Only Yours (A McDade Brothers Novel Book 2)
Page 18
“I’m not,” Zaid said. “Would be if you hadn’t blasted that to shit.”
“Can I turn around?” Bosco asked.
“You can fuck off,” Zaid said.
“No,” Whisper said from beneath his shirt. “We have to tell him.”
“Uh, he knows,” Bosco said. “I guess if she’s talking you didn’t drug her. The rope for effect or did she put up a fight?”
“Shit,” Zaid murmured under his voice.
The tee-shirt moved from her face to her chest. Whisper smiled and blew her hair from her eyes while Zaid leaned over to untie her wrists. Her husband wasn’t so amused if his frown was any indication. Bosco, on the other hand, was smirking, which widened her smile.
“Why do you look so pleased with yourself?” she asked.
Zaid finished freeing her and sat up to drop the rope onto the floor. Whisper took the opportunity to sit up, and didn’t think anything of the tee-shirt falling away until Bosco’s smile became horror and he spun around again. His sudden act brought Zaid’s attention back to her. The sight of her naked breasts switched his scowl to a growl.
Grabbing for her and the straps of her dress, he clenched his jaw. “Flirt with other guys, fine, but they don’t get to touch… or to see.”
He glared into her eyes after thrusting her arms into her dress.
Wriggling to right the fabric, Whisper nodded, and offered him his tee-shirt back. “I’m trying, husband. I will try. I promise… But why does Bosco count? He loves you too much to take advantage of me.”
“Every guy counts,” he said, putting on his tee-shirt.
For a few seconds, Whisper considered asking about other women.
In a show of progress, instead of riling him further, she smiled and moved onto her knees behind him. “Okay, and just so we’re clear: I’m not interested in a threesome with you and your sister-in-law.”
Bosco didn’t wait for permission to turn, shock brought him around. Whisper rose higher and slid her hands onto Zaid’s shoulders for support.
“Stop eavesdropping,” Zaid murmured.
“You already told me off for listening into that conversation,” she said, ducking down to kiss the side of his neck. “You only get one lick of that lollipop.”
Bosco’s surprise became suspicion, he waved a finger side to side at them. “Something’s different. Something changed. What happened?”
“I don’t know what you could possibly mean,” Whisper said, enjoying feeling light, yet energized. Safe, yet exhilarated.
An odd contradiction of thoughts and emotions zipped through her… probably because of the orgasm Zaid had just given her. That was the most acceptable explanation she could come up with.
“Don’t play with him,” Zaid said, his voice that usual deep, almost flat tone.
“Fine,” she sighed, feigning petulance. Pushing away from his back, she started to climb off the bed. “I’m going to the bathroom. That should give you men a chance to talk.”
Zaid grabbed her wrist and yanked her back onto the bed at his side. Aroused by his forcefulness, Whisper caught her lip in her teeth, experiencing an odd sort of rush. Giving herself over to the attraction she’d resisted for so long supercharged every moment between them.
Once she’d caught her balance on the edge of the bed, Whisper looped her arm around his and opened her mouth to dig her teeth into his upper arm.
“Don’t play with me either, wife,” he said, looking down at her as she sunk her teeth in deeper. “You’re not going to the bathroom. You’re going to tell him.”
“Me?” she said, pulling her mouth away, keeping her arm coiled around his. “I’m not going to tell your friend about the thing that you found out completely on your own without my help.”
“Still don’t trust me, Peanut?” he said. “You can trust Bosco.”
“I probably trust him more than I trust you,” she said. Whisper didn’t have to worry about her and Bosco breaking each other. “And he hasn’t been inside me.”
“You do?” Zaid said, interest lighting his smoldering gaze. “Why?”
“Because Bosco won’t break me,” she said. “And he’ll let me go to the bathroom, which I’m going to do whether you want me to or not. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“Nothing?” he muttered.
As she was about to head for the bathroom, Zaid put a hand on her face, pulled it around and landed his mouth on hers.
