Boarlander Silverback (Boarlander Bears #3)(27)

Chapter Twelve


Alison came out of the river waves on legs that were so wobbly they didn’t want to hold her upright anymore.

Claimed. She was Kirk’s claim. A wave of joy and excitement washed over her.

Kirk turned in front of her, tall as an oak, strong and steadfast as a mountain. Every muscle rippled on his body as he lifted his hand toward her. And his eyes…yellow flames, glowing from the pupils out.

“You never hide him from me,” she murmured, feeling numb.

“Never felt the need to with you.”

She slid her hand against his palm and allowed him to help her slog through the sand to her clothes. As she dressed, he watched her with a slight frown marring his dark brows.

“What are you thinking?”

Kirk shook his head like he would shut down again, but when he reached for his jeans, he said, “I never knew how Kong did it.”

“Did what?”

His lips ticked up, then fell too fast for the smile to reach his eyes. Gaze averted, he said, “I lived with him, Layla, and Josephine for a while. I had to. Kong needed his family group close. I could see it was good for him. He talks...” Kirk ghosted a glance up to Alison and tried again. “He talks easy. Much easier than me, and I would just watch him with Layla. He was open, and it was good for her. It made her happy. She knows everything about him.”

“I don’t understand,” Alison murmured, tugging the hem of her shirt into place.

Kirk strangled his sandy T-shirt and straightened his spine, then leveled her with that blazing gaze of his. “I should’ve waited to mark you. I should’ve waited until you knew everything.”

Her heart stuttered and ached in her chest cavity. “You regret claiming me?”

“No.” He huffed and shook his head. “But you will.”

Feeling like someone had just socked her in the stomach, she gritted out, “I’m pretty sure I won’t.”

“I’m not a good person—”

“Neither am I, Kirk!” Stupid tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them away.

Lightning flashed in the distance behind him as he watched her with an utterly baffled expression on his face, but hang it all, he was ruining this. And hang her if she let him see her cry. “I can’t even believe you’re doing this.” Alison strode for the woods, dashing her knuckles under her eyes just to make sure those f*ckin’ tears stayed in place as anger, hurt, and sorrow pulsed through her veins.

“What am I doing wrong now?”

“Shutting down on me. Again! It’s what you do, right?” Alison tripped on a root and went down hard, but an instant before she hit the ground, Kirk was there, his arm wrapped around her waist. He set her upright. She shoved off him and screamed a furious sound. She didn’t want to be saved right now. “You push and pull and push again. And you tease me with these beautiful moments, and then retract them an instant later.”

“I’m trying to tell you I don’t talk easy, but I want to with you!”

She crossed her arms and winced at the pain on her shoulder.

He was to her in a flash, pulling at her shirt, exposing the puncture wounds he’d made. “You hurt different than me.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means I’m used to pain, and I hate seeing you hurt. I did that to you.”

Her shoulders sagged, and she sucked air through her tightening vocal cords. “Kirk, can’t you see? This,” she struggled to say as she gestured to her claiming mark, “felt like the best thing that ever happened to me. You telling me I’ll regret being bound to you hurts worse than any torn skin ever could. I wanted you to let me keep that feeling.”

Kirk shifted his weight from side to side, backing away from her slowly. “What feeling?”

“Happy. Safe. Loved. Chosen despite my faults. All of it. You are ice, Kirk.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can hold you in my hand and I think I’m keeping you. I feel you. But all the while you are melting and slipping through my fingers.”

He swallowed hard and looked sick. Eyes on the woods, he hooked his hands on his hips and shook his head for a long time. His nostrils flared slightly in the moment before he spoke. “I don’t want to be ice. Not anymore. Not with you. Bash told me once I need to pick a person to let in.” Kirk dragged his gaze to hers. “I always thought if I did that—if I let someone see all of me—they would run.”

“I’m not running.”

“But what if—”

“Kirk.” Alison stepped over the pine needle covered forest floor and pulled his hands from his hips, gripped them hard. “I’m. Not. Running.”

“I panicked a little,” he admitted low.

“Yeah, it sucked.”

Kirk ran his hands through his damp hair and linked his fingers behind his head. Chin held high, he looked down at her with a calculating look. “You want to see me?”

“Yes,” she said, void of hesitation. “No more hot and cold.” She twitched her head toward her right shoulder where her seeping claiming mark burned on. “I’m yours now. You picked me as your person when you bit me. Now let me the f*ck in.”

His inhumanly bright eyes crinkled at the corners with his smile. “Okay,” he said, as if he’d just accepted a dare. Kirk shocked her when he threw her over his shoulder like a sack of mulch. “You asked for it.”