The swift stroke of Burl’s backhand was so abrupt, it forced her head to snap around. Whisper didn’t feel any pain. The attempt wasn’t as strong as the practiced slap she was used to getting from her father. Pushing out her lips, she closed her eyes and exhaled.
“You watch your mouth, Doherty,” he barked.
“What else would you like to do to me, Daddy?” she growled, bringing her attention back to him slowly. Turned out Nicole was right, she should be calling the McDade patriarch by the same title she used for her biological father. They weren’t so different after all. “Will you spank me if I’m naughty? Is that how it started with Nicole?”
Snatching her face, he pulled her close. “If you tell him, if you tell anyone, I will make you and every Doherty that ever breathed regret every heartbeat.”
“There aren’t that many of us left,” she said.
Facing the truth of the family she’d married into, Whisper despised herself for being disappointed to learn they were just like hers. Reality was numbing. This was life. This was the truth of the world. There was no alternative. She’d been a fool to entertain the notion there might be something more.
“Making it that much easier for me to decimate what’s left of your pathetic ranks… I wonder what Rick Byrne would say if I called him up and asked if he wanted to make a deal.”
Forging a deal with Byrne would ensure her demise. Her father would kill her before Burl ever got the chance.
Oh, how she wanted to assert that she was going to tell Zaid anyway… Whisper wished their trust was so strong that she could have the confidence to tell her husband without it resulting in him hating her.
She doubted he’d even hear her out.
The last couple of days had proven that she didn’t know as much as she thought. That definitely extended into her opinions of people and their capabilities.
Burl McDade had her over a barrel. Even although he was the one doing something wrong and the one who’d been caught red-handed, he wouldn’t suffer. As was always the way, men got away with their antics and women paid the price for them.
Leaning back, she thrust forward to spit in his face. “Threaten me again or ask me to cover for your depravity just once and I’ll sky-write it, McDade.”
Stalking off, she deliberately shoulder barged him aside as she passed. Nowhere was safe or sacred. Whisper went upstairs and out the front door, pleased to get out of that damn house. If only she could just keep on walking and rid herself of all of this forever.
Life always surprised her. As of yet, none of its hits were positive. Life as a McDade was no different to that as a Doherty. If nothing else, her experience helped her decision to forget about the new and return to the old. The habits some called destructive had kept her sane… or as sane as she ever wanted to be.
The following night, Whisper was on her way down the stairs just as the McDade brothers came in through the front door. Nicole and Burl had been there to greet them. After the initial jeering about why they were getting a welcome party, someone noticed the cut on Burl’s throat and the mood became more sinister.
The boys questioned their father on who’d gotten close enough, and had the balls, to come for him. Burl shrugged it off, swearing never to let her get that close again. That changed the mood. The men crowed about their father’s prowess assuming one of the patriarch’s mistresses had gotten kinky.
It sickened her.
When Whisper got to the bottom of the stairs, Zaid tried to make eye contact, but she ignored him. She tried to ignore all of them and headed for the door. Bosco said her name, probably under Zaid’s instruction; the two men had a silent language she didn’t speak. Although she’d paused with her hand on the front door handle, Burl had told his boys to let her go.
Let her go. Yeah, that’s what he wanted, for her to go and never come back. If Whisper had even an inclination that might be possible, she’d probably do it. But where would fleeing get her? Just like that brief moment in her father’s office, before her marriage, when she’d considered running, it didn’t take long to conclude that escaping would be hopeless.
Pleased to be out and away from her troubles, Whisper’s girlfriends were on hand to offer her all the support she needed. Support? Yes. Advice? No. She couldn’t tell her girls what had happened that week. Revealing the secret Burl had threatened to kill to protect would endanger them.
So she just threw herself into the mood of the club and forgot her troubles. That was the first Friday night she’d managed to make it out since her wedding. It felt good to be at Scooby’s, back in the swing of what had been her life for so long.
She drank and danced and made out with every man who put the moves on her. Whisper hadn’t been insane enough to bring her phone with her, so there was no way anyone could track her. She could be the twisted her that she recognized.
The last thing she wanted to worry about was reality. Whether her girls noticed her need for oblivion or not, she wasn’t sure. Any time they commented on her being the Wild One of old, she’d say something about living life to the max and missing her usual way of life.
On the dark dance floor, she was wrapped around a man who’d picked her up at the bar while she was waiting for another drink. They never got to the drink. He’d led her out onto the floor and pulled her into his arms, forcing their bodies together.
A minute later, they were kissing and she was drowning in the heady void of numb debauchery. There were no Dohertys there, no McDades, just a man and a woman, strangers in a smoke filled club, surrounded by writhing bodies and flashing lights. Anonymous, unidentifiable people with no past, no future, and no present.
He wasn’t even that good a kisser. She wasn’t even sure if she was attracted to him. There was no burn of desire or urgency of need. Whisper just wanted to be this person, the one who got validation in the knowledge that someone in the world wanted her, even if it was just for this minute.