“Okay, okay,” Bosco said, marching over. “Someone fill me in on what the hell is going on. You’re flirting with each other? In bed together? Having sex? Kissing?”
Whisper took a minute to recover after Zaid stole his mouth away. With her eyes closed, she stayed in midair, struck by how deep his kiss touched her. It didn’t feel like anything she recognized, which was disconcerting.
Zaid inhaled. “Bos—”
“I’m not done,” Whisper said and grabbed her husband’s shoulder to climb into his lap. Straddling him, she held his face in both hands and kissed him again. Angling her face one way and then the other, she kissed him both ways and then pulled his forehead to hers. “Why did you have to kiss me, jerk?”
Coiling her arms around his neck, she slipped her tongue between his lips and began to rock against his groin.
Zaid took her waist and twisted to toss her back onto the bed. “Peanut, cool your jets,” he said and looked to Bosco. “Nicole’s locked in the bathroom. We’re keeping her there.”
“Wh… why?” Bosco said, coming closer.
Whisper stayed on her back and stretched her leg, pointing her toes to the edge of the bed where she’d been sitting a moment before. Zaid’s hand curled around her foot. So although he was looking to his friend, he was staying connected to her as well. Crooking her other knee, she rested her foot on Zaid’s back, stroking him while he relayed the afternoon’s events to Bosco.
Even when Whisper extended her leg and laid her calf on his shoulder, he kept on talking, explaining everything, including what she’d told him about her finding out.
Her eyes got heavy. It was crazy that she was so relaxed that sleep was an attractive option. But her stomach grumbled reminding her that a lifetime ago, she’d been heading downstairs for food. Forcing herself to sit up next to Zaid, Whisper stretched and yawned before boosting up to rub her face in his hair above his ear.
“I’m going to forage for food,” she murmured, breathing him in.
Forcing herself onto her feet, Whisper bobbed her brows at Bosco after Zaid smacked her ass hard.
On her tiptoes, Whisper scampered down through the darkened house to the kitchen on the lowest floor. She made up some sandwiches and grabbed a six pack from the fridge while wondering if it would be wrong to mix margaritas. Though she herself was riding a high, it wasn’t like they were celebrating. The potential for everything to go to shit still hung heavy in the air. Making the cocktail could tempt fate into screwing with them.
She heard someone coming down the stairs and chastised herself for not bringing her blade. There were a bunch of knives in the kitchen, but none matched hers. The sight of Bosco’s outline in the hall relaxed her, so she went to begin chopping fruit.
Bosco didn’t say anything, which wasn’t like him. Whisper assumed he was absorbing Zaid’s tale, so she kept cutting fruit and tossing it into a large bowl, giving him some time to process. A cabinet opened and she heard him retrieve what sounded like a liquor bottle. She smiled. Shock had been her reaction on first learning of the affair and the McDades were new to her. Bosco had known them a long time.
Glass hit glass, there was pouring, and then a bottle hit the granite-top hard. “I have never held information back from Zay.”
Whisper stopped chopping and took a moment to absorb his words. Paranoid or not, his tone sort of implied accusation. So much for Bosco being open-minded about her.
“Wait a sec, are you…” She put the knife down and turned around. “You’re pissed at me?”
“Whis—”
“Nicki’s on birth control,” he blurted out.
Turned out she wasn’t the one most clued up. Except the new piece of the puzzle didn’t fit with what she’d been told. “What?”
Bosco moved away from the counter to get closer. Whisper leaned back to check no one was around the stairs.
“Zay is staying with Nicole,” Bosco said, inching nearer. “Parker needed someone to get the drug, I got it for him. His father told him to do it. Nicole was going nuts about kids. Parker and Burl, they decided the business was more important. Parker tried to talk to Nicole about it, but… she was adamant… Burl suggested doing it without her knowing… Nicole likes her wine, it’s not difficult for her husband to spike her… when she’s out, he gives her the shot.”
