by T. S. Joyce
His stomach curdled with a gritty, nauseous feeling as he sank onto the cedar floorboards, his back against the railing. “Holy shit,” he murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. If this was true, she would never give up, and Layla would never be safe.
Kirk swallowed audibly over the line. “Anyway. I just wanted to give you a heads up. I actually like Layla for you. Can you tell her…” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “Can you tell her I’m sorry about Mac?”
Mac’s death wasn’t Kirk’s fault, but he got it. He’d been blaming himself for the better part of a week now, too. “Yeah. I will.”
“I’ll be at the sawmill if you need me,” Kirk said. “For backup or whatever. My days are numbered, so for the rest of them, I’m good with making up for what I’ve had to push you into all these years. I’d better go. We have a few orders to fill today.”
“All right, man. Kirk?” Kong asked before he could hang up.
“Yeah?”
“It’s okay. What you had to do? It’s okay.”
Kirk was quiet for a long time before he said, “It’s not, but thanks for saying that. Goodbye, Kong.”
The line went dead, and Kong rested his head back against the railing and stared at Layla’s bedroom window.
He’d thought this was over, but the scars on his body were just the warm-up.
Layla wasn’t any safer now than she had been before he’d challenged Rhett and the others.
****
When Layla woke up, Kong was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her. She slid her hand up the uneven skin of his back, over the bumps and ridges of the scars she had now memorized with her touch. Over the long, dark shape of the birthmark that had almost come between them.
“Good morning,” she murmured sleepily.
He looked over his shoulder with a ready smile, but his eyes were green.
“What’s wrong?”
“I want to take you on a date.”
She ducked her face and hid her flattered smile as butterflies fluttered away in her stomach. “Where?”
“Willa told me about this bait shop she sells worms to. She said the owner just expanded and added a barbeque joint onto it for the tourists who fish up here. It’s only half an hour away, so we wouldn’t have to make another drive all the way into Saratoga for me to take you out.”
She angled her face and frowned. “Why are your eyes glowing?”
His smile faded slowly, and he shook his head. “No reason.” But his voice sounded off, hollow, as if he didn’t believe in the words enough to put force behind them.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, I’ll go on a date with you. Silly monkey,” she said through a giggle, “you’ll talk about starting a family with me, no problem, but you get nervous asking me out?” She bit her lip against the smile that cracked her face wide open. Then she jumped up and climbed on his back like a koala bear. Wrapping her legs around his middle, she said, “Take me to the shower, silly monkey. I want to get pretty for our date.”
Kong chuckled and bit her arm gently. “As you command, my queen.”
“Mmm,” she said, laying kisses along the tense muscles of his neck. “I like that. You can use that nickname whenever you want.
It was late in the morning, and she couldn’t believe how long she’d slept, but perhaps she’d needed the sleep. Maybe her heart and head had needed a break from thinking and grieving. Even though her chest still felt heavy with Mac’s loss, she felt better this morning than she had since he’d passed.
She bit his ear playfully before he leaned over with her weight still on his back. He turned on the hot tap and shimmied out of his cotton sleep pants that were light blue and thin enough she could always see his morning wood through the material. The kind that hung low on his hips and showed off those two yummy strips of muscle that wrapped around his waist. “Sexy mate,” she murmured, slipping from his back.
“I like that nickname.”
“Mate of many muscles.” She peeled off her shirt and wiggled her boobies at him when she caught him looking.
“Mmm, keep going.”
“Not the Kong anymore. My Kong.”
“That’s the one,” he said through a dazzling smile as his eyes faded to muddy green. “That’s my favorite.”
