Lowlander Silverback (Gorilla Shifter Royalty 1) (10 page)

There was a break in the rain just long enough for Mac’s funeral. Layla lifted her eyes to the sunrays coming down on the valley beyond the cemetery and smiled. Maybe that was Mac, telling her that he was with his Gloria again, and that everything would be okay.

Kong watched her intently as the casket was lowered into the ground. Mac’s service had been touching in the most surprising ways. She thought it would be a small funeral, but half the town had shown up. She wasn’t doing this alone as she’d feared. She had Kong beside her and the Gray Backs in a somber line behind her. Willa stood on her other side, holding her hand and dabbing her eyes. Jake stood across the lowering, glossed mahogany casket with a sympathetic smile. Barney was here, and even Jackson had shown up to pay his respects. The nurses were all here, and beside a tree in the distance, Kirk leaned against the trunk, dressed in a black suit like Kong’s. The Ashe Crew and the Boarlanders had come, too, and this morning when she’d checked her mail, there was a postcard from Mom and Dad saying how sorry they were about Mac passing. She’d put it up on the fridge with the others.

The funeral-goers drifted back to their cars, but Kong and the Gray Backs stayed with her until the casket hit dirt. Mac was buried by his Gloria now, just like he’d always wanted. And in a few days, when they laid sod over his grave, Layla would come out and water the grass and put fresh flowers on their headstones because that’s what made her feel close to them. Cemeteries weren’t for the dead. They were for the living so they could still feel connected to their loved ones somehow.

“You ready to go home?” Kong asked low.

Home. She frowned at the stream of people clad in black who were walking down the hill toward the line of cars below. She hadn’t ever felt at home in her apartment, and Kong’s cabin wasn’t home. 1010 was safe and comfortable, but three days and three nights wasn’t long enough for a place to feel like home. The only home that meant anything was Mac’s house, but that was going to be sold at auction.

Everything felt so different now, off-kilter and strange, as if it wasn’t really her life, but someone else’s. She was mated to Kong, and she’d fallen heart-first into the Gray Back Crew who had been there for her in such unexpected ways over the last few days. In a matter of a week, everything real in her old life had disappeared, and everything else had drawn up into fine focus.

Kong was still waiting on her answer with a worried look in his soft brown eyes.

She smiled and nodded, then followed him toward his Camaro. His gait hitched slightly, thanks to a broken bone that hadn’t been reset in time, but other than that and a map of scars across his body, he had healed.

He opened her door and waited until she was inside, then he draped his suit jacket over her legs. While they followed the Gray Backs’ work trucks up the winding mountain roads, Kong’s hand stayed around hers, big and strong, steadying the shake in her fingers. His profile struck her as beautiful with the trees passing by and the storm clouds muting the light against his skin. High cheek bones, dark eyes to match dark brows to match dark hair he’d styled in a sexy, messy look today. His skin was tan compared to the white dress shirt that clung to his muscular shoulders. The top button was unbuttoned, and his black dress pants pressed against his powerful legs as he pushed down the gas on his rumbling hotrod.

Mine.

She smiled when her attention drifted to the Grayland Mobile Park sign over the white gravel road. It was a relief to drive under it, though she couldn’t pinpoint why. Perhaps because nothing bad had happened here. There were no memories of Mac to haunt her like there were down in Saratoga. Stepping out of the car, she waved at Willa, Georgia, and Aviana who held down the hems of their black dresses as they scurried to their trailers with their mates.

Creed pulled little Rowan from her car seat and cradled her tightly against his chest, cooing as she fussed. Leaves swirled around his feet as he looked up with his ink-colored eyes, so much like Damon’s. “You tell us if you need anything,” he said to her before he turned to a waiting Gia and walked away with his daughter cuddled in his arms.

Kong’s fingertips were light as a feather against her lower back as he guided her up the porch stairs of 1010. He’d gone quiet lately. Dimmer. Like a lantern that was almost out of oil and struggling to stay lit. Mac’s death and the battle that followed weighed heavily on him.

