Lowlander Silverback (Gray Back Bears #5)(34)

A hundred things snapped into place. Fiona searching tirelessly for him after his mother had stolen him away. Her putting so much effort into breaking him when he was a blackback. Her obsession with the contract and not allowing him to taint his seed. It wasn’t for the betterment of a family group. It was because he was being groomed to be her claim.

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.