“Burl’s suggestion,” she murmured. “So while Burl is telling Nicole how important it is that she get pregnant with a McDade baby as quickly as possible, he’s telling Parker to give his wife a contraceptive shot that she knows nothing about?”
Shed new light on why Parker wouldn’t go to the clinic too; he wasn’t just being a stubborn jackass.
Bosco bobbed his head. “Yeah, and… I didn’t think it was a big deal. I take care of things for Parker and Doran once in a while. Zay’s never been interested in his brothers’ drama, so I just never mentioned it… I never mentioned it, Whisper.”
Something made her reach out to rest a comforting hand on his upper arm. “Zay and I had sex,” she said. The look of subdued panic on his face became a half frown when he squinted at her. “You know we weren’t having sex… I mean we did, but then we weren’t and…” She sighed. “Okay, so I don’t know what you know about our relationship, but we weren’t and now we are… Well, we did. I had sex with my husband. Great sex with my husband.”
“Okay,” he said, drawing out the word. “I figured that out for myself upstairs. Why are you telling me?”
“We’ve had sex and he didn’t ask about birth control. He didn’t ask before, during, or after. My husband has never asked me about birth control.” Whisper leaned in to murmur, “And we didn’t use condoms.”
His head tilted in a shallow shake. “I don’t…”
“He doesn’t know about his wife’s method of contraception, why would he know about his sister-in-law’s?” She rubbed his arm. “You didn’t do anything wrong… What did he say when you told him?” His lips thinned; she stopped rubbing. “Upstairs, just now, you… you did tell him… didn’t you?”
He cringed. “I…”
“Bosco,” she whined, sagging back until her hip hit the counter. “Zay and I are really working hard on this trust thing. It means something to him.” Whisper feigned indifference with an eye roll. “God knows why, the man’s a sap.” One side of Bosco’s mouth rose until he breathed out a laugh. “I know, right? Anyway, I thought the only way we could give each other a chance and maybe let this be real was if we could trust each other. As soon as this happened, when I saw Nicki and Burl, I wanted to tell him. Once I figured out I couldn’t, I thought that was it. I couldn’t trust him because I couldn’t ask him to trust me. How could I when I was lying to him? I lied to my husband. The moment I lied by omission, that was it, our marriage was over.”
“Doomed,” he said. “That’s what you meant in Kitty’s… you said your marriage was doomed because of this.”
She shrugged. “Not exactly, well… yeah, I knew the moment I decided not to tell him that our marriage was a sham.”
“But you were honest, and he didn’t turn his back on you.”
Her attention wandered. “Yeah.”
Thinking about that, Whisper turned around, returning to her fruit.
Bosco moved in at her side and took out another chopping block to begin working on the watermelon. “What does that mean?” he asked. “You thought it was doomed because you weren’t being honest. You couldn’t ask for his trust because you didn’t deserve it. But you’ve been honest now. Everything is out in the open. You can ask for his trust because you’re not holding anything back.”
Bosco was giving voice to the exact thoughts running around in her mind. Since having a breakthrough with Zay, their future became less clear. Was it a breakthrough? So much had happened; so much was different.
Until that day, her future with Zay had been a non-starter. He’d stood by her. Whisper had said she wanted to be with him, that she wanted them to be together. Had she meant that? It had been an impulse. Saying the words just felt right. They felt right. Except, thinking about it, overthinking it maybe, Whisper couldn’t figure it out. What did being together mean? What did she want from the future?
No matter how she tried to come up with an answer, she kept hitting the same wall.
She and Bosco finished with the salad and put it in the fridge. Whisper washed her hands first. As she was drying, he used the sink.
“Zay and I can’t have a future,” she said.
He glanced her way. “Because…”
Whisper gave him the towel when she was done with it. “Because Burl wants Doran to marry a Byrne. Because when my father hears that, he’ll come for me. This marriage is over because my life is over. No amount of desire or attraction or honesty is going to change that.”
Leaving him, she grabbed the six pack and the tray of sandwiches and returned upstairs.