“It’s not your fault, you know?” she murmured as she stepped into the bedroom and slipped out of her heels.

“Mmm,” Kong said noncommittally.

She unbuttoned his shirt slowly. “It’s not.”

Kong went still under her touch, his eyes somber as he stared at her. “I wanted things to be different.” His nose and lip twitched, a sign of the animal that lived beneath his skin. He did that when he was thinking hard about something. “I wish we could’ve dated, like other people. Movies, dinner, picnics…normal shit. Not all this heaviness. I didn’t want it to be a loss that bonded us, Layla.”

She smiled and pushed his shirt off his shoulders. “It wasn’t. I wanted you long before any of this stuff happened.

She untucked the hem of his white undershirt and lifted it over his head. He grunted as he lifted his arms. Healed he might be, but there were still aching nerves nestled in the deepest wounds. She traced a long pair of scars across his ribs with a light touch.

“Beautiful mate,” she whispered. “I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through this week without you.”

Kong gripped her wrist as she got too close to a wide cavern of uneven red scar tissue under his arm. “You wouldn’t have had to go through this week if it weren’t for me.”

“Mac had cancer, Kong.”

His grip loosened as he searched her eyes.

“It’s why he was in hospice. It had spread, and the doctors couldn’t do anything. If it weren’t for you and the Gray Backs, I would’ve planned his funeral alone and stood for him at that gravesite alone a couple of months from now. I would’ve mourned alone. I hate Rhett for what he did, and Kong, there are times where I wish I could’ve watched you rip him apart.” Her words shook like a lit candle wick in a strong wind. “But, mate,” she whispered, cupping his cheek. “It was Mac’s time, no matter what you or I wished. It was Fiona and Rhett’s awful decision that had nothing—
nothing
—to do with you. I don’t blame you, and it hurts me to see you blaming yourself.”

Kong’s chest rose with his deep inhalation, and he leaned his cheek into her palm, making a raspy sound with his two-day scruff. She leaned up on tiptoes and kissed his lips. Then she turned and pulled her hair aside, watching him in the dresser mirror.

A slow smile spread across his lips as he unzipped her dress slowly.

“I have a boner to pick with you, mister.”

Kong chuckled deeply, and she closed her eyes to revel in the sound of it. Damn, she’d missed that over the past few days. Now, it was medicine for her soul.

“I think the saying goes ‘I have a bone to pick with you.’”

“No, boner, because you have shown no interest in sleeping with me.”

“The couch is comfortable, and I wanted to give you space.” Kong unsnapped her bra, then reached his hands through her open dress and slid his touch around her ribs until he cupped her breasts.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said on a breath.

“Oh, I know what you’re talking about, woman.” His words were a rattling growl that lifted gooseflesh across her forearms.

“Then why haven’t you made love to me?”

Kong pressed his lips against the back of her neck and sucked gently. Curling back against him, she sighed. He worked his way down the side of her throat and grazed his teeth right over the mark he’d given her before everything went wrong.

“Because you’re in heat,” he whispered against her skin. “I can smell it. Practically taste it on the air.” He rocked his hips against her back, pressing his hard, thick erection against her. “You think I haven’t wanted to cover you? Wrong. It’s hard to think about anything else, but it didn’t seem like the right time to talk about family planning.” He gripped her long hair at the base of her neck and lifted, exposing the other side to his biting, sucking affection.

“You’re ready for a baby?” she asked. “With me?”

Kong spun her and settled her hips onto the dresser, then pulled the front of her dress off her arms and let it pile in her lap. He locked his arms on either side of her hips and took a sip of her lips. His eyes weren’t soft and brown anymore. They were the wild green color. “I am. I told you I want a family. It happens when silverbacks mature. I’ve set up a life here, a business, so I could afford to take care of a family. My instincts scream every time I smell those sexy pheromones you’re putting out.
Cover her. Put a baby in her. Make a family with her
. It gets overwhelming, but the timing isn’t right, and you don’t have the same instincts to breed as I do. I want to get you pregnant, yes. But I also want you happy, and I want our love story to be that slow burn like Mac’s was with his Gloria. I never want you resenting me for pushing you into something this big so fast. So I’ll wait. We’ll be careful and use protection until you’re ready.”