He lifted her off the bath mat and wrapped her legs around his waist as he stepped into the shower. He pressed her back against the plastic shower wall and slid into her slowly, eyes on her. Always on her. This wasn’t about covering her, or pheromones. It wasn’t about practicing for a family. Something in Kong’s soul was aching, and he needed her. His eyes dimmed to the soft brown she’d fallen in love with over the years. He dipped in to kiss her, only to ease back and watch her face again as he stroked slowly into her. And when they were both close, he rested his forehead against hers and whispered that he loved her. And when he’d met her orgasm with one of his own, he pulled every pulsing aftershock from her, then slid out and washed her body as if she was a goddess. As though she truly was his queen.
He kept her off balance as the morning faded to afternoon. Playful, happy, serious, troubled, playful again. He carried her over his shoulder and gripped her ass through her sundress on the way to his Camaro.
Willa and Gia waved to them as they pulled away, and Layla beamed. “I like it here.”
“Yeah?” he asked, pulling her fingertips to his lips as he drove away from the trailer park.
“I know we have to go back to Saratoga soon, but that place made everything easier. The people there and the woods.”
“Ten-ten.”
“Yeah.”
“Told you it was magic.”
“You. You’ve made everything okay.”
He threw her a questioning glance, and there it was again. The speckles of green, just starting to glow like fireflies in his gaze. He rasped his newly shaved jaw across her knuckles but didn’t say anything as he dragged his gaze back to the road and slid on a pair of sunglasses.
“Would you be mad if I put my feet on the dashboard?” she asked, slipping her feet from her sandals and wiggling her toes right over the finely detailed glove box.
“Maybe.”
“You know, if I make footprints, you’ll always think of me when you get in and see them.”
He ghosted a glance at the dashboard, then nodded his head. “Do it. I like thinking about you.”
“Really?” She was shocked to her bones. Kong loved his car.
“Really.” He pressed her knee so her left foot touched the warm dash. “Leave your mark on here, woman.”
So she did. She rested her feet there the entire drive to Moosey’s Bait and Barbecue. When she took them off in the parking lot, the dash still looked pretty shiny, but if she squinted and looked hard at just the right angle, there were two faint smudges, and that was good enough. “Now, if anything ever happens to me, you’ll still have a part of me with you in the passenger’s seat.” Ugh. Where had that morbid thought come from?
Kong stared at the prints too long after putting the Camaro into park.
“Did you change your mind? I can polish it again.” Layla turned and reached for the detailing wipes he kept in the back seat.
“No,” he rushed out. “I like them. Leave them.” He leaned over and kissed her. Just a sweet sip with a gentle smack at the end, and then he was getting out of the car, leaving her off-balance as he’d done all morning.
Kong was a tall glass of arctic water on a hot day. His legs were long, lean, and powerful against the hole-riddled jeans that clung to his waist just right. The thin V-neck white T-shirt that hung over his defined chest was enough to draw a gulp from her lips. Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes, and scars peeked out from under the neck of his shirt. He was rocking that sexy, clean-shaven jaw that was sharp as glass with thick, dark hair styled longer on top and, holy hotness, she couldn’t believe he was hers.
Hers in all the ways that mattered. Her mate. Her
love and, someday, he would be the father of her children. Over the past week, he had held baby Rowan anytime Gia and Creed would let him, and Layla had fallen in love with the way he looked at the infant. A tiny baby cradled so gently against his chest as he rocked slowly back and forth and talked to her. Kong would make a great father and teammate to raise a family with. She’d never admitted it to anyone other than Mac, but she wanted lots of kids. She’d grown up lonely, confused by the definition of family, but with Kong, she could have something special—a sense of belonging that filled the hungry hole in her heart.
He opened her door and held out his hand. “You ready, beautiful?”
Grinning, she slid her palm against his and allowed him to help her out of the car. “You know, I always imagined what it would be like if you asked me out. I would see you at the bar and daydream about what you would say and where you would take me.”
“Disappointed?”
“Not at all. Being with you is better than I could’ve imagined.”
His throat moved as he swallowed hard. She wished she could see his eyes, but all she could see was her own smiling reflection in his sunglasses. Turning, he linked his fingers with hers and led her into Moosey’s.
