“Well, the lass really didn’t leave us with much of a choice, now did she?”
“She did make Quinn cry,” Shayne said, sounding thoughtful.
“I wasn’t crying!” a man snapped and if Tristan hadn’t been preparing himself for the worst he probably would have laughed or at the very least cracked a smile. He sure as hell wasn’t smiling when he walked into his room and found his wife gagged, still wrapped up in a sheet, and now handcuffed to the bed.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded, shooting Shayne a glare as he stormed over to the bed.
“She beat me,” the tall man standing by the bed mumbled, shifting nervously as the other men in the room chuckled.
“I did warn the lads that she had a bit of a temper,” Shayne explained defensively as Tristan pulled out the gag, one of his clean socks rolled up into a ball.
“Pregnant? You got me pregnant?” Marty demanded as soon as the gag was freed, taking him off guard.
“Uh,” was all he could come up with under that murderous glare that she was shooting him.
“Well said, lad,” Shayne said dryly as he reached over and released Marty from her cuffs.
“What the hell are ye doing, ye dumb bastard?” the man that he was assuming was Quinn demanded as he quickly moved away from the bed. “The lass is feral!”
“Calm yerself. He’s the one that she wants to kill,” Shayne pointed out, reaching out to help Marty sit up, but one look from her had him quickly backing away from the bed as well.
“I’ll just let ye go ahead and handle this part, lad,” Shayne said, walking away like the coward that he was.
“Well?” Marty demanded as she sat up, oblivious to the fact that she was only wearing a sheet in a room full of men.
Thankfully, the sheet never slipped, but neither did the murderous glare she was sending him, unfortunately. He opened his mouth to explain, but just couldn’t find the right words. Marty, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be at a loss for words. She also didn’t seem to care that they weren’t alone.
“You ready to talk yet, huh?” she demanded, somehow sounding more pissed than she looked, which was impressive because she looked ready to go for his balls.
“Marty, I-“
“You what? You’re ready to explain why you’re such an ass**le? Or maybe you’re ready to explain why you feel the need to subscribe to over two hundred dollars worth of p**n channels a month, huh?” she snapped, earning a few chuckles from their audience and having him make a mental note to kick Shayne’s ass later. He opened his mouth to explain, but Marty was far from done.
“Or maybe you want to explain how you were still a virgin at twenty-nine?” she demanded, taking him off guard and accomplishing the one thing that he’d never thought possible. She’d managed to mortify him more than his mother ever had.
“I’m embarrassed for him,” one of the men said in a loud whisper, earning several chuckles, and erasing any sliver of doubt that he’d ever had that these men were related to Shayne.
“Me too, lad,” another man said.
“Da’s probably rolling over in his grave from shame.”
“Aye, it’s a sad day for the men of our clan.”
“A sad day indeed.”
Just when he thought it was over, he heard the all too familiar long suffering sigh that had him rolling his eyes before the betraying bastard uttered a single syllable of bullshit.
“Now you see what I’ve been dealing with, lads? It hasn’t been easy dealing with a twenty-nine year old virgin with a p**n fetish.”
Tristan started to turn his head so that he could tell Shayne to go f**k off when the glare Marty was shooting him turned from murderous to something beyond words that actually frightened him and his poor balls enough for them to pull up tight and further out of her reach.
“Oh? Do we have another secret?” Marty asked mockingly with a hint of pure acid lacing her tone.
“Aw, shit,” one of the men, or him, whispered in fear, but he really wasn’t sure at the moment. The only thing that he was positive of at the moment was that his wife was seriously pissed off at him and whatever the men were here to do to him was suddenly looking better and better with each passing second.
“Let’s see if I’ve got this right so far,” Marty bit out, tightening her hold on the sheet to keep herself covered as she got to her knees and in his face. It took everything he had not to scoot back from her and make a run for it, but common sense kept his ass firmly planted on the bed.
He was in deep shit and there was nowhere to run.
“You’ve kept the reason why you were a virgin all to yourself. You gave me some lame ass excuse for keeping the bedroom down the hall locked up-“
“Ah, that’s my room,” Shayne interrupted her, probably thinking that he was helping.
He wasn’t.
“Stop f**king helping!”
“Another secret!” Marty snapped, moving closer and almost falling off the bed when her legs got tangled in the sheets. He reached out and steadied her, only to have his hands slapped away the second that she was safe.
“I’m sick of the secrets and the lies, Tristan! I want to know what the hell is going on here! I want to know why you pushed me away and broke my heart!” she cried out as the first tear trickled down her cheek, making him feel like the biggest prick on earth.
He tried to reach for her and take her into his arms, but she wasn’t having that.
“I want to know why you were such an ass**le to me one minute and begging me for a chance the next. I want to know who they are!” she said, her voice breaking as she gestured to the men shifting nervously around the room. “And I want to know why you nearly destroyed my heart last month over that woman!”
“What woman?” he found himself asking. He had absolutely no idea who she was talking about. There had never been any other women.
“She means yer ma, lad,” Shayne said, clearing his throat uncomfortably.
“That was your mother?” Marty demanded tightly before adding, “And you didn’t tell me?”
“She’s not my mother,” he said evenly.
“You should have told me!”
“It was none of your business!” he snapped back, only realizing how badly he’d f**ked up when he saw the other men in the room wince in sympathy and Marty’s expression turned hurt.
“As much fun as this is,” Liam said, pulling Tristan’s attention away from his wife and probably saving his poor balls, “I think that it’s time that we got this over with.”