Bjorn
They ended up taking a long walk – or was it a hike?
How strenuous did a walk have to be before it became a hike?
– through the woods surrounding the den, chatting idly as they navigated the narrow path that occasionally forced them to brush against each other; sometimes just hands, other times whole bodies as they tried to squeeze through narrow passages.
“Shower?” Dennis asked as he let them into the house and slipped off his shoes.
Before Dennis could answer, Gran popped into the room, smiling brightly and fiddling with a purse. “Hello, boys! How was volunteering?”
They exchanged glances, unsure how to describe the experience. “It was…interesting,” Dennis finally said neutrally.
“I think maybe my Papa was softening up by the end,” Bjorn offered thoughtfully. “He wasn’t being quite as nasty.”
Dennis snorted. “That’s a low bar. But yeah, you might be right. I think your mom is a lost cause, though.”
Gran sniffed haughtily. “That woman,” she said with a long-suffering sigh, “has never met a person she can’t dislike. Well, I hope you didn’t suffer too much helping them. I’m glad you got home now, though – I was about to leave you a note. I’m off for the evening.”
Off? His sick grandmother? “Off where, Gran?” he demanded, images of her lost in the woods and having a relapse of her pneumonia running through his head.
Smiling, she patted his shoulder soothingly. “Don’t get your fur up. I’m just going to Fi’s for dinner and some cards.”
Bjorn groaned before he could stop himself. “Gran, what have I told you about gambling? Your poker nights get crazy!”
She grinned. “I know, isn’t it great? We’ve got a few new marks coming, and we’re going to relieve them of all their cash.” She looked at Dennis, her smile widening, and informed him, “I’m very good at cards.”
“Somehow, I’m not surprised,” Dennis said dryly. “I hope you have fun. Call us if you need us to come walk you home, okay?”
Gran pinched his cheek approvingly. “Such a good boy, Dennis. I’m so glad Bjorn has you.”
“Gran -” Bjorn started, shooting a glare at his mate for enabling Gran’s bad habit, but she cut him off before he could get any farther.
“I’m off!” Gran sang, shouldering her purse, which was big enough to fit a small child. “Don’t wait up, boys.”
“But Gran!” he tried again.
Dennis took his hand and squeezed. “Let her go, Bjorn. She’ll be with the healer, anyway.”
The contact made Bjorn melt a little, and he sighed and nodded. “Just…be careful, Gran. Make good choices.” She used to say that to him when he was a teenager, running wild in the woods. Occasionally, it had even actually influenced the choices he made.
“Love you both.” Gran blew them a kiss and darted out of the house before Bjorn could get out any more protests. Huh, she could move fast when she wanted to.
When the door slammed behind her, Dennis turned back to Bjorn, still holding his hand. “So, we were talking about showering.”
“Oh, right. Did you want to go first so you can be sure to have enough hot water?”
Dennis smirked. “I was thinking we could…conserve water.”
Bjorn didn’t want his mate rushing through his shower just to accommodate him. “Oh, no,” he said, “you can definitely -”
“We could share,” Dennis said in a rush, cutting him off.
Bjorn’s mouth snapped shut audibly and he stared at his mate. “Share…a shower? Together?”
Dennis nodded and gave him very elaborate elevator eyes, then winked.
Who the fuck was this and what had they done with his grouchy, resistant mate? “Uh.”
“I mean,” Dennis went on, ignoring his stunned expression, “we have the house to ourselves. No worries about propriety or making too much noise.”
“Noise?” Bjorn echoed weakly, feeling like he’d totally lost the plot. Was Dennis actually hinting that they’d…do things in the shower? Together? With each other?
Not that Bjorn was against that. In any way. Not in the slightest. He was just…shocked that he might be allowed to touch and pleasure his mate again.
He cleared his throat, trying to gather his wits. “Uh, I’m not sure if we’ll both fit in the shower.”
Dennis shrugged. “We’ll make it work. Just don’t hulk out while we’re in there.”
Oh, good, something else to worry about.
“Come on.” Dennis tugged on his hand, drawing him deeper into the house toward their room. “You can stare at me like you’re an idiot while we’re getting clean just as well as you can while we’re standing here.”
Staring like an idiot just about covered it, yep. Bjorn allowed himself to be led and soon found himself in the en suite. The blue tiling and duck decorations didn’t exactly scream sexy, but…holy shit Dennis was taking his shirt off. Never mind the ducks!
Dennis clearly did physical work in his day-to-day, but he wasn't ripped, his belly relatively flat but padded by a layer of flesh.
His chest was dappled with curling black hair that tapered toward his belly into a thinner trail that disappeared into his waistband.
