Page 24 of Bear with Me
More pings followed, most with "Merry Christmas" greetings, some from names I recognized but most I didn't. I wondered if any of my friends were shifters. Would they even tell me? My best friend in the group, Tomas, had mannerisms like an otter sometimes, especially when we camped together and swam in the lake. Was he an otter shifter?
Ollie returned from outside, shoulders hunched, a sullen look on his face. "Glad that's over."
"How's your family?"
"Great without me, I guess." He sighed. "I wanted them to have a good time, but they're acting like it's the best Christmas ever. My mom barely said a word before she passed the phone around to my dad and brothers. Then the phone got passed back to her to say goodbye. When I said I loved her, she hung up on me."
"That sucks." I moved my notebooks into my lap and patted the cushion beside me. "I take it that's not how it usually goes. How's your relationship with them?"
He sighed as he sat beside me. My cushion sank toward him, dumping me onto his lap. I tried to push off his chest, but he held me in place, sniffing my neck as he did so.
"You smell good."
"Thanks." I'd forgotten my usual body wash, so I'd been using the cedar scrub bar in our shower.
"I mean really good." He pulled me closer.
I adjusted the notebooks so they fit against my chest, hoping I wouldn't bend any pages by accident.
"My parents live five hours south of Chicago." Ollie's breath tickled my neck. "It's about six hours from my house when traffic's bad. I hate going home for the holidays. They want me to do all the chores. They have six other sons!"
I snuggled against his chest. Despite coming in from outside, he felt so warm. As a guy who was always cold, unless the fireplace sweated me out of the living room, I couldn't resist. "What chores?" I wanted him to keep talking, loving the rumble of his voice.
He detailed his grievances with each item on his yearly to-do list. They all seemed perfectly normal to me, an only son, though my parents hadn't owned some of the amenities Ollie's family wanted him to clean, check, polish, etc.
"It could be worse," I said, thinking back to my horse shifter question. "You could live on a farm."
He laughed. "True. A neighbor tried to sell us some goats to take care of the underbrush in the woods. Thank goodness my dad said no."
"Are there goat shifters?" I asked, hedging toward what I really wanted to know.
"I've never met one, but I imagine there are."
"Horse shifters?"
He laughed. "Yes. If you've ever been to an ethical rodeo, they're all shifters." I certainly wouldn't put ethical and rodeo in the same sentence, but if they were shifters, it made sense that they wouldn't need to be shocked or hurt. They could buck, and stop, whenever they wanted.
"Speaking of shifting," Ollie stood and adjusted my legs around his middle until I was straddling him. He balanced me with his hands on my thighs, and my underwear was wet in all the right places. "Would you like to meet my bear?"
His question made me forget all about my leaky parts. "Yes! I'd wanted to pet him this morning, but I didn't know if you wanted me to touch your ass or not."
Ollie laughed, and his hands slid a little closer to the dampness around my hole. "I wouldn't mind." He winked at me. "I'm vers."
I blinked. "You are?" I'd thought I would need to give up topping when I met my alpha, but apparently not. "You'd let me fuck you?"
"I will," he said. "When you're ready."
His unwavering confidence made my cheeks burn. He was certain we had a future together, even now when I was so unworthy of him. I gripped the back of his neck and made a silent promise to become the man who deserved to be his mate.
He carried me to the door, where he set me back on my feet and bundled me in his parka. "I won't need it, and I don't want you to get cold."
I shook my head. No way would I be cold in his coat.
"Don't you get too hot wearing this?" I asked.
"Yes." He laughed. "That's why I brought my jacket." He blinked. "I should have given you my coat from the start. I'm so sorry! I wasn't thinking."
I cupped his face with my hands to calm him and shook my head gently. "No. I screwed up and forgot to bring my coat. I wouldn't have accepted this. It's too much."
