“That’s what it sounds like to me.”
“Crazy shit,” Talon said, more to himself than to any of us. He looked to the yard, where the boys were playing with the dogs. Dale didn’t usually join in, but he did today. That made all of us happy, despite what else was going on.
“So the only question is,” I said, “how did Ted Morse find out about Cade?”
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Bryce said. “Cade must have gone to Ted after he found out about my father paying for Colin.”
“So Cade and your father were continually in contact,” I said.
“That’s my guess.”
“Dale says the man at the playground was someone who watched at the compound. Not someone who hurt him, but watched him being hurt by others,” Ruby said. “How does that fit in?”
“I have no clue,” Bryce said. “I’m sure my father ‘trained’ Cade the way he himself had been trained. Maybe Cade couldn’t do it to others. Or maybe he was in training himself, watching first. I have no idea.”
“We need to find Cade,” Ruby said. “That’s the only way we’ll get the real story, and that’s only if he wants to tell us.”
The rest of us nodded.
“You realize he’s going to try to hit you or Joe,” Ruby said.
“We’ve got Melanie and the baby protected,” Bryce said.
“You do?” Bryce didn’t normally keep stuff like this from me. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Joe and I just got it done,” he said. But he didn’t look me in the eye.
There was something he wasn’t telling me, but I wouldn’t push it. Not yet. Not in front of my family.
But later.
Later, Bryce, you’re going to level with me.
You’re going to tell me everything.
Bryce went home, and after I’d helped Jade get the boys to bed, I headed to the guesthouse.
Bryce and I were going to have words.
I’d barely gotten through the door, though, when he grabbed me and crushed our mouths together.
No, talk first. We have to talk fir—
I opened for him in spite of myself. We were both so needy, so raw with emotion over everything.
I couldn’t fight it.
I didn’t want to fight it.
We kissed, hard and passionate, with a mixture of fervor and fury. Fury not at each other but at the situation. Fury because it was better than sadness and ache.
He ground his hard cock into my belly and deepened the kiss, our mouths fused together and our tongues dueling. I gave in to it, reveled in it.
We could talk later.
Now was the time to give to each other and take what we each needed in turn.
We kissed harder, harder, harder…until he finally pulled away and inhaled a gasping breath.