With her lips parted in a pout, Whisper thrust her hips against him, pushing him away from the counter so she could slide down onto her feet. Turning her back to him, she grabbed her pitcher and sashayed out to the courtyard. Her husband liked games. That was good to know. Very good to know.
Whisper spent most of dinner that Sunday fighting to keep Zaid’s hands out of her skirt beneath the table. Even when she stood up, he wasn’t shy about sliding a hand up the back of her thigh to grab and grope her ass. At bedtime, her refusal to give him head gave her a glimpse of what astounded really looked like.
After that moment of shock, like he couldn’t believe she was actually refusing for real, his lips curled. Pride shone through his feral smile, flooding her system with a potent shot of adrenaline. Fueled by that power, she almost ran over to his bed to launch herself on top of him.
But Whisper stayed strong and swayed her tush into her room, blowing him a kiss over her shoulder before disappearing from his view.
The whole next week ended up being much of the same. Playing the tease was an enlivening change to playing the flirt. In standard play, Whisper wouldn’t tease cock; she’d always been interested or not interested. Teasing her husband wasn’t standard play. Zaid was teaching her the virtue of saying no even when she was interested.
Another bonus of their new dynamic meant that instead of waiting, she got her orgasm… though it was at her own hand.
With the door between their bedrooms open, she’d decided to take her playing to another level by pleasuring herself… and not being discreet about it. About halfway through, her eyes had opened just a sliver. And there he was, propped on the doorframe, watching her through the darkness. If he’d expected her to stop or be embarrassed, she disappointed him. Whisper kept on going until she came hard and loud.
That became their new routine. It thrilled her far more than their original dynamic.
Whisper was still thinking about the night ahead and how eager she was to tease her husband when she ran up the external stairs to go inside. Her last client had cancelled his training session at the gym. Being home that early on a Wednesday wasn’t usual, but she’d decided to get back to the McDade house to enjoy some time in the tub before Zaid appeared. Whisper was never exactly sure when he’d be home, but she’d be ready whenever he showed.
Sometimes he was home when she got back from work at the gym. More often than not, it was dark before they saw each other. That meant fending for herself most nights at dinner time. She’d eat with Nicole or by herself in the kitchen or courtyard.
Despite wanting to see him, Whisper didn’t mind if her husband was late. His tardiness supplied her a great excuse to give him the evil eye and act even more unimpressed. Those were the times she came hardest as he watched from the doorway.
Preoccupied by thoughts of her husband’s heated gaze, Whisper was about to swing herself around the bannister to run up the stairs when something at the back of the house clattered. Startled to a stop, she forgot all about sex and dipped a hand into the purse hanging across her body to pull out her cellphone.
Creeping in the direction of the sound, she caught glimpses down at her phone as she scrolled through the numbers to stop on Zaid’s. With her thumb hovering over the call button, she kept going forward. If it was nothing, then there was no need to call and disturb whatever he was doing like she was a frightened rabbit. But if someone was there who shouldn’t be, she’d find a way to delay them long enough for the cavalry to arrive… At the very least she’d get close enough to lay eyes on the fucker.
The living room was clear, but she expected that. The clatter had come from deeper in the house, further to the rear. The stairs to the back terrace led into Burl’s office. Someone could’ve snuck in the there.
Tiptoeing to the slightly ajar office doors, Whisper’s thumb drifted away from its poised place. As she got closer, the noises took shape, becoming easier to identify. Whoever was back there was no intruder. They were welcome, very welcome… in a definite carnal way.
The feminine pants and squeals were punctuated by the slapping of flesh and deep male grunts. Never shy, Whisper was curious enough about who might be fucking in the middle of the afternoon in Burl’s office to peek through the crack between the sliding doors.
What she saw shocked her through to her core. What was intended to be a naughty voyeuristic moment changed to something far more sinister in a snap.
