Otto recoiled like I’d struck him, stepping back far enough that my hand fell off his body and swung back to my side. “What? Get what over with?”
I rolled my eyes. “The fucking, what else? That’s what we do, isn’t it? I throw myself at you until you fuck me, you regret it, you book as soon as the coast is clear.” I snorted. “At least we have better snacks for you to pay me with than a stale granola bar this time.”
“I.. that..” Otto stumbled back another step. The blood drained out of his face, leaving him pale. “Oh my god.”
“Are you okay?”
Otto was staring at me, jaw open and eyes wide. “No. I’m not.” He drew in a deep breath and pressed himself off the wall, slipping past me without making contact. “In fact, I think I’m going to be sick.”
~*~
Otto
I made it to the bathroom right as the snacks from earlier solidified their decision to reappear. I hunched over the toilet, trying to fight back the dry heaves when my stomach was empty. When I thought I was done, I braced my hands on my thighs and brought myself upright.
“Otto? What’s wrong?” The concern in Dex’s voice made my stomach curdle again but I drew in a deep breath and fought the urge to lean back over. Instead, I dashed away the tears from my face and said a little prayer of thanks that it was commonenough for one’s eyes to tear when they vomited that it should go unnoticed.
I was still slightly hunched over but when Dex’s hand rested on the small of my back, I jerked away, wincing as the movement tensed my already sore muscles.
“I’m fine,” I said gruffly. “Could I get some privacy, please?”
“Um, yeah. Of course.” Confusion replaced my concern but from the corner of my eye, I saw Dex back out of the small bathroom and close the door.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, guilt and self-loathing battling inside me. When I set out to find my Omega and tell him I thought we might be fated mates, my worst-case scenario was that he just wanted to stay friends with benefits. Now, finding out that he saw it more as me treating him like a whore? And a cheap one at that? I was struggling to even wrap my head around what to do.
Then I remembered Corbin’s words when he and Taylor were at my house, the words I never really processed because I was fixated on Dex being missing.
“He spent the night on my couch because he was trying to avoid you and was afraid you might show up at his place.”
Was that the reason that Dex left my bed while I slept? Because he thought I was going to throw a twinkie his direction and tell him to hit the road?
“Otto? I know you wanted privacy, but I need to pee again.”
Right. Locked in with a pregnant Omega and I was having my existential crisis in the cabin’s only bathroom. I guess that’s not a surprise from a selfish bastard.
Tearing off a length of toilet paper I dried the tears leaking from my eyes again and tossed the paper in the toilet. Flushing it, I rinsed my mouth out with a handful of water from the faucet and forced a neutral expression before I opened the door.
“Sorry.” I stepped out the door and to the left, keeping out of the path for Dex to go in. “I’m going to go out and scout around, see if I can find a trail for that phony park ranger and find out what the hell happened earlier to get Taylor shot. You should be safe enough with the door locked.”
“I thought you said we needed to talk?” Dex questioned through the door.
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “I was wrong. Really, really wrong.”
Slipping out the door and checking to be sure it locked behind me, I stripped out of my clothes and folded them, leaving them in a neat pile on the porch, shoved under a chair where I hoped they wouldn’t be in the way. After all, I wasn’t planning to return for them for a few days.
I spent around an hour or so doing exactly what I had told Dex I would, sniffing around in the brush but the supposed ranger’s scent ended completely in a small clearing off a service road, so I was fairly certain that he left in a vehicle that had been stashed there.
With that, I cut back to the north to see if I could scrounge up a babysitter that Dex would be more comfortable -and safer- with than me.
After a terse conversation, I extracted the assurance that Dex wouldn’t be left alone on the mountain, and I turned my nose back to the east and began the long trek home.
Chapter Seventeen
Dex
The knock on the cabin door came a couple hours after Otto bolted like his tail was on fire. I walked over and let my bear ease to the surface, drawing in a breath of the air around the drafty door to test for danger.
“Stan? What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling the door open.
