Page 22 of Black Bay Enforcer (Beasts of Black Bay #3)

Katherine blinked to bring things back into focus and wondered if she might have passed out there for a minute.

That had been incredible. Mind-blowing. Definitely the best sex she’d ever had.

She didn’t remember Kong moving off of her, but he was now flat on his back and she was draped over him like a blanket.

She let out a little mm of contentment and snuggled against him. In response, his arms tightened around her, holding her close. Her toes curled. This was nice. Her limbs felt all loose and every muscle in her body was relaxed.

Not raising her head – she was far too comfortable for that – she took a moment to take in what she could see of Kong’s bedroom now that her brain was capable of focusing on something other than him.

He had a king-sized bed – appropriate – but there wasn’t much else to look at.

Except… She squinted a bit to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her.

Nope. On his nightstand, next to an alarm clock, was a box with either a glass front or clear plastic.

It was something you’d display a trophy in or a prized collectible, but inside was a ragged-looking pink high-heeled shoe.

The back of the shoe was crushed, pleated like an accordion, and there was a clump of sad, yellowed dead grass stuck to the skewed spike heel that had almost completely broken away from the base of the shoe.

The pale pink color of the poor thing was scuffed and marked with grass stains and both sides of the abused footwear near the toe were blown out at the sole.

Why on Earth would he have something like that? Knowing Kong, there had to be a reason.

Popping her head up, she asked, “What’s the story with the shoe?”

Kong started laughing and it felt like an earthquake beneath her. With a grin, Katherine held on tight while his whole body shook with mirth.

Finally settling, his fingertips drifted up and down her spine in a delicious caress that felt so good she almost lost her train of thought.

“Lark gave me that.” He turned his head to look at the little display with a fond smile. “It’s to commemorate the time I showed her how to strut her stuff in heels.”

Katherine blinked in surprise and then nearly choked on her laughter. “Oh, my God!” Kong had actually worn that shoe? She glanced down at his big feet. No wonder the thing had blown out. “You have to tell me the story behind that.”

Kong grinned at her. “When we were first released, we had all these choices. Food, hairstyles, clothing styles…” His eyes hazed for a moment as if he was reliving the memory before he shook it off.

“Lark wanted to wear heels but she was having trouble walking in them.” He laughed, setting the bed to shake again.

“She was all wobbly like a newborn fawn taking her first steps. It was hilarious but she got pissy at me when I laughed and threw the shoes at me.” He mimicked a high-pitched voice with a rather snotty tone when he added, “Let’s see if you can do any better. ” His smile turned smug. “So I did.”

He shot her a serious look as if what he was about to impart was of utmost importance. “It’s all in the butt.” He made a fist and said, aggressively, “You gotta clench those cheeks.”

Katherine was laughing so hard she was crying.

“I even did a little dance,” Kong informed her.

Katherine swiped at the tears streaming from her eyes. “I wish I could have seen that.”

“Half the base saw it. I thought General Davies’ eyeballs were going to pop straight out of his head.”

With one final chuckle, Katherine laid her head back down on Kong’s chest. Her eyes snagged on the tattoos inked into his skin.

There was a tribal design that came over one of his shoulders.

She knew from the night at the pool that it led to a large piece on his back – a gorilla in the jungle – that at some point she’d like to examine more closely.

But for right now, she was curious about the smaller tattoo on the inside of his forearm.

It was an ornate-looking pocket watch decorated with fancy scrollwork.

Roman numerals circled the face and the gears and mechanisms were on display, but there were no hands to tell the time.

She stroked her palm over it. “What does this mean?”

Kong let out a little grunt. “It was supposed to remind me to be patient.” He shrugged up a shoulder. “Doesn’t work.”

“And the piece on your back?”

Kong looked at her for a moment and there was something in his eyes she couldn’t quite identify. “It’s about family.”

Katherine frowned a bit, not seeing the connection.

“Here.” Carefully, he moved her off him before rolling over onto his stomach and Katherine eagerly leaned in to examine the tattoo.

She drew in a breath as she got the full effect and couldn’t resist tracing her fingers over it.

Up close, it was far more detailed than she realized.

Done in shades of black and gray, it was so realistic it was as if she was looking at a black-and-white photo.

While the silverback gorilla, tall and imposing amidst the jungle setting, dominated the scene, there were other gorillas in the background – a slightly smaller one that might be a female as well as adorable little babies.

A family. The gorilla was protecting his family.

Katherine swallowed hard at the thought that Kong might want a family someday because she wanted that too. But she didn’t want to get ahead of herself again. If she wasn’t careful to leash her optimism, she’d end up swan-diving straight into heartbreak.

“It’s amazing.”

“It’s Erik’s work. He’s an incredible artist.”

She’d heard that name before. “If he’s the same Erik I’m thinking of, some of the Resurrection doctors were talking about him.”

She was still leaning over Kong, examining the tattoo when he abruptly turned on his side, almost knocking her over. Surprised, she lurched back, out of the way.

He rumbled, and as weird as it might seem, Katherine was beginning to understand the language behind those sounds he made. This was his angry one, but she wasn’t sure what she’d said to set him off.

“What were they saying about him?”

The demand in his voice as well as the aggressive look on his face left her speechless for a moment but she quickly recovered. “Just that he’d be a good candidate for the cloned skin.”

Kong rumbled again – louder, meaner – and Katherine felt her belly dip. She knew Kong wouldn’t hurt her, but something had definitely pissed him off, and some primal instinct warned her to tread carefully.

“Did they approach him with that?” he asked with a sneer. “Did they dangle that carrot in front of him so they could get him on their table? So they could do their fucked-up experiments on him?”