Letting her arms fall from his neck, she found his hand in the dark. The music was too loud to say anything, but when she side-nodded and began to walk backwards, his grin spread. His glee betrayed that he’d caught her drift.
Scooby’s had been her haunt since she was a teenager. It wasn’t like anyone was ever going to card her, so she’d been able to get in and drink since well before it was legal in most countries. Her loyalty to the club also gave her insider knowledge on the layout.
Leaving the pound of the music behind, she led him out of the main club and down the corridor to a stairwell she knew had a fire exit at the bottom. They pushed out into an alley and she dragged him along, deeper into the shadows.
Whisper didn’t say anything, she put her back to the wall and pulled him to her. Whoever he was, he didn’t ask any questions, which was probably just as well for him. She was in no mood to talk and definitely didn’t want to get to know him.
After a brief kiss, she tipped up her chin to let him sink lower to kiss her neck. His hands slid up her body and cupped her breasts, squeezing and fondling her. Closing her eyes tight, Whisper tried to enjoy the need of his hot breath coming in short pants against her cleavage.
Men could get away with this kind of behavior. Her father. Her brothers. Burl McDade. They could do this without giving it a second thought. All she was doing was embracing the way the world truly was. Yet, for some infuriating reason, she had to keep repeating the names of those men in her head and reminding herself of the disgusting things they’d done to their loved ones.
When whoever he was crouched lower and touched the outside of her thigh to drag up her skirt, she pushed at his shoulders. Even the memory of her father fucking the server at her mother’s wake wasn’t working to justify her behavior.
Whisper couldn’t explain why her strength of feeling was so extreme. Suddenly, it just felt wrong.
“No,” she said. He didn’t seem to hear her and kept pulling at her skirt. “No, I don’t want to do this.”
“It’s okay,” he mumbled, pressing his mouth in
to her breast as he tried to squash his hand between her thighs.
Whisper kept them clamped shut. “No,” she said, shoving and struggling against him pushing back. “I can’t… I’m married.”
Her wedding ring was in her room at the McDade house, which just made her feel all the more sick. Had she known she was going to do this? Didn’t that make her just as bad as the rest of the bastards she couldn’t stomach looking at? How could anyone ever think infidelity felt good? She had no idea.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck about your husband. God, you’re so hot, just let me fuck you.”
The groan of want in his voice should’ve been enough to make her feel good. It didn’t. It made her question his sanity and just how far he’d go even against her wishes. In her work at the gym, Whisper labored to build up her strength, but there was only so much her frame could take. Unfortunately, her type, like this guy, were strong enough to overpower her, especially when they were hot and turned on and possibly drunk or high.
Giving in wasn’t part of her nature. “No,” she said. The more she tried to push him away, the harder he pushed back against her, forcing her into the wall. Damn it, she should’ve known better than to put herself in such a position. If he managed to take what he wanted, it would serve her right for being such an idiot. “No! I said no! Take your fucking hands off me! I’m married!”
She might have heard the shot before the guy buckled, but it was silenced, so it took her a second to identify the very specific sound. The pressure was suddenly gone. The guy was on the ground at her feet, yelping and writhing, holding the side of his knee, which appeared to be bleeding. Curious, Whisper’s head tilted in fascination. The dark stain spreading on his pale slacks mesmerized her.
“Fuck,” he yelped. “Fuck! You’re married to Razer McDade!”
The sound of his alias startled her. “How do you know that?”
“Peanut,” came the drawl that made her turn.
He was only ten feet away, so she had no idea how she’d missed him. Maybe the alcohol and the sight of the man who’d been groping her thrashing around on the ground had fogged her brain too much to be aware of anything.
“You bitch!”
Another shot blasted and the guy screamed while grabbing for the other knee. As Zaid came up to stand next to the guy, Whisper noticed the gun in his loose hand. Her husband raised it from his side, just enough to aim at the whimpering, struggling guy’s torso.
“Between the eyes or between the balls,” he asked, though she wasn’t sure who he was asking.
His gun moved up and then down in a pendulous action that suggested he was pondering which to aim for.
“Please,” the guy begged. “Please, I didn’t know.”
“Yeah,” Zaid drawled in what was barely a murmur.
Sliding his hand into his pocket, he kept the gun on the guy while retrieving something from his jeans. Raising his middle finger, Zaid flipped her the bird while showing something of hers encircling the top of his digit.
Her wedding ring.
Gratitude speared her. She grabbed for his hand, overjoyed to see the platinum band. Wrapping both hands around his fist, Whisper drew Zaid’s finger down and parted her lips to take it into her mouth. Sucking the ring from his finger, she caught it on the point of her tongue, and kept on going to draw his digit deeper against her tongue.
His heavy gaze slid around to her. She sucked his finger free of her lips to show him where she’d caught the ring. Pressing the end of her ring finger to her tongue, she slid it back onto her finger and moseyed closer to him.
Something about him being there changed her mood. No longer alarmed or concerned, Whisper lost all sense of being in any danger. That was even in spite of the armed man who had every right to be mad at her. No, suddenly everything was okay. She couldn’t explain it. Just Zaid being there made everything better.