Whisper could have retreated; that would’ve been the smart course. But something drove her forward. Maybe it was the sight of something so wrong. Like her father fucking the server at her mom’s wake. Some things were just so wrong that they shouldn’t go by unrecognized.
Shoving open the doors, she strode in and stopped.
Burl’s shirt was only part open. He hadn’t even removed his pants, though they were definitely open. That was how he thrust himself into the naked woman bent over his desk, jolting her every time he surged forward.
Burl raised his attention, but finished his advance as Nicole lifted her head. Both spied Whisper standing there, a few feet inside the room. Although it only took half a second for the couple to notice they’d been discovered, the image was so disturbing, it burned itself onto her eyeballs and seemed to drag forever.
“Whisper!” Nicole wailed, grabbing at her chest, though she had nothing to cover herself with.
Whisper folded her arms, happy to stick around and ensure there was no mistaking what was going on. Nicole stood up so fast that Burl had no time to react. The woman’s head came into fast contact with her lover’s chin. Burl cried out and clutched his face, staggering back a step and disengaging from Nicole, who was frantic in her hunt for a way to cover herself up.
The modesty seemed crazy and misplaced. They’d spent days in the beauty parlor together and seen just about every part of each other there was to see.
“Hello, Pretty Nicki,” Whisper said. “Nice day for it.”
Turning around, she started out of the room figuring there wasn’t anything that the couple could say to justify their actions. That didn’t stop Nicole from chasing after her. She caught up just as Whisper reached the bottom of the stairs.
Nicole still wasn’t clothed. She clutched her dress to the front of her body, holding it to her chest and her crotch.
“Oh, Whisper!” she called. Whisper started up the stairs without hesitating. “Whisper, please wait!”
“Wait,” Whisper said over her shoulder without slowing down. “Why? Is it my turn with Daddy next? I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Whisper!”
Grabbing her arm on the landing, Nicole tugged on her. Whisper whirled fast, her fist pulled high, ready to strike. Nicole’s gasp gave her a second to assess the situation. Registering the stairs behind her could-be victim, Whisper exhaled. If she hit Nicole, as she wanted to, the woman would tumble back down the stairs. The last thing she wanted was for her sister-in-law to break her neck before her husband found out what kind of a harlot she was.
Taking her frustration out on the bannister, Whisper slammed her fist into it hard. A shot of pain blasted through her arm, but she ignored it to point in the woman’s face with her other hand.
“I knew you were screwing around. I knew it,” she hissed, getting up close to Nicole, forcing her to clutch at the bannister to keep her balance. “I didn’t give a fuck when I thought you were doing it outside the family. That would be none of my business. But this… it’s sick.”
Turning around, she started along the landing, heading to the next set of stairs.
“Please! Please, Whisper! You don’t understand! It’s not what it looks like.”
The woman’s pleading shouldn’t make a damn sight bit of difference. Yet, it enflamed her infuriation. She was filled by a heated sense of betrayal that was probably completely inappropriate. Just the idea that Nicole thought she could argue her way out of it made Whisper spin again when she got to the bottom of the next set of stairs.
“What? I can’t
wait to hear how our father-in-law’s dick in your pussy is not what it looks like. Go. Please. Explain.” She faux gasped, crossing her hands on her cleavage. “Oh my God, was he raping you? ‘Cause if I was being raped, I wouldn’t be pushing back and whispering little moans of satisfaction.”
“Parker and I can’t have kids,” Nicole said in a rush. “I… I don’t know why. I… I went to get all the tests and it’s not me. I… I’m ovulating, my system is fine, but he… he won’t listen… He won’t go for the tests.”
Smiling, Whisper wasn’t impressed. “Oh, and one McDade’s spunk is the same as another’s? I can’t wait until you tell Zay it’s his turn to take a swing…” Leaning forward, she stage whispered, “Word of warning, he’s hung bigger than Daddy, so you might want to take a deep breath before he slides on home.”
