“You want me to start a file on them so we can get them into the system?”
“No.” I looked up and saw Lettie step out onto the porch, her arms wrapped around her to ward off the chill. “No, don’t do that. I think we’re going to do something different with them. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Thanks for working today, and thanks for getting that information so quickly.”
“Anytime, boss.”
I put my phone away and then made my way up to Lettie. She shivered against the cold so I took my jacket off and slipped it around her shoulders.
“Don’t. You’re going to freeze.”
I pulled it closed around her and smiled. “I’m a bear. Remember?”
She rolled her eyes and then looked down at our feet. “Was that a call about the kids?”
“Yeah.”
When she looked back up at me, her eyes were brimming with tears. “She can’t have them back, Tucker. It isn’t right. She’s awful. You saw how she left them on the side of the road! She doesn’t deserve those babies.”
I pulled her down the porch steps and across the property, to the barn. It was closed up, so it was warmer than just standing out in the cold. I let us in and then pushed the door closed behind us. “I don’t want Bear hearing this. He’s going to be able to hear anything and everything with his shifter hearing.”
She stepped closer to me, her eyes wide. “What is it? What happened with their mom?”
“My guy found her but she doesn’t want anything to do with them. She kept going, heading up to Alaska for a boyfriend.”
“So, you’re going to put them in the system?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I’m supposed to, but with Bear being a shifter, it’s not safe. We would try to get him placed someplace local, but there’s just no telling where he’d end up.”
“What are you going to do?”
I pulled my hands down my face and then shoved them into my pockets. “Let me think about it tonight.”
Lettie moved even closer and rested her hands on my sides. “Please, Tucker. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel a connection to them, like we were meant to find one another. I have loads of room in my house and I make plenty of money. I can take care of them.”
I growled low in my throat and had her in my arms in barely a second. Having her touching me was too much. Right now, I was feeling more like bear than man and all I wanted to do was take her. “I’ll think about it tonight, Lettie.”
She made a sound close to a whimper and then locked her arms around my neck. “We don’t have a choice now.”
I raised my eyebrow and looked up when she nodded that way. Hanging above us was a perfectly positioned sprig of mistletoe. Weird. In the barn? Not one to look a gift horse on the mouth, I looked back down at her and wound my fingers into her hair. “It would be in bad taste to just walk away.”
“Bad luck and all that.”
I stepped forward, tipping her back, and then lowered my mouth to hers. When our lips met, my chest fluttered. My bear roared and I ended up growling into the kiss. Her lips were soft and plush, her skin smooth. Everything about the kiss felt perfect. She felt perfect. I knew I should’ve been gentle, but I couldn’t stop myself from sliding my tongue between her lips and tasting her mouth.
She kissed me back with fire. Her hands tugged at my hair and she worked her tongue against mine with unbridled lust. I knew she could feel my erection digging into her stomach, but she just held me tighter against her.
I kissed across her jaw and down her neck, biting at her skin until she moaned and worked her body against mine. My bear scratched and clawed against my skin and I’d almost sank my teeth into her neck when I realized what I was doing and jerked my head back.
Lettie saw my face, my teeth exposed, and moved away from me. “What just happened?”
I’d almost marked her, that’s what the hell just happened. I’d almost fucking marked Lettie Jay as my mate. I looked into her wide blue eyes and realized that I wasn’t freaked out that I’d tried to claim her, only that I’d almost done it without any kind of consent from her. Lettie was my mate. My mate!
Holy shit, I’d been blind.
CHAPTER 7: Lettie
Tucker led me back to the house without answering my question. He just kept looking over at me. I was feeling self-conscious and a little concerned that maybe the kiss that had just rocked my world didn’t have the same effect on him. I’d seen his teeth coming out. Was he that displeased with what’d happened? Was it that bad?
I stayed silent and tried to give him his jacket back once we were inside. “Here. Thanks for letting me us it.”