His brown nipples were drawn up in the slightly chilly air, and Bjorn had a sudden impulse to just lean down and…
bite one. He gritted his teeth against the urge. No scaring his mate!
Dennis paused with his shirt in one hand and raised an eyebrow at Bjorn. “You gonna undress, or am I doing this alone?”
“Oh. Uh.” Bjorn gulped and pulled off his t-shirt. He'd been naked around Dennis a hundred times in the past week; why was he suddenly nervous about it now? And yet he was, nearly quaking with anxiety all over again about whether his mate found him attractive or not.
He jumped nearly out of his skin when a callused hand landed on his well-furred pec. His eyes flew open to find Dennis regarding him with plain lust. “God, I love bears,” his mate said, then laughed at his own words. “The human kind, I mean. Though the shifter kind is also growing on me.”
Bjorn let out a breath of relief at his obvious pleasure with Bjorn's form, then sucked it in again and nearly choked as Dennis flicked a finger over his nipple.
“You ok there, big guy?” Dennis asked, dropping his hand and moving it to the fly of his own jeans. He toyed with the button there and Bjorn felt drool pooling in his mouth. “Bjorn?”
Bjorn tore his eyes away from that button. “Uh, what?”
A deep laugh. “Good to know I affect you. I asked if you were ok.” He unbuttoned his fly and drew the zipper down, and was he…getting hard? Oh god, Bjorn thought he was hard under those jeans. Bjorn certainly was under his own.
“Uh…fine,” Bjorn managed, eyes fixed on the boxer briefs that had come into view as the zipper moved. “Perfect. Great.”
Dennis cocked an eyebrow doubtfully, but shimmied his jeans off his hips and stepped out of them, leaving them in a pile at his feet. His cock was tenting his underwear and Bjorn nearly swallowed his tongue.
“Now you, big guy,” Dennis said, nodding at Bjorn. “You can’t shower in sweatpants.”
Well, he probably could. Maybe he should? He didn’t want to pressure his mate into anything, and if Dennis saw how he was about three seconds and one more snarky comment from shooting off, maybe he’d be turned off. He fingered his waistband. “I…”
Dennis rolled his eyes. “Ok, man, enough.” And without further comment, he bent and yanked off Bjorn’s pants, nearly getting smacked in the face by Bjorn’s cock as it rebounded off the waistband. “Oops, shoulda seen that coming,” he said with a grin as he stood. “Dangerous weapon you’ve got there.”
Bjorn pressed his cock down, a bit too late. “Sorry. Sorry!” Wonderful, he finally got his mate face-to-face with his dick and he nearly took the guy's eye out!
“Hey.” Dennis set a hand on his arm and dropped his gleeful expression in favor of something more serious. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, Bjorn met his eyes, fighting the urge to apologize again. He expected to see perhaps humor or mild annoyance at how uptight Bjorn had suddenly gone. What he found was…affection and heat? That couldn’t be right.
“Breathe. I’m here because I want to be, ok?” Dennis went on. “I want to get naked with you – on purpose for once – and I want to take a shower with you, and wash you, and maybe get you off once or twice. So relax. You’ve passed the test. You’re not going to do anything wrong at this point.”
Holy shit. Bjorn didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t even know what part of that to try to say something to. He could only stare pleadingly at his mate, hoping Dennis could lead him through his.
Dennis must have been able to read his expression, because he chuckled low, then stretched up to drop a kiss on Bjorn’s lips. “We’ll get you relaxed come hell or high water. Speaking of water…” He reached in to turn on the shower. “We’ll just let that warm up and then we can get wet together.”
Bjorn whimpered.
They stood there in silence, staring at each other, until steam started to pour out of the shower.
Then Dennis took his hand and drew him into the enclosure, placing Bjorn under the shower head while Dennis stood behind him.
The shower stall was square in shape, not ideally suited to hosting two grown men, and he knew they’d have to take turns standing under the single shower head.
He thought wistfully of his shower at home, a double-width one that he sometimes used in bear form when he wanted to play.
Would Dennis ever be interested in seeing his home… his shower?
A wet hand ran up his back, startling him out of his thoughts. He might have made a squeaking noise. A very bear-ish, manly one, of course.
“Can I wash your hair?” Dennis asked, and Bjorn could only gape and nod.
Dennis smiled and picked up the bottle that contained Bjorn’s two-in-one shampoo-conditioner.
“Wait!” Bjorn said, grabbing Dennis’s hand.
Dennis paused, looking at him inquiringly.
“Can you…use yours?” Bjorn asked. He wanted to smell like his mate’s orange-scented shampoo, not his own generic-smelling one.