She cupped his neck and grinned. “You want to know something?”

“Hmm?” he asked, leaning down and drawing one of her nipples into his mouth.

She moaned and arched her back to give him a better angle. “I really…really…
really
like that you want a family with me, and only me. Oh!”

Kong sucked hard and dragged his lips across her chest to draw her other nipple into his mouth. She spread her legs wider to give him more access. She had to get this out before she lost her mind completely. “But I think you’re right. I want to be your family group, and I want to give you a baby, but with everything going on right now, I think we should wait until the dust clears.” Panting, she lifted his chin until his gaze hooked onto hers. “I’m on the pill now, but when we’re ready, I’ll stop taking it. Until then, we can have fun practicing.”

And Kong, that sexy as hell man, didn’t even make her feel guilty for putting off a family—not for a second. He gave her a wicked smile and dropped to his knees, then rucked up her dress, exposing the thin black lacies she’d worn to hide a panty line in her dress. “Perfect,” he murmured before he looked back up at her with his blazing green eyes. “You want me to make you forget?”

Oh, she knew what he was offering. A chance to forget the muck of the last few days. He was offering to lift the heavy weight off her chest for a little while—to give her a break from the darkness that had inched into her life like a suffocating fog.

“Yes.” She couldn’t say it fast enough. She’d needed this kind of affection, but Kong had seemed reluctant to give it lately. Now that she knew it was for her benefit and not because he didn’t want it, she couldn’t get him inside her fast enough. The soft rip of her panties filled the room, and she leaned the back of her head against the mirror as Kong lowered a hungry gaze between her legs and let off a soft growl.

“Eat me,” she pleaded desperate to lose herself with him.

He pulled the backs of her knees until she was at the edge of the dresser, then he gripped her hips and leaned forward, pressing soft lips against her slick folds. A tease.

“Please,” she whispered, rolling her hips forward.

He pulled her clit between his lips and sucked gently. In shaking gasps, Layla’s breath left her body as she ran her fingers through his hair, then gripped it hard. Punishment for his teasing. The growl in his throat grew louder and vibrated against her right where she was most sensitive. She bowed against him and groaned. Maybe she really was in heat, or the human equivalent, because right now, she was unbelievably sensitive. She closed her eyes and imagined his long dick sliding into her. Kong released her clit and drove his tongue into her, drawing a gasp from her lips. His fingers dug into her waist, but it didn’t hurt. She wanted him rough this time.
Forget. Forget everything.

Kong angled his head as she raked her fingernails through his hair and pulled him closer. He went deeper the next time he pushed into her, and she spread her legs and cried out. He’d found his rhythm now, not too fast, not too slow, careful to pay attention to her clit every few strokes. Her legs were going numb. Hell, her whole body was floating as he pushed her closer to release.

“No, no, no,” she murmured. “Want more. Want you inside of me. Want you to cover me.” Yes, that sounded right. Like he called it. Like his people called it. Breeding. Covering. Wild, like her Kong.

With a growl, Kong sucked her clit hard and then stood, tugging her dress over her head in one smooth motion. Kong pulled her off the dresser, then settled her stomach on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor. “Lock your legs,” he rumbled out. “Ass in the air for me, beautiful.”

The jingle of his belt as he removed it brought a wave of excited anticipation as she arched her back and gave him a full view of her soaking wet sex.

His teeth grazed her skin just above her ass, and then his kisses worked their way up until his mouth was at the mark he’d given her. The head of his hard cock was right there, pressing into her by an inch. When he eased out, she wanted to scream. He pushed into her a little farther, and her legs relaxed. She moaned and rocked her hips with him the next time. He took her deeply. God, he was long and thick. Stretching. Almost pain, but more pleasure.