Page 74 of Bear With Me

“Are you happy?”

Dennis tightened his arm where it was outstretched around Bjorn’s shoulder. “Fuck yes,” he said on a sigh. “Everything feels…more right now. Like, I know what life is gonna be like and holy fuck it’s gonna be good.”

Bjorn lifted his head enough to grin at him. “It is. It really is, my mate. I will do everything I can to make you happy.”

Dennis’s lips twisted as he tried to stave off the stupid grin that wanted to break through. “You make me happy. I have no idea how the fuck this happened, but…yeah. Just you is enough.”

Bjorn gave him a sweet smile and dropped his head back to Dennis’s shoulder. “You’re enough for me too, mate.”

27

Bjorn

They both passed out early the day of their, erm, consummation. Bjorn didn’t know about his mate, but he was exhausted both from the exertion – fun though it had been – and the sudden relief of knowing Dennis was his, for real.

At some point, his Gran must have come home from her poker night, because she was there in the kitchen when they stumbled out of their room the next morning in their pajama pants. “Good morning, boys!” she chirped, waving a spatula at them over her shoulder as she focused on something on the stove.

“Morning,” Dennis rumbled absently, making for the coffee pot, but Bjorn was caught by how she was again on her feet and working mere days after being confined to bed.

“Gran!” he exclaimed, rushing to her and trying to usher her away from her cooking. “You should be resting!”

She swatted at him with the spatula, leaving a greasy mark on his arm, and scoffed. “Pfft. I rested for days and days. Now I’m better and I want to cook breakfast for my boys. I’m making French toast!”

Dennis, who had by now poured himself a cup of his favorite hot beverage, leaned back against the counter with a sigh as he took the first sip. “And then you’ll rest?” he bargained, and Bjorn wanted to hug him for understanding his concern without question.

“Oh, pooh.”

“Gran…”

She sighed and flipped two slices of toast in the pan. “Oh, very well. Once I’m done cooking, I’ll sit and we can have a nice leisurely breakfast while you tell me all about how yesterday went.” She cocked an eyebrow at Bjorn. “And by that I mean both how your volunteering went and how your…private celebration went, afterward.”

“Gran!” Bjorn exclaimed, worried she’d embarrass Dennis into denying them or running with her blatant innuendo.

“What?” she asked archly. “He’s got a big ol’ bite mark on his neck, Bjorn. I could hardly not notice.”

He could feel a flush creeping over his cheeks, and he dared an apprehensive peek at Dennis to see how he was taking this. To his surprise, Dennis was still drinking his coffee in apparent serenity, though one hand had come up to touch his fresh bond mark gently. Bjorn wondered if it hurt. He’d never asked anyone what a fresh bond bite felt like; he hoped like hell he hadn’t caused his mate pain.

Dennis swallowed his mouthful of coffee and grinned at Gran. “You’re not getting any details, you dirty old woman,” he teased. “I’m pretty sure you know how mating works better than I do.”

She slid the French toast slices onto a serving plate and dropped two more into the skillet, pausing to cough slightly. To Bjorn’s relief, the cough sounded almost normal, with none of the phlegmy, barking quality that had scared him so when they’d first arrived. “I didn’t say I wanted to know who put what where,” she said after the cough ended, “but come on now, you must tell me how you changed your mind and why now. My Bjorn was so worried that you’d never come around.”

“Gran!” Ok, fine, so he had been, but did she need to tell him that? Bjorn wanted his mate to think he’d always been cool, calm, and collected about the mating.

Dennis glanced at Bjorn, then Gran, and drank the last of his coffee. Then he moved over to the pot and refilled his mug, still without comment. Bjorn and Gran both watched as he carefully stirred in his one sugar and a dollop of milk. The seconds dragged out with no response from him and Bjorn began to fear Gran had truly screwed him. Sure, they were bonded now, but that didn’t guarantee that Dennis would always be happy with Bjorn, or even that he wouldn’t get fed up and leave him. It would be painful for both of them, but it could be done.

Finally, Dennis took a sip of his new cup of coffee, swallowed, and smacked his lips in satisfaction before looking up at Gran. “It wasn’t any one thing,” he said calmly, as if his sharing this wasn’t momentous. “It was more…time with Bjorn. Watching him live, talk, cope with his parents. And ok, a little…” He shot a glance at Bjorn. “I mean, sharing beds with him probably didn’t hurt, even when he hulked out on me.”

“Oh!” Gran exclaimed, pressing a hand to her chest as if shocked, and Bjorn almost leapt forward in fear that she was having some kind of health episode before her next words penetrated his brain. “That’s right, now that you’ve bonded, he’ll be able to control his shifts again!”

Wait, what? Oh, damn, she was right. A jolt of pure joy shot through Bjorn. He’d felt like he’d lost touch with his bear while he was stuck out of control of his shifts. Suddenly they hadn’t been a cooperative entity, but two consciousnesses fighting for dominance. It had been a horrible feeling and now it was…gone? Bjorn checked how he felt. Yeah, gone. Wow. Holy shit.

Dennis snickered. “Judging by the look on his face, I don’t think he’d remembered that until now, either.” He reached out to pat Bjorn’s shoulder. “You’ll have to shift for me on purpose today. I want to meet your bear when he’s not kicking me out of bed or disrupting a meeting.”

Bjorn nodded fervently, wordless in his pleasure.

“So,” Gran went on, politely ignoring Bjorn’s wide eyes, “when will you two be getting out of here and starting your mated life? Where will you live? Do you think you’ll have kids?”

Dennis’s gulp of coffee went down wrong, and he choked on it. “Kids?” he wheezed out wetly after a few seconds, shooting Bjorn a panicked glance.