Barbecue sandwiches and sodas ordered, they picked a seat outside on the picnic table farthest away from the lunch rush. There was a red and white checkered umbrella spread open above them, shielding them from the bright day.
“I’m glad the clouds disappeared,” she admitted as she popped the top of her grape-flavored beverage. “The sun came out for our first date. I take that as a good sign.”
Kong reached under the table and pulled her feet onto his lap, then massaged her calf. “You look so fucking beautiful today.”
“Funny, I’ve been checking you out, too. Now,” she said in her best business voice, “I know almost everything about every regular in Sammy’s bar, but I don’t know near enough about you. Tell me your secrets.”
Kong’s sexy mouth bracketed with smile lines when he grinned and poured barbecue sauce onto his sandwich. “I hung out at Sammy’s over the years just so I could see you.”
“You’re teasing me.”
He laughed and ducked the potato chip she threw at him. “I swear. I knew I couldn’t be with you, but I needed to at least see you. When I tried to stop myself and go cold turkey on my Layla fix, my animal got hard to control.”
“I looked forward to work because there was always the chance I would get to see you.”
“No shit?” he asked, rubbing her calf again.
With a definitive nod, she said, “Zero shits.”
Kong took a bite of his sandwich and looked off into the woods behind Moosey’s. He gulped the food down and said, “Remember that guy who wouldn’t stop grabbing your ass a few months back?”
“Yeah, the tourist with the crazy eyes. That guy was a jerk. Thankfully he only came in that one night.”
“Because I followed him to the parking lot and just about knocked his eyes straight. Kirk had to pull me away before I really went to town, but I told the guy if he ever came back, I’d know about it, and then I’d find him. I hated that he’d ruffled you. I know you can take care of yourself, and I’ve watched you put drunk assholes in their place so many times it’s not even funny. But I passed the office on my way to the bathroom to get myself under control, and I heard you crying in there. It gutted me. I went after him the second he left.”
She pursed her lips against the memory of that night. It had been one of the worst shifts she’d ever worked, and she hadn’t known it at the time, but Kong was right there with her. “I think you were mine way before last week.”
Kong licked his bottom lip and bit it as he nodded. “I’ve been yours for a long time.”
She ate for a while in silence, absorbing that eye-opening morsel of information. “So next time I’m working, are you going to ignore me?”
“Hell no. I hated having to do that before. I don’t have to do that anymore. I can even give you rides to and from your shifts if you ever want them. I close down the sawmill around six unless we have a big lumber order.” Kong leaned forward, elbows on the table as he clasped his hands over his plate. “I like this.”
“What?”
“Talking about our future. Of what our future could be. It makes things…easier.”
“What things?” she asked, confused.
His mouth twitched at the corner, and he relaxed back onto the picnic table bench. “This week has been brutal, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed right now. Thinking about our future reminds me of what I’m fighting for. It makes anything seem possible.”
“Okay,” she said with a frown. “Christmas.”
Kong grinned and tipped his head. “Easy. Spend them with the Gray Backs.”
“The first person you’ll call when we have our first baby.”
“My mom. She’s always wanted me to do this. It’s why she left our family group with me when I was little. She wanted me to settle down and fall in love the way it felt right to me.” Kong poked his sandwich with his plastic fork and slowed his words down. “She would like you. You’re strong and independent, and you care about people in a way that inspires other people to be better. You put others above yourself.” He looked up at her. “My mom is like that, too.”
“Are you worried about her?”
He nodded slowly as he clasped his hands in front of his face. “Every action I take has a consequence for someone I love.”
The sandwich she was munching on lost its flavor all the sudden and sat like a cold lump in her stomach. She pushed away the plate and reached across the table, rubbed her fingertips against his elbow.
Kong had said she was someone who put others above herself, but he didn’t see the same value in himself. He’d been doing that since Fiona had broken him. He hadn’t lived his life for himself at all. He hadn’t approached Layla for years, even though he had wanted her. Kong had lived an empty, hollow existence to make life easier for other people.
