Page 58 of Baiting Kong

“The timing left a lot to be desired.”

“Doesn’t help that you’ve run hot and cold when it came to Scout. If you wanted him you should have claimed him and offered your protection. Instead, you left him twisting in the wind. No matter how you try to cut it, you set yourself up to lose him. Now you gotta own that shit. You had to see how a lot of the guys looked at him. He was a breath of fresh air around this place. A true service sub. Looking at his face, each time one of the guys gave him a nod or a murmur of appreciation was enough to tell me that. How’d you not see it?”

“I did see it!” Kong snapped, drumming his fingers on the bar. “And if it wasn’t for Teddy warning him off me I might have had the time to build up enough trust to get him to confide in me.”

“In all fairness to Teddy, which he hasn’t received enough of lately, you don’t have the best reputation among the subs and Scout being as green as he is, well, you know how protective Teddy has always been towards the hang-arounds.”

Nodding, Kong swigged his beer and stared down at the bar.

“See, now that’s what I don’t get,” Kong said. “He’s always gone to bat for them, helped them assimilate and even helped match a few with the perfect Dom, so what the hell went so wrong with Sinn that he got himself exiled over it.”

The grim mask that tightened Danger’s face into hard planes and angles practically promised that he was about to hear a piece of the puzzle no one had shared with him yet.

“Maybe because each of those hang-arounds was forced to earn their place the way Teddy earned his,” Danger stated. “I dunno if it was his blindness or the fact that he’s, well, sinfully gorgeous in every possible way, but Mark, Kat, and Saint took to him without hesitation. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say Teddy got jealous, especially when Mark ordered Cody and Teddy to take Sinn along on the project he’d given them. Wouldn’t want someone looking over my shoulder when I was trying to prove myself, so I doubt Teddy felt any different.”

“Why would Teddy think he needed to prove himself with as long as he’s belonged to them?”

“You’ have to ask Teddy,” Danger said. “I’m just giving you my take on what my motivations would be in the same situation. A guy like you doesn’t have to work for the club’s respect the same way some of us constantly have to do.”

“Excuse me!” Kong growled, head snapping left so he could glare at him. “You think it was easy making a place for myself with my background? Mark wasn’t exactly convinced that me and my architecture degree could be of much use when I first rolled in here. It took redesigning the clubhouse and showing him how he could incorporate all the features he wanted without having to level the place for him to begin to see my usefulness, and there are times when I still feel like I’m not doing enough, no matter how many projects he heeps on my shoulders.”

“Was referring to your size, not your qualifications,” Danger snarled.

Kong felt his cheeks pink up a little and grumbled into his mug before he took a drink.

“Ain’t always easy being this size either,” Kong muttered.

“Maybe not, but people see you and they know not to fuck with you,” Danger declared. “It’s a good thing I like fighting or I might have given up on being a Joker after the first week.”

“We all had our reasons for coming here, and for staying.”

“Exactly. And for Teddy, it was the chance at a home and a sense of security. At belonging someplace where he didn’t have to worry about if he was gnarly or awkward. He was like that little wanna be stripper boy who can’t dance worth a damn. Exactly like him from what I’ve heard over the years.”

“Yeah, I heard the rumors too,” Kong admitted. “That Mark and Kat met him after scouting talent at the place he worked. From what I heard he was such a disaster that the manager sent him packing and they picked him up as he was trudging up the road in the rain. He couldn’t tend bar, he couldn’t keep messages straight, and when they tried him out as a club sub he couldn’t even flirt worth a damn. He had to learn all of that and then some, before he earned Kat and Mark’s approval.”

“So then how’s he expected to feel when after all he’s been to them, they give it so freely to a smoking hot newcomer without a flaw outside of his vision.”

“We’ve all got flaws that run deeper than skin and ink.”

“I won’t argue with you there,” Danger said. “But we’ve all got insecurities too, like, anytime someone cracks off a remark about you not breaking anyone.”

“And yet you fuckers still do it.”

“Isn’t it human nature to prey on the insecurities of others as a ploy to mask our own?” Danger said. “Or maybe some of us give you shit because you’ve never tried to break us and we’re curious about what it would be like to have a guy like you take control of one of us.”

Well, shit.

Kong’s eyes had always drifted to smaller men, despite his reluctance to entertain a night with one of them. And while his own desire to switch and be taken by a man his size, like Creature, his inner voice hissed, he’d never made advances towards men like Danger, who’d been out about having the same desires and needs.

“Just don’t judge Teddy too harshly for whatever he said to Scout,” Danger said. “I know I’m in the minority when it comes to still trusting him and having his back, but if Sinn had proved to be a traitor, we’d have all been looking at him differently right now, for not being suckered in while so many jumped to embrace him.”

Nodding, Kong had to admit that the whole sequence of events, as Danger explained them, seemed out of character for the club as a whole. When he thought back to the way they’d all eyed Scout’s Hound ink, including him, he didn’t get how they could have openly and rapidly embraced someone who’d admittedly come from a club they weren’t affiliated with.

“Teddy said what he said in an attempt to be protective, I’ve forgiven that already. Just don’t like the way the road gods put Scout in front of me only to snatch him away.”

“From what I heard, Creature told you exactly what you needed to do to get back what you lost,” Danger said. “If I were you I’d figure out how before he changes his mind.”

As much as it galled him to hear, Danger was right Kong thought as he leaned over the counter to refill his mug again. Creature had told him he’d have to earn Creature’s willingness to share. The other Dom had put him in his place without having to do more than slam him against a wall and pin him in place with that intensely wicked glare. If he hadn’t been so furious and upset over the entire situation it would probably have left himhorny and hopeful that no one interrupted them before they got to explore what they’d only tiptoed around.

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