“Huh,” Whisper said, wishing she’d seen that with her own eyes. “Can’t help that Parker’s putting drugs in her glass too… I sort of wondered if Burl sent Parker away on purpose, so he’d have a clear shot at Nicole when she was lonely and suggestible… She’s probably always suggestible.”
“I can’t believe this,” Zay said, running a bewildered hand through his hair.
His whole world was upside down. It was a lot for him to take on.
Whisper crawled across the floor toward him. “Baby,” she murmured, and kneeled up to slide a hand onto his thigh.
He covered her hand with his own, keeping his focus on Bosco. “You’re saying he knew. Burl knew she was on birth control and she didn’t. Nicole couldn’t get pregnant no matter how much he fucked her.”
Bosco shrugged. “I don’t think anything is a hundred percent, but… yeah.”
Zay took some time to reflect. They all did. Whisper didn’t like the churn of anxiety in her gut. She wasn’t the type to get anxious; she was the type to take action. Realizing that the negative emotion wasn’t for herself was disconcerting.
Whisper was worried about the man above her. “What do you want to do, baby?” she asked, curling her fingers around his hand. “Tell me and you’ll get it.”
He didn’t acknowledge her at first. After a moment, his attention crept around her way. Even when he was looking her in the eye, he didn’t speak. It didn’t matter that there was something fierce and angry in his gaze, Whisper just sat and waited.
She didn’t expect him to bend down and clamp an arm around her waist so that when he stood up, he picked her straight off her feet.
Whisper wrapped her legs around his hips.
“Watch Nicki,” Zay said over his shoulder to Bosco and then carried her through to the nanny’s room, kicking the door shut behind them.
Lying naked in the nanny’s room that had been her haven since moving into the McDade home, Whisper was content and relaxed. The moment she recognized herself drifting toward slumber, her eyes snapped open. Her rules had never been lax. They meant creating distance, she didn’t know any other way.
Blinking once, she pushed away from the male chest under her body to sit up.
“What’s up?” her drowsy husband asked.
After rubbing her face, Whisper slapped each of her cheeks and then sank her fingers into her hair. “I almost fell asleep,” she said and scooted further away, tossing her legs off the edge of the bed.
“So?”
“So…” she said, slithering down to the floor to gather up the clothes her husband had helped her remove an hour or two ago. “We haven’t fed Nicole and Doran could be home any minute…” Untwisting her dress, she tried to figure out if putting it back on was a good idea. Getting something more durable and warmer, suitable for being outside at night, might be a better plan. Whisper had no idea if and when she’d have to move, but it could happen fast. “I’ve never slept with a man in my life… I’m not about to start now.”
The mattress shifted. She paid little attention and stood up to put on her underwear, figuring she’d ditch the dress and change clothes. Though that meant going through Zay’s room to get to the closet. Bosco was out there and Zay seemed to have something against her skin being on show when other guys were around.
“I’m your husband,” he said from the bed behind her.
Whisper wasn’t sure what difference that made to her clothes, but was probably too caught up in her own thoughts to interpret what he was saying. The fog of hormones still pulsed through her, so making sense of any point was difficult.
Turning around, she set her hands on her hips to scrutinize his position lying on his side in her sheets, his head propped on a hand, his defined torso on show.
“How come you always wore a tee-shirt to bed when I was blowing you?”
“I knew if you saw the goods, you wouldn’t be able to help yourself.”
He didn’t smile but was playing with her.
“I had the goods in my mouth, husband,” she said. “And I’ve seen your body before, I knew you were hot.”
Breathing out, he sank onto his back. “Having your mouth on me was enough… I didn’t need your whole damn body rubbing on mine to remind me of what I couldn’t have.”
So it was his way of preventing himself from wanting more… from taking more.
“You could’ve had it,” she said, crawling back onto the bed, blinking her sultry eyes. “I wouldn’t have said no.”
