Page 4 of Bearing North
He grunted unhelpfully again, though he was polite enough when she introduced him to Tom, the cybersecurity head.
“Is a lot of what you—we—I!—do remote?” Orson wanted to know.
Alex looked at him curiously, and he growled at her. A literal growl! It was sort of challenging and sexy, but Alex tamped down her urge to growl back at him. “Tee hee hee.”
Tom pretended not to notice anything out of the ordinary and showed Orson the screens he was monitoring, pointing out some of the projects they were watching.
“Is that a bridge?”
“The pipeline is slung under that bridge,” Tom told him. “It’s the only place to cross the Yukon River up there, and it’s open to the public, but we monitor activity there. We’ve got some drones in the area that we can send in.”
“Can’t you send actual people from here?” Orson asked, furrowing a brow.
Tom was silent, looking at Alex.
She didn’t want to be responsible for telling Orson he was an idiot, but she didn’t want Tom to get in trouble, either. “Tee hee hee,” Alex said. “It’s five hundred miles from here. It’s even a three-hour drive from our smaller Fairbanks office.”
Tom looked at Alex like she was insane. Alex sparkled at Orson even harder. Smiling this much made her cheeks hurt, and the makeup she was wearing under duress felt crinkly on her face.
Orson grunted again, but Alex thought his ears looked a little red.
Sandra’s words rang in her head.If you embarrass him, he won’t keep you around.
But Alex didn’t want to embarrass him. She wanted todestroyhim.
3
ORSON
Orson knew that he was not covering himself in glory on his first day.
It was painfully clear that he knew nothing about Alaska, running a business, or being a person who didn’t make jokes.
And Alexandra Vex was hismate.
Orson had always felt a certain amount of disbelief at the idea of mates. It felt more like fairy tale than fate when he heard other people talking about them. Not every shifter found one, and when they did, they were hard pressed to explain how it was different than instinct.You just know,his big brother Peter had told him.You just know that this one person is the key to all your possible happiness and you’d better not screw it up.
Orson was very invested in not screwing this up. Even more than not screwing up coming to Alaska and beingNew Orsonin charge of their new branch.
But he wasn’t sure what to make of her. Alex Vex was supposed to be a competent and insightful business manager, but the Alexandra Vex who showed him around the new office was vapid and giggled a lot. Was she flirting? She didn’t seem very warm, even though she smiled at him and fluttered her eyelashes. Her eyes remained cool and calculating.
Orson wanted her…and wow, hewantedher. That soft skin, that silky hair. Those long legs, the curves she wasn’t hiding. He wanted to pin her against the climbing wall, wrap her legs around him, and take her against that fake limestone. He wanted to bend her over his new desk and see what she was hiding underneath that short skirt. He wanted to taste her mouth, to claim her completely.
His bear wasn’t sure why they hadn’t done any of those things yet, but the finer points of indecency laws were frequently lost on him.
And Orson got the undeniable feeling that Alexandra Vex wasn’t showing him her real self—orthe real business. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was being led down a false trail…to what? Was the business in worse shape than his family had been led to believe? Theo had checked over the finances, and Orson’s brothers wouldn’t have set him up for failure…would they? No, no matter what he did, they were family. They had his back. Even when they sent him to Alaska.
And Alexandra Vex is my mate.
It was a good thing Orson had decided ahead of time to grunt his way through conversations, because every time that he looked straight at her, all his blood left his brain for lower places, and he couldn’t form complete sentences when he tried.
The worst part? He truly wanted toimpressthis woman, but had no idea how.
He followed her helplessly around the building, meeting people he wouldn’t remember. He frowned and grumbled a lot because he wasn’t sure what else to do, hopelessly out of his depth. Alexandra finished the tour back in the lobby, where she and Sandra looked at Orson expectantly. This was his business now, and he was supposed to be makingdecisions.
It took all of Orson’s self-control not to make a joke and get a laugh out of the situation. He could quip about not remembering names and ask forHello, My Name Isstickers for everyone for his first week, jest about lunch breaks, or make a show of checking his GPS for directions to the bathroom.
But that wasn’t what Theo or Baxter would do. Besides, he wasNew Orson, notOld Orson. New Orson was going to be an amazing boss, and to do that, he needed a lot more information.