Stepping in front of her husband, who had a gun in his hand, aimed at the guy crying and whining on the ground, she laid her hands on him. The guy was bleeding out and had just been shot in both knees. The sound of his distress didn’t irritate her. All she could feel was aroused by the man who’d somehow found her in exactly the moment she needed him.
Whisper couldn’t decipher the whites of his eyes, his brows were so low and obvious tension radiated from him. Tension she could do something about. Flattening her hand on his fly, she rubbed him through his jeans.
“Baby,” she purred, pushing her chest into him. “Mmm, my baby.”
“Suck it,” he said.
Whisper blinked, parting her lips in a slow smile. “No,” she whispered.
Never in her life had she wanted to blow a guy more. She had no idea how he’d found her or why he’d come swooping in to stake his claim. No man had ever done that. Sure, she’d never been in a relationship for more than twenty minutes before; but she’d never understood why possessive men were a turn on… Not until her husband showed up and put a bullet in the man who’d been kissing her.
Snatching her arm, Zaid rushed her back against the wall and dropped the gun onto the dumpster at their side. She didn’t know what he was going to do, didn’t know what to expect. With her palms flat on the walls at her side, Whisper could barely contain the beating of her frantic heart and the throb of her pulse wracking through every atom in her body.
Zaid was there. Her husband had come to claim her. He wasn’t beating her. Wasn’t screaming or punishing her, he was just looking at her with deep brown eyes so intense she could feel their every flicker.
Not that they went far. He fixated on her eyes, locked onto them, ensnaring her in the tractor beam of his gaze, giving her no chance to see anything else. Even the sound of the victim on the ground faded away to be replaced by the hum of her blood rushing through her ears. Whisper blocked out the world, everything except him.
It could have been her imagination, but the beat of the music seemed to be vibrating through the wall of the club at her back. It amplified her need, making it harder for her to draw in a breath. The combined effect of so many sensations threatened to buckle her legs and send her to the ground.
Zaid had other ideas. “You need to learn some respect,” he growled, slapping his palms onto the wall and bowing lower to get in close to her face.
Whisper tilted her defiant chin higher, hoping that maybe the temptation of her mouth would be enough to draw him in for a kiss. “Make me,” she whispered. “Jerk.”
Loosening his belt took seconds, his buttons were opened with a single pull. She expected him to force her down to her knees to do as he’d asked. Although Whisper planned to object a little, she’d give it her all after relenting.
“I am your goddamn husband.”
Zaid didn’t wrestle her to the ground. Instead he crouched to hook a hand around the back of each of her legs and stood straight, picking her off her feet. The idea, just the notion that he might take her, fulfil her there in such a savage way excited her. So much so that when her teeth dug into her lip, she tasted a hint of blood.
Dragging his hands higher, he drove a forearm under her ass to support her while at the same time scooping the crotch of her panties aside.
“Don’t you dare fuck me,” she murmured.
Zaid closed his eyes in a slow blink. The moment they opened to hers again, he shoved his hips forward, impaling her on the thick length of his demanding cock.
The sting of him stretching her, clenched her teeth in a hiss. At the same time, in contradiction, her body arched to his begging for more.
“You will respect me, Peanut,” he hissed. “You will learn your place is at the end of this cock.”
Oh, she was trying to fight the need, but she wanted it. Damn her for wanting it so bad.
“Asshole,” she said, smacking his shoulders before grabbing both to pull herself higher.
He surged forward, forcing her to take more of him, way before she was ready. The pain and shock and desire and need all clashed together.
Zaid wanted her, she could feel it, and not just because he wasn’t a gentle guy. The bulk of his hard dick wasn’t patient and kept pushing harder, stabbing itself into her, demanding more. He retreated slow and then plunged in so hard that she cried out. The sinister curl of satisfaction shone from his eyes.
Whisper grabbed for his neck, digging her nails in deep. “You prick… You’re a fucking asshole.”
“That’s right, Peanut,” he said, pumping himself into her. “Feel it. Hate it ‘cause you love it.”
She did love it; hate couldn’t be further from her mind. Whisper had never been filled like this. She loved every aching second of him driving himself into her, forcing her to take him so he could be satisfied inside her.
“Husband,” she groaned, thrusting her hips to match the pace of his as the rollercoaster of orgasm began to rush through her body. “Oh, fuck, husband! Fuck!”
Just at the very second climax was about to hit her, he stopped. Embedded all the way inside her, he squashed her pelvis between his and the wall, holding himself within her.
“Did I give you permission to come, wife?” he mumbled, his mouth in her hair, his breathing ragged.
She smacked his torso. Her hips wouldn’t stop moving. Her body was working of its own volition on instinct. Chewing her lip and moaning at the intense sensation of his girth occupying her, she didn’t even care that the concrete behind her was biting into her back. Whisper tried not to whimper because her little mews of yearning betrayed just how much he was affecting her. Showing any vulnerability would be a mistake. She tried clenching her jaw, but a whine of need managed to squeak its way from her throat.
Only Yours (A McDade Brothers Novel Book 2) Page 11