“One of you two better start fucking talking,” Zay said, moving his eyes from her to Bosco, back and forth.
In the bedroom again, her husband was seated on the couch at the end of the bed. Bosco sat in the window. Whisper was on the floor, leaning against the wall by the nanny’s bedroom door, her legs stretched out straight in front of her.
They’d eaten the sandwiches and were drinking the beer. Having decided Nicole wouldn’t want beer or bread, they figured they’d wait and feed her fruit salad later whenever Whisper went down to retrieve it. That was really just the mens’ way of saying they didn’t care about eating fruit salad.
For most of the last hour, Whisper had been thinking about what she’d said downstairs. She knew it was on Bosco’s mind too. Though, if she had to guess, she’d say he was more preoccupied with what he hadn’t told Zay.
Resting her head on the wall, she rolled it to look toward the window. “Do you think if I got pregnant my father would let me come to term before he killed me?” she asked the hypothetical question, but received no response, even after she looked to each of the blank men. “Seriously. I know Burl wants the alliance over. But a Doherty/McDade baby would be a difficult card for my father to ignore… He’d have to try to play it, wouldn’t he? I might be out, but my child—”
“Our child,” Zay said.
She pointed her beer at him, sitting up straight and crossing her legs. “Right! Exactly! Our child.” Whisper smiled. “The child would be innocent. No man in his right mind would cast out a potential heir… That child would have McDade and Doherty blood.” A thought struck her, she frowned. “Unless it was a girl… Hmm…” She slumped back against the wall. “Damnit.”
“In what part of your hypothetical do you see me letting either man have any control over our child… or my wife?” Zay asked.
“Okay,” she muttered, splaying her fingers around her beer. “Okay. It was just a question.” Whisper drank some beer. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I got my implant renewed right before we got hitched… No babies over here.” She narrowed her eyes on Bosco. “Isn’t that interesting, Bosco?”
“Why should he care about your method of birth control?” Zay asked.
“He shouldn’t,” she said, raising her beer to her lips again. “But you should.”
“Why?” Zay asked. “Why should I care? All your blood tests came back clear after we got married… You’re clean and I know I’m clean.”
“Because McDades are too pure to get STIs?”
“Becaus
e I got tested the same time and haven’t been with another woman since we got married. Have you screwed another guy? You think you caught something?”
She scowled at him. “What does that have to do with birth control? Even if we’re not passing diseases between each other, we might have got pregnant if I hadn’t taken care of it.”
“I don’t give a fuck about getting you pregnant,” he said and shifted to the edge of the couch. “I do give a fuck if you fucked another guy.”
“No other guy. Tonight isn’t about us, lover,” she said, not too amused by his accusation, but she deserved it. “I just wanted to point out, for the record, that you didn’t ask your wife about birth control.”
“Because I knew you were clean and figured you’d want to get pregnant eventually…” He slid back on the couch. “But it turns out McDade sons shoot blanks anyway, so…”
Pushing out her chin, Whisper turned to Bosco again, urging him to tell the truth. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that… husband,” she said, widening her eyes.
Zay must have noticed her insistence. In her peripheral vision, she noted he turned to look at Bosco too.
“What’s going on?” Zay asked. “What’s she talking about, Bos?”
Bosco sighed and slouched deeper into his seat. “Parker shoots Nicole up with contraceptive,” he said. Zay grew rigid. “More than a year ago, Parker came and asked me to get it. He said Nicole was harping on about kids, but he and Burl didn’t think it was the right time. She refused to take any kind of contraceptive, so they decided Parker should inject her while she was having one of her episodes.”
“Episodes?” Whisper asked.
Downstairs Bosco had talked about spiking Nicole when she was drinking, but an “episode” suggested it was more than that.
Sitting up, Bosco caught his fist in his opposite open hand. “Few times a year, Nicole goes on a binge, gets emotional about the time she doesn’t get to spend with Parker,” he explained. “Sometimes she gets physical, lashes out or smashes up stuff. She gets drunk, goes on about the business and what it takes from her.”