t like ketchup. He only likes mustard. He never uses ketchup. We have the same bottle of ketchup in our fridge that we did when we married. I am the only user of the condiment.

  Side note: Need to buy new ketchup.

  I aimed the stain remover again and took a steady breath as a terribly painful pinch afflicted me right in the chest. What if it was lipstick, and I don’t wear lipstick, so what if that means some other woman kissed his neck? Right there, where his collar is.

  My gut started to whisper. It was that little voice. Not paranoia. Paranoia is loud and frantic, and it screams suspicion.

  This was different. This was so softly spoken in the back of my mind that I almost didn’t hear it. It was intuition.

  “An idle mind…” I said aloud to the washer and dryer. “Is the devil’s playground. Right?” I aimed the stain remover. “So, after this, I think I’ll rearrange the living room, and go get new ketchup.”

  Then it hit me, duh! There’s a woman at our church that was old when God was knee-high to a grasshopper. She wears lipstick and she always reaches up to kiss Noah on the cheek, but she’s short and he’s tall. Resulting in this very stain.

  The NYPD
should hire me on weekends.

  I fired— I mean sprayed.

  DAYS LATER

  This feels fantastic.

  Yes.

  I know it’s right because it’s my husband.

  He’s beautiful. God, he’s perfect.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist and reached above my head to grasp the sheets when he gave a deep thrust. The gasp that escaped me was genuine.

  Maybe the moan was a little forced. Sex is great; it feels wonderful. God’s gift to man. My body was created to please my husband. That’s what they told me since the Birds and the Bees talk, anyway.

  Noah hissed and kissed his way up my neck, meaning he’s close. I need to pay attention so I can make the necessary moves to help him see fireworks.

  I’ve been waiting to get to this point so I could bring up a fun idea.

  “Noah,” I held the back of his neck and spoke against his ear. “If you lay back,” I took a sharp breath when he pushed hard into me again. “I could get on top of you…we could…finish that way…”

  His movements slowed and he looked into my eyes like I was switched out with another woman, and he was trying to figure out how I got here. Panting, he said, “You?” He rested on his elbows above me and tried to catch his breath.

  I froze. Darn it! I held his arms and tried to sound less pathetic. “Well, I mean…if you want me to…it would be different.”

  “This is perfect,” he started to move again, coming to a finish. I let it go and tried to latch on to the moment.

  When he rolled off me, I missed his weight. I turned over and curled into his side so I could tangle our legs together.

  He smiled. “Nice try,” he said, and I laughed. “Come on,” he brushed the hair from my face, “Tell me.”

  I shrugged and toyed with the tiny gold cross around my neck. “I sort of read it in a magazine at the store…I was waiting in line to check out, and the article title said, Things to Drive Him Wild in Bed. I was curious so I might have skimmed it…”

  He laughed again and shifted a little. “You read a secular magazine on how to please me?”

  I pushed at his chest and tried to conceal my nervous smile. “Don’t tease me…”

  Noah’s over six feet tall. He’s strong, with big hands that I love, and he has short, unruly brown hair. His eyes are deeply set, thin laugh lines at the corners and his chest has a light dusting of hair that trails down to below his belt line. He’s ruggedly handsome, and my perfect match.

  “I wasn’t teasing,” he said. “And just so you know, you are really pink right now.”

  His words made my eyes bulge. I covered my face and he laughed harder before he grasped my wrist and moved my hand down. “Don’t hide…” he kissed my nose and then my lips. “It’s cute that you looked.”

  I groaned. “You didn’t answer the question, though….”

  “Nothing about you needs to be improved.”

  “Could be fun…” I hinted.

  “I like you submissive,” he whispered. The feel of his breath against the shell of my ear made yet another tremor hit me. “It’s the way God wanted it.”

  “Okay,” I felt a little disappointed since I have been plotting this new idea for two days. I won’t lie, I got turned on thinking about it. I had this vision of Noah laying across the bed and me coming to straddle him like the silhouette in the magazine.

  The article said that the man would be able to caress the breasts and fully see his woman. They said that’s something men liked. I thought maybe Noah would too, but apparently not.

  He held me tightly against his body and kissed my hairline. “I love you to bits,” he said, and I snuggled closer.

  “I love you too.”

  As soon as we relaxed, I could feel him falling asleep. I looked around our bedroom to distract myself from the sudden unbearable arousal I felt. I even squeezed my thighs together around his thigh to get some friction. I want to feel complete. I’m not done, but I know how hard he works, and how worn out he is. We have church tomorrow— think about church.

  Darn it! We just had sex! I should be fulfilled now! I shifted closer to Noah and dragged my mound down his thick thigh. The sensations were heavenly.

  Oh, Lord.

  I looked up at Noah and considered waking him for round two. His looks are killing me. I stared at his beard a good twenty minutes and imagined sitting on it. Wow. Where did that thought come from? We don’t do that stuff. It’s weird and a little gross. That magazine filled my head with trash.

