Page 81 of Bear With Me

Bjorn managed a nod mid-kiss, and then it was silent except for their pants for a few minutes. When they parted to catch their breath, Bjorn was grinning. “But like…insane in a good way, right?” he asked, relatively sure now of the answer.

Dennis palmed Bjorn’s cheek and shook his head. “Yeah, it’s fucking good. Jesus Christ. What the absolute fuck am I gonna do with you?”

“Love me?” Bjorn offered. “And I’ll love you back, and we’ll be happy for the rest of our lives.”

“Sappy asshole.” But Dennis kissed him again then, and Bjorn felt a warm promise in his lips. “Get the fuck out of here.”

The words went in one ear and out the other, Bjorn distracted by the kiss and the lingering thought that holy fuck, Dennis had said he loved him!

Dennis shoved him away. “Dude. Seriously. Get the fuck out of here, so you can get home, get your shit, and get back to me.”

Bjorn blinked. “What?”

Dennis gestured at Bjorn’s car. “Bjorn. Go.”

Bjorn nodded vaguely, but didn’t move. He didn’t want to leave his mate. He really didn’t want to leave his mate. This would be the longest week of his life. He sighed. “I -”

Before he could get any more words out, Dennis was yanking him forward by the front of his shirt and kissing him again, desperately this time. The kiss was incendiary from the moment their lips touched, and within seconds, Dennis was unsnapping his seatbelt and scrambling across the bench seat into Bjorn’s lap. “Fuck,” he muttered into Bjorn’s mouth. “This sucks.”

Bjorn kissed him again, then pulled back. “Kissing sucks?”

“No.” Another kiss, Dennis’s arms circling him and squeezing him hard. “Leaving you sucks. I feel like I’ve known you my whole life rather than less than two weeks.” He gave a tiny, reluctant laugh. “Maybe I should come with you.”

Bjorn sighed and kissed Dennis’s cheek. “You have to get back to the pub, love. You’ve told me about how your staff is likely to go off the rails if you leave them much longer.”

“Not off the rails, exactly,” Dennis protested, tightening his arms. “It’s just that Beau and Marisol are a hot mess, and Seb can only keep them in line for so long before he goes insane. And I promised him it would be only two weeks. But surely…” He sighed. “Yeah, no. I need to get back. Fuck.” He rested his head on Bjorn’s shoulder. “Like I said, this sucks. Fuck you for doing this to me.”

Bjorn couldn’t disagree. It did suck. A lot. And perhaps it was his fault that they’d fallen in love? “I’ll come as fast as I can, I promise.”

“One more kiss, and then you should go.”

He nodded. “One more.”

Half an hour later, sporting a massive hard-on he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get rid of, Bjorn climbed into the driver’s seat of his car and glanced over his shoulder at his mate, sitting alone in the truck. God, this was hard.

He started the car, gritted his teeth, waved to Dennis, and pulled down the driveway.

Epilogue

Dennis

Eight days later

“Marisol, no,” Dennis groaned, grabbing the plate at the pass-through before his long-term waitress could take it. “That’s for table eight. You’ve got fifteen through twenty. Eight is Peck’s.”

“Sorry!” she replied with a sigh. “You’d think I’d get it together at some point, but…no. I swear, Boss, I don’t do this on purpose.”

“We know,” Peck said as he swung by and grabbed the plate for his table. “That’s why we still love you.” He kissed Marisol on the cheek quickly and darted away to serve his customer.

Dennis nudged the correct plate toward Marisol. “This one. And hey…”

“Hm?” she said as she took the plate.

“We do love you.” He felt a little silly saying it, but he was trying to be more…personable, lately. Trying to imagine what his mate would say in his place, and then saying that rather than his usual grumping.

Marisol made a cooing noise. “Aw, Boss, love you too. Whatever happened to you on that vacation was good for you!”

Yeah, he hadn’t actually told anyone the details of his adventure yet. His bond mark was low enough in the crook of his neck that his shirts generally covered it, so he hadn’t had to explain that, and somehow the right moment had just never arisen to be like Surprise, I met my mate and he’s moving here after knowing me for a week. Myrah knew, of course, because she’d called him and demanded an update the day after he got home, and he could never say no to her, but the rest of them were in the dark. So yeah, Bjorn was eventually going to walk in the pub’s door and give all his friends the shock of their lives.