Katherine shook her head. “I don’t know, Kong. I told you what I overheard.”

The fierce expression on Kong’s face melted away and he suddenly looked horrified. “Shit, Katherine. I’m sorry. I’m not angry at you.” Rubbing a hand roughly over his face he let out a sound of frustration before he looked at her. “Did anyone ever tell you about phase two?”

Katherine racked her brain, trying to recall if she’d heard something or seen something on her computer at the hub, but she came up empty. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Before we brought Resurrection down, before ORION and the soldiers were brought to Black Bay, we learned from a relatively reliable source that there was another phase.” His lip curled with derision.

“They wanted to upgrade us. Me, the other Beasts, and they weren’t planning on asking our permission. ”

Katherine was appalled, yet she shouldn’t have been surprised.

Not after everything she’d already learned.

The higher-ups, and doctors involved in the Resurrection program hadn’t asked permission of the fifty-two elite soldiers they’d taken either.

They’d informed their families that they’d been killed in action, covering their tracks so they could perform their surgeries, and their bio-tech upgrades, and then, they’d wiped the soldiers’ memories, used the chips placed in their brains to modify their aggression levels, and made them incapable of questioning an order or diverting from it until the mission was complete.

There were forty-nine soldiers still in recovery from what those doctors had done, and some of those modifications could never be removed.

Not without killing them. Those soldiers had to learn to live with what was done to them by their own government.

Some might never recover. And they wanted to do that to Kong? To Perrin and the others?

“But you stopped them.”

“Did we?” Kong asked. “Or did we just move them closer to their targets?”

Kong shook his head letting out a grunt. “Let’s not talk about this anymore.”

Katherine swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay.” But it was kind of tough to get her mind off the subject.

“C’mere,” Kong whispered, reaching for her and she burrowed into his chest and took comfort from his strong arms.

“Tell me about your birthday. When is it?”

“You’ll go with me then?”

Kong kissed the top of her head. “I’ll clear it with the general in the morning.”

With a happy sigh, Katherine filled him in on the details.

Katherine was just beginning to doze off on top of him, her body, soft, warm, and pliant in his arms, her breathing deep and even. Kong would have happily let her sleep, but his stomach chose that moment to let out an angry rumble of protest.

She let out a quiet little chuff of laughter that made him smile. Her head came up and she looked at him with sleepy eyes and a soft smile on her lips. “We should eat.”

He couldn’t resist kissing that sweet mouth of hers. “You can sleep if you want.”

“I’m hungry too.”

Kong shot her a wolfish grin. “We did work up an appetite.”

God, he loved how her cheeks turned pink.

The sight of them made him want to kiss her again, and okay, impulse control might not be one of his biggest strengths.

Especially when it came to the woman in his arms. Giving in to temptation, he forgot about food for the moment as he sealed his lips to hers, the kiss quickly escalating into a hungry need.

His hands roved over her back, moving to delicately glide up her ribcage.

Katherine broke the kiss with a squeal of laughter, her body bucking against him and Kong’s eyes flared with gleeful realization.

He couldn’t resist. “Are you ticklish?” he asked with a grin as his fingers went to work at her sides, fluttering against her as she tried unsuccessfully to trap his hands with her arms.

Katherine let out another squeal and ended up laughing so hard she snorted, then laughing so hard that sound no longer emerged. Finally, red-faced and her eyes tightly closed, she sucked in a huge breath and screeched, “Uncle!” But she was still laughing even after Kong stopped tormenting her.

It was several minutes later before she finally got her breathing back under control and was able to ask, “Are you ticklish?” She raised a brow. “Because turnabout is fair play.”

Smugly, Kong sprawled on his back with his arms stretched wide. “Do your worst.” He was sure he wasn’t ticklish, but he’d take any excuse to have Katherine’s hands roaming over his body. The erection he was sporting was proof of that.

With a mischievous glint in her eyes, her fingertips danced over his sides, light as butterfly wings. Kong continued to grin at her, enjoying the game.

“Hm, how about here?”

Those fingers moved to his belly and her smile grew as his abs flexed.

“Or maybe,” she said with mock thoughtfulness, “you’re ticklish down here.”

Her fingers trailed delicately down the length of his erection and Kong sucked air sharply into his lungs, his whole body stiffening as she dipped lower, grazing the most sensitive part of his body. “Are you ticklish here?”

She looked at him, her smile positively wicked before she dipped her head.

Kong inhaled so quickly that he nearly choked as his hips rose off the bed.

His fingers fisted into the sheets to keep from tangling in her dark mass of hair as she peppered kisses down the throbbing length of his cock.

Her tongue flicked against the sensitive skin, tasting him as she trailed back up to the head and took him into her mouth.

He let out a gruff shout and heard the sound of fabric tearing but nothing could pull his attention away from what Katherine was doing to him.

While her mouth tormented him with sheer pleasure, her fingers moved to his inner thighs, trailing lightly over his skin and Kong’s body was trembling with the need to stay still. To not grab her, throw her down on the bed, and sink into her waiting heat.

A long lick from base to tip and Kong’s back bowed, his eyes almost rolling back in his head. He wasn’t going to last much longer. When it came to Katherine, his control was laughable. He bit out a curse and said her name on a ragged breath.

Almost immediately, she backed off, out of arms reach, leaving him hanging.

“Say Uncle.”

Oh, the evil, evil woman. If he wasn’t right on the razor’s edge, panting and desperate for her, he may have appreciated her cunning.

“Uncle.” The word had barely passed his lips before he lunged for her. With a delighted giggle, Katherine fell into his arms.