Mated to the Wilde Bear novel Chapter 31

He looked from face to face, but none of his crew argued. Not even Harley.

Laurel hugged him and nuzzled her cheek against his. “I can wait outside if you need,” she said.

“No.” He shook his head and laced his fingers through hers. “Stay. You’re one of us now.” He kissed her full on the mouth, just in case there was any doubt among them. When he pulled back, Laurel beamed up at him, and the rest of the crew whistled and cheered.

“Can we just get on with this?” Harley grumbled.

“Yeah, Harley needs his beauty sleep,” Jake said.

Nash snickered.

Lucas leaned his back on the couch and closed his eyes, but Xavier knew he heard every word.

“Here’s the deal. We’ve talked about it for a while now, and everyone’s made their opinions clear,” Xavier began. “But the fact of the matter is that we need to hire a sixth. And we need to do it before the season opens, so we have time to train properly.”

“We don’t disagree, boss,” Jake said, and Xavier shot him a glare.

“I’ve looked over the applicants and fact is, no one’s more qualified than this Kyra. I want to bring her in, and before I do, I need to hear from all of you that you’ll bite your tongue against any… opinions you might have about her joining us.”

Harley shoved off the wall, arms crossed, glaring. “So we don’t get to say what we think? I thought this was a democracy.”

Nash sat up straighter in the chair by the window. “I can agree to that,” he said.

Jake nodded. “Me too, boss.”

Lucas slowly opened his eyes, also nodding. “I think we need to meet her.”

Xavier was stunned. Laurel squeezed his hand, spurring him to search for words. “I thought all of you were determined to keep a woman out of the crew.”

One by one, they all shifted their gaze to Laurel. “We had a chat about that on the way home from the call earlier,” Jake said. “Laurel shifting to protect you showed us we were being idiots.”

Harley muttered something, but Nash cut him off. “Laurel’s as strong and fierce as any one of us. If this Kyra’s anything like Laurel, we’d be lucky to have her.”