The Bear’s Mail Order Menage

But upon closer inspection Alina found that Joshua was quiet but strong, the kind of man who would protect the people he cared for before everything else. Although she had spent most of her time with him and Andrew over the past month, all of a sudden she felt shy. For the first time she thought about the impression she might make on him and whether or not it was a good one.

She realized she wanted him to like her. She desperately wanted to be one of the people he held closest to his heart. She had a feeling that achieving something like that would be a privilege. He took her face in his hands and gently lifted it up until her eyes met his and she felt her breath catch in her throat.

“Are you ok, Alina? Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about that.”

“You? Sorry about what? I can’t think of anyone who would have less to be sorry for than you.”

“But no, that’s not so. I’ve put you in such a terrible situation. Those women are your friends and I put you in a situation where you felt like you had to fight with them. That should never have happened.”

“You’re right, it shouldn’t have, but it’s still not your fault. Alina, look at me. It’s not your fault. Not even close.”

She was struggling to keep eye contact. She kept wanting to look down, away from the intensity of his deep dark eyes, and it didn’t help that she could feel her eyes filling with tears. God, she didn’t want to cry now. She had spent more energy trying not to cry in her last month here in Charlotte than she had in all of her years in Russia.

If people had told her that’s how things would be before she travelled here, she would have told them they were out of their minds. Everything felt turned upside down here and she couldn’t seem to catch her footing no matter how hard she tried.

“But they are your friends. They’re your friends and I hurt the relationship between the three of you.”

“Listen to me. If they were my friends, they would never have spoken to you that way. If they’re my friends they’ll go home and think about what I said to them and realize that there was a reason for it. I don’t care how well I know them. It will never, never be ok to talk to someone important to me that way. Ok? Not ever.”

“Important? Am I important to you?”

“Jesus, Alina, if I haven’t made that clear at this point, then I’m doing something very wrong. It scares me how much I care about you. I never planned on it. Not like this.”

Alina felt dizzy in the most amazing way. She had a heart that had been wounded more than once and she often thought of herself as a broken girl. She didn’t believe that a man could get to her like this, especially not when she came to know him as part of a three-person deal. She could see that he was flustered just for having spoken to her that way and she knew that it was not something he had planned.

She laid her hands gently on his chest, now taking her turn to implore him to look her full on in the eyes. It was terrifying. There was more in those eyes than she was prepared to see. She wondered if he felt the same way about what he saw in her eyes, if they betrayed her as completely as she felt that they did.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, breaking up the moment abruptly, “do you want to see something?”

“Yes,” she said with a surprised laugh, “I suppose I do. What sort of something am I going to see?”

“Something important to me. Is that ok?”

“It’s more than ok. It sounds lovely.”

He grinned at her then in a way that made her imagine that she could tell what he must have looked like as a boy. Then he took her by the hand and intertwined their fingers together. She was shocked by the overtly affectionate gesture but she did not pull away because as surprised as she was, she didn’t want it to stop. She liked the way his fingers felt wrapped protectively around hers. It felt like finding home.

“What is this place?”

“It’s the swimming hole, where the river comes to an end.”

“I can see that,” she said softly, “but what is the place to you?”

She could see by the way his jaw worked that it wasn’t an easy question for him to answer. It might seem strange to some, but Alina knew that a place could be imbued with power and that it was a power that could take hold of a person and refuse to let go.

She didn’t yet understand what power this place held, but she would not push him. She was willing to wait a lifetime to discover what it was that was weighing him down. She did not speak again, just held his hand a little tighter and rested her head on his shoulder.

“This place is just about the most important place in my life, as funny as it might sound.”

“It doesn’t sound funny to me.”

“This place is where me and Andrew became brothers. We came here every day of every year, up until it was simply too cold, which is almost never for people like us.”

“What does that mean?”

“Hm?” he said, distracted like a man who was half in a dream, “what does what mean?”

“When you speak of ‘people like us.’ Those girls kept saying that as well, and I’ve heard you say something like this before. I don’t understand what this means. Maybe it’s my English. I don’t really know.”

“No, it’s not your English.”

“Then what?”