Whisper climbed on top of him and kissed him again.
“Exactly the problem,” he said, scooping her hair away from their faces to hold it at the back of her head. “You’ve got so much respect for your family and so little for yourself.”
“Blind respect,” she said, pushing her body against him, her lips dancing within a breath of his. “I didn’t think about it, but you’re right. If we’d been screwing from the beginning, I wouldn’t have had a chance to…”
Raising her hovering lips, her focus switched to his mouth.
“A chance to what?”
“I have to get changed,” Whisper said and tried to get out of bed, but he caught both of her wrists and pulled them together against his chest, forcing her to stay.
“A chance to what, Peanut?”
This man was intense and serious and determined. It didn’t seem fair that she was such a mess.
“Why did you have to kiss me?”
“Because you were ready,” he said. “I thought you were ready.”
“You didn’t want me to walk out,” she said, twisting and tugging at her wrists. “Let me go, Zay. Jesus, you’re hurting me.”
His grip was so tight that it bruised her wrists, but he didn’t care. Flipping over, he pinned her on her back, slamming her arms to the mattress by her head.
“I didn’t think it was possible for any man to hurt you, Peanut.”
“It wasn’t,” she said, struggling under him. “Until you fucking kissed me, you asshole.”
“I was never gonna let you walk out on me. I never will.”
“You don’t have a choice,” she said, trying to squeeze her knees under him.
The asshole was too strong. Whisper knew how to fight back when she got the chance. Her damn husband wasn’t giving her one.
“I’m only yours. I fucking said it. You are only mine. Say it, Whisper. Say it now.”
Words didn’t mean anything. They weren’t truth just because they were uttered. “Zay—”
“Fucking say it,” he said, raising her wrists just to slam them down again.
Spitting her hair from her mouth, she stopped struggling to glare up at him. “I have to die for this. You don’t. I will not take you down with me.”
He bowed lower, bearing his teeth. “I am only yours.”
What was that supposed to mean? Whisper didn’t want it to mean anything. She didn’t want to trap him in any situation where he’d be forced to give up his own life.
“You still have a chance,” she said, licking her lips. “You and Bosco can talk to Nicole, convince her to end it with Burl. If you keep his secret—”
“Why? Why would we want to keep his secret or let her off the hook for this?”
“Because it’s what we do!”
The heat of his panting breath clashed with hers. Pinned there under him, matching her anger with his own, Whisper didn’t know what was worse. Was it that she was asking him to save the McDades or that she cared about how their destruction would impact him?
“The McDades go down,” he said with only a slight edge of frustration. “The Byrnes take it… Is that it? You asked me to burn their house down? You don’t want them to have it? The Dohertys hate them that much?”
“You think there’s any part of me that believes it’s gonna make the slightest bit of difference to the Dohertys? We’re done. Finished.”
“Your father won’t accept that.”
She exhaled a whisper of a sinister laugh. “No. It makes me
kinda sorry that I’ll miss the meltdown.”
“You won’t miss a damn thing. Tell me and you’ll get it.”
The line was his, even though she’d adopted it on occasion. Her husband was asking what she wanted and only one thing came to mind.
“Let me go,” she said. “Give me a fighting chance.”
His head was shaking before she’d finished saying the words. “You said together. Downstairs, you said—”
“I know what I said,” she snapped. “I was an idiot. For a minute, I thought…”
“What? That we could stop with the bullshit and be fucking honest.”
“Honest,” she said, tugging at her wrists. “Will you let me fucking go?”
Though Whisper asked, alight with the heat of infuriation, she hadn’t expected him to release her and vault up onto his feet. Rising to her elbows, she watched him retrieve his underwear and tug it back on.
“You’re pushing at me,” he said, his back to the bed.
“Yes,” she said. “Because I’m toxic. Persona non grata here, at my father’s, everywhere.”
“Okay,” he said, turning to face her. “Then we get outta here.”
