Page 82 of I'm Not Your Pet

“He does?” My cheeks flushed for an entirely different reason.

“Yes!” Ushuu perked up, and Mala stopped growling the second he pulled his hand from my back. “Yes. He does.”

“So we’re here, not because he’s embarrassed I’m walking around in baby clothes—” I reiterated as Ushuu shook his head, “but because he wants to buy megifts?”

The older shark nodded. “Exactly.”

“What kind of gifts?” I peered out at the stores with new eyes, my heart pounding a little. I’d always loved presents. Roark knew that. After seeing my reaction to the box he’d put together for me he’d started bringing me something new at least a few times a week just to make me smile.

Before that though…

Man.

It had been three, four, maybe evenfiveyears since the last time my parents had done anything for Christmas. We usually didn’t do gifts for birthdays—their presence was the gift, or so my mother teased. That had become all too true over the years, even if it had first been said as a joke.

How pitiful was that?

But…

I bit my lip, eyes catching on that same shop I’d been admiring before. This time, I glanced toward the back, struck with fascination when I spotted a row of mannequins of all shapes and sizes wearing fancy, glittery, lacy underthings.

I swallowed thickly, unable to stop ogling when I noticed a mannequin my size dressed in a lacy pink garter belt, panties, and thigh highs.

Pretty.

Everything was so pretty.

Fuck.

I wanted to touchallof it.

“Anything you want,” Ushuu answered, more careful with what he said now. I didn’t fault him. As jarring as his words had been, at least I knew the truth. And now that I knew I was wearing baby shark clothes I was itching to get the hell out of them and into something a little more age appropriate.

“Within reason,” I added to myself.

“No.” Ushuu laughed at me, but it wasn’t mean. “Roark specifically told me to tell you that there is no limit.”

“No…limit?” I squinted at him.

“No.”

I frowned, trying to figure out where the trick was.

I knew Roark was wealthy.

It was obvious.

His ship was a luxury cargo carrier—far nicer and larger than any of the others on the dock. The Manager had made sure I was aware that his pockets were lined in gold before I’d even met him—but it had never occurred to me that he would offer for me to spend any of his wealth.

My head was swimming.

“I need a limit,” I told Ushuu, because I did.

I didn’t want to mess up today.

I didn’t want to cross the line when I was being given the greatest gift that anyone had ever given me. No one, in all my life, had offered me something like this. Ever. It was hard to wrap my mind around it.

Ushuu’s spots were yellow.

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