Losing her contrition, Nicole huffed in anger. “This is just what you wanted, isn’t it? To ruin this family! You Doherty—”
“You’re doing the ruining yourself,” Whisper argued back. “You can’t fuck your husband’s father and think that it’s going to end well!”
“If you tell Parker—”
“Parker? Why would I tell him?” she asked, sneering at Nicole in her shame. “I’m going to tell my husband… because unlike you, I respect my husband. I wouldn’t dream of keeping something like this a secret from him.”
Continuing up the stairs, it hit Whisper that despite their numerous mistakes, she and Zaid had actually made a lot of headway. At the beginning of their marriage, she believed the name McDade was synonymous with scum and psychopaths. Yet, the truth was, she had more freedom as a McDade than her father had ever afforded her.
Sure, Cyrus had never cared about her social life or her opinions enough to argue with her. Why would he? His word was law in their home. Even in her attempts to rebel, she’d always eventually bowed to his will. In the McDade house, she could breathe and wasn’t on edge, waiting for the next hit to come.
Being wild with men and partying was a way of escaping the house, liberating herself from her father’s decree that she should be seen and not heard. The only task he ever set to her was cooking for the family when his housekeeper wasn’t in. Whisper was terrible at it and at serving, yet, it always fell to her. Her father enjoyed casting her as the weak victim in his old fashioned regime.
Whisper didn’t feel like a victim in the McDade house. The resentment she’d built up towards her father, from growing up as a child right through to her adult life, wasn’t present inside McDade walls. There Whisper could just be a woman living her life, without worrying she might end up with a black eye or a fracture because someone was having a bad day.
McDade men were tough. They could be cutting and cruel, but none of them had ever raised a hand to her. Maybe it would be different if she were in the field with them. Their apathy probably had something to do with the fact that none of them cared enough about her to argue with her. She’d never injected herself into their family politics either. At least she hadn’t until walking in to find the patriarch inside his daughter-in-law.
Whisper went to her room and closed the door, despising for the first time that it couldn’t be locked from the inside. After some pondering, she resolved to wait until Zaid came home. No one pursued her into the suite, so she got to soak in the tub. It might not be as relaxing as she’d hoped, but at least the door locked, assuring her peace.
The Dohertys were fucked up. Neither of her brothers ever married, so there was no way to know if this situation could’ve arisen in their ranks. Her father was a short-tempered tyrant, quick with his fists, and slow with his contrition… No, that was a lie, she’d never heard him apologize in her entire life. Cyrus Doherty was slow to consider alternatives to violence.
Facing her own naivety was sickening. Whisper liked to think she understood the way of the world and grasped that everyone was capable of anything. But if that was true, she wouldn’t be so repulsed by Burl and Nicole’s affair. Facing that truth meant accepting that the thing she despised most about her father, his lack of loyalty to the women in his life, wasn’t only a Doherty trait.
Grinding her teeth as she slid into the water that was supposed to cleanse her, Whisper’s skin crawled with disgust. For a minute there, just a minute, she’d let herself think that maybe all men weren’t the same. That maybe, just maybe, it might be okay to trust one with her heart.
She’d never done it before. Had always vowed not to turn into her mother. Whisper wouldn’t let herself fall in love and wouldn’t be blind to how a man could ruin her. Her decision to remain independent and never trust a man had been made in her adolescence. No one, no man, ever tempted her to reconsider that position.
Yet, in the previous almost three weeks since her marriage to Zaid, something in her subconscious had contemplated shifting. Their push and pull, the draw seemed to be tangling them together, and the possibility of more, for a brief moment, had intrigued her.
Now, in a position she hadn’t coveted, her thoughts were all over the place. If she told her husband the truth, the McDade family could combust. But if she lied, there would never be any chance of trust between them. Whisper couldn’t ask for his trust while being dishonest with him.
Trouble was, it wouldn’t be a truth Zaid wanted to hear. Her position there was already precarious. Telling the truth could mean inviting more trouble.