Sitting up, Whisper shook her head. “You have a place here.”
“I haven’t wanted my place here for years.”
That he could say it with such eerie calm knocked her off kilter. “You don’t mean that.”
But doubt wasn’t fathomable in his expression or his voice. “I figured out none of this was about family the day Score was arrested.”
No one mentioned Phoenix McDade, also known as Score, not in anything more than a passing reference.
“Your brother,” she said. “He wasn’t at the reception.”
Zay cleared his throat. “Haven’t seen him for years. Not since he was in prison.”
“He did time for murder, right?”
“Yeah… Murder he didn’t commit.”
Whisper wasn’t sure she’d ever heard the details. Caelan had mentioned it at their reception. Even when it was being talked about, she hadn’t paid much attention.
“Parker set him up,” she said. “Is that true?”
“Yeah,” he said. “No way Score was coming back after that. Would you if your own brother set you up?”
“Did you know?”
“At the time, no,” he said. “Later.”
“Why did Parker do it?”
“ ‘Cause Score’s smarter than him, quicker than him, better than him. Burl still tries to bring him back to the fold… Score’s afraid of no one. Not even Burl.”
“You call him by his street name.”
Zay backed up enough to lean against the wall by the door. “The only one of us who actually preferred it.” His brow lowered in a semi-frown. “Not sure I’ve ever heard anyone use his first name.”
Half a minute of silence passed. “What are you afraid of?” she asked, interrupting his reflection. “You said Score was afraid of no one. He made the break from the family. You never did.”
“Score sees it that the family broke from him. Parker sent him to prison. Don’t think Burl knew he’d set it up at the time.”
“And when he found out?”
“Burl went nuts. Nothing came of it… But he was fucking the man’s wife.”
“It can’t have been going on that long… can it?”
Whisper hadn’t really thought much about when the affair started. Maybe because the idea of the two together was so sickening.
“Nicole wanted kids out the gate,” Zay said. “They got married when Score was inside, but they’ve been together forever. First couple of years was okay, but it’s always been a fight to keep her on birth control.”
“Why doesn’t he want kids?”
“He does what Burl tells him… the power goes to his head. Guess he played the loyal son all those years ‘cause he knew the truth about Score’s conviction could come out.”
“And when it did, Burl let it go because he was sleeping with Nicole? That could mean it’s been going on for years.”
“Who knows?” he said, shrugging away from the wall. “I don’t give a damn about them. It’s all fucking sick.”
“And incestuous,” she said, taking a minute to process before looking up at him. “You can’t deny that this is the safest place for you. Confront Burl if you want, tell Parker the truth, but you have to know that won’t lead to anything good for Nicki.”
“She made her bed.”
“Same could be said for me,” Whisper said. “Parker never taught her to fight, never wanted her to rebel. He does what Burl tells him. Nicole’s witnessed that, witnessed how you all follow your father’s orders without question. What was she supposed to do when he made a move on her?”
Though there was a chance Nicole had made the first move, Whisper doubted it. Flirting, letting her father-in-law know it was an option was one thing, actually laying hands, or lips, on the man first would be too risky a game for Nicole to play. That would be showing the patriarch that she was open to cheating on her husband.
“You did it,” Zay said. “You told him to go to hell.”
She snorted a slight laugh. “I put a knife to his throat.”
Whisper wasn’t really paying attention to his eyes narrowing until he came a step closer. “It was you… You cut him.”
“What do you want from this?” she asked, neither confirming nor denying his suspicion. It sort of went without saying. “What’s your end game? If Doran wants to marry Madison, it’s over, right?”
“He won’t. Doran’s not much happier with what’s going on than I am. He idolized Score.”
“You know him and Nicki are close,” she said, leaning back a little. “I know she said her and Doran weren’t fucking, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be ready to watch her go down.”
“He feels sorry for her. Always has… They’re closest in age.”
