Page 23 of Off-Limits to the Grizzly

I don’t feel like doing anything, but eventually I get myself up. I cook and eat, and I mope around Kayla’s room. From time to time, I go lie on Mr Johnson’s bed. Wallowing on the soft comforter, imagining what might have been. Imagining if he hadn’t freaked out that I was a virgin.

Mid-afternoon, when the light is already failing, I decide to take a bath. I haven’t had access to a bathtub for a long, long time, and the one here is huge.

I fill it up, add a squirt of bubbles from the pretty smelling bottle on the side, and climb in.

I float on my back, listening to the howls and whistles of the wind, and the creaks of the cabin as it stands up to the storm.

There’s something else. A rap-rap-rapping sound. Like a branch tapping against a window.

I jerk upright, sloshing a ton of water over the side of the tub. Or… like someone knocking on the door.

I jump out, grab my towel and run.

My heart is pounding as I hit the front door.

I don’t stop to think. I slide back the latch and yank the door open, and…

A huge, brown beast fills the doorway.

Before I can stop myself, I let out a scream.

It’s a bear. A grizzly bear. And it looks exhausted. Its massive body is kind of drooping, its eyes are red-rimmed and heavy, and its muzzle is all crusted with ice.

“Mr Johnson?” I whisper, feeling stupid. For all I know, it might be a regular old grizzly that I’m letting into the cabin to run amok and eat me alive.

It bows its massive head, in what looks like a nod. I exclaim in relief and I open the door wider to let it in. But something’s happening. The bones in its skull are moving, and it’s lifting up onto two legs.

Then everything happens in a flash—fur retreating, bones and tendons snapping, a big jerk—and Mr Johnson is standing in the doorway, covered in snow and buck naked.

“Blair—?” he says in a hoarse voice.

“Come in already.” I grab his arm, drag him inside and push the door shut behind him. He’s probably three times my weight, but he comes with me, like the cold has knocked him senseless.

He stands in the entranceway, feet planted apart. I’m not gonna look down and gawk at that firehose hanging between his thighs. But I can see that he’s trembling all over, like some battle-wounded beast. Tenderness pours through me.

He looks tortured, desperate.

Because of me?

The thought hurts my heart.

“I was so worried about you, Mr Johnson!” I exclaim.

“Blair. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

He throws out his hands, then he looks down at himself dazedly, like he’s realizing for the first time that, of course, he’s naked. “Crap,” he growls.

“You’re perfect as you are, Mr Johnson,” I blurt out.

“I shouldn’t let you see me like—”

I let the towel drop.

I didn’t plan it like this, it just… happened.

A ragged groan bursts from his lips.

I plant my hands on my hips. I’m shaking like a leaf. No man has seen me naked before, and I’m real glad that Mr Johnson is the first. Even if he freaks out and kicks me out of the cabin, I won’t regret doing this.

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