Sighing, Whisper slid under the water. Just as life seemed to be getting easier, it went and got a whole lot more complicated in a hurry.
The decision was taken from her hands. That night anyway. None of the McDade men came home. Zaid, Parker, and Doran stayed out all night, Bosco too. Whisper wasn’t stupid enough to believe that was any kind of mistake or coincidence.
Her suspicion was confirmed when Nicole didn’t appear in the kitchen the next morning. While she was pouring her coffee, Whisper felt someone approach and glanced back to see Burl stopping by the end of the breakfast bar.
“My sons have been waiting for you to make your move,” Burl said. She went back to pouring her coffee. “All of the McDades have.”
“Let me guess, if I tell them what I saw and start a McDade civil war, everyone will blame me.”
“Something like that.”
“Except I’m not the one banging my son’s wife,” she said, turning around and resting against the counter as she blew steam from the top of her cup. “If like you say, none of them ever gave me a chance, then you’ve just confirmed what I should do, I have nothing to lose… Why shouldn’t I tell the truth?”
“Because I’ve seen the way you look at my boy,” he said, so sure of himself that upholding her façade of indifference became more challenging. “There was a disconnect between you after you were first married. Something’s changing between you… I assume he started fucking you.”
Tilting her head, she pouted. “Disappointed you didn’t get there first?”
Sliding one foot forward and then the other, coasting toward her, Burl didn’t lose an ounce of his confidence. Whisper put her cup down then rested both hands on the counter at either side of her. Keeping her attention trained to his, she slid one hand backwards toward the knife block.
“If I’d wanted you, Doherty, I’d have told your father to give you to me,” he said, pushing himself close to her. “But now that you’re here… and we’re alone…”
Grabbing a knife from the block, she flipped it around. With the handle in her fist and the back edge of the blade resting horizontally along her wrist, she had solid support to thrust it up to his throat. Maintaining pressure with her arm, Whisper ignored the line of blood that seeped onto the blade.
“I am not my father’s to give anymore,” she said, deepening her voice to a growl. “You want use of this body, you negotiate with my husband. If he dares think to give you rights, I’ll slaughter every McDade where they stand.”
Stepping back, Burl’s sneer only grew when he touched his throat to see the blood. “You tell him and what happens next?
Think about it, Doherty! Think about what happens to your fucking family too!”
Storming across to the counter, he grabbed a napkin to press it against his cut. It may have been deeper than she’d realized, but certainly wasn’t life threatening.
“You can’t fuck another man’s wife and get away with it,” she argued, understanding this was more than an intellectual argument.
“I’m doing what I’m doing for my son and for the good of this family.”
She wanted to throw the knife at him, but settled for tossing it onto the counter. “Oh, don’t give me that shit,” she said. “Nicole tried it yesterday and it’s crap. Yeah, you’re such a martyr.”
“I have fathered children. I am capable of giving her what she wants, and ensuring the future of this family.”
“You know, I wouldn’t have so much of a problem with that if it was all out in the open, and you know, done properly. There are clinics who specialize in this stuff, and you have younger, far more virile members of this family who could do the deed… ‘Cept, of course, in that scenario no one has to fuck the peppy little twenty-something other than her husband. She says Parker won’t go to a clinic, maybe you should work on that, instead of—”
“We wouldn’t take that shame. The embarrassment of the world knowing a McDade can’t impregnate his woman.”
Breathing out her disbelief in an almost laugh, she propped a hand on the counter. “Male pride knows no limit, does it? Much better the world should find out Parker’s wife needs to get hers from the patriarch. Really?” Still pressuring the wound on his neck, Burl began to approach. “That might do something for your ego, but what does it do for his? And what happens to this family after you’re dead in the ground and he has to take over? You don’t think this shit will follow him forever? ‘Oh, yeah, look there goes the guy who needed Daddy to do his duty for him’.”
Only Yours (A McDade Brothers Novel Book 2) Page 10
