Page 70 of Baiting Kong

He could feel eyes on them as heads turned their way, not that he gave a damn.

“If he’d been your boy, Creature never would have been able to claim him,” Kat pointed out, hands on her hips and as calm as could be. “You fucked things up. You left uncertainty in Scout’s head that landed him in a worse situation than the trouble Sawyer had already found. You need to take responsibility for it and not by wrecking my goddamned bar, either. Grow up and learn to handle things without having to use your fists, especially on someone you and I both know you’d never want to hurt. Scout will never just belong to you. He and Axel have already fallen in love with one another, even if they haven’t realized it yet. If you’d taken a moment to quit being blinded by a haze of red you’d have noticed the look on Creature’s face when you started his way, and you’d know he doesn’t want to throw down with you. All he wanted was to do the right thing for the boy you abandoned on the curb.”

“Wanted to get my hands on the fuckers who’d been running the goddamn porn company!” he snapped. “The guy behind it is the same one who filmed Lucky, only now he’s making sure he gets signed contracts before pointing a camera at someone.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him, her foot tapping out a steady beat on the floor as she glared up into his face. “Was ripping him apart really more important to you than Scout?”

“In the moment, I may have lost sight of what was important,” Kong admitted.

“And look where that got you.”

The anger bled out of him as he felt himself deflate. He’d seen her confront others this way, diffusing situations with a mix of attitude, snark, and bulldogged determination, but he’d never had the misfortune of being on the receiving end until now.

“If it were me, I’d try talking to him without confronting him with allegations you know aren’t true,” she suggested. “On the plus side, I’ve never seen you get this riled up over anyone, especially not a boy you only spent a little time with. That tells me Scout made one hell of an impact on you.”

“Because he didn’t see me as a challenge and he wasn’t trying to play a game,” Kong replied. “When I touched him, I knew his responses were for me and not because he was putting on some act so I’d keep on playing with him. He let me fuckin’ hold him afterward and curled up with me like he was trying to make a home out of my embrace. It was the first real thing I’d had in a long time.”

“Because that’s exactly what he was trying to do,” Kat said. “And you slammed the door on him. He’s one of the sweetest new additions to roll in here in a long time. Sweet enough to tempt me into finding out if women were on his dance card along with men.”

“And are they?”

“No,” she replied. “Which he politely explained while blushing up a storm and squirming like he was waiting for the floor to open up underneath him.”

Chuckling, Kong was shocked at the surge of relief that shot through him at hearing that.

“Something tells me you’d have wrecked his friendship with Teddy if he’d ever caught on to you having an interest in Scout.”

“I’m no longer certain if Teddy is capable of real friendships or giving a shit about anyone but himself.”

“Then let me assure you that he is,” Kong said. “Because he tried to warn Scout away from me due to the history I’ve had with some of the other boys in the club. He was honest and upfront when I confronted him about it and unapologetic too. He said Scout was a sweetheart who was just looking for someone to love him and that he didn’t want me fucking with his head or making it so he didn’t want to take a chance on a club brother who might actually be able to give him everything he desired.”

She tsked at that, her fierce look morphing into a frown. “Guess I was wrong about him this time.”

“Why does it make you so unhappy to say that?”

Her eyes narrowed into a glare again, her smoldering gaze shooting Kong a withering look. He had no doubt she’d have fried him on the spot if she could have made laser beams or flames shoot out of her eyes.

“Because that’s the kind of care and compassion I’d come to expect and appreciate from him,” she said. “All these years, he’s always been the one to make the boys feel welcome. Hell, look at how many of them he helped see that they didn’t have to do anything but be honest and be themselves to earn a place here. He’d go out of his way to make sure they were included, he never allowed them to be bullied, even by other boys, and he always kept an eye out and an ear open to help them find just the right Dom. Just look at Sky and Scuzzy,” she pointed out, inclining her head towards where Sky, a service sub, knelt lovingly cleaning something off Scuzzy’s leather pants, while the grizzled biker stroked his hair while continuing to take part in the conversation at his table.

With a practiced ease that came from long years together, the two lived their dynamic 24/7, the way Kong longed to dowith Scout…and Creature too, if he was truly being honest with himself. Kong’s size and temperament had firmly placed him in the Dom category, at least in the eyes of the other members of the club. That he craved the opportunity to cede control to someone else had never entered any of their minds enough for one of them to offer it to him, even in the form of a demo.

“Have you tried talking to Teddy about what changed and why?” Kong offered.

The memory of Teddy’s sad gaze when he’d peered up at Kong in the doorway of his room still haunted him a little, despite how pissed he’d been when he’d stormed over there and beaten on it.

“You might be surprised at what you’d learn,” Kong continued, remembering Teddy’s words to him.

“I already know he got jealous and acted out because of it,” she replied. “But you know as well as I do that there are some lines that can’t be crossed. What he did cost him not only his standing with Mark and me, but the trust of the rest of the club. We can’t have him as our boy if we can’t trust him, and we can’t have him running things here if the people who drop in can’t trust him either. Until he can work to make things right and publicly admit to his wrongs, he’ll have to make his own way.”

“Even if you and Mark had a hand in it?” Kong asked, still feeling salty about the way she’d stopped him from venting his fury, even if he was a little bit grateful too. “Something had to be wrong between the three of you for him to take things to such an extreme level in the first place. That’s just my take on things. You can do with it as you will.”

“The only thing wrong was the twisted things he concocted in his mind,” she replied. “Mark and I never had any designs on Sinn; that was all Saint, right from the very beginning. But we had never shared Teddy with Saint despite how long the four of us lived together. Saint always hoped to find someone of hisown, someone he could love and lavish attention on the way we did Teddy. Teddy’s problem was getting too attached to the way the dynamic of the house had been since he arrived. He refused to see that there was room for Sinn in the household too, that would never, in any way, have taken away from his role and position.”

“Like I said, something must have been wrong for him to be unable to see it that way,” He said, watching her deflate now.

Shaking her head, she pointed her finger at Kong before leaving him with one last warning. “Just remember what I said about the bar,” she growled before stalking away.

At this point, Kong wasn’t even in the mood to wreck shit anymore, but he did want to have a word with Creature, and there was no guaranteeing that he wouldn’t be back in red rage mode once they’d finished exchanging words.

---