Kong didn’t see it, but she did.
He was the inspiring one.
Chapter Fourteen
“Put your bathing suit on, humaaan,” Willa sang from behind an oversize pair of red sunglasses. She was holding an erotic romance book in one hand, a towel draped over her forearm, and in the other a beach bag that was almost as big as her.
“I didn’t pack a bathing suit,” Layla said from the rocking chair on 1010’s porch.
“Well your big ol’ teats aren’t fitting in any of my extra small child-size tankinis. I’ll ask Georgia and Gia if they have spares. BRB.”
“BRB?” Kong asked through an amused smile.
“Be right back!” Willa called, her flip flops clacking loudly as she jogged away.
“Where are we going?” she asked Kong, who’d apparently already gotten the memo because he was wearing a pair of white swim trunks with a subtle, gray plaid print. His chest was bare, showing off all those scars she now found devastatingly sexy.
“We’re taking you to the falls.”
“The falls?”
“Bear Trap Falls, and you’ll be one of the few humans to ever see it. The river splits the territory line between the Gray Backs and the Boarlanders. It’s the best swimming hole in Damon’s mountains, and you deserve a day to just have fun.” His look darkened as he scanned the woods again. He did that a lot now. “We all deserve a break after the week we’ve had.”
“Eee!” Layla squeaked, clenching her fists and waving them in tiny circles with uncontrolled excitement. “I love swimming, and I love waterfalls, and I’ve heard of Bear Trap Falls but never thought I would get to see it.”
Kong laughed, hooked an arm around her waist, pulled her close, and pressed his lips against her forehead. “The water will be cold this early in the season, but we’ll get used to it. The Gray Backs are doing a bonfire, so we’ll spend the day there and just forget about everything, okay?”
“Did you set this up?” she asked.
“I’m the luckiest.” Layla kissed his cheek and bounded into 1010 to gather sunscreen, sunglasses, towels, and the like. She had everything stuffed into her backpack by the time Willa danced in, swinging a purple bikini and gyrating her hips like a pole dancer. Layla giggled and danced around her, poking her fingers into the air and double-time tiptoeing across the semi squishy floors of 1010.
“So sexy,” Kong teased from his spot leaning against the doorframe. An easy grin was splitting his face, and his dark eyes were dancing, exposing the happy, carefree side she’d only seen him have with the Gray Backs in Sammy’s Bar when the Beck Brothers were playing a show. Today was going to be amazing.
“Okay, strap them udders into this and meet us outside,” Willa said in a giddy voice. “Snap, snap, human. It was a long winter without Bear Trap Falls, and I have copious amounts of s’mores I need to shove into my mouth hole.”
Layla dressed and slipped her feet into a pair of flip-flops, then followed Kong out of the trailer. He looked so cute with her pink, glittery backpack over his shoulder. Tan skin, muscles everywhere, and the man didn’t mind glitter if it meant he could carry her stuff and take care of her. God, she loved him so much her heart felt like it was going to swell out of her chest.
“Aaah,” she yelled as she ran for him and leapt onto his back. He didn’t even buckle under her weight, just put his hand back behind him under her butt to keep her steady and kept walking.
“Sexy little monkey,” he murmured with a smile in his tone.
“Oo oo, ah ah.”
His laugh was booming and echoed through the trailer park. The sound of it sent a delicious shiver up her spine that landed in her shoulders, and she held on tighter around his neck, nuzzling her face against his warm skin.
She would have to go back to work again soon. Back to trying to catch up on bills. She would have to go back to Saratoga and face her old life and all the memories there, but for today, she didn’t have to worry about anything. She just had to exist, and laugh, and enjoy every breath she had been blessed with because today was about taking a break from the muck. And as she grinned at the old white Chevy pickup with everyone piling in the bed around a giant cooler, she wouldn’t have picked anyone else to spend the day with.