9
ORSON
O rson was an idiot.
That’s all there was to it.
Here was an opportunity on a platter to claim Alexandra for his own, and for some dumb reason, he wanted to be a gentleman .
His bear was puzzled, and Orson was wracked with regrets.
If he’d stepped forward and kissed her in the doorway of the cabin, would they be in there right now, discovering exactly how deep their defenses went? He’d caught her gaze lingering over him a few times, and knew that she was attracted to him by her intoxicating smell and the way her breath sometimes caught.
But Orson was afraid she would regret an affair. She clearly had a problem with him as her boss, however she tried to smother it in cute little attempts to giggle and gaslight him. He didn’t want her surrender to be a matter of power or convenience.
And Orson longed for that surrender. His hard-on was physical proof of how desperate he was to claim her. But what if she was responding to the person he was pretending to be…and what would she do with the goofy screw-up he really was?
If she liked New Orson , the way he was starting to think she might, maybe she wouldn’t like Real Orson .
Orson wasn’t convinced he was doing a great job being New Orson , but he hadn’t been himself, either, and he was conflicted about continuing to pretend to be anything he wasn’t with his mate. He didn’t want secrets from her, but he definitely wanted her.
Alexandra’s warning about the light outside was well-founded.
Orson didn’t quite fit lengthwise in the back seat of the truck, but even when he found a decently comfortable position, sleep was completely impossible with full daylight streaming in. Maybe he should get one of those sleep masks that women wore to avoid getting bags under their eyes. Did they come without lace and lavender scent?
Old Orson would have worn the girliest one he could find, just for the laughs.
But would Alexandra laugh, or would she give that awful false giggle that was clearly for his benefit?
After a few hours of trying to sleep in the truck, attempting to cover his face without suffocating or sweating to death, Orson gave up. His phone said it was one in the morning, and it was utterly quiet. The little cluster of cabins was right up against the boreal forest, and this was an opportunity Orson almost never got. No one was around, and he had looked around earlier for cameras because he was trying to wrap his head around the security business and had seen nothing obvious.
It was hot in the truck, and Orson had taken his shirt off to try to find a comfortable temperature for sleeping, so he was shirtless as he finally gave up and got out. His skin was bared to the outdoors for only a moment, and in those few seconds, an entire swarm of mosquitoes found his uncovered flesh. Orson was happy to surprise them with a thick coat of fur as he dropped to all fours and shook his shoulders in delicious freedom.
They still hummed in his ears, trying to find access to his sweet blood, but he didn’t give them a second thought as he rambled for the shelter of the trees.
There were places back home in Colorado where it was safe to shift and go wilderness wandering. But chances to do so had been rare and it was more fun getting into trouble as a human.
Orson’s senses as a bear were similar to his human senses, but more keen, and Alaska smelled as good as it looked. Even at this godawful early hour, it was sun-warmed and spiced with spruce, moss, and plants he wasn’t familiar with. He’d have to ask Alexandra what everything was.
Alexandra.
His mate.
With his bear out, it was harder than ever not to simply barrel in her direction and break into the cabin to curl into that big, welcoming bed with her.
But if Orson wasn’t sure about her reaction to Real Orson , he was pretty sure what her reaction to Real Orson the Bear would be. If she didn’t have a gun, she for sure had pepper spray, and Orson didn’t want a face full of bullets or capsicum.
He had to be un-Orson altogether and think about what he was doing for once, not just act on instinct and impulse. Rash acts got fishponds set on fire and flooded New York offices.
Orson wanted this woman in all the ways imaginable, not just a quick road trip hookup, not some kind of fraught office romance. He wanted her in a forever way, and he had no idea what that might look like.
Did he give up his job so there wasn’t a power divide? Did he fire her? (No, even his bear knew that was a dumb idea. Dumber than offering to sleep in the truck!) Did he promote her to co-owner? Marry her?
His bear liked that idea.
They roamed up to the top of a nearby ridge where they could look out over the vast land.
Orson had been sent here as a punishment, but it was unexpectedly like coming home. He could put up with outhouses and swarms of mosquitoes. He could get used to nights of daylight, never-ending forests, and the deserted highways that went on forever. His mate was here, steeped in this land so deep that he could smell it in her pores. She was a force like this place, shaped by frightful power and beauty, formed with roots in its rivers and fingers in its clouds like some kind of goddess.
She was his, and this land came with her. He wanted them both with a primal, patient need. Orson assured his bear that they could wait and be sure she was ready to be theirs.
The cabin roofs were barely visible from an outcropping where Orson sat with his bear, watching birds and listening to the drone of insects. The mountains around changed colors like holograms in the short time he was there, with clouds drifting across the sky. The brilliant sun was low, kissing the horizon but not yet plunging beneath it. It would, he knew—they weren’t above the Arctic Circle yet—but the sunset was slow and shallow. It wouldn’t get completely dark, even when the sun was below the skyline.
Orson was tempted to wander further, down the opposite ridge to the mountains, perhaps investigate the ribbon of river that he saw beyond. But the last thing he needed was to get lost and have a search party sent out after him. He gave a huff and set off back to the truck. He should try to get some sleep and maybe insist on driving the next day.
Bears can sprint after prey but much more commonly plod along, and he enjoyed a leisurely return to the cabin, sniffing after rodents and crushing old logs under his paws. Birches gave particularly satisfying crunches, rotted out from the middle. The moss was springy, and the wild roses couldn’t scratch through his thick fur.
He got to the truck and stretched, shifting as he stood on his hind feet and reaching for the truck door before he realized that the curtain at the window of their cabin was open.
And Alexandra was staring out at him.