  I rolled away from him to face the wall so I could cool my nether regions. The place between my thighs was still slick with our sex, all I need is his—

  No! No, Lydia! Go to sleep!

  I shut my eyes and imagined tomorrow. Tomorrow is church and I must iron Noah’s pants, find my beige bra so it doesn’t show through my white dress. I must find Noah’s notes for his youth group class. As a youth leader, he has a ton of great hands-on Bible studies for the kids.

  What else am I supposed to be doing? Did I forget anything?

  I thought a minute and then I had the biggest panic attack ever!

  Cupcakes!

  Tomorrow is Deacon Dave’s birthday. I was supposed to make four dozen confetti cupcakes with pastel colored icing and sprinkles to set out with refreshments.

  “God, darn it!” I whisper-shouted as I sat straight up with the covers to my chest. “Sorry, God,” I said before swinging my legs over the side of the mattress. I rushed to get dressed. I grabbed one of my less important dresses, its long like all my dresses and has a collar with short sleeves. I pulled a slip on under it. I threw on a sweater and forced on some sneakers. I tiptoed around Noah to get to the bathroom so I could brush my hair.

  My hair is down to my hips and it’s a boring brown but right now, it looks like it had coffee with Diana Ross thanks to the sweaty sex I just had.

  I pulled it tight into a ponytail and ran to get the car keys from Noah’s discarded belt and pants on the floor.

  I ran back to where he was sleeping and kissed his forehead. “I’ll be right back, okay? I have to run to the store.”

  He muttered in his sleep about being careful and I laughed before running again for the door.

  I drove the ten minutes it takes to get to the store and hurried to buy five boxes of cupcake mix and tons of icing.

  We live in the suburbs, but we are only a fifteen-minute drive from New York City. This means somewhere is always open. I balanced my basket of items as I walked to the checkout, but then my eyes snagged on an endcap shelf of smutty romance novels.

  Hmmm… interesting.

  No! Wrong! It’s smut. Secular, unholy, fornicating smut!

  I slowed to a stop three feet away and pretended to skim the cleaning products, but then my eyes were wandering to the books. No one was around so I squinted and read the titles.

  The Naughty Baron, The Untamed Lass of Linbrook, Kon; The Viking Barbarian, Tonight Untamed…

  I turned my nose up and looked back at the cleaning supplies.

  Porn.

  It’s just lady-porn and porn is bad.

  I’m not reading any of those scandalous little devils. The cut men on the cover holding the wilting women with serious cleavage have no hold on me.

  Nope!

  No way, no how!

  In fact, it turns me off. As unsatisfied as my body is, with all the humming and need for more stimulation, I am not turned on by those books.

  With total confidence, I started to walk away, but then I saw one that said, The Sun and the Moon by Leslie McAdam.

  The cover wasn’t smutty as the others. It was just a shirtless guy at a beach with a surfboard.

  Surfers have to be shirtless, that can be justified.

  I checked down the way to see if anyone was coming, but when the coast was clear, I came closer.

  Hot.

  No!

  Bad!

  I heard someone coming and turned my back to the shelf. I stared at the ceiling l
ike I was considering buying it, but when the person passed, I spun on my heels and stared at the cover.

  I grabbed it like I meant to steal it and flipped it over to read the back.

  I didn’t expect the unbelievably hot guy behind the counter—all green eyes and golden surfer curls—to tilt my world.

  And I REALLY didn’t expect his particular brand of laid-back alpha male style.

  Oh, sweet Jesus…

  I fanned myself with the book until I realized someone might see it.

  I’d been so secure in my own little world. One with Rules about what I do—and what I definitely do NOT do.

  Especially in bed.

  Rule Number 9? No dirty talking? There’s no earthly reason why I’d want anyone to do that.

  I may be stuck-up, but my Rules kept me safe and happy.

  This woman gets me. I didn’t even read the rest. The main character is just like me, so the book can’t be that bad. She won’t let things go too far because she has morals. I bet, she teaches the surfer a thing or two about… life.

  I shoved it in my basket and hid it under the cupcake mixes.

  I’m not buying it, I’m taking it to the counter to tell them it might have been put in the wrong place because it wasn’t in alphabetical order. I care like that.

  Once I was in line, I glanced down at my basket.

  I need closure now. Does this lady fall for the surfer or what? What if she dies. How awful. I won’t know if I don’t buy it. The main character seems nice. They said so in the synopsis. If she has sex with the surfer, it’s okay because they’ll probably get married.

  Hmmm….

  “Next,” the grumpy lady at the front was looking at me like I was keeping her from her coronation as queen of the marketplace. I put a smile on my face and went up to the counter. I slowly unloaded all my stuff, but when it came to the book, I sandwiched it between the boxes of cupcake mix and piled it on the checkout.