“Like I said, they’re close. He won’t want her to be hurt.”
“And I don’t want you to be hurt.”
Sweet, but irrelevant. “Doran’s nice to me. That doesn’t mean he’s invested in my safety.”
“You’ve got a damn contradiction for everything,” he said. “You did nothing wrong. Nicole has done something wrong. If anyone deserves to be hurt, it’s her.”
“Burl won’t be hurt. Do you think he’s innocent too? Because I gotta tell you, I’m no saint.”
Before he could respond, there was a knock at the door. Zay backed up to open it an inch.
“Doran’s downstairs,” Bosco’s voice carried from the other room.
Zay pulled open the door as he strode over to collect his clothes to put them back on. “I’m gonna talk to him,” he said, lifting his head to look at her. “Do I need to lock the door?”
She smiled and nodded past him. “Bosco’s here. Where am I gonna go?”
He came over to brush a quick kiss on her lips and stayed low to look her in the eye. “You could take Bosco. Do I need to lock it?”
“I’ll stay put.”
Though she wouldn’t guarantee for how long.
Zay kissed her again then stood up to head for the door.
“She couldn’t take me,” Bosco said, moving out of Zay’s path.
“She could take you,” he said, patting his friend on the shoulder once as he passed.
A moment later, the outer bedroom door closed. Whisper held her breath, waiting to see if he’d believe her word or not. There was no click. He hadn’t locked it.
She grinned. “Zay has to say that. If I’m in a bad mood next time my husband wants to get laid, he’ll hit resistance.”
Climbing off the bed, Whisper did a feeble job of making it, then strutted the unconvinced Bosco’s way. She squeezed past him on her journey to the closet.
She was still trying to figure out what to wear when Bosco came to join her. Unlike her husband, she heard Bosco coming.
“You suit each other,” Bosco said.
“He says after see
ing us together for like an hour.”
“You know about the first time he noticed you.”
She glanced over her shoulder to find Bosco was literally just inside the door, sort of half peeking at her around the end vanity.
“Are you going to tell me that he cares? That he’ll endanger himself for me? I’ve been saying the same thing. If you want to take a shot at telling him to cut me loose, go for it. You have my blessing.”
“Actually, I was going to say the opposite.”
That was interesting enough to take her focus away from the clothes. “What?”
“You’ve gotta stick with him, Whis. Both of us have to stick with him.”
Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to her how she and Bosco were connected. Zay and Bosco were best friends. Her being married to the former put her and the latter at a crossroads.
If Zay stuck by his family and she was cast out, Bosco would be his rock. As long as she’d known them, there had never been any doubt of their loyalty to each other.
“Where did you meet?” she asked, folding her arms. “You and Zay, what’s the story with the two of you?”
“Known each other a long time.”
Unconsciously, her observations of the friends brought her to a bunch of conclusions. “You’re not loyal to the McDades. It’s not the family. You’re loyal to him.”
Somehow that had translated to her. Bosco was a part of the family. Zay was his way in, his facilitator. Yet, his devotion to the McDades didn’t eclipse his fidelity to his master. Something must have happened to connect the men on such a deep level.
“If he goes, I go, yeah,” Bosco said.
His loyalty wasn’t in question. Although he’d been worried about withholding, what turned out to be an important fact, from Zay, his friend hadn’t punished him for it.
“It’s more than that,” she said, stepping forward to slide a knee onto the central bench, lowering herself onto it. “How long have you been at his side?”
“You don’t want to hear about my history with Zay,” he said. “All you need to know is we’re solid.”
“Staying with the family would be the smartest thing for him to do.”
“Why?” Bosco asked, peering at her. “The way I see it, the family aren’t exactly looking out for each other’s best interests.” That much sort of went without saying considering the patriarch was sleeping with his daughter-in-law. “I’ve been trying to get Zay to walk away for years.”
Only Yours (A McDade Brothers Novel Book 2) Page 19