Page 31

CHAPTER 30

“A re ye all right, lass?” the voice with the light Irish brogue that made her feel protected and safe asked as a cold cloth was pressed against her forehead.

“No,” Marty said with an embarrassing sniffle. She definitely wasn’t okay. Confused? Scared? Embarrassed? Dizzy? Close to vomiting? Yes, she was all of those things, but the one thing that she was definitely not was okay.

“Declean, did ye get the fritters?” another man, whose voice was slightly deeper and sexier, asked.

“They were out,” she heard a man mumble and she considered opening her eyes to see who’d spoken, but that would only cause more problems like more vomiting, doing something embarrassing like passing out, or losing it again.

Was that…bitch slapping that she was hearing? Yup, she was pretty sure that there were currently ghosts in her room bitch slapping each other from the sounds of it.

“Ow! What the hell was that for, Declean?” someone demanded, sounding like he was pouting. Why that made her lips twitch, she didn’t know. Maybe it was the start of a mental breakdown?

“Cause ye didn’t get the lass her baked goods, ye lazy bastard!” another one snapped, followed by the sounds of more bitch slapping.

“Hit me again, Connall and I’ll- Ow !”

“Stop yer bitching and go get the lass something to eat!”

“What am I supposed to get her, then?”

“Apples?” someone suggested, sounding hopeful.

“Oh, God,” Marty mumbled weakly, her stomach doing backflips at the mere suggestion of her favorite snack.

“Ye dumb bastard! Ye know that she can’t eat apples when she’s pregnant!”

A heavy sigh was followed by, “Aye, yer right. Then, what are we supposed to get for her?”

“Why are ye asking me? I’m not the one that’s pregnant!”

“Lass, what would ye like to eat?” the man that had carried her into the room asked and, although she could use a fritter or an apple donut or two, she was having a difficult time wrapping her mind around one little thing.

“ Pregnant ?”

* * *

“Oh, he’s not going to be happy about this,” he heard Shayne say as he walked down the hallway towards the bedroom.

“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?” Tristan 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 by surprise.

“Er…” was all he could come up with under that murderous glare that she was sending 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?” 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 over 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. Tristan 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?” Marty 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 asshole? Or maybe you’re ready to explain why you feel the need to subscribe to over two hundred dollars’ worth of porn channels a month?” Marty 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.

He felt his cheeks burn with mortification and-

“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, Tristan 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 porn addiction.”

Tristan started to turn his head so that he could tell Shayne to go fuck 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. 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 sounding 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 hallway locked up-”

“Ah, that’s my room,” Shayne interrupted her, probably thinking that he was helping.

He wasn’t.

“Stop fucking 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 and I want to know why you pushed me away and broke my heart!” Marty cried 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 it.

“I want to know why you were such an asshole to me one minute and begging me for a chance the next. I want to know who they are!” Marty said, her voice breaking as she gestured to the men shifting nervously around the room. “And I want to know why you nearly broke 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 real 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,” Tristan bit out evenly.

“You should have told me!”

“It was none of your business!” Tristan snapped back, only realizing how badly he’d fucked up when he saw the other men in the room wince in sympathy and Marty’s expression turned hurt.

“As much fun as this has been,” 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.”