Page 3 of Bear With Me

He snorted. “Uh, yeah. The only one within miles.”

Bjorn winced and bent down to pull his phone out of the pants he’d folded neatly before he shifted. He navigated through a few emails until finding the right one. “And this is 143 Old Post Road, right?” He was pretty sure it was, as his GPS had advised him when he’d parked that that was the address he’d arrived at.

His eyes narrowed. “How the fuck do you know that? Have you been following me?”

This guy was determined to think the worst, Bjorn would give him that. Bjorn openly rolled his eyes. “If I’d been following you, I wouldn’t have been so gobsmacked when you walked into the clearing. I rented this cabin. I have the rental agreement right here.” He flashed the phone screen at him.

“The fuck you did,” the man snapped. “I booked this place three months ago!” He whipped his phone out of his pocket, presumably to try to find his own rental agreement.

“Well,” Bjorn countered, “I booked it two nights ago, and it was listed as available, and they took my money. So it seems to me that I’ve got as much claim to it as you.” Debating who got custody of a vacation rental wasn’t quite how he’d ever envisioned introducing himself to his fated mate, but he’d take any excuse to keep him talking.

“Jesus fuck,” growled the man, studying his own phone and apparently confirming that he wasn’t at the wrong cabin, either. “They double-booked the damn place?”

“And,” Bjorn added cautiously, not sure if what he was about to add would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, “I don’t know about you, but I drove six hours to get here, so I can’t really turn around and go right back home, at least not without a good night’s sleep first.”

The man dragged a hand through his shaggy hair despairingly. “Fuck,” he muttered again. And then, more determinedly, “Well, I’m not leaving. I rented it first. Go find a hotel.”

Bjorn blinked at him. “We’re…in the middle of the wilderness. There are no hotels for at least half an hour around,” he added, quite reasonably, he thought. “Can’t we just…share the cabin for the night? I’m sure the owner can sort this out in the meantime if we contact them.”

The man scowled down at his phone. “I’m messaging them now. And no, we can’t share the cabin; there’s only the one bed.”

That perked Bjorn right up. Only one bed? That was one of his favorite book tropes, and he was going to get to live it out? With his very own fated mate? Yessss! “I’m a good bedmate,” he promised. “Or at least, no one’s ever complained before. I don’t think I snore or anything.”

A tired hand rose to scrub at the man’s face, but he said nothing.

Bjorn was getting pretty tired of thinking of him as the man; shouldn’t he know his mate’s name by now? “What’s your name?” he blurted.

The man studied him critically for a second. “If I tell you, are you going to stalk me and demand I mate with you?”

Bjorn was aghast. “I would never force someone, to mate or to mate,” he gasped out. Maybe the man hadn’t been joking earlier when he asked if Bjorn was a serial killer, if that’s what he was thinking now. “I just want to know your name so I can stop thinking of you as ‘the man I’m talking to’ and start thinking of you by who you actually are.” He deliberately softened his eyes a little, trying to look innocent instead of hungry.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I told you to stop looking at me like that,” the man said. “My name is Dennis, and that’s all I’m telling you.”

Bjorn would take it. “I’m Bjorn Karlsson,” he replied eagerly. “I’m thirty-eight, and I’m a Pisces. Um, what else…”

The man - Dennis! - held up a forestalling hand. “That’s plenty of information. I don’t need to know your life story to tell you again we’re not sharing the cabin.”

Bjorn considered that for a second. For one thing, he really didn’t think there were any hotels nearby. For another, the hell if he was going to walk away from his mate now that he’d finally found him - especially not even knowing his mate’s full name, because without that how would he find him again? He thought about doing puppy dog eyes and pleading some more, but that didn’t seem to be working to do much other than piss Dennis off, so he decided to try another strategy. “Look, Dennis, let me lay this out for you: we both rented and paid for this cabin. As far as I’m concerned, I have every bit as much right to stay here as you do right now. So unless you want to be the one to go find a hotel, your only option, as I see it, is to let me inside.” He tried for a hard look, but when the man didn’t quail, he figured he hadn’t quite managed it.

Bjorn was six and a half feet tall, to Dennis’s perhaps six feet, and the muscle on his nude body was quite visible. He sort of naturally appeared menacing even when he didn’t mean to, and he spent an inordinate amount of effort day-to-day trying to set people at ease, so he just wasn’t practiced at deliberately making his facial expressions communicate anything like intimidating.

Dennis scowled at him. Now there was someone who did intimidating with ease, Bjorn mused. Then Dennis, still scowling, checked his phone again, and his frown somehow became even deeper. “Fucking owner’s not answering.” He looked at Bjorn. Yup, still scowling. “I expect the owner will sort this out when they get back to us. Until then…” He sighed. “I guess come in; you can at least hang out on the couch.”

Victory! Bjorn suppressed the urge to do a fist pump. He was in, and now that he was in, he could press his advantage. Just a little!

3

Dennis

Jesus Christ, Dennis thought as he led the other man into the cabin, only now noticing the second car in the parking area, how had his life come to this? One minute he was happily taking a walk on his solo vacation; the next he had a naked man following him, chattering excitedly about how good a bedmate he would be.

“...and I’m a really good cuddler,” Bjorn was saying as Dennis opened the front door. “My little cousins all love to curl up with me, especially when I’m in bear form, because I’m so cuddly. So don’t worry, you won’t be cold tonight!”

“We’re not sharing the bed,” Dennis ground out for what felt like the fiftieth time. “You’re coming in and sitting on the couch. If it comes down to it, you can sleep there as well.”

Both men eyed the couch, which was actually more of a loveseat, and was probably about five feet wide, and then Bjorn turned doubtful eyes on him. Dennis was preparing his next argument when Bjorn smiled determinedly and nodded. “Oh, sure, that’s fine.”

And that quick agreement wasn’t suspicious at all, he thought with full sarcasm. “Good. Glad we’ve got that straight.” He looked at Bjorn, trying to adopt a critical attitude instead of one that screamed Your nakedness is confusing me. “And for fuck’s sake, put on some clothes.” Oops. So much for that.